Blue Hill is not the restaurant you want to take your football team or entire extended family to dinner, and not just because it is a pricey spot. It is a small and intimate space where we felt lucky to have a table (despite our reservations). For those unfamiliar with the restaurant, Blue Hill is one of those seasonal restaurants who gets their ingredients from their farm upstate. Their tasting menu (which we did not sample) changes daily and items are so specially prepared that they can run out of items on the menu. But onto the meal!
All fine meals begin with an amuse bouche.
Ours was a little selection of fresh broccoli and cauliflower. I found it a bit strange, but I suppose the purpose was to showcase fresh ingredients. In that picture you can also see the bread basket. The break was continuously refilled and was hot, crusty and delicious. I was only able to capture a blurred picture.
Melissa (my friend) and I both ordered the sweet potato tortellini to start ($14).
Served with swiss chard, pancetta, and mutsu apples, this dish was delicate and delicious. The sweetness of the sweet potato and apples was beautifully offset by the saltiness of the pancetta (I do love pork products). I also enjoyed the way the creaminess of the tortellini and sweet potato were balanced by the crisp apples.
Justin and Cody (Melissa's boyfriend) ordered the fennel soup ($10).
This dish was garnished with maine crab, tarragon, and candied lemon. I thought its flavors were not as interesting as the tortellini. It was good, but not necessarily something I'd order.
For the mains, both Melissa and Justin ordered the veal ($34).
The veal was served over a stew of carrots and parsnips with toasted spices. It was a nice comfort food dish. Yet again, the flavors weren't very complex.
Cody and I ordered what I thought was the winning dish of the night - vension ($34).
It was served over braised red cabbage, beets, chestnuts and lardo (again with the pork product). As you can see, it was also pretty rare. And it was excellent! I had never tried venison before and was worried that it might be too gamey and chewy, but the flavor was excellent and it was perfectly cooked. Definitely a dish worth ordering again.
At this point, despite the small portion sizes, I was pretty full. But Melissa and I had to have dessert, so we shared the chocolate bread pudding ($10).
Served with a chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream, this dessert tasted more like a brownie than a bread pudding. It was a delicious brownie - very classic, and almost like a molten lava cake when you reached the chocolate sauce inside. You can never go wrong with lots of chocolate and ice cream.
After our meal, we were taking our time chatting and catching up, but we could tell that the restaurant was in need of our table. So instead of ushering us out, they offered us a free round of drinks at the bar. Good service, beautifully prepared food, good customer relations, I would highly recommend Blue Hill.
Blue Hill is located at 75 Washington Street at 6th Ave
212-539-1776
No comments:
Post a Comment