Yes, as even though I don’t watch TC, the table next to me was fawning over her being in there (and fair enough to them).
I’m curious to try Nightshade, since I was impressed by what I saw her do on Top Chef, but on the other hand some of her stuff seems too tweezery for my taste.
Ditto, my friend. My party of 4 went to Nightshade and did OOE. No writeup from my end of things, and I’ll just leave it at that…
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The mapo lasagna might have been one of the most comical things I’ve eaten in recent memory. Just wrong on so many levels.
That cost is actually pretty close to my meal at Kass, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I guess $250 is the new $150 when it comes to meals these days.
Well, at least these replies have reassured me I haven’t lost all sense of taste.
Additionally weird - decided to check out Duello afterwards. At 9:45 on a Tuesday (when they should DEFINITELY be open), Simone and Duello were locked up tight.
I took a quick look at Resy, and every reservation time the next day was available. I’m thinking we’re not for Simone much longer, at this rate.
wide open reservations for this friday and saturday night too. starting the death watch.
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Wow that’s kind of sad
To be fair, that goes for many restaurants that I checked on Opentable…Craft, Water Grill, Gwen, Connie and Ted’s, Bazaar, Kali, APL, and many others.
with the exception of kali, aren’t all of those twice the size of simone?
Fair assessment
Oh, gawd. I think that’s why I don’t dine out at mid-tier places anymore (aside from laziness, which is the main reason). @a213b’s post makes a ton of sense to me (although I haven’t been to Nightshade).
For that much $, I want most of the dishes to blow me away. I’d otherwise rather just go to a less expensive place (which still isn’t anywhere close to “cheap”) and have 75-90% of the same satisfaction (if not more, actually, since I can’t ignore the QPR part of things).
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FIFM:
For that much $ any amount of money, I want most of the dishes to blow me away.
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I haven’t been to Nightshade but I do think you hit the nail on teh head about restaurants trying to be creative with dishes they are approximating.
I don’t get the hype with the mapo lasagna. Why would I want to eat the flavors of mapo tofu in that way? I like to have rice to soak up the sauce and balance out the heat. I think Bavel is the best of the bunch when it comes to these new restaurants because they know what they are and they play tried and true flavors and dishes to the maximum they can try. When I think about restaurants like Nightshade, I guess its modern inspired Asian food in a vague sense.
I’d like to see how Nightshade evolves over the next year and if her menu’s theme or format will become more concise.
This is exactly why the failure rate is so high for dishes that are inspired by traditional dishes but taken in a new direction. there are reasons dishes have evolved through many households, restaurants, and years to be served a particular way or during a particular season.
That said, we are all increasingly intersectional and we are all increasingly wanting to express that intersectionality in myriad ways. Chefs are going to want to be a part of that because cooking that way is an expression of how they ate growing up. The tricky issue is that the results of that intersectionality may actually be less enjoyable that any of the origins of the components of the new dish. Eg.: Mapo lasagne neither as tasty as mapo tofu nor lasagne all bolgnese. And it not making as much “sense” as either origin dish. Personally, I’m always interested in these expressions of intersectionality, but I’m really glad I can still find good iterations of the original inspiration.
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How do they get the bark?
Not sure, but my educated guess would be to get a nice even browning during the roast and then apply some sort of dark glaze near finishing time or even utilizing a salamander. There are probably many ways to attain a bark like exterior.
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I think you’d like their congee then. It’s not a play on congee, it’s straight up traditional chinese congee prep with true flavors
Wow. That looks amazing.