Mai
House Flavors Your Night
Spicing Up TriBeCa
by
John Mariani
|
Located
in a historic warehouse in TriBeCa |
The
ever inventive Myriad Restaurant Group, under Drew
Nieporent and Michael Bonadies, which owns or manages
such disparate restaurants as Montrachet (French), TriBeCa
Grill (American-Mediterranean), Nobu (Japanese), Nobu Fifty Seven, and Centrico (Mexican) in NYC, Nobu
London, The Coach House on Martha's Vineyard,
and the new Proof
on Main in Louisville, has taken a particularly
curious diversion into Vietnamese cooking with Mai
House, right around the corner from other TriBeCa
restaurants.
Mai House is one of their more casual efforts, set
within a former warehouse that once housed Myriad's
bakery, now an L-shaped, shadowy layout with 120 seats,
hard-carved fixtures from Vietnam, walls textured
with crushed sunflower seeds, banquettes with a zebra-patterned
fabric, a butcher block made from mother-of-pearl
and bamboo, and hanging lights in the shape of lotus
flowers. It can get loud in there as the night progresses,
and the bar is long and very convivial—a good
place to try some of the tasty cocktail concoctions
like the Saigon Sling and Delta Dream.
 |
Shrimp
Rolls |
The
chef onboard is Saigon-born Michael Huynh, formerly
at the estimable Bao 111 and now a partner at Mai
House, and he is doing his own imaginative cuisine
within the traditions of Vietnamese food culture wedded
to modern ideas of presentation with a fairly large
menu. Having spent my twenties trying to avoid going
to Vietnam, I claim no familiarity with restaurants
in Saigon or Ho
Chi Minh City, so I cannot speak about authenticity,
although Vietnamese cuisine is very much an amalgam
of Southeast Asian and French influences (from its
days when it was called Indochina). Huynh seems to
be taking the sensible tack with easy-to-love appetizers
that include cool shrimp rolls with vermicelli and
a hazelnut bean sauce. Hot spring rolls contain pork,
crab and shrimp and take the ubiquitous nuoc cham
sauce as a dressing. Manila clams are cooked in a
spicy broth of beer, while fried frogs' legs come
as "lollipops," with a dipping sauce of
hot jalapeño aïoli, which these bland
critters need.
Almost everything has a tantalizing little surprise
in the preparation. So lamb is given the tingle of lemongrass,
put on skewers, quickly seared, then served with pickled
vegetables and a light anchovy sauce. Barbecued quail,
nice and fat, are sided with pickled lemongrass with
sticky rice and crispy shallots and there is even
a wild boar sausage with a green papaya salad. You
scoop this food up, pop it in your mouth, lick it
off your fingers, and, reluctantly, share it with
your friends. (Portions are not huge, however, so
you might have a fight on your hands).
Among the entrées are spicy beef cheek from
wagyu beef, with lotus root and curried cauliflower
purée. Tender pork belly is braised with pickled
red cabbage and coconut juice and it's wonderful how
zesty these flavors are far more interesting than
so many European preparations of the same ingredient's.
The claypot chicken with quail eggs and spices definitely
begs to be shared.
I found the seafood somewhat less savory, like the
cloyingly sweet-and-sour whole red snapper with tomatoes
and Chinese celery that tasted too close to Chinese
take-out. Other seafood items were fairly bland, including
Dungeness crab with garlic and chives, although that's
a dish where you want the delicacy of the crab to
be eminent. Noodles are wonderful—try the crab
fried rice with egg and Chinese sausage or the duck
fried rice with smoked duck, duck confit and duck
egg.
Don't forget the very savory side dishes, including
sticky rice with Chinese sausage and wonderful, refreshing
steamed mustard greens that help cut the spices in
the other food.
The winelist more than complements the difficult seasonings
here, with plenty of aromatic whites and spicy reds,
and many under $50 a bottle.
Of desserts I cannot rave, but stick with the sorbets
and you'll have a fine ending to an exotic and deliciously
different meal.
I have read some ill-informed reviews or comments
in the blogs about the prices being high at Mai House
when you can eat some of the same dishes for five
bucks in a Chinatown eatery. Believe me, however enjoyable
it is occasionally to nosh in some storefront Vietnamese
restaurants with tacky décor and few amenities,
there is no way their owners can buy the best ingredients
and charge $5 for a dish. Mai House's ingredients
are top notch and it shows in the texture and taste
of dishes that elsewhere taste frozen or left over
from the previous day. Cheap does not equate with
good, and besides, with appetizers at Mai House, $9-$13
and entrées, $18-$28, you are getting plenty
of value for your money and a helluva lot more atmosphere
and service, not to mention good English.
John
Mariani is well known for his frank
and poignant writing in Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is
author of The Encyclopedia of American
Food & Drink, The Dictionary of Italian
Food and Drink and co-author, with
his wife, of the Italian-American Cookbook. |
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P010907 |
(Updated:
11/06/07 AK) |
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