Pete Wells Takes Out Loan: Eats at Hakkasan

Abu Dhabi-based investment company, Times Square, and $48 Chilean sea bass are three in a list of many why Hakkasan probably won't make your restaurant radar any time soon.

In his review of Hakkasan, Pete Wells finds much to like in the dim sum on offer, but it seems to be the only saving grace in the 11,000 square foot room.

"The real problem is that its prices are too high for extremely restrained portions of food that is, in too many cases, about as interesting as a box of paper clips."

Pete sees a lot of potential in the cooks, who "have the focus of a cobra."  Someone just needs to "tell the cooks to make the food in their hearts instead of the lackluster recipes that somebody in the management company apparently believes non-Chinese people like."

Next time you're in Times Square and have $888 to spend on braised abalone with truffles, Hakkasan is your place.

Pete Files on Neta

Pete Wells awards two stars to Neta, the sushi spot a couple of Masa vets opened earlier this year on West 8th Street in G Village. 

Wells says of the decor, "The interior of Neta is defiantly plain," and that, "There are diners on Route 4 in New Jersey that give you more to look at."  It isn't until certain creations by Nick Kim and Jimmy Lau are placed in front of him that he forgets about his surroundings.  "In the presence of unusually well-made sushi, a kind of tunnel vision sets in. Anything else in the room might as well be invisible as the world narrows down to a gleam of fish on a finger of rice in a tight circle of light."

Allergic to fish?  No problem!  Neta has nearly a dozen different vegetable rolls available a la carte, a part of the menu Pete "might have read with as much attention as I give to sponsored posts on Twitter.  Curious, I tried grilled shiitake caps pressed around rice, a lotus root roll with minty shiso and another roll of asparagus tempura. They were some of the purest vegetable preparations I’ve tasted all spring."

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon Will Close June 30th

When Pete Wells reviewed Alison Eighteen a few weeks ago, he pokes at the current trend in restaurants that has taken place "in the decade since she (Alison Price Becker) last operated a Manhattan restaurant," stating that, "all of New York below 42nd Street has been taken over by kids."

He goes on to say, "Their bodies are still limber and lean, curse them, so when these kids are finally shown to a seat, and it turns out to be bigger than a laptop but smaller than an actual human lap, they can wedge into it without hearing anything inside creak or snap.  The seat (O.K., it’s more like a stool or a bench or a tree stump or maybe an anvil) will offer no lumbar support, but still they won’t wake up the next morning feeling as if they’d been lifting file cabinets all night.  The damage to their eardrums hasn’t started to manifest yet, so they can bob their heads to an early ’80s hair-metal anthem while recounting the latest episode of "The Walking Dead.""

Wells' prelude to the evolution of dining trends in New York City gets further support with the announcement yesterday that Joel Robuchon and the Four Seasons Hotel will amicably part ways.  L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon's last day of operation in the hotel will be June 30, 2012.  The restaurant opened in 2006 and for six years was a significant player in the world of fine dining.  Just last fall, L'Atelier received two Michelin stars.

While the restaurant lies above 42nd Street, its closing follows the changing trends washing through the city.  As more and more people continue to frequent small, casual, sometimes loud restaurants, fine dining establishments struggle to remain relevant.

Pete Wells has Two More for Perla

Pete Wells gives two stars to Gabe Stulman's two-month old Perla in today's review.  Chef Toscano's savory part of the menu is right up Pete's alley.  He finds the veal in one of the anitpasti "thrillingly pink," while a tartare made from a Piedmontese breed of cow is "suave."

When it comes to desserts, it may be in chef Mr. Toscano's interest to hire a pastry chef, "Rustic desserts like chocolate crostata or date cheesecake looked as if they had been dropped on the floor, and fennel cookies showed up one night so underdone that they might have been made in an Easy-Bake oven."

Wells is none too pleased about some of the policies instilled at the restaurant, as he finds "Dining at Perla takes a significant commitment of time and money. The restaurant should make a reciprocal commitment, rather than force customers to stand around near the bar — not at the bar (stools are reserved for dining at peak hours), but near the bar."  "Better values would be welcome and so would reservations."

One Star for Midtown's La Silhouette

In today's Times, Pete Wells awards La Silhouette one star in a review that reads like Bruni's recent article about having gout.  Chef Matthew Tropeano's menu has more than one foie gras dish on it.  There is a foie gras sauce, truffled forcemeat, sweetbreads, duck pate, and butter poached lobster.  It's a rich menu and you may be better off walking to 362 West 53rd Street to taste its offerings than taking the subway.

As for all the goose liver, Mr. Tropeano "ought to know his way around a lobe of foie gras.  He spent eight years in the kitchen at La Grenouille, mastering old-guard French dishes that fewer and fewer chefs in New York know how to pronounce."

La Silhouette "is on the extremely short list of good French restaurants in walking distance of the Broadway theaters," despite the fact that it operates in a "dark space that is about as inviting a spot for a restaurant as the Holland Tunnel."

Two Stars for Midtown's Cafe China

Pete Wells awards two stars to Cafe China this week in a review that is just as playful as the heat and tingle experienced from the bounty of sichuan peppercorns that are in Cafe China's food.

"The chile heat and the Sichuan pepper tingle intensify each other until your mouth vibrates the way Wile E. Coyote does when he is hit on the head by an iron beam."

There is a bit of Sichuan 101 throughout the review as we learn "Sichuan cooks call the heat of chile peppers la. Ma is the word for the mouth-numbing zing of their region’s prized peppercorns. Stir them together and you have ma la."  We are directed to Land of Plenty, a cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop that notes "ma la is one of 23 distinct flavor combinations in Sichuan cooking."

Wells finds the use of sichuan peppers to be controlled and well executed in the robin's-egg-blue room at 13 East 37th Street.  "Even his spiciest recipes hold back from obliterating your palate, so you can taste the other dishes."

Pete Wells Needs a Little Lumbar Lovin'

In a recent post on dinersjournal, Times restaurant critic Pete Wells notes no-reservations policies, communal tables, loud music, and uncomfortable chairs are the trends that have defined restaurant openings in the past 10 years. He asks, "Do restaurants do these things on purpose to keep older customers away?"

Wells explains that from a business perspective age doesn't matter when it comes to the value of money. But, "restaurants that make you wait for the chance to sit on an uncomfortable seat at a shared table where you will have to scream above the music — or eat in silence — are not doing all they could to make customers of a certain age feel welcome."

Eighteen is Seventeen Too Many for Alison Eighteen

Alison Eighteen is the restaurant that Alison Price Becker opened in January, ending her decade long hiatus from the industry.  The first half of Pete Wells' one-star review is devoted to explaining the current dining experience in New York City south of 42nd Street.  At 15 West 18th Street, a handful of dishes failed to please Pete's palate.  "Razor clams slapped - grit, shells and all - on top of a knotted clump of flavorless fettucine" didn't do the trick.  A polenta dish with wild mushrooms was tilted "until a small pond of olive oil and melted butter collected on one side."

Traped behind an "eggplant-colored velvet curtain" is the "revival of an old play, the set looks great but the dialogue can feel a bit strained, and the players need time to learn their lines."