This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/dining/reviews/restaurant-review-alder-in-the-east-village.html
The article has changed 3 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| A Wizard Dares to Relax | A Wizard Dares to Relax |
| (about 9 hours later) | |
| Wylie Dufresne is probably called a mad scientist more often than any other American chef, but nobody ever says what kind of mad scientist he is. | Wylie Dufresne is probably called a mad scientist more often than any other American chef, but nobody ever says what kind of mad scientist he is. |
| The obvious answer is that he’s a mad chemist, weighing out colloids and starches and sugars by the gram. That’s what has helped him win international acclaim at WD-50. And so far, that’s how people have seen the menu at Alder, his new, more casual place in the East Village where you can build a meal out of three to five smallish plates, or just check into the bar with a slightly twisted Cheddar spread and a fully twisted mai tai. | The obvious answer is that he’s a mad chemist, weighing out colloids and starches and sugars by the gram. That’s what has helped him win international acclaim at WD-50. And so far, that’s how people have seen the menu at Alder, his new, more casual place in the East Village where you can build a meal out of three to five smallish plates, or just check into the bar with a slightly twisted Cheddar spread and a fully twisted mai tai. |
| Of course, there’s also a case that Mr. Dufresne is a mad zoologist. With an enzyme known in the trade as meat glue, he creates such unnatural species as the cylindrical quail. This boneless, beakless pink column of poultry doesn’t cluck or walk. Its sole purpose is to be deep-fried in panko in Alder’s kitchen and stretched out across ripe bananas and broccoli leaves in a sweet and easygoing curry. Sliced, it looks like a cross section of an unpeeled red banana, suggesting that maybe Mr. Dufresne is a mad botanist, too. | Of course, there’s also a case that Mr. Dufresne is a mad zoologist. With an enzyme known in the trade as meat glue, he creates such unnatural species as the cylindrical quail. This boneless, beakless pink column of poultry doesn’t cluck or walk. Its sole purpose is to be deep-fried in panko in Alder’s kitchen and stretched out across ripe bananas and broccoli leaves in a sweet and easygoing curry. Sliced, it looks like a cross section of an unpeeled red banana, suggesting that maybe Mr. Dufresne is a mad botanist, too. |
| Or a mad marine biologist. Alder’s excellent fish and chips is made from spiny dogfish, which looks like a small, dimwitted shark who’s lost his dentures. As any ocean scientist knows, though, it is one of the region’s most abundant edible saltwater fish, with fine-grained and mild white flesh that fries up beautifully. As only a mad ocean scientist knows, fried dogfish is even better with powdered malt vinegar, which solves the problem of soggy fish and chips that plagues New Englanders and Britons. | Or a mad marine biologist. Alder’s excellent fish and chips is made from spiny dogfish, which looks like a small, dimwitted shark who’s lost his dentures. As any ocean scientist knows, though, it is one of the region’s most abundant edible saltwater fish, with fine-grained and mild white flesh that fries up beautifully. As only a mad ocean scientist knows, fried dogfish is even better with powdered malt vinegar, which solves the problem of soggy fish and chips that plagues New Englanders and Britons. |
| But if you ask me, these are all hobbies that Mr. Dufresne picked up while pursuing his true vocation as mad neurologist. He and his colleagues at Alder (Jon Bignelli is the executive chef, leading an intensely collaborative kitchen with heavy input from Mr. Dufresne) get into your brain and rewire its pathways until you find yourself looking at one thing and tasting something else. They are like Oliver Sacks in reverse. | But if you ask me, these are all hobbies that Mr. Dufresne picked up while pursuing his true vocation as mad neurologist. He and his colleagues at Alder (Jon Bignelli is the executive chef, leading an intensely collaborative kitchen with heavy input from Mr. Dufresne) get into your brain and rewire its pathways until you find yourself looking at one thing and tasting something else. They are like Oliver Sacks in reverse. |
| Some of the madness and a fair amount of the neurology can be traced back to Mr. Dufresne’s early encounter with Ferran Adrià’s mock olives and the like at El Bulli, in Spain. People tended to focus on the chemicals and laboratory equipment in Mr. Adrià’s kitchen, a shame because he mainly used those things so that his cooking could make us see the world differently. | Some of the madness and a fair amount of the neurology can be traced back to Mr. Dufresne’s early encounter with Ferran Adrià’s mock olives and the like at El Bulli, in Spain. People tended to focus on the chemicals and laboratory equipment in Mr. Adrià’s kitchen, a shame because he mainly used those things so that his cooking could make us see the world differently. |
| At Alder, you will probably not mistake your wife for a hat, but you may mistake your rye pasta for a sandwich. This is a nice, normal plate of fettuccine, except that it tastes exactly like a Katz’s pastrami on rye with mustard. They can’t be right, these signals your neurons are firing off. But they are, and the noodle sandwich is a lot of fun to eat, right down to the shaved pastrami jerky, chopped pickled green tomatoes and mustard sauce. | |
| You won’t mistake the clam chowder in a red enamel camping mug for anything but clam chowder. Very little about the soup of smoked bacon, cream and shellfish would be out of place in Hyannis or Kennebunkport, although this version is more seductively smooth than usual. The oyster crackers, though, may cause some cognitive dissonance. After the first crunch, they dissolve, leaving nothing but a ghostly flicker of oyster flavor on your tongue. | You won’t mistake the clam chowder in a red enamel camping mug for anything but clam chowder. Very little about the soup of smoked bacon, cream and shellfish would be out of place in Hyannis or Kennebunkport, although this version is more seductively smooth than usual. The oyster crackers, though, may cause some cognitive dissonance. After the first crunch, they dissolve, leaving nothing but a ghostly flicker of oyster flavor on your tongue. |
| Sometimes all the mad neurologists at Alder need to do is hit you with an ingredient you weren’t expecting. The ricotta next to beets pickled in rice vinegar isn’t ricotta at all but crumbled coconut milk gel. The flavor is wonderfully refreshing, especially when you eat it with the green shards that taste of tender, minty Thai basil. | Sometimes all the mad neurologists at Alder need to do is hit you with an ingredient you weren’t expecting. The ricotta next to beets pickled in rice vinegar isn’t ricotta at all but crumbled coconut milk gel. The flavor is wonderfully refreshing, especially when you eat it with the green shards that taste of tender, minty Thai basil. |
| Did that bite of foie gras terrine, topped with a shiso leaf and a semicircle of yuzu-infused watermelon, really sit on a Ritz? Yes. Yes it did, and it was delightful beyond all reason. Good cracker. Great snack. | Did that bite of foie gras terrine, topped with a shiso leaf and a semicircle of yuzu-infused watermelon, really sit on a Ritz? Yes. Yes it did, and it was delightful beyond all reason. Good cracker. Great snack. |
| True, there are moments when you wonder if your synapses are experiencing side effects. Slabs of raw yellowtail were overwhelmed by Parmesan-dressed leaves of romaine; the dish, called Caesar salad nigiri, seemed to call for an oilier, more forceful fish, like the mackerel that is sometimes on the menu. I was fascinated by the banana curry, but wished the quail had been juicier and the breading crisper. Fresh cherries in a disassembled cheesecake tasted like a manhattan, which was the intended effect, but the waxy lumps of cake brought to mind only cheese-scented candles. | True, there are moments when you wonder if your synapses are experiencing side effects. Slabs of raw yellowtail were overwhelmed by Parmesan-dressed leaves of romaine; the dish, called Caesar salad nigiri, seemed to call for an oilier, more forceful fish, like the mackerel that is sometimes on the menu. I was fascinated by the banana curry, but wished the quail had been juicier and the breading crisper. Fresh cherries in a disassembled cheesecake tasted like a manhattan, which was the intended effect, but the waxy lumps of cake brought to mind only cheese-scented candles. |
| I’ve had at least one dish I could not unravel each time I’ve eaten at WD-50, but the next thing I tasted would bring redemptive manipulations of flavor, texture, temperature and shape. At Alder, redemption often takes a simpler form. After the nigiri, you can lean back and smile as you eat airy scrambled eggs with smoked trout and skinny twigs of grilled asparagus. You can have octopus that’s just chewy enough with an unexpectedly charming pesto of watercress and cashews. | I’ve had at least one dish I could not unravel each time I’ve eaten at WD-50, but the next thing I tasted would bring redemptive manipulations of flavor, texture, temperature and shape. At Alder, redemption often takes a simpler form. After the nigiri, you can lean back and smile as you eat airy scrambled eggs with smoked trout and skinny twigs of grilled asparagus. You can have octopus that’s just chewy enough with an unexpectedly charming pesto of watercress and cashews. |
| Mr. Dufresne hasn’t put this many relaxed and accessible dishes on a menu since he left 71 Clinton Fresh Food in 2002. The dining room isn’t intimidating, either. It even dabbles in a bit of downtown farm-to-table cliché, with slats of weathered wood salvaged from an old fence. Not everything is rustic, though: note the black rubber tops on the tables and the elastic bands stretched around the water carafes like dog collars. Green is for filtered, carbonated tap; white means straight from the faucet. | Mr. Dufresne hasn’t put this many relaxed and accessible dishes on a menu since he left 71 Clinton Fresh Food in 2002. The dining room isn’t intimidating, either. It even dabbles in a bit of downtown farm-to-table cliché, with slats of weathered wood salvaged from an old fence. Not everything is rustic, though: note the black rubber tops on the tables and the elastic bands stretched around the water carafes like dog collars. Green is for filtered, carbonated tap; white means straight from the faucet. |
| The angle of those slats looks as if they would blunt noise. This is an illusion. The conversational racket is ferocious when Alder is full, which it almost always is these days. If you are losing both hearing and eyesight, the restaurant will be a double ordeal, because the type on the menu is pill-bottle tiny. | The angle of those slats looks as if they would blunt noise. This is an illusion. The conversational racket is ferocious when Alder is full, which it almost always is these days. If you are losing both hearing and eyesight, the restaurant will be a double ordeal, because the type on the menu is pill-bottle tiny. |
| Buy reading glasses if you need to, because Alder, even with a few misfires, is an exciting restaurant. Now that WD-50 serves only tasting menus, it belongs as much to the global foodie circuit as it does to the Lower East Side. Alder feels the way WD-50 used to. Some customers are there to write blog posts on the food, and some are just there to talk or flirt or drink one mai tai too many or look around and once in a while say, “Wow, that was cool.” | Buy reading glasses if you need to, because Alder, even with a few misfires, is an exciting restaurant. Now that WD-50 serves only tasting menus, it belongs as much to the global foodie circuit as it does to the Lower East Side. Alder feels the way WD-50 used to. Some customers are there to write blog posts on the food, and some are just there to talk or flirt or drink one mai tai too many or look around and once in a while say, “Wow, that was cool.” |
| With such ordinary tactics as small plates and reasonable prices, Alder has done something out of the ordinary, planting avant-garde cooking in what’s left of downtown alternative culture. It belongs to anybody who wants to see things differently. | With such ordinary tactics as small plates and reasonable prices, Alder has done something out of the ordinary, planting avant-garde cooking in what’s left of downtown alternative culture. It belongs to anybody who wants to see things differently. |
Alder | Alder |
| ★★ | ★★ |
| 157 Second Avenue (East 10th Street), East Village; | 157 Second Avenue (East 10th Street), East Village; |
| (212) 539-1900, aldernyc.com | (212) 539-1900, aldernyc.com |
| ATMOSPHERE Casual, with smart, low-key design and a bar up front designed for eating. | ATMOSPHERE Casual, with smart, low-key design and a bar up front designed for eating. |
| SERVICE Friendly and well versed in the menu’s trickier passages. | SERVICE Friendly and well versed in the menu’s trickier passages. |
| SOUND LEVEL What? | SOUND LEVEL What? |
| RECOMMENDED Pub cheese; pigs in a blanket; pickled beets; fried cauliflower; foie gras terrine; fish and chips; rye pasta; root beer sundae; snowballs. | RECOMMENDED Pub cheese; pigs in a blanket; pickled beets; fried cauliflower; foie gras terrine; fish and chips; rye pasta; root beer sundae; snowballs. |
| DRINKS AND WINE Most bottles are under $60 on a wine list that avoids the obvious without being willfully obscure. Cocktails can be more challenging. | DRINKS AND WINE Most bottles are under $60 on a wine list that avoids the obvious without being willfully obscure. Cocktails can be more challenging. |
| PRICES $9 to $24. | PRICES $9 to $24. |
| OPEN Daily for dinner. | OPEN Daily for dinner. |
| RESERVATIONS Accepted through Web site. | RESERVATIONS Accepted through Web site. |
| WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Dining room and accessible restroom are on street level. | WHEELCHAIR ACCESS Dining room and accessible restroom are on street level. |