New York - Spice Market
Filed under: Food in New York
After a sybaritic time lying on a beach in Mexico we touch down in NewYork, just before hurricane Wilma hits Cancun. Months had been spent trawling the net and consulting friends as to the most interesting food experiences to be had in the big apple. Unfortunately 5 days is not enough to do Manhattan justice but we gave it our best shot. Highlights included meals at Per Se, Babbo, Daniel and The Spotted Pig. 2nd Avenue Deli and Katz’s sparked intense debate as to which produced the best chicken soup and the most perfect Matzo ball.
Arriving into JFK late on a Thursday night we decide to pop in on Jean-Georges downtown venture, Spice Market. Nobody actually recommended this place but the restaurant’s prodigious PR had ensured that it got favourable write-ups in all the upmarket glossies.
This restaurant would like us to believe that it is a privilege to be allowed through its hallowed doors and this ethos is truly reinforced by the aloofness of the front of house staff. Amusingly it is this kind of culture that attracts all manner of wannabes, has-beens and scensters, desperate to catch a bit of downtown action.
Despite the clientele the venue itself is achingly seductive. Dark wood, dim lighting and scantily clad waitresses make it alluring for clandestine love affairs or for pulling eligible bachelors, if investment bankers are your thing…
If you are into food however, I would stay well away. Specific details pertaining to each individual dish do not stay embedded in my memory, but overall attempts at south east asian street food falls short of the genuine article. Overly spiced dishes hastily thrown together lacked any degree of refinement or subtlety, flavours seemingly at war with one another. A starter of mussels was hideously gritty, the majority of the little blighters clamped firmly shut. Not good.
A big thumbs down, things can only get better…
Spice Market
403 W. 13th St. (West Village)
at Ninth Ave.
212-675-2322
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Try to avoid Duck and Pancakes in NY too. They do it all wrong…….
Comment by duckandpancakeman 01.13.06 @ 11:16 pm