Monday, September 13, 2004
Restaurant Find: Share
So K and I had a terrific weekend. On Saturday, we went down to some of our favorite places in Soho to snack and pursue our various obsessions. We had another mission. You see, we are devoted to Queer Eye. And in the last episode, the boys went off to help some of our neighbors (we didn't realize they were our neighbors at the time) open a restaurant in the East Village called Share. The food looked yummy and we'll go quite a distance for a meal. Plus, the couple seemed adorable and who doesn't like to help nice folks out? So we headed up to East 9th Street to try our luck on what we knew was a very small space.
The downstairs dining room is tiny, but proprietor Winston Shih offered us some seats upstairs at the bar. This is a great choice, btw. We got the bench on the left. It was fun sitting up there and watching folks come in.
The concept of Share is that the food is meant to be shared and frequently comes in two sizes, tasting and sharing. We took advantage of this and ordered as many things as we could in the tasting sizes and shared them. Lots of variety that way and everything sounded so good.
We started with the three herb salad with fresh fava beans, manchego and lemon dressing. It was super. It was incredibly fresh and open tasting and the fava beans really grounded the dish. I've never had them raw before and I loved them.
We had to try the lobster, corn and mushroom risotto and the black cod (sable) dishes. The risotto had a lovely consistency. Risottos often fail on that, either too mushy or too much resistance. This was pretty much just right. And a nice amount of lobster claw, too. Just enough to be real and not so much as to overwhelm the dish. And the mushrooms were bursting with flavor.
Sable is one of my favorite fishes (thank you, Barney Greengrass) and this piece was gently place on the thinnest haricot vert I've ever seen, mixed with chives. Superbly buttery with a nice green (the beans) and subtle acid (the chives) to balance it.
The fact that Kay (the chef) believes in butter was evident in most of the dishes, although Winston credited the sable for the buttery-ness of this dish, which is fair.)
K. got a bee in her bonnet to try the potato gnocchi with Swiss chard and chanterelles. I often find gnocchi a bit heavy and in a worst case flavorless, but these were unbelievable. First of all, they're cylindrical and small. Second of all, they were incredibly tasty.
We really wanted to try as much as possible. So after all that, we ordered a sage roasted fresh bacon with golden lentils and leeks. OK, so bacon is really a misnomer here. We're basically talking about boneless spare ribs! YUM!
We finished with a cheese plate that was quite accomplished. For instance, I have only found Roomano cheese (this is Dutch cheese and not the Italian Romano) at one other restaurant, Artisanal (and they're cheese specialists). A few figs, some quince paste were composed alongside the Roomano, some gorgeous Gorgonzola and an American Goat.
My advice if you want to go to Share is to go early and if you can't get a reservation, sit at the bar. We'll do it again soon!
2 comments
The downstairs dining room is tiny, but proprietor Winston Shih offered us some seats upstairs at the bar. This is a great choice, btw. We got the bench on the left. It was fun sitting up there and watching folks come in.
The concept of Share is that the food is meant to be shared and frequently comes in two sizes, tasting and sharing. We took advantage of this and ordered as many things as we could in the tasting sizes and shared them. Lots of variety that way and everything sounded so good.
We started with the three herb salad with fresh fava beans, manchego and lemon dressing. It was super. It was incredibly fresh and open tasting and the fava beans really grounded the dish. I've never had them raw before and I loved them.
We had to try the lobster, corn and mushroom risotto and the black cod (sable) dishes. The risotto had a lovely consistency. Risottos often fail on that, either too mushy or too much resistance. This was pretty much just right. And a nice amount of lobster claw, too. Just enough to be real and not so much as to overwhelm the dish. And the mushrooms were bursting with flavor.
Sable is one of my favorite fishes (thank you, Barney Greengrass) and this piece was gently place on the thinnest haricot vert I've ever seen, mixed with chives. Superbly buttery with a nice green (the beans) and subtle acid (the chives) to balance it.
The fact that Kay (the chef) believes in butter was evident in most of the dishes, although Winston credited the sable for the buttery-ness of this dish, which is fair.)
K. got a bee in her bonnet to try the potato gnocchi with Swiss chard and chanterelles. I often find gnocchi a bit heavy and in a worst case flavorless, but these were unbelievable. First of all, they're cylindrical and small. Second of all, they were incredibly tasty.
We really wanted to try as much as possible. So after all that, we ordered a sage roasted fresh bacon with golden lentils and leeks. OK, so bacon is really a misnomer here. We're basically talking about boneless spare ribs! YUM!
We finished with a cheese plate that was quite accomplished. For instance, I have only found Roomano cheese (this is Dutch cheese and not the Italian Romano) at one other restaurant, Artisanal (and they're cheese specialists). A few figs, some quince paste were composed alongside the Roomano, some gorgeous Gorgonzola and an American Goat.
My advice if you want to go to Share is to go early and if you can't get a reservation, sit at the bar. We'll do it again soon!
Comments:
Ah! I'm also a QEFTSG devotee! Wish I was back in NYC so I could try Share...it looked amazing on TV.
# posted by 
: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 8:24:00 AM
: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 8:24:00 AM
We've now been back several times in each season since they launched. They've remained a top notch experience.
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