Riverpark: If you can make it there, you'll be rewarded

Last week, I received a kind invitation to the friends and family period at Tom Coliccio's newest masterpiece, Riverpark. I'd read a number of early reviews that commented on the middle-of-nowhere location, and boy are they correct-- it's all the way at the river (um, obviously) in Murray Hill, accessible by some sort of pseudo-pedestrian-promenade, and located deep in an office building. To get to the restaurant you walk through a deserted highrise lobby, growing ever more certain that you're in the wrong place until finally you spot Riverpark's entrance.

Inside, the space is clean, sleek, and modern, with a few funky touches (check the pattern of the glass on the wall, for instance). But the main dining area doesn't make use of the river view, which is a bit too bad. Regardless, once you get rolling with the food, you'll forget about any view (or lack thereof).

That's because the food is pretty darn good. Start off with some wine-- in this case, we went for a bottle of Aglianico del Taburno. It was spicy and complex and very red. Wine Century Club? Check.

And then dig into the bread. Small, warm ovular baguettes with a thin crust, brought to a new level by a sprinkling of pretzel-style coarse salt. Rip off a piece. Slather in butter. Chew. Repeat. And then just try to stop. (Hint: You can't.)

Gone in 60 seconds

AS chose the braised octopus to start. He raved both about the flavor and the texture, which avoided the usual octopus chewiness. There was broth; there were cockles; there was baby bok choy. All the food groups were represented.

Delicate

And then came the entrees. AS chose the duck breast, which came with celery, pomegranate, and black trumpet mushrooms. The plate, shown below, looked remarkably like a certain forest floor tableau that graced our table at Del Posto many moons ago. Unlike the miscellaneous vegetable shavings of Del Posto, however, this dish was delicious, beautiful, creative, and tasty. The small cubes of celeriac were an especially nice touch.

There's duck in there somewhere

My choice was the baby lettuces, with marinated vegetables, herbs, and champagne vinaigrette. It was also quite good; there was a solid mix of small lettuces, clearly very fresh, that were enlivened by tiny bite-sized vegetables (many of which seemed to be baby multi-colored beets). It was a decent-sized portion and a bit more creative take on the usual mesclun salad.

Roughage

That did it for the savory courses; of course, we moved on to dessert. But first, an interlude with a tiny, tiny little cup of espresso.

That spoon is about two inches long

And now the sweets. AS ordered the chocolate tart with salted caramel and chocolate sorbet. Overall, I'd say that it was okay; the tart's cookie crust was a bit too thick in proportion to the chocolate filling, which made the dessert slightly clumsy. The chocolate sorbet, however, was tasty and smooth.

All forms of chocolate

My choice was the molasses pound cake with maple-roasted pears, creme fraiche, and pear sorbet. This dessert was also, on balance, middling; the cake was sweet and bouncy-textured but rather average; the pears needed to be roasted a minute or two longer to achieve that meltingly tender texture that pears can achieve with time. I really liked the creme fraiche, but there wasn't all that much of it. And I really didn't care for the sorbet, which tasted strongly of cinnamon or star anise in a way that I don't particularly enjoy. It definitely quelled my craving for a dessert, but I wouldn't go out of my way to order it again.

Lots going on here

So on balance, the savory food at Riverpark was unquestionably top-notch; the wine, service, and dining room were all lovely; but the desserts could use a bit more refining. No matter; if you can make it out to the far reaches of Manhattan, Riverpark will certainly provide you with a four-Offset Spatula meal. Just don't get lost on the way back.

Riverpark
450 E. 29th Street
212-729-9790

NYC Wine & Food Festival kicks off: Midnight Music and Munchies!

It's finally here-- the New York City Wine & Food Festival, something I've been looking forward to for over a year. I received three sets of event tickets as a very generous Hannukah present from my parents, and I took my friend KS to the first event last night: Midnight Music and Munchies at the High Line Ballroom in the Meatpacking District.

The enthusiastic and oh-so-chic crowd, as viewed from the balcony

As KS and I entered the venue, we remarked that this was by far and away the most "scene-y" thing we've ever done. And it's true-- people were decked out, ready for a see-and-be-seen scene. We may have felt a little out of place, but we forged ahead, determined to make the most of this awesome food and drink extravaganza.

There were three main parts of the evening, described in words and pictures below.

First, the drink. There were two bars on the ground floor, each with mixologists from prominent bars around town mixing custom creations. We bopped around to each, sampling the strong and sometimes weird beverages on offer.

These were "Ruby Tuesdays" (bourbon, black cherry puree, lemon juice, benedictine) from Dushan Zaric of Employees Only

So-called "Vanilla Ice," From John Deragon, Don Lee, and Jim Meehan of PDT. It was a mixture of Maker's Mark, Navan, and Lemon Juice, and it didn't taste much like vanilla. Or ice.

Each section of the bar had little placards introducing the drinks and the bartenders

Anthony Giglio and Steve Schneider, with no bar affiliation listed. They were the most fun bartenders there.

...annnnnnnd case in point.

Their concoction: Stairway to Heaven (Plymouth gin, homemade sweet vermouth, champagne, rhubarb bitters, strawberries). I really wanted to like this, but it was just so weird. There was stuff floating in it... it tasted like herbal tea leaves. I don't know, maybe I'm just not sophisticated enough for these cocktails.

Reps from the Clover Club/Flatiron Lounge, in action cleaning up a spill

And their creation: El Diablo, with silver tequila, cassis, lemon juice, homemade ginger beer, and simple syrup. You could really taste the ginger beer in this, which is a taste I haven't quite yet acquired. Bonus points for them for giving a full-size drink, though.

Audrey Saunders &c. from the Pegu Club. They were mixing a Gary Glitter, with rum, mint, lime juice, bitters, and champagne. Their drink was pretty good; I had about half of it.

My favorite drink of the night was the last one we got to. It came courtesy of Tony Abou-Ganim of Bar Milano: the so-called "Sin City," with Absolut Mandarin, Triple Sec, orange and lemon juices, and cranberry juice. It was probably the most "traditional" of all the cocktails there, and it was yummy.

There was also ample Evian on offer, which was definitely a good thing (even if this lady didn't seem quite so thrilled). Finally, to round out the drink options, there was a bar upstairs that had rose wine, beer, Coke and Diet Coke.

So, with our bellies sloshing with various types of booze, we moved on to the food. There were food stations around the first floor, which we tackled systematically.

Edamame Falafel with lemon tahini sauce, from Harold Dieterle of Perilla. Really good and powerfully falafel-y.

Truffled deviled eggs from Anne Burrell. Didn't get to these; not a huge fan of eggs myself. Not pictured next to the eggs was a basket of little bags of snacks from Michael Psilakis, from Anthos/Mia Dona/Kefi. There was Pastelli Popcorn with Spiced Almonds, which tasted just like caramel corn (lovely), and Pickled Fingerling Potato Chips with Tzatziki. Well, so the menu card claimed-- I didn't detect any tzatziki. They tasted a bit like salt-and-vinegar chips, but were unspectacular.

On the right, Herbed Grissini from Scott Conant of Scarpetta; I didn't get to these either. There was just so much to eat...

Parmesan Herb Frico from Amanda Freitag of The Harrison. These were my favorite munchie of the evening. Basically just baked rounds of parmesan cheese with some herbs mixed in, they were crunchy and addictive.

Taralle with Almonds and Black Pepper, from Scott Conant. I kept eating these despite the fact that they didn't taste that great. They were like stale peppery breadsticks. But they sort of grew on you. And they were cute. What can I say?

Oxtail Tamales with salsa verde from John Fraser of Dovetail. Skipped these because they were meaty.

There was also a food table upstairs, which featured tuna wraps from Joey Campanaro of The Little Owl. There was about a 20-minute line to get at this table, so we passed. But we watched the bizarre cameras hunting people down in the area.

This guy seems so happy because he just waited a half hour for that tuna wrap.

Near the staircase was the Capogiro Gelato cart. The menu listed a bunch of flavor choices, but it turned out they were only scooping two at a time, so basically you took what they gave you. The first pass around they were scooping grapefruit sorbet and Single Malt Scotch gelato-- um, no thanks. But the second time around I got butterscotch. Success!

Here's the butterscotch. It was caramelly and filling. I was so far from hungry at that point that I probably would have enjoyed it more in other circumstances, but it was definitely good gelato.

So, eating and drinking out of the way, we turned to the third element of the evening: the music. There had been a DJ spinning for the first couple of hours, but around quarter of 12 a live band took the stage.

The band played some upbeat songs I couldn't recognize. But it was fun, toe-tappin' music.

And then-- Tom Colicchio took the stage! Yess! He didn't stand still so these pictures are crappy, but you can sort of make out his shark-like features in the center there.

There he is again, rocking out on his electric guitar. He was actually not half bad, and he was clearly having a great time. Fun!

Overall, it was a really fun night, and we got to try a bunch of food and drinks we wouldn't have had the chance to otherwise. Plus, we got to see Tom Coliccio play guitar live (I'll never watch Top Chef the same way again). Well done, NYCWFF-- a highly successful first round. On to round two...