Is that Alder is?

“Is that Alder is?” A review of Alder.

By, Wolf

So, I took Yutzi’s son, Robbie, out for his 50th birthday.  Why it was up to me instead of Yutzi is another story for another time…though I can tell you Aqueduct was involved.

Anyway, much to my dismay, the kid cancelled our reservation at Benihana.  Which is too bad, because I had a slew of new material involving Dr. Wang, the fastest circumcision doctor in the Orient.  Instead, the ingrate re-booked us at some “gastropub” named Alder. First off, what’s a “gastropub?”  That sounds like something I need a helmet for.

Actually, what I needed was to pack a lunch.  You know why this place is called Alder?  Because you’ll look at your plate and ask, “is that all-der is?” I’ve had more generous portions at Prison Camp #4 in North Korea.

Let me finger paint you a picture- we started by ordering the $24 halibut to share, “One of the larger dishes,” our sweet little waitress assured us.   What arrived was a tiny portion of halibut, about the size of two of Robbie’s ladylike fingers, served *in* one of their larger dishes.  Maybe I misheard?  Robbie thought it was “cute.”  Kid, if cute fed the world, we’d all be eating panda cubs and babies’ butts.

Next up was the rye pasta. “It tastes just like pastrami on rye but it’s pasta! It’s fun,” exclaimed our waitress, who I was beginning to think might be stupid. If I wanted pastrami on rye, I’d go to that place in the Lower East Side where the old lady rubbed one out in that movie. But Robbie insisted, and whatever the birthday boy wants, the birthday boy gets- so I farted. It’s the gift that keeps on giving!  The gas passed just as the busboy dropped off what was by far the largest dish on the menu, a fistful of pasta resting on three pieces of shaved pastrami. We slurped and fought over the third piece of meat like animals with forks.  And guess what? It tasted just like pastrami on rye. Except it was smaller and more expensive.  I’m waiting for the restaurant that serves you an empty plate for 50 semolians.  Mark my word, the day is coming!

I contemplated turning the chef in to the The House Committee on Un-American Activities for devising a menu of American food with Communist ingredients, such as ‘pigs in a blanket’ made with Chinese sausage.  Good thing for him the “Bay of Pigs in a Blanket” were delicious, unlike the most insipid dish of the evening: pickled beets. Even the waitress’s enthusiasm waned when we ordered it. There’s nothing much to say about this dish… other than charging $14 for half a beet, a dash of ricotta, and some freeze dried green thing takes balls.   Remember that guy that just free-fell twenty thousand feet out of an airplane recently?  Those sized balls.

We ended our meal with a dessert, the peanut butter cake with black grape sorbet. I can feel my dick going limp just describing it.  The cake was a gussied up version of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup surrounded by a satanic circle of grapes and marble-sized scoop of ice-scream. But what did I care? Robbie was happy. He blew out his birthday candle and I farted- hey, it’s a gastropub.

Address:

157 Second Avenue
Between 9th and 10th Streets
New York, NY 10003

212-539-1900

Aska Silly Question

A review of ASKA

You know, for someone as light in the loafers as my son Robbie, he sure seems to have an iron constitution.  I know this, because it was his fault that I ended up at Aska, the latest “sensation” / stunt-food emporium in the Brooklyn restaurant scene.  Locally sourced, hand-picked, sustainable, forward thinking, yet nostalgic, $65 a person, 7-course Scandinavian, free-range grass-fed neo-Nazi albino chicken, swamp weeds, and fjord discharge served on pottery made by Pine Tree Mary.

We were seated at a table surrounded by bearded men and their equally hirsute women. A waiter appeared and dropped an “amused bush” on our table: dried pig-blood cracker with sea urchin foam.  That sounds like something Thor would scrape off his knee.  Safe to say, this amused Robbie’s bush more than it did any part of me.   In one movement, he golf-clapped his hands and shoved the whole rusty looking thing into his mouth, like the world’s girliest Viking.  Inside, I was already sharpening my battle axe.

“Are we really paying to eat this?” I asked as he chewed. Robbie’s smile quickly faded as he actually tasted the cracker.

“Yes,” said Robbie, spitting the cracker into his napkin, “this is one piece of meat I refuse to swallow.” He grabbed for his wine and gargled. “That was horrible.”  Now, I was amused.

Hungry, we waited for the next course. A sommelier walked over and presented us with a cabbage and beet juice cocktail to pair with our next dish, pig trotter. Cabbage juice? Pig trotter?  I’m pretty sure that was the last Exacta I hit at Aqueduct.   But I’ve learned something valuable: if you want to clear out a room, just let some cabbage and beet juice work its brown magic on ol’ Yutzi’s insides.  Works faster than a fourth scotch.

Anyway, I think you’re sensing the trend here.  Four more dishes followed with unidentified lumps of meat and vegetables.  Some of it was actually tasty, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I ate walrus and some lichen at one point.

But hey, if surviving all 7 courses at Aska gets me into Valhalla with those big blonde broads in the breast plates, it will have all been worth it.

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