Love is all you need….
Although it is now the 16th of February, Valentine’s Day is still close in the rearview mirror. To celebrate, Jannine and made the trek through snow and ice (Wednesday morning brought our first major snow storm of the year, complete with freezing rain, high winds and heavy accumulation) to our new favorite restaurant, Alias.
When I hear “Alias,” I think of Jennifer Garner flying around the world, taking down the bad guys with prejudice. So the name of the restaurant has it off to a good start in my mind. Alias had a great value for a Valentine’s Day five-course pre fixe menu, which is something of a rarity in New York, a city where it seems to be a sport of restaurants to see how much they can jack up their prices for special holiday meals. The food, as expected, was outstanding. Alias specializes in using fresh market ingredients for their food. The combinations are creative, and the dishes are generally seasoned so that the individual tastes of the components can stand out. The highlight was probably a baked acorn squash with wild rice, wild mushrooms, leeks and thin slices of cheese (I want to say it was pecorino, but I don’t really remember).
The one negative of the dinner was the atmosphere. The restaurant wasn’t particularly busy, and the heater didn’t seem able to keep up with the cold winds outside. So we felt too exposed as our extremities slowly froze. Also, Alias didn’t seem prepared to serve a multi-course meal successfully, and kept us waiting for far too long between courses. However, given the quality of the food and the great price, it still comes out as an extremely good value.
As we were walking through the Lower East Side to the restaurant, we passed Clinton Street Baking Company, our favorite brunch place. In celebration of the holiday, they had made a beautiful light display on their front fence.
