Brava--Great Berrington, Mass

413.637.9171

Jeez.  What a break.  Here's to having a second child.  Managed to get away with the ol' wifey wife and kids in tow back up the Cranwell for a much needed break.  Since that didn't happen, I at least had an opportunity to suck down a martini at Prairie Whale before dinner with one of the many friends without children.  He chose Brava, which was perfectly boozy yet kid friendly.  A sturdy wifi created an occupied four year old, coupled with a sleeping infant we almost felt like our wealthy friends across the table.

The ambiance was mellow, yet young.  A simple little restaurant, wood paneled, with a prominent bar devouring half of the entire space.  The food was pretty awesome.  I'm not sure if it was the uninterrupted two hours of adult talk or the opportunity to eat with flatware, but it seemed as though everything that came out of the kitchen was delicious.  As it was tapas, we tried quite a bit.  The calamari, Shrimp/garlic, meatballs, arugula salad, anchovies, all were gone in an instant.

Since Great Berrington is touristy, but with a sort of back woods NYC sensibility, I feel that this place is living up to its snuff. Though, I could imagine the experience being quite different without that wifi.

Barbuto--Manhattan

212.924.9700


Ahhhh...beloved nine.  How nice it is to have back to back posts about well known restaurants in Manhattan.  It's been too long.  No more of this slumming it at destinations around the States that pretend to understand what it's like to be in NY.  The hustling, bustling, pretentiousness of it all.  The young 20-something staff.  The smell.  The ambient ambulance sirens and taxi cab horns.  And let's not forget that bars close at 4am.

Iconman, shut the fuck up.  How was the food?  Well, it was okay.  Firstly, this place was seemingly packed when the four horsemen arrived (we are the old, very old banquet team of yesteryear) and were told that despite the preponderance of available seating the wait was two hours.  No problem, we know this drill.  We will simply stand at the most inconvenient place for the servers, clogging their flow, ordering bottle after bottle of over-priced Pinot Grigio.  Ipso facto twenty minutes later we were given a seat.  Service was brisk and professional. They even allowed me to bastardize one of their pasta dishes into a Carbonara (which it kind of already was but nonetheless this is a big plus for me.  If you can tweak a dish to make someone happy you should.  Right?).  Food:

Meatballs--A
Broccoli appetizer--B+
Barratta--B
Calamari--B+

Entree's--we all had pastas:

Shrimp pasta to el dante
My carbonara not enough something or other.
Other pasta--who cares I'm too drunk.  Seriously, that's a quote from my scribbles.

Cheeseplate--needed honey.

Tiramisu--lights out

As you can tell, when back in the city I revert back to my old ways.  The dinner was fine.  Was it $200 a head fine?  Unclear.  Also unclear is how many bottles of wine we consumed from start to finish.  It was definitely a place where you take your parents when you've finally come in to your own and want to impress them by paying for dinner.  There were quite a few of those people sitting at the bar waiting for four over-the-hill derelicts to finally vacate their seats.  Little did they know that sitting at the bar like a civilized person does no good.

Betony--Manhattan

212.465.2400

Holy shit!  Went here with the ol' Preggers McPregs for our 2nd babymoon thinking we were going to have a repeat of 11 Madison Park sans the pre-game bottle of champagne.  See 11 Madison Park post for reference.

I don't have my notes handy, but....

1) This place smokes 11 Madison Park in terms of cuisine

and perhaps most importantly....

2) They got the service ninja thing down!

There were at least six different people that delivered something to my table, un-intrusively and effortlessly.  At no point was our dinner interrupted by some smug, 20-something who thinks that working at 11-Madison Park as a server amounts to more than a hill of beans.  I mean, go slum it as the only waiter at Hooter's for an afternoon before you give me the George Clooney.  I digress, these guys had none of that.  True ninjas.  In, out, and done.

As for the food: Mushroom Jello?  Check.  Beet Wine?  Check.  Hand job in the bathroom?  Iconman, WTF!  Sorry folks, just keeping you honest.  I had the grill short rib and though dubious at first it was smack-down delicious.  Ol' Preggers McCankles had fish I believe, and it was also spot on.  In fact, though completely weird and adventurous the food here is amongst the best prepared food I've had.  Ever.  Say it isn't so Iconman! Yes, it's so.  I'm saying right now that there isn't a restaurant that I've been to that delivers a more interesting dining experience.  Oh yeah, it's also $400 a head no problem so keep that in mind before galavanting over there.

Light Horse Tavern--Jersey City

201-437-8650

So the burbs has been unkind, at least culinarily.  The ol' wifey wife thought we should migrate to a slightly more urban area, but not traipse into the city.  The toll and a half an hour of baby sitting time is cost preventative, so Jersey City was a good pragmatic choice.  She did her research and decided on the Light Horse, a seemingly Brooklynesque bar with a comprehensive pub grub meets classic American cuisine menu.  I was hoping to find something akin to Walter's foods in Brooklyn, what I found was a mouthful of shit.

Let's start with the raw bar.  Gross, gross and grosser. It simply wasn't fresh.  Besides that, it was flavorless.  And gross.  And awful. Man, I'm sorry I can't give you more of description but what this restaurant delivered escapes words. The burger was average.  The drinks average.  Just nothing special. A plain old boring burger and beer, cleverly disguised within a seemingly hipster bar.  There was a gaggle of lanky twenty-something's celebrating a bachelorette party, and somehow even that sucked.  Perhaps the most prevalent mistake though was the lighting.  As in, there was none.  The lights when out over our table for a solid five minutes.  As we fumbled around in the dark our server repeatedly walked by without bringing me some rice crisps that weren't stale, and all we could do was laugh.

The food was passable if you're in missouri, but you're in the shadow of NYC which is a mere $14 and ten minutes by car and I'm telling you now just keep going.  I promised a while ago that I wouldn't bash non NYC restaurants as it's an unfair standard by which to compare.  This place was so atrocious, that I feel this is a public service record.

Enoteca Umberto--Providence

401-272-8466

Wowser, I had no idea that Providence had so many Italians.  Seriously, now I know why The Departed always refers to Providence.  It was eye opening.  I always though Providence, Hartford, and Boston were the epicenter of the wasp regime.  Way off there.  One general area, Federal hill, that had quite a concentration of red sauce Italian restaurants surrounding one minuscule, and historically significant fountain.  Compared to the great cities of the world, the fountain was laughable, but it still had a charm all its own.

Anywho, this place is right around the corner, owned and operated by a gregarious Italian named Umberto and his chef wife. Umberto was nuts, shouting to cars slowly cruising by while explaining the specials to the ol' wifey wife and daughter entranced by stickers.  I must say, it was about as authentic of Italian food I've had this side of the pond.  No frills, simple ingredients, just straight up combinations of butter and salt and olive oil with subtle flavors to boot.

I wish I could tell you what I had, but the bottle of Barolo took over.  It doesn't really matter as the quality was spot on and the menu changes constantly.  I can say however, if you're in the neighborhood, this place is a must.  It's got about ten seats though, so don't just walk up or you'll be stuck waiting by the sad fountain.