Starting off a column on restaurants requires a little thought and meditation. This being my first address to you on the subject, it is perhaps in order for me to state what it is that attracts me to a given restaurant. Food and wines are first on the list, service is second, and surroundings third. I am not at all impressed by who the person at the next table may be, nor does the presence of the entire social register and half of Who’s Who do anything to add to my luncheon or dinner. I can appreciate a restaurant where the food and wines are above reproach and the service a little faltering, but I cannot abide a place where the service and appointments are perfect and the food mediocre or, what is worse, indifferent. Neither the lowest of bows from the waist nor the finest of damask cloths has ever made a poorly cooked dinner taste any better.
If you are really dining, take time to savor the food and drink which are served you and to appreciate the effort which has made it possible. Let the mellow glow of being well and leisurely fed inspire that gentle but almost lost art, conversation. It will be worth your while—you may be surprised at the results. Furthermore, it is a shame to make a major investment and not realize its full worth.
Restaurants generally may be placed in three categories. There are those where you dine, and that well, those where you eat, and those where you are obliged to go. Of course, in addition to these, there are a few institutions in nearly every country where one enters the hallowed walls with almost a reverential attitude and where one may be wafted to Olympian heights on magic gastronomical carpets. Such taverns are, alas, growing fewer and fewer in number. Those which still exist might easily be listed as Temples of Comus.
One also finds tiny places in rather remote locations speckled over the map of the world where high degrees of excellence are always maintained. One stumbles onto them here and there in globe-wandering, but such restaurants and inns are not to be considered here. We, unfortunately, are not trudging the highways and byways of the world at this point. We are merely trying to give you some idea of what there is to be found within a comparatively small radius of New York, where there are probably more eating places per capita than in any other spot in the world.
Two different experiences lately have emphasized to us the fact that the Brussels (111 East 56th Street) is one of the really fine Continental restaurants in New York. The term “Continental” may need a bit of defining. Few restaurants in this hemisphere really achieve the quality which has for years been maintained by the best European restaurants. Pleasant surroundings, impeccable service, food that is perfectly prepared and well seasoned, and a distinguished list of wines are the prime attributes. These are achieved under the constant surveillance of a wise and knowing patron, whose sharp eye and keen palate immediately are aware of any discord. Such a restaurateur is André Pagani. Since his first days in New York, we have been more and more aware of André’s intelligent and thoroughly delightful approach to the business at hand.
You dine at the Brussels. You may be tempted to linger too long in the chic surroundings of the cocktail lounge, but don’t let the call of the bar spoil your delight in what is to follow. Be firm—decide on your menu, choose your wines while you are sipping your apéritif, and be ready and anticipatory when you are bidden to your first course. If you are a large party, it is my advice to see M. Pagani well in advance and let him help in your selection of luncheon or dinner. He will plan something which is well in your stride and which will be gratifying to the palate. Or consult with him or Léon or Edmond when you arrive and have your dinner order placed while you chat and enjoy a bit of relaxation.
It is always wise to remember that it is difficult to serve a large group a variety of different entrees, for some take a long time and some a short time to prepare. So be guided by the advice of the patron as to the best possible construction of the menu.
Not long ago, I was part of a party who wanted to lunch quietly and well, interlacing good food and wine with conversation. Pagani caught our mood and asked if he could suggest our menu. We were more than willing to abide by his choices. The first course—oh happy thought—was an omelette, light and delicate as air and cooked to the correct degree—baveuse is the word. Mushrooms sautéed in butter to which cream was added were fairly oozing onto the platter with the masterpiece. This was substantial enough to appease the pangs of hunger and light enough to excite the taste buds in anticipation of the dish to follow.
The major achievement was pheasant flown from Belgium. That awesome and practical traveling stove which is a unique prop of the Brussels was wheeled to our table and the two or three burners set aflame. The pheasants were brought along steaming hot and perfectly browned and placed on the larger burner to keep hot and to continue cooking on their voyage from the kitchen to our table. In the meantime, the deft hands of Pagani set about preparing the sauce on another burner. Butter, juices of the pan, cream, mushrooms, cognac, and seasonings were all added at the proper moment, accompanied by a running commentary on the procedure. Soon the sauce was at its peak. The birds were carved—a lesson for anyone interested in performances with knife and fork—and arranged on a sizzling hot platter. The sauce was poured over, and the birds were served, sauce drenching them. A bit of braised celery to give piquance to the combination of flavors, and we were off on a most delightful taste experience. We picked the bones and devoured every mouthful of the birds. This magnificently satisfying dish was set awash by a bottle of Côte Rôtie 1934, a truly distinguished and great red wine from the Rhône valley. Rhônes are too little appreciated in this country, for they are among the most interesting wines of France.
Naturally, after a luncheon like that, we had no dessert—merely café espresso and a fine, in this case a remarkable old Armagnac. It was a most rewarding experience, with perfect food, excellent wine, and complete relaxation.
Dinner the other night was a complete contrast. It was simplicity itself. First a filet of English sole grilled to the second. It was moist, as it should be, and firm. Lightly crumbed, it gave a crispy sensation at first, succeeded by the true flavor of the most noble of all fish.
To follow this there were sweetbreads maison. The sweetbreads were sautéed in butter and served on a bed of braised celery, anointed with a sauce maison which has a cream base lightly perfumed with sherry. The dish is placed under an intense flame for a few minutes to develop a brown crust on top, and it comes to you bubbling and hot. A small portion of wild rice to accompany and mix with the sauce was the correct complement to a dish which is simple, delicious, and thoroughly satisfying.
With the fish and the sweetbreads, my dinner guest and I chose one of the pleasantest of the lighter white wines, a 1945 Liebfraumilch, which, besides being a wine of great character, is as light and agreeable to good foods as any I know.
A few leaves of salad followed, dressed with the correct balance of oil and vinegar—by that we mean a male hand with the oil and the most delicate of female hands with the vinegar—which is a blessing in any restaurant. Pagani suggested our dessert—it was the exquisite cake named after the patron saint of pastry cooks and bakers—a gâteau Ste. Honoré. With its delicate pastry and surrounding bubbles of páté à chou beautifully glazed with spun sugar, the eye appeal was tremendous and the taste was fully as rewarding. The cream was diaphanous in its lightness and the pastry as tender as a maiden’s glance. André swore he had eaten two large pieces of the gâteau for his dinner, and while we didn’t follow suit, we could have begged for a piece to take home for a late snack.
Small cups of steaming black brew and again the Armagnac—a most pleasing end to a day. We discovered we had spent three hours over our dinner and that the time had slipped by with unaccountable speed. That, my friends, is really dining.
Luncheon at the Brussels is prix fixe from ＄2.25. There is a pleasant selection of hors d’oeuvres or soups and a bountiful list of entrees. Try the anguilles au vert and the escalopes de veau viennoise or almost anything you may find on the list. Dinner is à la carte, and there is a large number of things to intrigue the palate and to satisfy the gnawing pangs. The saddle of lamb niçoise is always delicious, and for those who love beef perfectly prepared, the entrecôte à l’os comme à la villette—this dish is for two—is an excellent choice. English sole is prepared in a number of ways; in fact, you will find the menu a most unusually well balanced and diversified one. As we have said before, the wine list is chosen with taste and great care, the selection of both imported and domestic wines being representative of only the best. Dinner for two should amount to around ＄15 or ＄20, with a bottle of wine.
There are times when nothing appeals like an evening of Hungarian food and Gypsy music and a heavy dash of “schmaltz.” In just such a mood we trekked, my very sophisticated fellow snooper and I, up the hill to 82nd Street and Second Avenue to the Café Tokay. I am just naturally a pushover for cimbalom and Gypsy violin and accordion and the sweet teariness of the music such ensembles pour forth, so I was completely sold after five minutes. Not so my fellow diner. She succumbed only after at least ten minutes. However, it all ended by our staying a good three and a half hours and being completely Magyarized by the time we left. There is a constant swirl of music until around nine o’clock, when there are two Gypsy singers, and after that the Gypsy orchestra goes into dance rhythms—all with that slightly weepy quality.
The dinner menu, which embraces the usual Hungarian specialties, is amazingly reasonable. Dinners run from ＄2.10 to ＄3.50. Mr. Arthur Nagy, the owner of the restaurant, prides himself upon the fact that he is presenting good, homey cooking. His chef is a woman, and she seems to supervise everything that goes out. We wish, however, that they would not startle us by listing Manhattan clam chowder on a menu of otherwise fairly representative Hungarian dishes.
The high point of the food is the pastry tray. That has been a specialty of the house for a long time, and it is evidently the chief culinary attraction for the majority of the patrons. The pastry is prepared under the master hand of Bela Lehoczky, who is also a partner in the business.
We can best describe the pastry by relating the sight we viewed while dining. A large and rather overfed-looking gentleman arrived with a lady and, after he had settled himself comfortably into one of the booths, adjusted his napkin, and ordered his drinks, demanded that the pastry tray be brought to the table. He was evidently known, for two waiters practically broke their necks to get a tray to his table at once. From that moment until time for his dessert, we watched him eat pastries through appetizer, soup, chicken paprika, and salad. At that point, we lost count. I have never tried a nut strudel with chopped chicken livers nor a Napoleon with chicken paprika, but it may be a perfect food experience.
You will find a most interesting selection of Hungarian wines at the Tokay. We chose with our dessert a bottle of Tokay Aszu 1936, 4 puttonos. That, if you do not already know, is the gauge of the degree of sweetness. It was wine of magnificent body, rich in flavor, and glorious in color, a most delightful change, and a wine with a most distinctive aftertaste. My dinner partner, who loves good wine as few people do, but who is trying to watch the waistline, swore she would taste only a tiny glass but was moved after the first glass to toss all discretion into 82nd Street.
You will also find some rather interesting French and domestic wines at the Tokay.
There is dinner at entree price, also many supper specialties both Hungarian and international, and always those delicious pastries. There is music and dancing every night but Monday. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are the big nights, and if you go then, you will find yourself singing and dancing and enjoying it all thoroughly. It is a wonderful spot to take those friends from out of town who want to go to odd places about which they can enthuse when they are back home.
We have known the Rajah Restaurant for a long time but had not visited its new location at 148 East 47th Street. Those of you who have known it before will find that the new surroundings and the moving have not harmed the cuisine. You of the uninitiated will find a pleasant change from the accepted rounds of dining. And do not go with the idea that your palate will be burned to the frizzling point. Mr. Wadia, the owner—and sometimes chef—has geared the strength of the curries to the American taste. However, this accommodating gentleman will offer you a hot curry sauce to increase the strength, if you feel you must have your curry blazing hot or not at all. A hint to the waiter that you wish a really hot sauce will supply you with ammunition guaranteed to hold you for a long time. One may order à la carte or choose one of the dinners planned to give you a sampling of a great many dishes from various provinces of India. These dinners range from ＄2.25 to ＄5, depending upon the number of courses. We dined with a friend who has lived long in India and who prepares many different types of Indian food herself, and she found herself happily engrossed in the food set before us.
There is no liquor at the Rajah, so we recommend a drink or two before you go. Our first course was bhujia, a vegetable fritter which one dips in a Madras sauce. The latter, by the way, is delicious and is given a repeat performance later with fried shrimp. Along with that there was a glass of pomegranate juice and a goodly helping of kachoomber. Kachoomber is a relish or salad made from finely chopped raw vegetables blended with a very hot sauce in which there is a good deal of curry. At this point you will find yourself wishing for a cool draught of beer, but water cools your palate nearly as well. Soups, of which there are usually several, include mulligatawny, which we chose, and coconut. The former, we felt, was a wonderful transition between the first courses and the curries which were to follow.
On one of the dinners one is allowed to choose two curries to accompany the moghul pillao—made with rice, saffron, raisins, and nuts. The chicken, mushroom, and shrimp curries are the ones we feel are the headliners in the group. The sauces are well blended and subtle, and the curry seemed to us to be both sufficiently intense and artfully blended, making for a happy wedding of flavors. Of course, chutney, nuts, coconut, Bombay duck, and dahl, the curried lentil sauce which forms the mainstay of the average Indian’s diet, are passed with the curry along with the ubiquitous rice.
For us the loochie were the great showpiece of the evening. Those diaphanous puffs of bread are fascinating to the eye and soft, delicate morsels in the mouth. They come to your table resembling small balloons and deflate quickly as daydreams fade, when you bite into them. However, the joy of tasting them lingers even after they have become flat. You may be certain that you will want several servings of loochie.
Desserts include baklava, various tropical fruits either fresh or preserved, and from time to time a pudding with fruit. Rose-petal coffee or tea to follow seems to soothe the effect of the curries, which, though they are delightful, do tend to create atmospheric changes in the mouth and on past the throat.
Mr. Wadia takes great delight in preparing special dinners himself, and if you give him notice, he will slave for you and produce the type of meal which most appeals to you. Unless you are completely well versed in the lore of the East, we advise you to allow him to make your choices for you. You will not be disappointed, of that we can be certain. Some of the dishes he enjoys preparing are chicken pillao, alloo chops, and alloo dums. Alloo chops are lamb chops encrusted with a highly spiced covering of puréed potatoes and served with a typical sauce. Alloo dums could easily be described as a potato pillao with meat and spices. Another specialty is biriani, a rice and meat mixture flavored with saffron, a most elaborate dish.
There is much discussion at this time of creating a buffet service at the Rajah, with various types of curries and endless condiments which you may pick and choose at random. We are heartily in accord with this idea and hope it comes before summer so that we can prove that curries—and hot ones—are among the ideal summer dishes.