Perilla, plum of the west village

NYC on a Tuesday. My friend and I found ourselves walking down Seventh Avenue. with the intention of eating a quick dinner. I realize we may actually have time and be able to walk in to Perilla. After a little bit of confusion wandering between a bunch of crisscrossing West Village Streets, we hit Jones, take a left, and there's the restaurant with big windows and beautiful signage. It looks crowded. The bar is full, there's a four top up front with no one on it, and to my eyes there are no other tables free. I ask the floor manager, John, if he'll take a walk in. The hostess walks us to the back, and we're seated right next to the entrance to the kitchen. I'm not picking up the check on this one, so I'm the defacto female, and besides, I want to check out the action, so I take the seat with my back to the wall. This is just what I wanted--if the restaurant had been quiet, I would have asked for the worst seat in the house. It used to be that being seated by the kitchen was an insult, an annoyance, a consequence of plebean status, not being "in" in the restaurant world, or maybe just because one didn't slip the maitre'd or the captain some "big bill" relative to the economics of the time. Anyway, I was happy. I got to see the silverware bin, two server's sodas, the order computer, some ramikens, a relievedly clean and uncluttered space, and the comings and goings of servers and the occasional chef, for most of the night. The acoustics are such that the sound doesn't really bounce out of the kitchen; in fact I really heard no kitchen sounds at all.

Menus are dropped. Legible, short, no tasting menu. Service is quick--they drop bread and a little round ramiken of olive oil. The bread is fresh enough, but I'm not crazy about the olive oil. It reminds me of grapeseed oil, and I'm not too hip to that. Then the waiter asks us if we want tap water, to give us the option to upsell ourselves to bottled. Tap is fine. The water glasses arrive, quickly, but they are both slightly different sizes! Maybe I'm getting OCD in my old age but to me this is an odd quirk for a restaurant that's been open six months or so. They've broken that many glasses? They don't buy the same exact kind when they reorder? Anyway, I got over that, and noted that while the staff doesn't deliver the glasses while holding them by the bottom third, at least it was below the top quarter.

We both decide to get beers and move on to final menu selections. The first things that catch my eye are the pork belly and the game bird, so I just go with, well, the first things on the menu, yes, but stuff that appeals to me. My friend gets an endive salad and the hangar steak. We talk about sharing the food amongst ourselves, like, "I want to try that," which develops into a misunderstanding. My friend orders for us, which I barely notice. The waiter asks if we're sharing, and that implies share plates. I hate share plates and split orders, as a server, as a customer, as a line cook, as a general principle. I feel the hint of an odd intimation, and then I feel a little emasculated, so I clarify by telling the server, "I'm not comfortable asking for sharing situations. I'm getting the pork belly, my friend is getting the salad, I'm getting the game bird, and my friend is getting the hangar steak." Okay, he goes away.

Now the game begins. I get to watch my server interact with the tables to my right and left. I watch the floor manager make a regular tour front to back several times. I note the decor, the simple white painted tin ceiling, the tasteful yellow paint on the walls. I think it was the correct choice to go with no table cloths. In this nouvelle American cuisine world, it appears to be as "in" as the pork belly on the menu to have bare tables. (Attention old school diners, this is no excuse to tip fifteen percent, this is a twenty percent (okay, before tax if you insist) kind of place.) I suppose it makes flipping the table a lot easier, and considering how close together the two tops are along the wall where we sat, it'd be difficult to do a full reset with linens. Not that I felt the tables were too close, mind you. Indeed I was afraid of being a little cramped or hemmed in but I felt pretty comfortable. And, as I said, I got to eavesdrop on our server's technique. Allow me to wrap up on the general decor by commenting on the server uniform. Blue jeans, tucked in black shirt rolled up with 1/3rd of the arm exposed, belts, and white aprons. Casual uniform, okay, but there were some deviations. One guy had his wallet in his back pocket and his pants were on the baggy side--another off note along the lines of the water glasses but not such an egregious offense. They get away with it because it's "casual" fine dining, but still, I'd encourage a little more belt tightening, if you will, among the staff when it comes to neatness. Then again, a good number of the customers were wearing t-shirts, and I saw no ties within my field of vision. Who besides me cares?

Next I listen to the curly haired, skinny server deliver suggestions to the couple at the table to our right. I hear some superlatives, none of which I can remember verbatim but I'll give you the gist. Okay, "great" or "fantastic," "really nice" or "wonderful" are not ways to describe food. Try "savory," "meaty," something "with a hint of" something, "rich but not overbearing," anything but superlatives or, god forbid, "I like it." (Yes, he recommended a menu choice because he liked it.) Who cares what you like? In order to find out what that means, I'm going to have to engage you in conversation about what your food preferences are, and frankly I neither have the time nor do I care. He ends up recommending the game bird to the lady, successfully, but he blows it with the hangar steak. When asked to describe it, he calls it, "gamey." Gamey? The game bird is gamey. The hangar steak, I'd go for something like, "a very flavorful cut of meat, much more so than, say, filet, or even strip. The chef prepares this cut so that it's very tender." Anyway, the dude orders the fish, so whatever.

I did get a kick out of seeing the beef carpacchio come to their table. Really beautiful plating. I wasn't jealous; our food was great and I can order it next time, but it was a very attractive looking dish with one "roll" placed vertically against another resting horizontally on the plate.

Now, on to our food. My friend's salad featured some nice endive that was miraculously not too bitter. I was shocked at how mildly bitter the endive was, so I can only assume some careful produce selection is going on behind the scenes. The rather voluminous salad featured a mildly sweet vinaigrette. Surrounding the whole affair were several pieces of well done bacon, fine julianned and then halved. A nice casual circle around the salad, an inviting visual pop. A nice mix of flavors. The micro greens weren't totally useless or ugly, either, so kudos to Perilla's purveyors. My pork belly was very nice; the outer skin was crisped very well, with a mildly pungent, grilled flavor. It didn't slice completely through all that easily, but this is a difficult issue. (I don't know enough about pork belly to discuss the viscosity of each layer of fat and muscle and how to assure either a uniform temperature or an easy slice of the knife.) My friend was crazy about the pork belly, ate some, wanted more...

The main courses arrived, along with the two sides we ordered. I got the risotto and my friend got the brussel sprouts, which were placed side by side at twelve o'clock to each of our plates. My game bird had the aforementioned mildly sweet light brown roux. My friend's hangar steak was centered on the plate, stacked in small squarish pieces over a bed of creamed spinach, with a sweetish demi surrounding it. Rare as ordered, a slight touch on the mid rare side if you're an ardent flesh eater, but I am turned off by any truly undercooked meat so for me, perfecto. My curiosity was piqued by the spinach, so much so that I forgot to pay attention the spaetzel on my own plate until nearly the end of the entree course. Here's where, I think, Harold played with home cooking in a very straightforward way. This was not creamed spinach reconceptualized and formatted into flavor cubes, or emulsions: it was good ol' creamed spinach that should remind you of a much better version of the box of crap from the freezer section of the supermarket that my mother never served me with anything she made (at least as far as I remember). But I liked the presentation, with the spinach peeking out, and once I tried it I really liked it. All in all the hangar steak dish worked perfectly. The feature itself, the steak, had a pronounced depth of flavor, it was tender, and it didn't require cutting into smaller pieces (although one certainly might if they were so inclined; after all, mastication is of paramount importance for good digestion). I wish I could recall what sensations played on my palate as I ate the steak.

I enjoyed the game bird. My sense of it is that it was cooked sous vide and then the crisped skin was added in final plating; I'm no CIA man, mind you, but it was a fairly tender and juicy bird with a pronouncedly crisp skin, so I can't imagine the effect was achieved by "flashing" it or by salamander. My only criticism is that the crisp skin tasted almost exactly like the crisp of the pork belly. Simple seasoning is a great overall strategy but tactically this was a failure in my tastebuds' estimations. I didn't enjoy tasting the same basic flavor in the crisp of each of my courses. The bird itself was juicy, though, and a good portion. It was savory, and I could enjoy a little sweetness when I dipped it in the roux. I never got around to enjoying the spatzel. It was sort of scattered on the left side of the plate, and I missed it until I realized I hadn't eaten it. It just looked like a not-perfectly-realized garnish rather than a good accompaniment. Which, it turned out, it was--I liked the flavor of the spatzel, though it was a tad dry by the time I got to it.

We both loved the risotto, it had a unique quality to it. It was presented in an au gratin dish with what appeared to be a slighly bruleed top. Again, my memory of my palate's reaction, flavor component wise, is failing me, but I do remember yet another dish with a good depth of flavor. As the fork came away from the plate, thin little strands of cheese clung to the uneaten risotto, stretching a bit before breaking. It was a nice touch that visually accented the rich taste and moistness.

I didn't order the brussel sprouts. I don't like brussel sprouts. I dislike the texture of that vegetable. The two kinds of nuts and the mildly salty sauce imparted a sour sensation. My friend liked it, though. We were both filled up enough by the portions in general, so he took a healthy serving of brussel sprouts home with him. I meant to try it later to discern what I liked and disliked about it... but again, that's what separates me from the professional. Where's my follow through, my tenacity? I guess I'm just too ambivilant about brussel sprouts or I just plain forgot.

The server showed us the kitchen. The cook's stations wrap around the room, then an electric dishwasher. The girl with big glasses on the dishwasher looked like an extern or stage, but who knows?

I don't want to end what is basically a very positive recounting of a fine meal with a negative, but I have one more note for the servers. I understand you want to keep the meal at a good pace. But when you see that I'm done, even completely done, try counting to three before you whisk away my plate. Just give me a moment to breathe before the plate disappears, a second or two to reflect on my dish with an empty plate in front of me. (Also, a "may I take that for you?" wouldn't kill you in certain situations, even though the silence was pretty golden.) After all, we were the last seating of the night, so no excuse can be made in the realm of turning our table over for more diners. At least the service was quick and attentive, enthusiastic and accomodating. We liked the food.