Eat What We Say!

My friend, J, was in town for a rare visit, and the last time we had lunch was quite memorable - Balthazar, and we saw Bobby Valentine. Kenny Rogers had walked in the winning run.

Craftsteak doesn’t serve lunch, which deflated us for a moment. We decided to go to Spice Market, also near my office. We walked east on 13th street, ignoring the smell, and were the first people seated at 12:15pm. The interior was lovely, airy, open, very southeast Asia by way of Meatpacking district (clean, architected), of course. (Not that I know, I’m mostly a China/Korea/Japan kind of traveler.)

Indecision must have been obvious since our server hurried over, and were sold on the tasting menu, $58/pp. “It’s a sampling of our the best dishes,” she said. It occurred to me that we might look like tourists.

We had a shaved tuna sashimi dish, the lobster summer roll, shrimp with pineapple, avocado salad, samosas, pork satay, cod, corn and broccoli, fried rice (with a fried egg, yolk still runny), chicken, and two desserts - a chocolate brownie with carmelized banana, and a coconut fruit thing.

Family style, the server said, it’s meant to be shared and comes out as it’s done. I had no problem with this, as it’s the way I ate growing up. Which was sort of the problem, in the end.

What did I love?

The black pepper shrimp and sun-dried pineapple. It might be a bit sweet, but I liked the shrimp (which seemed to use a hoisin sauce). The chilled, tapioca dessert with the mango. Man, I wish I wasn’t so full at the end of the meal. The fried rice with egg yolk reminded me of something my grandma made, a fried egg, soy sauce over fried or white rice. The pork satay was tender, and the avocado salad had a Chinese mustard sauce, I think, that was delicious.

What would I skip? The chicken, while tasty, was kinda dry. The broccoli and baby corn (which I thought was not corn at all, but apparently it is) was a throwaway - why not use pea pod shoots? Something a little less ‘La Choy makes Chinese food’.

So I’ve eaten around Asia and Chinatown, and I found Spice Market pretty good - though I actually preferred the Chinatown Brasserie reimagination of the cuisine. And I left with that familiar aftertaste in my mouth, which was both familiar and disconcerting - never thought I’d have that leaving a JGV restaurant. Ultimately, it may be the disconnect of Asian stall/street food in a high end MePa eatery - if my expectations weren’t as high, given Spice Market’s parentage, I would have been happier. When food’s elevated to event/cultural/celebrity status, it has to bear the weight of sometimes unreasonable, or uneducated expectations.

Lunch was especially great time to eat there - the space really shines with some daylight, and I presume way easier to get a reservation than some dinner seatings.