Cru - Review

Intro
Cru - Highly Recommended
24 5th Ave, New York 10011
At 9th St
Phone: (212) 529-1700

The wife took me out to Cru for my birthday, a restaurant I've been looking forward to for a long time. I've seen Cru on Daniel and Colameco's TV show and always wanted to check out. Well worth it and surprised I never decided to stop in before. Overall, I give the restaurant an 87/100

Our Menu
1) Scallops Chanterelles ***
2) Foie Gras Torchon White Chocolate Sauce *
3) Papardelle Lobster
4) Tortellini Braised Lamb Shoulder / Pecorino ***
5) Sea Bass Preserved Lemon *
6) Lamb Chop **
7) Long Island Duck Breast Acacia Honey / Duck Rillette **
8) Fingerling Potato Puree *
9) Honey Crisp Apple Strudel Crisp Phyllo / Muscovodo Toffee / Caramel Ice Cream / Vermont Maple Gelee *

Rating System
--- What the F - in a bad way * Good ** Great *** What the F – in a good way

Dish Comments
1) Scallops are my favorite seafood item and these were some of the best I've had - I think the best since we started the blog. Perfect caramelization on the outside and perfectly cooked on the inside. A perfectly sweet scallop that was ridiculous with the rich powerful chanterelles and the accompanying sauce. Definitely makes me want to make some scallops.
2) A good dish, but I've had way too much foie gras so hard to be impressed anymore. Interesting with the chocolate sauce and what I think was some type of quince paste. Alone it tastes nice, but much better with the homemade brioche.
3) Papardelle had some nice texture (not great), but the combination of the ingredients were a little off to me - a little Frenchified with the chervil and what I think was either tarragon or fennel. Lobster was nicely cooked though.
4) Another WTF moment here. Pasta texture was great and the filling was perfect - great lamb flavor and texture pairing nicely with the salty pecorino. Another frenchified touch here with some type of demi-glace sauce / foam...this time it made 100% sense. So f'n good.
5) As soon as I ate this, I thought chinese food since steamed sea bass is a classic chinese dish. The dish here was cooked nicely- crispy skin and perfectly moist on the inside. Alone, it's nice but with the preserved lemon it was a great dish...they should have added more though, since every bite should have had a piece of lemon.
6) Haven't had lamb chop in a while, and this had great lamb flavor. Nice and tender and cooked uber perfectly. Was first put off by the look, since it looked crazy bloody, but it was pretty awesome. I believe some sweet mustard sauce was also on the dish, but not 100% sure.
7) Crispy skin and juicy tender meat. A hint of sweetness and nice fatiness to it. Great duck dish. Duck rillete was nice, but D'Artagnan's version is much better.
8) Shea Gallante (executive chef) worked the kitchens of Bouley, so this is another Robuchon/Bouley potato puree derivative. Insanely smooth and ridiculously buttery and rich. It's nice, but it was almost butter overkill to me - totally drowning out the butter flavors.
9) A very nice dessert with great textures and flavors. Had a crunchy, savory, sweet thing happening. I wish we ordered something else though, since the whole meal was basically heavy and strong flavored the whole time.

Overall Restaurant Experience (87/100)

• Food 8.8/10 – Mainly great dishes here done very well. I would describe the food as New American and also Italian using more French techniques, kinda like how Carmellini did things at A Voce. Great stuff they're doing here. The food is plated very simply, so they have a separate section to order sides. Shea was in the house that night too, which is always comforting to know the exec chef is in the kitchen.
  
• Service 7.0/10 – The entire staff was incredibly accommodating and friendly. Sommelier provided some nice suggestions, albeit very pricey. However, the food did take a while to come out and it comes out at a slightly slower pace. Pretty bad, considering it was relatively empty at 6:30pm on a Saturday. They also forgot a potato puree that we ordered. They didn't clean the crumbs up on the table at all either - something it seems only Daniel and Convivio pays attention to in the city. However, the staff made some great recommendations (sending the bass in 2 portions before the pastas) and even asked the chef if they would do a tasting for us - they would, but we declined. Whole service took about 2 hours.
  
• Atmosphere 8.5/10 – Pretty quiet place considering it's hella noisy on 9th st and 5th ave. Very calming environment that surprisingly isn't that loud consider tables are relatively close to each other. Lots of brown and white colors with muted lighting. Crowds were generally older here and I saw a couple families. Reservation was made a month in advance and we were seated immediately. Sign of the times I guess, but when we left at 8:30 the restaurant seemed only 80% full.
• Price 7.5/10 – In terms of high end food, the price seemed a tad cheaper than other restaurants - no entrees were over $33 I believe. Also another sign of the times, it seems they removed their tasting menu. I assume it's because of the economy, which would be a sad thing. What got us was the wines though. The sommelier recommended some tasty wines, but we found out they were around $27 a glass - a bit pricey considering we ordered a lot of glasses. They did pair well, but not that well...
  

Closing Comments
Really great food done here and my only real complaint was the food took a while to come out in the beginning. I would definitely come back though and just pick my own wines so I wouldn't get a huge surprise towards the end of the meal.