Enjoy extras at Esca from a chef who has 'a gold mine in the basement'

Edible 21-karat gold leaf crowning Goat Milk Gelato with Lime Spuma and Watermelon Granita, a dessert that was on the Restaurant Week menu at Esca, one of Manhattan's top seafood restaurants.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Esca is always my first pick when Manhattan's Restaurant Week promotion comes around.

The Southern Italian seafood restaurant doesn't stint on the complimentary extras, even when offering a three-course lunch for $29, plus tax and tip -- about half of what you'd pay if you ordered a la carte.

After we placed our order from the limited Summer Restaurant Week menu on Thursday, we received a pair of delicious Bruschetta with white beans and preserved mackerel.

Then, we were brought a small bowl of olives, and offered three kinds of bread. When I asked for extra-virgin olive oil for the bread, the server poured a generous amount in a small plate. 

I splurged on a 2-ounce tasting of three wines -- one with each course -- for an extra $17.

My wife's first course on Thursday was this wonderful Zuppa di Pesce Amalfitana, a fish-filled soup surrounding a tomato-and-chili bruschetta; I had Calamari, below. 

For my starter, char-grilled local squid was served with radishes, hot red pepper, lemon and parsley.

 Go fish

Our entrees were Lanzardo,  a whole grilled Boston Mackerel with Salsa Verde; and Lampuga alla Siciliana, grilled Sicilian Style Mahi-Mahi with Marinated Summer Beans and Toasted Sunflower Seeds.

I tasted both, and each fish was perfectly grilled with a nice char. My only complaint is that my meaty mahi-mahi could have used a little salt.

I envied a woman at the next table who ordered the third entree on the menu, Conchiglie, a generous serving of House-Made Shells with Mussels, Clams, Conch, Cherry Tomatoes and Smoked Chilis.

Complimentary Bruschetta with preserved mackerel, above, and olives, below.

I was lucky to get the heel of a large loaf of bread with a crust that was so crispy it shattered, plus delicious extra-virgin olive oil for dipping. The great service included cleaning bread crumbs and crust off of the table between courses.

Sicilian Style Mahi-Mahi.

Boston Mackerel with Salsa Verde.

Golden finish

We usually never order dessert, but on Thursday, we decided to try two Watermelon Granita with Goat Milk Gelato and Lime Spuma, and were rewarded with a piece of edible 21-karat gold leaf crowning the ice cream.

I asked one of the maitre d's circulating in the dining room whether we were, in fact, eating real gold.

He said yes, and to be considered edible, the gold has to be a minimum of 21 karats (24 karats is pure gold).

Then, he got a good laugh out of us when he said: 

"The chef has a gold mine in the basement."

The way I see it, Chef Dave Pasternack's gold mine at Esca is in the dining rooms and bar, though probably not if you order the price-fixed Restaurant Week menu.

The entrance to the main dining room at Esca, 402 W. 43rd St., near Ninth Avenue, New York, N.Y.; 1-212-564-7272.

Details

NYC Restaurant Week runs through Aug. 19, offering a three-course lunch for $29 and a three-course dinner for $42, plus tax and tip, at hundreds of restaurants in Manhattan ($4 more than during the promotion in January). Reservations are recommended.

During the Restaurant Week promotion, you can get $5 back, if you use an enrolled American Express credit card and spend more than $35 in a single transaction, up to four times.

Websites: 

Seafood trattoria

Summer Restaurant Weeks

Spend $35, get $5 back

3-course lunches during NYC Restaurant Weeks will cost a little more

During the Restaurant Week promotion in January, I really enjoyed an entree of Cape Cod Sea Scallops, Venetian Red Rice and Caramelized Endive as part of a fixed-price lunch at Esca, a high-end Italian seafood restaurant in Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

New York City Restaurant Weeks are returning soon, but the bargain, three-course lunches will be slightly more expensive.

Lunches at some of the best restaurants in Manhattan will cost $29, plus tax and tip, compared to $25 in January.

Three-course dinners also are up $4 to $42, but they are not as good a value as lunch, because the limited menus often are similar.

American Express will give you a $5 statement credit, if you enroll an eligible credit card and spend $35 in a single transaction during the semi-annual Restaurant Week promotion, which runs from July 25 to Aug. 19.

You can get $5 back up to four times.

NYC Restaurant Week: A seafood favorite doesn't disappoint

Amalfi-style Fish Soup with Tomato and Chili Bruschetta at Esca in Manhattan.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

It's the little extras that make lunch such a pleasure at Esca, a southern Italian trattoria in Manhattan that celebrates fresh seafood.

That's especially true during NYC Restaurant Week, when the restaurant offers deeply discounted three-course lunches and dinners ($25 and $38, respectively).

On Friday, my lunch began with a gift from the chef -- a white-bean crostini bursting with the flavor of preserved mackerel.

Other nice touches were complimentary olives with a thin, hot pepper and a small bowl for the pits; the crusty heel of a large Italian bread with fruity extra-virgin olive oil, and both lemon and lime for the whole fish I ordered.

For my first course from the bilingual menu, I chose the Amalfi-style Fish Soup with Tomato and Chili Bruschetta.

The filling, mildly spicy broth held several pieces of perfectly poached fish.

My entree was Spigola Nera, whole roasted local black sea bass with salty caperberries and olives.

Except for the scorched head, the fish was perfectly cooked and delicious right down to the crispy tail.

One quibble was the scorched head of the Whole Roasted Local Sea Bass, denying me the tender, juicy "cheek" under the eye. But the other side of the head wasn't overcooked and yielded the juicy morsels. A smaller plate for the bones was provided.

This crositini -- a gift from the chef -- was packed with the flavor of preserved mackerel.

Changing menu

My Friday lunch at Esca came during the second week of the semi-annual Restaurant Week promotion, which ends on Aug. 15.

About 300 restaurants in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens are taking part this summer.

At Esca, skate wing and whole porgy with salsa verde were offered, but neither was available on Friday.

My waiter explained the Restaurant Week menu changes slightly on an almost daily basis.

Still, the black sea bass was perfect for me, a lover of whole fish who delights in extracting every sweet morsel of flesh. 

Complimentary olives.

If you order the whole fish, you don't have to ask for lemon.

Part of the well-done heel of a large Italian bread -- soaking in extra-virgin olive oil -- an indulgence on my no-bread, no pizza diet.

New this summer, outdoor seating at Esca (Italian for "bait") means you'll have better chance of getting a table without a reservation.

Esca's Restaurant Week lunch menu on Friday.

Dessert to go

The waiter wasn't sure if I could substitute sorbet for the one dessert offered on Friday, Pistachio and Olive Oil Cake, so I asked for it to go and brought it home for my wife to enjoy.

I may try a forkful with its accents of watermelon, lime curd and aged balsamic vinegar.

I paid for my meal with an American Express credit card I registered, and will be getting a $5 statement credit.

That will bring the cost of this wonderful lunch to $27.22, with tax ($2.22) and a 20% tip ($5). That's a great deal at this white-tablecloth emporium of pristine seafood.

Take-out Pistachio and Olive Oil Cake.

Esca comes through

I've been enjoying Restaurant Week lunches summer and winter at Esca for years, and prize it even more now that I eat only seafood.

I've had only one disappointing meal there -- in 2011 -- when I was served a whole John Dory by a waiter who didn't warn me the fish was all bones, leaving me hungry and cursing under my breath as I searched in vain for flesh to eat.

See: An ugly fish shows up at lunch

Esca, 402 W. 43rd St. (Ninth Avenue), New York, N.Y.; 1-212-564-7272. The restaurant is two blocks from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Web site: A heavy Italian accent on fresh seafood

NYC Restaurant Week Web site

Top seafood on both sides of the Hudson: Esca and Hiura

Two of the first-course lunch selections at Esca in Manhattan on Friday were crudo or raw white tuna, with black pepper and extra-virgin olive oil, above, and crispy calamari with parsley and radish sticks, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

A short and problem-plagued New York City Restaurant Week is over, but I'm already looking forward to summer discounts on lunches and dinners at some of the city's best spots.

I finally managed to get to Esca Restaurant on Friday -- the last day of the annual winter promotion -- for a three-course seafood lunch that cost only $25, plus tax and tip, the price of an entree at other times.

The natural follow-up on Saturday night was a dinner of high quality raw and cooked seafood at Hiura, a family run Japanese restaurant in Fort Lee.

Winter Restaurant Week usually falls in January, but it was postponed this year until after the Super Bowl game in North Jersey on Feb. 2, and shortened to three weeks from four.

I had to cancel two other Esca reservations because of bad weather.

Esca transformed an entree of inexpensive whiting by pan frying and crisping the fillets and serving them with cauliflower, which, unfortunately, was overcooked and mushy. All the hot, flaky fish needed was a spritz of fresh lemon juice.

Esca's $25 Restaurant Week menu allows no substitutes. I broke my diet and indulged in a sinful panna cotta with citrus, including blood orange, and fresh and candied lemon.

White-bean crostini, above, and olives, below, were complimentary. The crust of the sliced Italian bread served at Esca shattered and tasted as if it was baked in a coal oven. Esca, Italian for "bait," describes itself as a southern Italian trattoria "devoted to celebrating the fruits of the sea." 

Tables off of Esca's main room and a small bar.

All set for dinner

At Hiura in Fort Lee, I was delighted to see the father-and-son team of Noboru and Shoji Hiura working side by side behind the sushi bar, where I sat down for dinner. 

I have been fed well by the Hiuras for nearly three decades, and Saturday night was no exception.

I ordered the Dinner Set, a beautifully composed box of raw and cooked seafood, and tempura with soup, rice, pickles, hot green tea and dessert.

Hiura's Dinner Set includes fat slices of raw bluefin and medium-fatty tuna, left front; juicy Chilean sea bass marinated in sake and sweet miso paste, right front, and perfectly fried shrimp and vegetable tempura, right rear ($32).

Raw seafood in the sushi bar's refrigerated compartment at Hiura.

Miso soup, above; radish pickles, below, and a bowl of white rice are part of the Dinner Set.

I chose a slice of sweet melon instead of ice cream for dessert.

Details

Esca, 402 W. 43rd St., New York, N.Y.; 1-212-564-7272. Web site: A trattoria dedicated to seafood

Hiura Restaurant, 400B Main St., Fort Lee; 201-346-0110. BYO, closed Wednesdays. Valet parking at dinner.

An ugly fish shows up at lunch

Image via Wikipedia

John Dory is a fish designed to eat, not to be eaten.

We love whole fish -- my wife takes the head, my son slices off the tail section and I devour all that delicious flesh in the mid-section.


So I didn't know what to make of the scrawny specimen that was put down in front of me today at Esca, a seafood restaurant in Manhattan where my wife and I had a $24.07 lunch.


Looking at the Restaurant Week menu, I thought offering a whole fish was generous in view of the price. Boy, was I wrong. 


I ordered the first course -- a crudo of Spanish mackerel -- because I had never eaten that fish raw, but the two pieces were the size of postage stamps.


My wife had a salad of wonderful greens with a whole-pistachio vinaigrette, and we both enjoyed the complimentary two dozen Gaeta olives and some marinated white beans on toasted Italian slices.


The oven-roasted, whole John Dory fish (photo above) was one of three entree choices -- my wife chose homemade tagliatelle with rock shrimp in a pesto sauce. She said it was a bit  salty. 


I have never seen such an ugly fish. It looked like it had gone on a crash diet before it was caught. The delicate, white flesh was delicious; there just wasn't very much of it. It was mostly bones, with an ugly head.


And it wasn't hot when I got it.


There was only one choice for dessert, a small lemon cake with fresh berries and an odd-tasting custard. The waiter said the kitchen was unable to fill my request for berries only.


This was my third visit to Esca, but I was disappointed. I left only a 15% tip.


Esca , 402 W. 43rd St., Manhattan; 212-564-7272.

My $24.07 lunch at Esca

Image by amanky via Flickr

If you love fresh, wild-caught seafood prepared in imaginative ways, a Manhattan restaurant called Esca will make you feel right at home. This week and next, three-course lunches cost only $24.07 -- about the price of an entree the rest of the time -- as part of the Restaurant Week promotion, but tables are difficult to reserve.

I was by myself Friday, and when I called to reserve the day before, I was offered a table in the bar area or outdoors, on what was to be a sweltering day. I took the table near the bar. During Winter Restaurant Week, no table was available at Esca, which is partially owned by Chef Mario Batali and was one of the first non-Japanese restaurants to serve raw fish or crudo.


Three appetizers, three entrees and a single dessert are offered for $24.07. I chose halibut cheeks for my appetizer and local yellow-fin tuna for an entree. The final course was panna cotta (cooked cream) with fruit, nuts and honey.


To me, this is something of a game. I try to avoid extra charges, leave a 15% tip and round off the bill -- with tip and tax -- to $30. That means tap water during the meal and declining the flight of wines for an extra $10 or so. No coffee at the end, either. After more than a decade of these bargain lunches at some of the city's best restaurants, maybe it's time to loosen up.


When these meals were first offered in the late 1990s, they were priced to mimic the year: $19.97, $19.98 and so forth. In the early 2000s, however, the price jumped inexplicably from $20-something to $24-something, so the old format is no longer being followed.


I loved the food and service at Esca, though I could do without the French tourists sitting next to me, a young man and two women who seemed disinclined to speak to their neighbor. I wanted to ask them whether Paris had a Restaurant Week.


The halibut cheeks were bigger than I expected -- about 1 by 2 inches. They were nicely fried, served on a bed of fragrant, baby arugula and topped with a few thin onion rings. When they were brought to me, I had already eaten a half-dozen olives and a small piece of toast topped with white beans, compliments of the chef, plus two pieces of wonderful bread. I kept on asking for bread during the meal -- one was crusty with a doughy center, the other a thick, whole-wheat focaccia.

I expected a small, yellow-fin tuna steak for the entree, but was bowled over by two medallions -- an inch to an inch and a half thick -- with grill marks outside and cooked medium rare inside, as requested.  A cold, heirloom squash salad topped with some pesto was served with the fish, which was tender and delicious and needed only a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. I sopped up the juices and pesto with bread.


I usually don't eat dessert, so the panna cotta was a treat, and reminded me of Spanish flan without caramel. Service was excellent, with crumbs from all the bread I ate cleared away between courses.


On the way to the rest room, I nearly bumped into a man, and the waiter said, "Watch out for the fish monger." Feeling full and contented with this cool meal on a hot day, I walked briskly the couple of blocks to the Port Authority Bus Terminal for the trip home.

NYC Restaurant Week Information

(Photo: Halibut cheeks, similar to the appetizer at Esca.)