My wife and I tried this joint out today for a quick dinner. When we entered, we were hit with this beautiful staircase. Who knows where the fuck it goes, though…
We thought it was odd that no bread was served to us, but the app came out pretty quick, and it had some sliced pieces of toasted bread with it. Steak tartare:
This was pretty good. It was coarsely hand cut, which I am usually not a fan of, but it was soft and had good flavor. We didn’t realize there was a quail egg yolk sitting in it for mixing until we were halfway done with the dish. It was sorta buried under the meat. The tartare had a good spice to it from some cherry peppers. Nice touch.
For her entree, my wife ordered the appetizer mussels. This was a good sized portion, but it came with one lousy piece of bread for soaking up the delicious green coconut curry sauce at the bottom. It was topped with sliced garlic, pickled chili peppers and cilantro.
Definitely a winning dish, so I recommend ordering it. We asked for more bread and were finally given our table bread, which we should have gotten earlier when we were seated. Soak up all that delicious sauce shit at the bottom!
I had the burger, with added cheddar. The burger, as-is on the menu, does not come with cheese. They had either cheddar or gruyere when I asked.
There was some slight slippage when eating due to the slippery tomatoes (one slice would have been fine), but the burger had a great beefy flavor and the toppings were excellent. Pickled red onion, so I wasn’t dying of thirst all night long. Pickles, lettuce. Nice and simple.
As you can see above, they were wise to dig out some of the bread so as not to have a burger stacked high to the sky. Good shit. The bread was nice too. Strong yet soft. And it came with some really tasty golden crisp French fries.
Not bad! I think we ordered the right sort of shit here, so if you stick to these items I’m sure you will be pleased. My wife has been here before, and she said the octopus app, which I was thinking of ordering, was not that great – nothing special.
THE NATIONAL
557 Lexington Ave.
New York, NY 10022
First off, check out my Ride & Review of this place HERE:
I was invited in by the new management/ownership here to check out the menu offerings, in particular the steak. But there were so many items on the menu that were incredibly enticing, that I just had to try as much as I possibly could. I’ll drop in a photo slide show here, and then go over some of the highlights.
The cocktails were spectacular. I really enjoyed the Gibson and the Gold Rush, pictured here:
In the starters arena, the tartare has been elevated with egg emulsion drops, caviar, and an overall superior cut/chop and flavor. Chef Jack Logue is truly taking this place to a better level than Michael WHite or Geoffrey Zacharian has done before.
The soft shell crab special was excellent, but the real star of the apps was this platter of hot and cold shellfish items. As delicious as it is beautiful.
Here’s that softshell crab – cornmeal crusted for extra crisp!
As a mid course we ate the nduja carbonara, which was a really innovative and spicy take on a traditional carbonara. My only criticism here is to swap out the flat pasta for a thicker chitarra or bucatini type pasta. But this preparation lent it self very nicely to a lighter mid course.
We also took down the veal milanese, which was thick, tender, crispy and well seasoned. Great execution and beautiful presentation with the bone and everything.
The Cote de Boeuf was a shade overcooked in parts, but the dry aged flavor on it carried it the Valhalla of my stomach on golden chariots. It was a delicious 8/10.
Great array of sauces to go with it.
The highlights in the side dish realm were the spinach, mushrooms and this ox cheek mac and cheese that was listed as a starter, but could easily be either an entree or the perfect mac and cheese side dish. Get it!
Our favorite dessert was the NY Apple, a layered cheesecake of sorts in apply lollipop form. Watch the video to see what it looked like before we destroyed it. I also enjoyed the crackerjack sundae. Simple and delicious.
UPDATE 5/15/18
On a second visit, my wife and I sat downstairs, which had a very different atmosphere from the more mid-century modern upstairs decor. Downstairs, it’s a bit more cozy and steakhouse-esque.
We tried the beef tartare and the scallop crudo to start.
Both were really nice. The tartare had a good flavor because they use dry aged beef.
For a mid-course, we had the gnocchetti scampi.
This was served in a white wine and butter style sauce with nice juicy chunks of perfectly cooked shrimp, lemon herb breadcrumbs and a walnut and arugula pesto. This was one of the best pasta dishes I’ve had in years. It was well balanced in both texture and flavor, and the unique cavatelli size/shape gnocchi pasta was absolutely perfect.
I had the 12oz dry aged strip steak for my entree.
It came with a shitake mushroom cap that was stuffed with short rib, and it was accompanied by a truffle sauce. Perfectly cooked, with a good dry aged flavor. 8/10.
My wife had the lamb.
This was a great dish. It was really three parts of the lamb: thick cut belly, t-bone, and rib chop.
Really great middle eastern flavors happening on this too.
For dessert we had the pistachio parfait and the vanilla cheesecake. Both were really flavorful and unique. I preferred the pistachio parfait, but my wife liked the cheesecake better. Can’t go wrong with either, though.
This was a really great meal. I highly recommend this place. They mix some really great cocktails:
…And even the table bread is excellent:
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
This joint is owned by Geoffrey Zakarian, famous celebrity chef. My wife and I came through this place for restaurant week during lunch hours in the upstairs bar room.
We started with an Arnold Palmer, made with unsweetened iced tea an slightly sweetened natural lemonade. The interesting part about this is that the ice cubes are also made of Arnold Palmer mix, so you never get a watered down drink when the ice melts:
Starting bread was nice, warm and buttery:
For the apps, we shared bur rata and zucchini, barley and avocado soup. The soup was a nice, light tomato and veggie broth that packed a lot of flavor for such a light dish.
The burrata was nice and soft. I sort of wish that they served some roasted tomatoes with it, but the greens and pickled onions were good as well.
My wife had a crispy skin duck rilette. Portions of the skin weren’t crispy, but this dish was otherwise a really nice item. The such was pulled or shredded style, and mixed with light mustard, capers, and other goodies that made it pop.
I had the sirloin burger with aged, sharp cheddar. This was nice. The meat was a little soft and crumbly, but the bun was top quality challah bread.
The lunch menu charges $24 for this, with the fries, but the restaurant week menu included an app and dessert for just a buck more. Not sure I’d think this was worth it for $24. The fires were pretty good though. Nice and crispy, golden brown.
For dessert, we tried the chocolate mousse with ice cream and the passion fruit semifreddo. Both were nice. I liked the chocolate mousse better, but the semifreddo did have a nice mango sorbet that cut the tang of the passion fruit.
THE LAMB’S CLUB
132 W. 44th St.
New York, NY 10036
