Restaurant Week 2007

Restaurant Week is an annual event in New York where some of the more upscale restaurants (those that have the $$$-$$$$ markings next to their names in directories...) offer up a three-course prix fixe menu - each restaurants develops their own menu, but the Restaurant Week folks decide on the price, so every restaurant costs the same. It's a great chance to check out a restaurant that you might otherwise not consider due to the matter of budget. The Prix Fixe is still not cheap (this year, the dinner was set for $35.00), but a good deal relative to the prices on the a la carte menu.

In New York, these 'moderate to expensive' restaurants abound, each one known just as much for their decor and ambiance as their food. It takes awhile to go through the list of participating restaurants and deciding on which has earned the merits to deserve your patronage. This year, my friend and I decided on a place called Calle Ocho, which serves Latin American foods. It's always hard to fully critique a restaurant during restaurant week because it's usually a bit crazier and your choices in food are more limited. To start, the restaurant was much bigger than it looks from the outside; the space kept opening up into room after room after room, all spacious, with high ceilings and skylights above. The service was a little confused (i.e., our server gave us our dessert menus before we even received our entrees), but they were very nice. We started off with drinks: I loved my white sangria, but my friend's left her wondering if they brought her the right drink! The appetizers fell into that 'good, but nothing to write home about' category. I had a shrimp and oyster seviche; they skimped so much on the seafood that I felt like I was eating salsa. For the main course, we both got the pulled pork dish: there was a mound of what looked like mashed potatoes, but were probably more like sweet turnip - whatever it was, it was delicious. That was topped with garlicky spinach, and then crowned with the pulled pork. I thoroughly enjoyed the meal; the flavors melded together wonderfully. For dessert, my friend had a decadent peanut butter cheesecake while I had baked nectarine slices with lime cake soaked in Argentinian cream. I didn't enjoy the texture of the soaked cake, but the nectarines were good. Overall, the food here was good - not spectacular but a nice surprise. Would I pay full price? Probably not. But that's the joy of restaurant week - to try out a new place guilt-free not just to decide whether you'd eat there again, but to enjoy the moment and to make a memory.