Travertine-age angst

Anchower. A heavyhearted whirlwind tour of NYC over part of the Thanksgiving weekend. For reasons that remain unclear to me, we ended up at Travertine. The restaurant is sheathed eponymously, always un poco facisti w/ travertine.* Conversely, the interior and the lighting skew a bit to the untz, untz, untz, untz for a place that takes itself as seriously as this place takes itself. I've never had a meal that stumbled so badly out of the gate and managed to redeem itself.

I saw amuses wafting around to other tables, and from a distance, it looked interesting, some bit of roe or something. When the amuse arrived, I thought it was literally a joke. As the server announced, it was a julienne of carrots and apple, with a dot of blackberry(?) compote. It looked like what might fall out of your Vietnamese springroll.

The mains were uniformly uncompelling, so we did starters and pasta. I had a pork terrine that was bland, and accompanied by some perverse nouveau gesture in the direction of mostarda, if memory serves.

After this, I was dreading the main, but it was a really solid gnocchi w/ braised pork shoulder that I keep remembering fondly. The braising, rather than the roasting of the shoulder, produced little strands of meat that worked very nicely in the dish. Considering the disastrous start, it was a pleasant surprise.

*If there is a stronger connection between a person and a building material than Mussolini and travertine, I can't think of it.

Comments

[Frodnesor]

*Abraham Lincoln and logs.

[Marco]

Ayn Rand and reinforced concrete

[Addison]

That reminds me of the EUR building in Hudson Hawk. "Bonnie! Ball-ball!"

[Isis]

I hear you, but still: Caesar Augustus and marble.

[badthings]

But Isis, his mausoleum is brick.