e a t e r y R O W

GRANO TRATTORIA
21 Greenwich Avenue
New York, NY 10014
(212) 645-2121

Speeds and I were sitting on a Gay Street stoop when St. Love arrived. We debated where to go. It's hardly much of a debate, really. We initially thought that we'd try Kingswood, thee trendy New American about a block thataway. The bouncers at the door told us that it was unlikely that they'd have space. Sure enough, the wait was over an hour. But hey, across the street was Grano Trattoria. It wasn't deserted (a good sign), they weren't too pricey (a welcome sign) and there were a few open tables. We went in.

If the West Village has a local Italian restaurant, and Italian restaurant without the pretense, without the celebrity endorsement, where diners eat with their friends and gab pleasantly for hours under the haze of their third bottle of red, then that restaurant is Grano Trattoria. Grano, wrapping around the corner of Greenwich and 10th, is hardly small despite my somewhat claustrophobic photo down there. Most of the tables were taken, people were eating at the long bar, staff was running around. While not loud, Grano was certainly lively. The staff was very nice, but they were at the table so often that it felt like they were hovering. And while our meal was pleasant, I can safely say that I've had way better.

Alas, that seems to be a constant theme with neighborhood Italian restaurants. They exist not to provide food so much as they exist to provide a comfort level. Perfect example: Billy Joel's "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant". It's a bottle of white, a bottle of red... perhaps a bottle of rose instead. He couldn't care less what particular sauce-coated starch he's ingesting so long as it lets him suck down more vino. Booze and gossip.

So what did we order? My appetizer was the Carpaccio di Manzo con Arugola e Parmigiano, beef carpaccio (thin-sliced raw beef) under a small pile of arugula and Parmesan cheese. Speeds and St. Love had alternating opinions. He felt it was too warm, she thought it was too cold. I'm of the opinion that room-temperature carpaccio is the way to go and this was room temperature. I liked it, save my one complaint that the carpaccio wasn't firm enough. It was too soft, leading it to shred when cut. Speeds and St. Love always order calamari when they go out. The Queen of Diamonds is my only explanation. To Grano Trattoria's credit, their calamari, the Calamari Ripieni alla Sorrentina isn't your typical battered and fried junk. It's three huge uncut calamari in a spiced tomato sauce. Unfortunately, it isn't that good either. It was passable.

For entrees, without trying to sound obnoxious, my choice was easily the best. I ordered the Gnocchi di Spinaci con Gorgonzola e Noci, spinach gnocchi in a Gorgonzola cheese sauce topped with walnuts. It was delicious. The Gorgonzola gave the gnocchi, which had the a simply perfect texture, a dark smokiness and it paired extremely well with the walnuts. If you go, I seriously recommend this for dinner. St. Love got the Lasagna al Forno con Vegetali, a vegetarian lasagna that frankly I didn't care for. It was painfully bland. Maybe the sauce needed more red wine? Meat would have helped. He liked it more than I did though and Speeds certainly liked it more than her meal, which she didn't even get halfway through. The all Taglierini allo Zafferano con Gamberetti e Peperoni Rossi, saffron noodles with shrimp and bell pepper in a cream sauce. Speeds can often be a pain in the ass, to be be sure, and she asked for a substitution of artichoke for bell pepper and asked for no garlic. The staff was very nice throughout though. Still, it was pretty bad. There was a distinct fishy taste to the dish, likely because the cream sauce had clam in it and they thought it would work well with the shrimp. It didn't.

Okay, time for dessert! Coffee's all around of course (duh). Again, sadly, we weren't blown away. St. Love ordered the Chocolate Polenta, a very rich chocolate cake that's also very dense and, thanks to using polenta, very gritty. Smooth it was not. Speeds got the Tiramisu, which was decent, but it was on the watery side and bled onto the plate. I had a similar reaction to my Panna Cotta. Decent, but it wasn't firm enough. Maybe not "watery" but if you know what a panna cotta's texture should be like when you slice into it, you get the idea.

VESELKA

144 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 228-9682

Veselka has been around since 1954. It's sort of a NYC institution. In the past few months, I've found myself wandering into Veselka more often than I'd ever think I would. This is entirely, to be honest, because Veselka happens to be open 24 hours a day and at 3am, after a multiple conversations with my pal Johnny Walker and his brothers Blackie and Red, I wasn't in any condition to go hunting. Veselka looks and feels like a greasy spoon from the mid-70s. Some people eat in the dining room in the back, some in the cafe front, and some at the counter. If you go in during the daytime, the age of the customers hovers around 70. It's understandable. If you were spry in the 1972, then eating somewhere that hasn't changed since then can make you feel young again. Kinda like playing with Legos. Meanwhile, at night, almost everyone is in their 20s or 30s.

The service at Veselka has been, on every occasion, awful. I feel somewhat guilty saying that since my waiter or waitress has always been very nice when she's there, but attitude aside... awful. They're slow, they get the orders wrong, they vanish, they don't refill water glasses, etc. I think I could forgive them if the food was something worth writing home about, but it's not. What makes this disappointing is that Veselka has its own cookbook published, but the meals they serve you in person are on par with what you'd get at a diner. And what doubles that disappointment is that if you go back far enough in time, you'll find my ancestors eating this same stuff while fighting Cossacks. I won't go so far as to say I grew up on Ukrainian food, but I did eat it while in the process of growing up.

I made one lunch trip to Veselka with my dad, Dudeman, and one dinner trip with Dudeman and my mom, Shrink. Prior to that, all I'd eaten here were their burger platters and some coffee (the worst coffee I've ever had). During the lunch, I ordered the Beef Stroganoff ($15), cubed beef with egg noodles under a creamy mushroom sauce. Nine times out of ten beef stroganoff is great, but you need to use good quality beef, and that wasn't done here at Veselka. The beef was very cheap, very sinewy and chewy and tough. The noodles and the sauce were good, though I can't say I recommend the meal. It came with a choice of a side dish so I chose the Potato Pancake. I thought the pancake was fine, and it's a virtually impossible dish to screw up unless you're drunk while making it. That said, Dudeman didn't have much to say. "Too dense", he muttered before heading back to his plate. He went for a selection of Pierogis ($7-$11 per plate) a boiled or fried (I recommend the fried, trans fat be damned) dumpling typically filled with potato. Normally, I love pierogis. We tried the Fried Meat Pierogi, which was okay, but the ground beef that filled it was as dry as a bone; the Boiled Potato Pierogi, which was decent but not spectacular; the Boiled Sauerkraut and Mushroom, which was just hideous; and the Fried Broccoli and Cheddar, which was pretty good. Overall, Dudeman said that none of them compared to the ones our aunt makes and that if he had to choose between these and the ones we've bought at the supermarket in the past, he'd opt for the supermarket. Not, I must say, a resounding compliment. The pierogis came with sour cream, apple sauce, and sauteed onions, all of which were used liberally.

We returned with Shrink the following week to make sure that we didn't catch Veselka on an off day and sat at pretty much the exact same table. Both meals that the Rents ordered came with a choice of soup so Dudeman ordered Chicken Noodle. "This is the best chicken noodle soup I've ever had in a restaurant" he told us. A glowing compliment that I do not concur with. Well, maybe it's the best that a restaurant will serve you, though I find that hard to believe, but it's certainly not better than what you get out of a can from Chunky or Progresso. I found it bland at best. That said, it was better than Shrink's starter, the Mushroom Barley Soup, which was just laughable. Maybe the barley was made out of Styrofoam? I dunno. Do yourself a favor and skip it.

Before the soups had been finished, let alone cleared, the waiter appeared with the entrees, pushing aside plates and scooping up utensils, mine included. The Rents quickly finished what was left in their little bowls to get us more space. Shrink ordered Stuffed Cabbage ($14), cabbage leaves wrapped around ground beef, ground pork and rice, under a tomato sauce. They also have a vegetarian version, and you can choose a mushroom sauce instead of a tomato sauce if you so prefer. Again, the relatives make a better one, and again, the biggest complaint was blandness. Still, Shrink didn't think it was too bad and I agree. It wasn't. It just needed a bit more oomph. Dudeman ordered the Bigos ($14), which Veselka describes as a "hearty" stew of kielbasa, pork, onion and sauerkraut with a side of mashed potatoes. Now, to be sure, this combo seems about as appetizing to me as eating something that fell on the floor of a bus, but se la vie. The thing is, when it arrived, Dudeman's reaction was "this is stew?" It was almost a tossed salad made up mostly of sauerkraut and onions, with some pork and kielbasa thrown in as a topping. Like a reverse hot dog without the bun. Hey, if you love sauerkraut enough to wolf down a whole plate of it, then have I got a recommendation for you! In the meantime, I decided to order the Veselka Reuben sandwich ($13.50). Sliced krakovska (a sausage) with swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing on a seven-grain bread. And you know what? It was damn good. Finally, something to recommend! Yay! It came with a choice of potato and I decided to try Veselka's Home Made Potato Chips, which I assure you are home made. They're soggy, saltless, and left the bottom of the plate swimming in oil.

As we were leaving, Dudeman smiled and said simply, "Well guys, this is the kind of place you go to once every few years, if only to remind yourself why you haven't been there in a few years."

AJA
1066 First Avenue
New York, NY 10022
(212) 888-8008

If Asian Fusion restaurants bring represent one thing, it's sexy trendiness (is that two things?), and Aja is certainly doing everything in its mortal power to be as sexy as it can be without having a fog machine and girls dancing in cages. Being a sexy restaurant is no easy feat in Midtown East (aka, Sutton). It's very residential and somewhat older demographically. Sure, Rosa Mexicano is right down the block, but so is a Food Emporium, a Bed Bath & Beyond and a laundromat.

Walking into Aja and the first thing you notice is... nothing. You can't see. It's pitch black. When your eyes adjust, you'll start catching a glimpse of the interior. There's a five-foot tall Buddha statue in the back, lit alternatingly by red, blue, green and yellow light, and fish swim in the floor in front of it. Moody trance-pop, like Air's Cherry Blossom Girl plays loudly overhead. The music was loud enough that everyone had to talk even louder just to be heard over it. The next thing you know, you're practically screaming at the girl at the table across from you. This was a Tuesday and Aja started emptying out at about 9:30 or so, but it stayed sounding busy for far longer.

The woman at the table next to me pulls out a flashlight to look at her menu. I've never seen that before. I hypocritically thought "how annoying" and then proceeded to take flash photos of my food. I'm a dick. The age range represented in the Aja dining room this particular mid-week night was all over the map. Kids eating with their parents (or their cool aunt and uncle) sat in one corner while a fifty-something sat in another.



Aja is Asian Fusion cuisine with a Japanese focus. The menu is very sushi heavy and it seemed to be what most people were ordering, including us. Sure, there's some Chinese-ish and some Thai-ish options for the raw fish averse.

Rose and I decided to share an appetizer and agreed on the Peking Duck Roll, shredded Peking Duck with a hoisin sauce in a spring roll type fried dough wrapper. We liked them. They were sweet, not even slightly fatty (I've had issues with fatty duck) and surprisingly filling.

It was blisteringly hot that day and though the sun had gotten on the train home, the humidity stuck around, like the annoying guy from work who tags along to happy hour and then drinks too much. To spite the heat, I ordered the Winter Roll; seaweed, salmon, tuna, avocado and roe with a spicy eel dipping sauce. I wasn't, to be blunt, terribly impressed. Every flavor seemed to be in competition with the others with no winner in sight. Unless, of course, you count that spicy eel dipping sauce, which completely overwhelmed everything and drowned out virtually all the taste in the dish.

Rose ordered the Triple Toro Roll, a spicy cucumber rolls with the alternating colors and flavors of tuna, yellowtail and salmon. She definitely got the better of the two (actually, it was a great roll) and I found myself sneaking pieces of her roll onto my plate more often than perhaps would be polite.

With a menu as varied as Aja's and a meal as small as this one was, it's impossible to present an opinion that has much value. I would certainly return to try other dishes.

Appetizers are about $10 each, entrees are in the $20s, big sushi rolls are in the upper teen$ and cocktails are about $10. I lost my receipt so I can't tell you what this meal cost. Somewhere slightly over $100.