Lobster Thermidor

City Crab & Seafood Company, 235 Park Avenue South, New York 10003 [site]

It was the end of Restaurant week, which sort of turned into Restaurant month, which I’m not surprised due to the recession, but I wanted to go to City Crab for a special item on their menu, the Lobster Thermidor. Frank didn’t get one of the Restaurant menu prix fixe because his original choice, the Crab meat stuffed Idaho Rainbow Trout, ran out (I guess there was no more trout). Frank got a lobster bisque for an appetizer, but it was a bit too salty.

My Crab Cake Trio was actually quite nice, albeit small. It consisted of Maine peekytoe, Maryland and Louisiana crab cakes, with a bacon in the middle (really odd, but tastes good). I’m not sure which is which, but one of the crab meat does taste a lot better than the others.

Helen’s appetizer was a creamy lobster dish in a puff pastry shell. She didn’t seem too enthusiastic over it.

Helen loved her main dish though, it was the perfect salmon for her. I didn’t like the taste of ginger or salmon, so I’m not really really good critic for this dish.

Frank’s dish taste good, but he seemed a little disappointed. Maybe because he anticipated rainbow trout.

And then, my Lobster Thermidor came! It tasted really good, aside from the fact it was probably a little bit overcooked, which made the meat a little tougher than usual. It wasn’t as heavily creamy as the lobster thermidor from London Lennies, so I don’t feel too overwhelmed by it at all.

My key lime pie was a bit on the sour end, but I guess that’s how key lime pies are suppose to be.

Frank’s cheesecake was delicious though. I kept picking at his dessert, which probably isn’t good table manners.

We didn’t try Helen’s sorbet, but she didn’t seem able to finish it, so it was probably a bit too standard for her.

One of Jean-George’s

The Mercer Kitchen, 99 Prince Street, New York 10012 [menu]

***Note*** I forgot to take pics again due to being famished and without a camera, but since this is a popular restaurant, I would like to credit these photos thanks to Flickr. =)

So after walking around famished for a while, Frank and I decided that Mercer Kitchen was probably our best bet for dinner that night. The prix fixe menu was no longer active, but I didn’t care for the prix fixe anyways. Frank got the Tuna Spring Roll for an appetizer, which surprising tasted like the same one we had in Jojo’s. I got Crab Cakes instead.

I thought the crab cakes taste great, besides the hint of ginger (I’m not a big fan of ginger). I love real crab cakes in general, the kind where you can flake out the pieces of crab meat instead of those cheap supermarket imitations where it is mainly breaded by-product of some sort. When the food came, my dish was actually a lot larger than Frank’s.

Frank’s slowly baked salmon dish with truffle mashed potatoes was actually very delicious, if you like the taste of salmon (I’m not a big salmon fan due to too many salmon dishes in the past few months… the taste becomes sickening then). But the salmon was very soft and juicy and not dry at all, something that fish gets very easily and then loses its flavor. This was skillfully cooked to retained optimum moisture.

As for my breast and confit of duck, delicious. Perfectly cooked to the right temperature. My only concerned for this dish is the portion was a bit much for me, I couldn’t finish the whole thing. I think jasmine rice would have been a better combination too, instead of wild rice, but I’m a jasmine rice fan. So far, Jean-Georges restaurants haven’t disappoint me at all, I would love to try his other restaurants now, besides Mercer and Jojo’s.