New York minutes/Early February 2008
The good: Toloache, yet again, where eight of us and a 6 1/2-pound frog wedged into a tight table to run up a big bill with grasshopper tacos, ceviches, quesadillas and more after our friend Dr. Bugs’ taping on Stephen Colbert. Proximity to the studio was the main appeal, but the food and service came through, too. When we got there, after the car had delivered the two stars and the wrangler of one, the staff had already dealt with the weirdness and soon the wine, margaritas and food were flowing. I just had my usual huitlacoache quesadilla and some good (allegedly) spicy guacamole, but my consort ordered an amazing duck special in a green chile sauce, beautifully cooked and perfectly balanced. It’s a far cry from El Paso on 97th Street, where I had excellent chilaquiles with tomatillo sauce the day before, but it’s satisfying in much the same way. WIGB? Constantly, it seems. 251 West 50th Street, 212 581 1818.
The not bad: Regional, where my consort treated me to dinner on yet another night when I wasn’t up to eating let alone cooking and where he got what he deserved given that he was paying. My special of grilled eggplant, tomato and mozzarella was just what I should have expected in February, with undercooked eggplant and pathetic tomato, and my cod-fritter appetizer was fried to less than perfection although the fish itself was great. But Bob’s salad of arugula and plum tomatoes was the same satisfaction it always is, and his pasta with lamb ragu had so much of the latter that he had enough to make a work lunch with rice next day. The service was good, the bread and bean spread excellent as always and the noise level — fortunately for us, not so good for a restaurant trying to stay afloat — painless. WIGB? Why not? 2607 Broadway near 99th Street, 212 666 1915.
The dinery: French Roast, where I stopped after getting my stitches yanked and my jaw set free and where I was so ready for a great breakfast I would have been happy with three bites of anything painless. I wanted toast, bacon, eggs and home fries after a week of nibbling and gumming, but I settled for a huge omelet overstuffed with crisp bacon strips and soggy tomatoes and a little Gruyere plus a basket of baguette slices and butter and a few honkin’ huge potato chunks with ketchup. Walking from 86th and CPW to 85th and B’way just brought home how the Upper West Side is being eaten away by greed, though. Diners are disappearing as fast as bodegas as the banks and drugstores and nail parlors proliferate, but maybe this is the new template: Open 24 hours, cheaper than Artie’s, not as industrial and synthetic-feeling as the Greek places that manage to hang on, and with nicotine-free waiters to boot. WIGB? There may soon be no choice. . . . 2340 Broadway at 85th Street, 212 799 1533.