RESTAURANT
New York designer eating
Sion Simon
My wife and I had an excellent view of this engaging folly because we were seated next to one another on a strange banquette for two so that we faced the pool rather than each other. Conversation was there- fore the surreptitious, sideways affair it must once have been for spies on benches in St James's Park. Lighting is low, linen heavily starched and the clientele — of both sexes — sober-suited, white-shirted and serious. The three groups of birthday revellers we spotted being solemnly pre- sented with an enormous ball of celebrato- ry white candy floss were hushed and rever- ential even in the face of this surreal act.
Would that the food in such a calm and sophisticated setting were cooked by other than an imbecile. Diver scallop dumplings ($18.50) 'in a spicy ginger soy glace' were served with a bizarre pile of raw ginger and raw garlic soused in soy sauce. It is not for nothing that these vegetables are usually at least lightly cooked. The dumplings them- selves were the flabby, grey, taste-free efforts of a child for whom the act of creat- ing dumplings is clever in itself regardless of how they might feel inside someone's mouth. There was no hint of the explosion of heat and tang which occurs when one punctures the neatly pinched output of even basic London chain restaurants like the New Culture Revolution.
Crisp soft-shell crab tempura ($38.50) was unseasoned and unsauced, the batter being horribly granular as well as inappro- priately crispy. The real thing is to be found at Royal China on Baker Street or Queensway, where it is many times better at a fraction of the price. My wife com- pared her sautéed veal steak ($38) to 'a thick slice of bleached beef. It was indeed as if, along with its blood, all the flavour had been cleverly removed from the young animal's flesh by some hitherto secret culi- nary procedure. Unseasoned and over- cooked, it was accompanied by a morel and potato hash the complete absence from which of morels made her dangerously angry. The only decent dish we had was a crab cocktail starter ($21), which she described as 'perfect crab: big chunks of succulent white crab flakes held together with virtual- ly nothing'. This illustrates three things. First, it is remarkable that meat so sweet should be found within an overgrown sea- insect which cannot even walk straight. Sec- ond, it is a blessing that it is so cheap crab is a bargain the world over. Third, even this kitchen was able to put boiled, cooled crustacean on a plate without spoil- ing it.
Warm mango strudel ($11) wasn't a strudel; rhubarb and strawberry tart ($11) was accompanied by an orange sauce so tart as to be positively corrosive. The 1995 chablis (Grand Cru Les Clos, Domaine Moreau) was the cheapest white burgundy at $75, but so good as almost to justify the lunatic mark-up, as was the half-bottle of sauternes we shared with pudding. Not that it was easy to get access to either. On a busy Friday night, the room was frequently empty of all waiting staff for what seemed like hours on end, which is a bizarre state of affairs in a 'top' restaurant. Given that they cannot cook, one would think the least they could do is pour the wine.
They can't cook at Asia de Cuba either, And here's one I killed earlier.' but food is hardly the point at this new Madison Avenue hangout for New York's cool, young, rich trash. We had been bound for Balthazar for a taste of the `yoof scene, but my blue-blooded New York hipster(ish) friend Nat informed us that it is a seriously passé place, having long since been colonised by the 'bridge and tunnel crowd'. Instead, she recommended an 'Ian Schrager evening', beginning in the bar of the Royalton (still trendy after all these years, no name on the door, doormen dressed like secret agents) and featuring Asia de Cuba, an Asian-Cuban restaurant in Morgan's Hotel, as the main event.
Both interiors were designed by Philippe Starck, but while the Royalton, with a theme based on the inside of an ocean liner, is a genuinely beautiful space, Asia de Cuba is not. My old friend Nat was the per- fect guide to the cuisine, having chalked up two Cuban husbands and several unhappy years in Havana and not yet turned 30. The food hardly bears mentioning: absurd, pre- tentious, cold, lazy. 'Cuban coffee and vanilla lacquered duck chow-chow with stir- fried tropical fruit chutney' ($24) was even more ridiculous on the plate than it is on the page. 'Sugarcane skewered shrimp "chao thorn" with tamarind coconut dip- ping sauce' ($16.50) was hopeless. And so it went on. As my jaundiced friend said of the terrible cocktails, 'Any time they make them better in Cuba, you're in trouble.'
If not for the food, one goes to the Asia de Cubas of the world partly to see the room. In this case it was galleried, rectan- gular, minimalist white, except for the pre- posterous 45-foot hologram of a waterfall on one wall, and featured a high, marble table running down the middle where 40 or so hep-cats including myself, my wife and my eccentric Cubaphiliac friend perched communally on rickety stools.
One's real purpose is to gawp at the peo- ple, and in this respect Asia de Cuba lived up to expectation. If the food was silly, the people were scum. Few are the restaurants of my experience in which the customers openly snort cocaine from their tabletops, but this was one. Even the wannabe-louche young chef seated next to me with his Haitian poet and author (filing clerk) friend was shocked: 'It's disgraceful they don't even bother to go to the bathroom. These people have no class,' he said. I forewent the opportunity to suggest that there are other definitions of what is classy than a fastidious insistence that cocaine should be nasally ingested only from the top of a toilet cistern. It seems they weren't joking about the scandal and the vice.
The Four Seasons: 99 East 52nd Street; tel: (001 212) 754 9494. Asia de Cuba: 237 Madison Avenue; tel: (001212) 726 7755.
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