Lately, it’s been hard to enjoy meals the way that I’m used to. Mild nausea is still mild nausea so I haven’t been making many plans to go to restaurants. It feels like a waste of time and money. Still, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity when my dad’s friends were in town. Uncle Richard and Aunt Nancy are world travelers who eat around the world, my kind of dining companions. I planned for the four of us to have lunch at Jean Georges 1 Central Park West, New York, NY 10023. (Mom was too busy playing Ma Jong.)

Perched on the South West corner of Central Park West, Jean Georges is a smaller dining room than I had expected. Clean and modern with fresh flowers on each table, and otherwise pretty plain.

butter, salt, and flowers

As soon as the fresh breads were presented, my dad was swooning over the ciabatta and sourdough. I was too. The apple does not fall far from the tree. At this time, a few were taking turns at the restroom so I was surprised that the amuse plate was served, but they did ask if I wanted them to wait till we were all present for the description, which I did. The chilled shot of borscht, cucumber with dill, and blini with blueberries were all pleasant and refreshing starts.

borscht, cucumber, bilini

The menu is a pretty long list, split into 3 parts by light, medium, and heavy. For $29, you can choose any two dishes (additional dishes for $14.50) from any section or the same section.

Unknowingly, Uncle Richard and I chose the same 2 dishes. We started with the Coach Farms Goat Cheese Gnocchi. These were perfect cylinders of rich goat cheese flavor where the texture was lightened, decorated with a  floral arrangement of fried artichokes, and a shallow pool of lemon oil. This is a decadent portion that’s enough for two so if you should have your dining companion order something else, you can split. The bread will come around frequently and you’ll need some more for sopping.

Goat Cheese Gnocchi

For the 2nd course, we had a mildly spicy filet which was perfectly cooked yet the parmesan crusted squash stole the show for me. They were such divine cheese topped buttery and golden nobs. I cut each in half and savored each bite.

Steak with Parmesan crusted squash

My dad ended up with two fish dishes. The first was skate where he said it was very fresh. The 2nd was a pine nut and seed crusted red snapper with a sweet and sour vegetable stew. This was the cleanest plate when my dad was done with it, raving about how much he liked it.

Skate 2

I think Aunt Nancy also started with Skate and ended with the Slow Cooked Salmon which came with Israeli Cous Cous. She talked about how tender and moist the fish was. Normally, I’d be tasting everyone else’s dishes (as you kn0w) but I’m having a hard time with fish right now.

Desserts were little plates of hidden treasures and surprises centered around a theme each. We chose the strawberry themed plate and the garden plate. While fresh pea ice cream (on garden plate) is interesting, I much prefer the wonderfully familiar flavor of little wild strawberries.

Strawberry Dessert

The complimentary Sour Cherry Macarons, Gimauve, and chocolates were all delicious so you don’t really need to order dessert.

Chocolates

At $29 per person, you get fresh bread, an amuse, 2 courses, some sweets to finish, all with great service. It’s one of the best deals in town. My dad couldn’t stop talking about it for days. He keeps asking me when I’m taking him to another one of these “nice” places for lunch. None of us would have even thought he would ever like a non-Chinese restaurant.

Even for me, lately not as enthralled with eating, I still thoroughly enjoyed this meal and felt so happy to be there. High praise indeed.

posted by jessica at 01:35 PM Filed under French, Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.