To avoid hassles with the public and the paparazzi, the Fancy Restaurant Club is loath to reveal the site of its outings too far in advance. Our resident calligrapher and messenger, Amanzio, has taken to writing the upcoming restaurant’s name on ornamental scrolls or small colored cards that he secrets away in the city, along with a series of cunning clues hidden elsewhere to lead the way. To learn the location of tonight’s outing, I was required to learn phonetic Belarusian, infiltrate the abandoned subway station at 91st Street, and at last, scale the locked gate of Gramercy Park late one humid night last week, to pluck a cream colored card from the hand of the Edwin Booth statue. In Amanzio’s steady script and iron-gall ink was written “Union Square Cafe.”
If only the end had justified the means. For starters, there’s no flair in the décor there. The upholstery pattern of our booth seating, for example, was blocky and grey, like from an Applebee’s. In an especially meta-moment, we consulted my travel copy of the Zagat Survey for next month’s outing, while hanging on the wall above our table was a cheesy Matisse-ish painting depicting a bottle of wine, a table set for dinner and a 1997 copy of Zagat’s. Was this a clever reference to Union Square Cafe’s vote mongering among the local food fanatics? This year, the guidebook ranked it the second most-popular restaurant in New York City. We were ready to be blown away, but we were only touched by a light breeze. Literally! The air conditioning wasn’t running full-throttle in our cozy corner, so the lady of the table waved a dainty paper fan from her purse.
Our meals were adequate and only our appetizers creative. The black bean soup ordered by one was hearty, served with a slice of lemon and an optional pour of Australian sherry. Me and my sweet tooth enjoyed the stone fruit salad of mixed wild greens, fresh peaches, black cherries and candied pecans, drizzled with a white balsamic vinaigrette and sprinkled with savory shavings of Manchego cheese. As a sometimes-cook, dishes like this make me smack my forehead and wonder why I can’t dream up combinations this fresh and exciting. They seem so obvious upon reflection.
As for main dishes, my shell steak was all right, though a tad too smokehousy and salty, even if I wouldn’t have shaken salt on it before a taste. Other entrées served at our table included salmon and scallops, and they were deemed O.K., but nothing to make us tumble from our seats.
Desserts were presented attractively. A peach tart was flaky but not as perky tasting as it should have been. The chocolate fudge cake was incredibly moist yet firm. Perfectly smooth scoops of sorbet, the size and shape of eggs, nestled in miniature ceramic cups by flavor. The lemon variety had the harsh, super-sweet flavor of eating Minute Maid frozen lemonade concentrate directly from the cardboard can.
The popularity of the Union Square Cafe mystifies me. Part of me wants to admit the experience doesn’t differ greatly from Craft, but while the Craft entrées are also prototypical “New American” dishes, they’re prepared and seasoned more attentively. And the atmosphere at Craft is darker, richer and more luxuriant without being smarmy. Union Square Cafe must be doing something extraordinary for a large segment of the Zagat-voting public. Maybe there’s a special room in the sub-basement where the food and atmosphere are peerless.
Union Square Cafe
- 21 E. 16th St. (between Fifth Avenue and Union Square West)
- (212) 243-4020
- Meal 26 of 52: summer stone fruit salad ($12) and grilled smoked Cedar River shell steak with mashed potatoes and frizzled leeks ($32).