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New York minutes/Early April 2009

The pretty good: Anthos Upstairs, where one of the last editors with an expense account treated me to Recessionary Chic and where I wonder how happy the chef is that his downstairs regulars were so ready to try the cheap alternative. We split the better-than-Kefi fried cod, the exceptional dumplings with a surfeit of leeks, duck gyro (strange) and the beet-feta salad (great) and were comped the overwrought mussels and underwhelming red mullet. Each generous small plate was $12 or under, and you could get away with fewer dishes. The waiter seemed a good guide to the Greek wines by the glass, too. WIGB? I felt as if I was walking to a foreign country on leaving the subway, and I may not get a ticket there again soon. 36 West 52d Street, 212 582 6900.

The WTF was I thinking? Chez Lucienne in Harlem, where I dragged my long-suffering consort and the Bugses on a bitter night after I got a bug up my own restaurant notebook to try a nice chef’s latest outpost because it seemed so affordable. The host and the room were fine, very evocative of a French fantasy, but. .  .  The waiter was like a battering ram, repeatedly interrupting even though the place was pretty empty. And my consort spent half the long trek home bitching about the wine — the first bottle, a cabernet for $26, was so shiver-inducing he upgraded to the $32 St. Emilion for the second and felt twice as ripped off. As for the food, our shared endive-blue cheese salad was pretty sodden although the bit of our friends’ foie gras I tasted almost redeemed it. Lady Bugs and I both stupidly ordered the bavette, which was translated as skirt steak but was closer to hanger and really the worst of both cuts, chewy and sloppy. The potato gratin, while nothing to write home to Lydie Marshall about, was a saving grace, though. And certainly we did better than poor Bob with his cooked-to-winy-overkill coq au vin with noodles and Dr. Bugs with his beef daube (the polenta with it was fried, which seemed ill-matched). They split a “nougat glacé,” of which a forkful was plenty. It was $100 a couple, but Bob said he would always pay more for good. WIGB? Alouette is so much closer, if you catch my drift.

The adequate: The bar at PorterHouse in the dread TWC, where a friend and I hooked up before an outstanding evening of Jazz at Lincoln Center in the dread TWC. Pricey wines were strange (the Oregon pinot gris was as syrupy as they always are, and the Greek sauvignon blanc should have left the grape to New Zealand or Chile), but the bartender and his left-arm man were efficient enough to get us a bowl of $8 potato chips and a shared Caesar salad before we had to run to marvel at Wynton Marsalis et al in a performance broadcast live. Even with what seemed to be a huge meeting of Assholes Anonymous going on all around us, that whole experience was better than ducking into Blue Ribbon afterward, where the litter-covered floor looked like a tapas bar in Spain and wines by the glass were priced four times as high, and then Providence, where the eerie guy at the desk just inside, right out of “The Shining,” informed us there were no drinks to be had, and finally Kennedy’s, where the sauvignon blanc was just what you would expect in an every-day-is-March-17 kind of joint.

New York minutes/Mid-January 2009

The good: Hecho en Dumbo, where I met my consort after an excellent afternoon with a fellow language junkie over in Brooklyn Heights and where the food and prices were worth the oily after-effects (you’ll leave there smelling as if you just ate at Ugglesich’s in New Orleans). I also suspect the place might be brutal, noisewise, later in the evening, but around 7 on a Monday night it was superb. We split the best guacamole in eons — what looked like a mingy portion was actually ample with the warm chips — and then outstanding sopes topped with crab and with chorizo etc. Wines and service were also better than I would expect. WIGB? Undoubtedly, given that the prices are right and the place is right around the corner from Bob’s underheated office. 111 Front Street, Brookyn, 718 855 5288.

The also-good: Zoma, where a table right next to the arctic-breezing door was the one downside to dinner for four of us with one injera spread with mounds of well-spiced vegetables and another with lamb, chicken and sirloin. The price was certainly right — I got there first and ordered a $7 glass of sauvignon blanc to keep me company in the cold, and then we split a bottle of red and it all came out to all of $25 a person. The place looks great, and the staff is surprisingly attentive and efficient. I don’t know enough about Ethiopian cooking to be critical, but I liked most of what we ate, particularly the red lentils, which could pass for Indian. WIGB? The price is right. (Cash only, though, and reservations are respected.) 2084 FDBlvd (Eighth/CPW) at 113th Street, 212 662 0620.

The adequate: Metro Marche in the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where we headed for proximity’s sake after an opening at ICP and an encounter with NYC’s nastiest outside a Hillary event (pedestrians forced to walk in the street? no problem!) The place was the busiest I think I’d ever seen it, but the bouncer/manager was doing a better job than the cops; when three girls tried to use the same bathroom, his shoulders stepped in. Wine, service, my pizzette were all fine, but Bob’s frisee salad looked as if it had walked in from Weehawken: tired, overdressed greens mixed with soggy lardons and weary walnuts. It didn’t matter, though, because the subway entrance was mere steps away on that brutally cold night. WIGB? Inevitably. The crap going in across the street at the shrine to Pinch’s ego doesn’t look much better. 625 Eighth Avenue near 41st Street, 212 239 1010.

The unsettling: Pearl, where I was so disoriented by the emptiness at lunch that I must have set myself up for disappointment. When I got there exactly no one was at the bar and two tables were occupied in the “dining room,” but that didn’t stop the bartender from pushing around a couple of foreigners who did not understand why they had to wait for a complete party to be seated and who were told to “take any stool on the wall” when one went to the bar to sit down while the other was on the phone; the surliness even after one ordered a bottle of “Champagne” almost made me embarrassed to be a New Yorker. It’s the first time I ever thought about how one letter separates “rule” from “rude.” (Or maybe I’ve just been kicked around too much in countries where I don’t speak the language.) As for the food, I got my usual fish sandwich, and the bread was so huge I ate quite a while on one half before finding the cod in all the sauce and lettuce. I guess it was what it always is, but for the first time it struck me as almost gross. Fries and muscadet were fine, though. And the bartender/enforcer was certainly efficient with my order. WIGB? Yep. Any place can have an off day, with or without extenuating circumstances. 18 Cornelia Street.

The cheap and cheerful: Cafetasia, where we ducked in after freezing our bones and metal off on Union Square and where my crab Rangoon and Thai-eggplant-loaded green curry together cost about the same as the pound and a half of organic stew meat we had to buy at Whole Foods because the Greenmarket only had goat and pork. For the same $7.50, Bob had gyoza (lame) and udon (respectable). The place was packed, but the staff was outstanding (we got a table immediately in a room designed for communal eating). I just wish I had been two tables away with the male couple who were on their second bottle of wine at 12:30 on Saturday. WIGB? Probably. The green curry sauce was much gutsier than Spice’s, and the price was tres right. 38 East Eighth Street, 212 529 2363.

The painful: Ninth Street Espresso in the Chelsea Market, where I met a friend for our once-a-year coffee and where I can’t remember when I have felt more bilked (and she bought the $3.50 cherry scone at Amy’s afterward). The Camorra have killed for a less muddy cappuccino. For $4 at that.