New York minute/End o’ June 2009
The decent: Blue Water Grill, where my consort and I wound up in desperation post-Greenmarket after finding BLTFish is no longer open for lunch at all(!) when Bob, coming off a week of really bad eating, decided what he really wanted was fish. Try finding that at midday on any Saturday, when real chefs are sleeping in and letting egg jockeys sling omelets and worse. He wound up ordering $16 scallops (with favas, asparagus and gnocchi in morel sauce) because the main fish offering, Chilean sea bass, should not even be on the menu. And I didn’t mind that my $17.50 crab cake sandwich on burger bun tasted mostly of the heavy garnishes: avocado and chipotle sauce. I don’t know why the kitchen even bothers with the jicama slaw, though. Does anyone eat shredded shirt box? Gruner and rosé were each worth the $10, and the waiter, beaten as he looked toward the end of another day of egg hell, was superb. Whoever’s managing the staff is doing a hell of a job (as opposed to a heckuva) because even the runner was upbeat, and the reception men and women were seriously cheery. 31 Union Square West at 16th Street, 212 675 9500.