Spice Market - Meatpacking District
403 W 13th Street, New York, NY 10014
In a faux Thai style Spice Market's dimly lit wooden interior is adorned with carvings and canopy ceiling beams. But the reference to the classic teak wood that panels much of Bangkok is where the authenticity ends. "Pan-Asian", which can be a vague description of fusing Western ideas of an exoticized East, is a generous description of Spice Market. The waitresses walking around in Keds and salmon colored backless shirts only added to the cultural confusion.
Dinner started off well with appetizers, though my cold jumbo shrimp arrived at least 10 minutes before my friend's crispy grain salad.
The entrees were disappointing. My salmon arrived a bit underdone but alright to eat. Having made a bet with my friend that he would be unable to eat the Mapo Tofu he ordered--start to finish--with chopsticks, I was peeved to find that his dish neither was served with chopsticks nor, frankly, was Mapo Tofu. What's more is that he had waited an additional 15 minutes from when my entree first arrived.
Sichuanese in origin, Mapo Tofu is typically a very spicy Chinese dish with red pepper flakes, minced meat, scallions, and tofu so thin and slippery Westerners are almost never able keep the tofu from falling between their chopsticks. Spice Market's version, however, was an inedible and bland noodle dish with rigid chunks of bean curd. It wasn't that my friend couldn't eat his dinner with chopsticks--it's that he didn't want to.
Restaurant Week makes the city's best restaurants an affordable treat. I would expect any participating restaurant to offer fine dining. So, when I paid $40 (pre tax/tip and excluding my wine) for a mediocre meal at an establishment that was supposed to be of even higher quality than I'm used to, I was quite disappointed. When we called over the manager to express our concern--affirming that the service had been quality despite the kitchen's failures--the manager was apologetic. However, she offered the following excuse: the dishes in traditional Asian style are meant to come out when ready--not necessarily at the same time.
She pushed the wrong button.
In China, at least, restaurants serve dinner "family style" in which everyone over-orders and shares everything--if one dish comes out before the other it doesn't matter. So, in addition to the tofu's poor adaptation of Asian style, so, too, was the service.
Eventually, the manager comped our wine, and the server delivered our dessert. But I will not be returning to Spice Market.
Ouch.
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