FIVE POINTS
31 Great Jones Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 253-5700

In retrospect, there was no good excuse to go to Five Points. It was too expensive. I'm bored of dining in Manhattan and have been itching to eat in Brooklyn. Dining out with Speeds instead of a date meant that this expensive diversion wasn't going to end my continuous waltz with singledom. Did I mention that it was too expensive? But damn if it wasn't good. (I guess it also gave me some OpenTable points.)

Five Points sits in NoHo, a cross between the conspicuous excess of the Meatpacking District and the quasi-run down hipster vibe of Williamsburg. So while you might see a brand new, gleaming high-rise multi-million-dollar condo building filled with models having their rent paid by Condé Nast, the very street in front of that building is so pothole-ridden that their investment banker boyfriends wouldn't dream of driving their Maseratis over to pick them up.

Speeds and I took a seat, readjusted our eyes to the price tag, and decided to skip wine in favor of getting solid food. One thing we noticed right away was that the relative age of Five Points customers was considerably older than where we normally get our vittles. Speeds and I were the youngest, by far, of anyone there. As the night wore on, the customers got younger, but they never quite reached our Neilson demographic.

While we pondered the menu, a basket of bread showed up along with a little dish of cole slaw. Just to get this one negative thing out of the way, the cole slaw was pretty bad. Terrible, really. I don't mean to say that it wasn't fresh. It was simply too vinegary and too sharp, yet was virtually tasteless. Basically, it was vinegary pickled cabbage. If I were to make one recommendation to the restaurant, it would be that they shelve this particular dish.

My appetizer was the Local Green Garlic Soup, a brothy, green-vegetable soup with big chunks of garlic, asparagus, shallots, beans and dusted with Parmesan cheese. It's a great soup, but it's big and filling and has enough garlic to melt Nosferatu. Speeds is allergic to garlic (and onions) so this was not a dish that she could form an opinion on. She instead ordered Wood Oven Roasted Mussels and Seared Montauk Squid in a tomato wine sauce. One thing that she didn't initially like was that it was too spicy, with an almost burned taste. But over time, it grew on her. It grew until she started not only enjoying it, but began pushing me to have it too. Of course, this might have been that it, like the soup, was a massive dish for an appetizer. We could have shared it (and did) and we could not finish it.

My entree was the Wood Oven Roasted Golden Spotted Tile Fish with Yukon potatoes, grilled scallions, and salsa verde. This was a light fish, very tender, and cooked to the point just before becoming flaky (which is usually the point of becoming dry). It was delicious. Speeds ordered the Wood Oven Roasted Buttermilk Chicken with roast thumbelina carrots (fat baby carrots to you plebeians). Normally, this dish would also come with garlic mashed potatoes, but with her allergies, she asked for the Yukon potatoes instead. At first, Speeds was not very enthusiastic about Five Points. We spent a long time talking about the merits of each dish on the menu. What about this one? What about that one? In truth, she settled on the chicken after the combo one-two punch of indecision and pressure from me. But after that first bite, she spent the better part of the rest of our meal making "oh my God, this is so good" mini-comments. Now that her tastebuds have had a few dozen orgasms, she can't wait to return.

On a roll from the great apps and great entrees, we ordered dessert. Speeds went with the Rhubarb Crostata with vanilla gelato a la mode. Good, but not something that I would make a part of my regular dessert diet. The bittersweet rhubarb was a nice change from apple or cherry, but the crust was a bit too dry. Hence, the vanilla gelato was a necessary accompaniment. My choice was the Butterscotch Pot de Creme, a creamy butterscotch dessert akin to a whipped butterscotch mousse. Extremely light and sweet, served with fresh whipped cream and peanut butter cookies. I didn't think much of the cookies, but the dessert itself has got to be one of the best I have ever had. And I say ever. It was the kind of dessert that you choose to eat extra slowly because you know that there's such a finite amount of it. Once it was gone, I felt a little sad.