review: so maybe it wasn't that hard at all... (no 9 park)

i spent the majority of yesterday running errands and having fun. suffice it to say that i have finally settled into the "vacation" part of this whole graduation shebang, although this summer is really a vacation since it won't be work-24-hours-a-day. we'll see how this studio+4 classes+teaching a class works out in the fall - so if i don't update that frequently, forgive me. theoretically i'll be forced to, since i'm out of the wonderful world of communal living (and cooking). and factor in the fact that star market is about 3 minutes away...

anyway, last night jessica, vicky, peter and i hit up no 9 park. i attempted to give the experience a little distance by writing about it today, so i won't be too overly gushy. the gist of this whole thing, though, is that there's definitely a reason for why this is one of the restaurants that always comes up on "top [fill in the blank]" lists.

our reservation was for 8pm, though we left rather early in order to avoid being late. i am unsure of the etiquette regarding punctuality and dinner reservations - in the US they won't hold your reservation forever, but when we were in Lyon several years ago, they held a table for us for almost two hours (we got lost...). anyway, the issue here is more should you be fashionably late, on time, or slightly early? in this case it was fine to be early, because we just sat at the bar until our table was ready (about a half hour). no 9 park is probably the first restaurant i've been to where there's a dedicated bar area (well, ok, there was one at aujourd'hui, too, but the restaurant wasn't busy so it was deserted), as a kind of anteroom to the dining room. usually it's just (literally) a bar. possibly more surprising than anything else, this place was really busy, which is remarkable considering that it was monday night. it was definitely the business crowd, though - more suits than i'd seen in a restaurant in a long time.

the restaurant itself has a very business-appropriate decor - lighting that's both flattering enough for a romantic tryst, but bright enough for business dinners, gray-green walls with dark wood accents everywhere, beautiful flower arrangements. the attention to detail here is great - the kitchen has a wooden sliding door that keeps the back hallway dim, adding to that staid, respectable-establishment, discreet type atmosphere. anyway, kudos to the restaurant for managing a businessy-yet-hip atmosphere - not an easy balance.

while seated at the bar, we indulged in a few cocktails (except for vicky, who is apparently violently allergic to alcohol) - peter had the no 10 (a grapefruit cocktail), i had the pear martini, and jessica had pastis (la muse verte...absinthe anyone?). i don't usually go for fake martinis - which to me is anything besides a classic martini - because, well, they're fake, but this one was far and above the best fake martini i've ever had. it was very much about the pear, with a good balance with the alcohol (grey goose vodka). since i'm slightly allergic to fresh pears, this was also a nice way to still have them, in a very roundabout, tangential way. i have to say that i'm not a huge fan of pastis, or licorice/aniseed in general, though, after having tasted jessica's pastis.

i had assumed that we'd be taking our cocktails ourselves to our tables, but actually, they take them to your table for you, which is quite nice. we were seated near the kitchen (a reflection on our college-ness? but no problem - i love being near the kitchen because you can watch what's going on). jessica later told me she thought the place was cramped, but i thought it was great. then again, i also think the idea of communal tables a la durgin park is fantastic. i see communal tables as being like communal tables at chinese restaurants, when they cram you together to use up empty space and make more money, but without the hostile glares from your tablemates.

we spent a while dithering over what to order. the menu was basically a tasting menu and a regular menu, which was a bit unclear for the caliber of restaurant that we were at - it seemed to emphasize the tasting menu over anything else you might want to order. however, like a fantastic restaurant, the kitchen was willing to (a) make something else from scratch for jessica, since she is vegetarian at school, and (b) serve me an appetizer off the tasting menu. jessica and i had first courses - she had the prune-stuffed gnocchi and i had the frogs legs (cuisses de grenouilles, which is not really "frogs' legs" but translates directly to "frogs' thighs"). i'd had frogs' legs once before, in a soup at pho pasteur, where they were chicken-y and slightly fishy, and rather tough. here, they were great - they came with fava beans, some ultracrispy bacon, a fantastic truffle foam (what is up with foam??? foam, fava beans, and rhubarb are everywhere), and this green, thickish sauce, which i'm not sure what it was and have forgotten since reading the menu. the prune gnocchi were alright, but not really as fantastic as i was hoping for. i think i also had memories of those rice flour balls filled with peanuts or red bean paste that i always had as a kid, so to me they were prune-filled dumplings more than anything else. i like prunes, but not really as an appetizer. quite possibly the foie gras that they left out to make the whole thing vegetarian would have offered that savory counterpoint that they needed.

and finally, main courses! i tried to be adventurous and really, i was partly forced to be, as there was the familiar - chicken, beef, lamb, rabbit - and the less familiar (essentially seafood, which i generally am not a huge fan of). as i kept looking at the menu, i found that i couldn't resist the bass (specifically, "seared black bass"). it came with a bunch of vegetables - mushrooms, fava beans, peas, and baby asparagus. i don't know about you, but i love mushrooms, and morels are my favorite kind of mushrooms. so you see, the bass was calling out to me. peter had the cod, jessica had an assiette of vegetable dishes they prepared for her, and vicky had the squab brochette.

that bass is the best bass i've ever had in my life. i'm not quite sure what was in the sauce, but it was probably just pan juices - fantastic, flavorful ones. the bass was perfectly cooked, with this wonderfully crispy skin, and vegetables underneath. have i mentioned that i love mushrooms? i was so pleasantly surprised, and actually didn't manage to finish the entire thing - it seemed that there was just slightly more than the usual portion of fish that they serve at these expensive restaurants, which is just a reflection of the type (multiple-course) of dining they're expecting you to do.

and finally, dessert. no meal is complete without dessert (ok, no dinner is complete without dessert). period. as we've gone to more restaurants, jessica and i have come to agree that it's always the most imaginative part of the menu, and the part of the menu that can be the most imaginative, just based on the way that people eat, and their comfort levels. no 9 park did not disappoint. we had seen the beautiful wooden cheese cart go to the table in front of ours, and it was tempting, but we felt we couldn't do both cheese and dessert - both stomachs and wallets said no. peter had the bananas foster (banana pop, peanut nougatine, rum sorbet, beignet); i had the black pepper cheesecake (pineapple, lime sorbet); jessica had the rhubarb rose vacherin (with "consomme"); and vicky had the tarte au chocolat (kumquats and persimmons, i think).

desserts are a hit here - i would come here just for dessert. the chocolate tart (not really a tart - more of a mousse on top of a cake) is one of the few chocolate desserts i've ever liked at a restaurant, the only other one i can remember right now being the milk chocolate panna cotta i had at pigalle. chocolate desserts, in general, never have the intensity that i want them to have - they're always a bit too weak, fruity, flowery, or something that is just not chocolate. this is the criticism i have for scharffenberger chocolate, which i've tried several times and dislike every time. i favor callebaut in cooking, and would try valrhona if it weren't so darned expensive! i do use valrhona cocoa though - it's far and away better than everything else. i asked the waiter what kind of chocolate it was, and it was a complete surprise - el rey. i had tasted el rey a while back when i did that chocolate tasting for the tech, and it didn't rate high. in fact, it may have been the most maligned chocolate i tasted. i'll have to go back to whole foods and get some to taste again.

i didn't taste peter's dessert, but rhubarb-rose is one of those flavor combinations that should be natural, but that you don't realize is so good until you try it. wow. and as for mine, it was really quite good. none of these were perfect 10s, but they were definitely 8s and 9s. the cheesecake was absolutely fantastic - creamy, dense but not too dense...i did want the crust to be a little less soggy, so maybe less sauce on the bottom of the plate would have been good. the black pepper flavor was great, but overpowering after a while - and i have no idea what kind of black peppercorns they use at no 9 park, but they're better than any other peppercorns i've ever had before. the combination of room-temperature cheesecake and cool lime sorbet was absolutely out-of-this-world, though. and the whole thing had tiny chunks of pineapple on the bottom and paper-thin slices of pineapple covering the plate. i don't know about the presentation, really, but that's also the best pineapple i've ever had in my life. we wondered all the while how they got the pineapple so thin - if it was cut by hand, or with a mandoline, or maybe frozen and cut...we have no idea. in general, the cheesecake was good, but that perfect balance wasn't quite there.

no 9 park is definitely not quite the place where one wants to linger. i don't mean this in a bad way; it's simply the clientele (businessmen) that makes it so. as it happened, we spent about 3 1/2 hours there, and it's the sort of place where i think i could linger for a while talking, but not in the same way that one can linger in a french bistro all night. all in all, though, it's fantastic and does everything right. the service is impeccable - friendly, but blending into the background, like the decor of the restaurant itself - you could ask them anything and they'd do it for you.

would i come back? yes, definitely. but i would come back only in certain contexts - because i have to say, maybe i'm spoiled but i love the three-tiered tray they bring you at aujourd'hui and l'espalier full of tiny sweet tidbits, as a way to finish off your meal - and that's part of what encourages you to linger for a long while after you actually finish eating. i think the high ceilings of aujourd'hui make it a bit too formal for linger-style eating, but that's just a personal preference. the lighting there is perfect, as it is at no 9 park, whose decor i like slightly more, probably because it's more minimalist. i think i achieved better balance at no 9 park than at aujourd'hui, but that was probably my choice of courses rather than the restaurants themselves. i still think craigie street bistrot is better than both aujourd'hui and no 9 park, just because of that purity of ingredients and preparation, but no 9 park is pretty damn good. no 9 park is a funny contrast with upstairs on the square - one is this staid, subtly exciting cuisine for the suits and the sophisticated hip, while the other is this wildly eclectic, eccentric place. it's like the new yorker and her boho-chic sister. both are great, but in very different ways.