Pre-theater bites at Pigalle

On Tuesday, my lovely father treated me to a night on the town, which in NYC-speak involves dinner and a show. We had 7PM tickets to A Little Night Music, so we needed something light and quick beforehand. Around the corner from the Walter Kerr theater was Pigalle, and so off we went.

Neither of us was that hungry, but we were in for a 3-plus hour show, so we needed to fill our stomachs. I largely bypassed the bread basket, which is one of the charms of Pigalle, and settled instead for a caramelized pear salad, minus the forme d'ambert cheese. The base was a small pile of acceptably fresh mesclun; there were also two halves of poached pear, plus a handful of dried cherries and a few spiced walnuts, in the salad. The dressing was purportedly a walnut vinaigrette-- it was emulsified, which I appreciate, and it added a bit of welcome flavor. I knew what I was getting here, and I wasn't disappointed. It's a solid salad.

A tangle of colors

Dad went for the burger, no cheese. The patty came with impressive grill marks, some solid-looking rabbit food, and a tangle of thin crispy fries. The most surprising thing about the burger was that it was relatively thin-- perhaps three-quarters of an inch thick, with an even width from center to edge. Since the trend in burgers in this city is towards huge, thick, monster patties that are almost spherical, it was a startling change. But regardless, Dad thoroughly enjoyed it. And then off we went to the show.

The standard presentation

For what it's worth, the production was exceedingly well done, but the show itself isn't great. The principal attraction is surely seeing Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury in the flesh, and indeed that was quite a thrill. But let's just say that after we emerged bleary-eyed from the theater after 10PM, I was glad to have had dinner beforehand-- I wouldn't recommend attempting A Little Night Music on an empty stomach. For filling our bellies in perfectly standard fashion, Pigalle retains its two Offset Spatula rating. If you want a quick pre-theater meal, it'll do the trick.

Pigalle
790 Eighth Avenue, at 48th Street
212-489-2233

Not quite at home at Maison

It was Friday night, and no plans were afoot. Setting out from AV's apartment on the UES, we decided to try to take on the Chicken Guy at 53rd and 6th, but once we got there the line was prohibitive. So, dejected, we walked west, vaguely toward my apartment, with no true destination in mind. But lo! We soon happened upon Maison, a French bistro-type affair with widespread seating on 7th Ave, and I remarked that I'd often seen this place but had never been nor heard much about it. And so we were off; sidling into a sidewalk table, we scanned the menu for something delicious for AV to eat and something delicious for me to drink.

To start: the drinks. There was a mojito on the menu, and there were drinks with mango in them, so I asked if they could make me a mango mojito. Unequivocally, without even a moment's hesitation, our server said no. Oooohkay. So I went with a mango bellini, which was quite delicious. AV settled on a beer from Brooklyn, which was beery. I presume.

As for the food, AV had chosen the calamari. He does love a good order of calamari, but unfortunately, he did not love this order. It came with a dish of aioli, and after a couple of dips, AV asked our server if he could have a dish of marinara instead. At the same time I asked for a bread basket. For a while, neither was forthcoming, and AV and I sat as the basket of calimari cooled and turned from potentially-yummy-fried-food to gummy-and-cold-fried-blech. A few minutes later, the marinara arrived. A few minutes-- and a few more requests-- after that, so did the bread. The verdict on the calimari: The batter was weird and the marinara was too sweet; all in all, something of a disaster, and only half the order was consumed.

Eewy

But the verdict on the bread was much more positive. Huge hunks of delightfully chewy French bread went down like water with the somewhat odd red-pepper-infused butter. We polished off the bread basket and our drinks and headed out into the night.

Enormous tasty carbs

When the check came, we learned that Maison was part of the illustrious line of restaurants that includes Pigalle and Cafe d'Alsace, all of which have subpar food and incredibly "French" (read: indifferent) service. It all made sense. I can't really rate Maison, since I didn't technically eat anything except (the admittedly delicious) bread, but unless you're starving in the wastelands of Midtown, don't settle for Maison; there are much better options nearby.

Maison
1700 Broadway, at 54th Street
212-757-2233

Wilted arugula and precious cheese at Pigalle

With my mom in town and a bunch of the bro's friends visiting, Monday night found us at Pigalle for a convivial and relatively reasonably priced meal. I used to go to Pigalle all the time and usually found the food to be good but the service atrocious. After a hiatus of a year or more, I was back to see whether the place still had its game on.

The short answer: no. But before I get into that, the highlight-- the bread basket. The bread at Pigalle is delicious, chewy with a substantial crust and good butter. However, it must be noted that the kitchen doesn't slice the loaves all the way through, so you have to wrestle with the whole loaf to rip yourself off an inevitably mangled slice. After three or four slices (not that I had three slices of bread. Ahem.), your arms get tired. I mean, hypothetically.

Intractable bread

For appetizers, we had two takers for the caesar salad. It looked standard, with croutons very clearly of the Pepperidge-Farm-from-a-box genre, but was definitely ample.

Does ANYBODY like those croutons?

AG went for the onion soup. It had some good melted cheese action and came in the appropriate brown-and-white crock. You know which one I mean.

Yeah, that one.

Appetizers (and several more loaves of bread) dispatched, we moved on to the entrees. Two members of our party had ordered the grilled yellowfin tuna, which came with grilled zucchini, roasted tomato and caper sauce, and a big cow patty of basil mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes were suprisingly addictive (I ate most of them off my mom's plate), and the zucchini was zucchini-y but a bit oily and unseasoned.

So many battling grill marks

Two more diners ordered the steak-frites. The steak was huge-- but in my brother's portion, a big chunk of it was gristle. I tried a fry and it was nothing special.

Fries were a bit crispy and undersalted

AG ordered the caramelized pear salad, which came with spiced walnuts, dried cherries, and fourme d'ambert cheese. She requested goat cheese instead of the blue cheese, a substitution the kitchen has made gladly many times in the past, when we used to order that very same salad with frequency. This time, however, the waiter informed us that there would be a $2.50 additional charge for the goat cheese. This precipitated a small scene at our table-- WTF?? As AG put it, she wasn't even asking them to add anything to the salad, she was simply asking the cook to put his hand in a different bin. Regardless, the cheese was ordered, and it came out grilled, which was weird (and not to AG's taste). As a final denoument, the $2.50 cheese charge never showed up on the bill. Score!

The goat cheese looks like seared scallops.

My own selection was the arugula and roasted portabello salad. I requested the dressing on the side, a request they honored. The thing was, the waiter handed me my salad, and the arugula was... gross. I mean, it was yellow and wilted. Take a look:

Sad, sad, sad.

Now, I pretty much never send things back in restaurants, unless the kitchen has made an egregious mistake. And I was about to tuck into this nasty, skanky salad. But my mom encouraged me to ask them to replace it: after all, this salad had two ingredients, and one of them was arugula, and the arugula was icky. So I did, and the waiter was really nice about it, and he brought a new salad with pristene, lovely arugula, and no visible traces of the chef's saliva to boot. The new one looked like this:

So much better!

After all that, the salad was pretty average-- it was a lot of arugula and a bit of marinated roasted portabello, which was good but scarce in quantity. I wouldn't order the salad again.

After a lengthy debate post-entree, we ended up skipping dessert, paying the tab, and taking off. It should be noted that in addition to the food issues, the service was up and down-- there were long stretches where water and soda glasses went unfilled, but our waiter was genial and cordial throughout, which was pleasantly unexpected. I used to really like Pigalle, but now that I've found so many better options in the neighborhood, I wouldn't readily go back, except (perhaps) for the bread. Other members of our party enjoyed their food quite a bit, however, so taking that into consideration I'll give Pigalle a meager two Offset Spatulas.

Pigalle
790 Eighth Avenue, at 48th Street
212-489-2233