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.