It’s Friday night and I find myself on the Eastside of NYC at BLT Prime. Tonight I’m meeting a friend for drinks and dinner for some girl time. When I enter the restaurant I actually say “wow.” The ambiance rocks. Neatly nestled tables perfectly set under beautiful soft lights (talk about mood lighting), appropriate music plays in the background, an open dining room boasts a hint of romance. This would be a perfect place for a first date.
I find my friend and we are immediately seated. No need to request a table change here; we are pleased as the hostess seats us in a corner table with full view of the entire restaurant. Priceless. We say “awesome” at the same time. As we nestle into our corner table we are handed dinner menus, drink menus and the wine bible. I call it the wine bible because it’s huge and what you will learn later the Sommelier, who has the patience of a saint, really knows his wines. . .well, sorta.
My friend and I immediately jump into girl chat and she asks me if I like bread. “Of course I like bread” I say flippantly in response. She then says “you are going to love the bread here.” I’m thinking to myself how many different ways can you slice a piece a bread? And really, is the bread going to be that good? We continue with our chitchat. Our waiter, Jason, comes over and asks us if we had a chance to review the menu. We say in unison “no” and giggle like schoolgirls. He then asks if we would like a drink. Again, in unison we say “heck yes.” We order what I am going to call a salsa dance for your mouth. It’s a mojito with jalapeno, cilantro, rum and a simple syrup. DELICIOUS. This drink is not one note. You get a little bit a heat from the jalapeno, a dash of sweetness from the rum and simple syrup, and a blast of citrus from the cilantro.
Jason comes back a second time to the table to take our order and we’re still talking about “life” and all of the things in between, so I say “OK, let’s get our order in.” I order the waygu beef strip steak with a chimichurri sauce. My friend orders the filet with a béarnaise sauce. We order truffle mashed potatoes to share. With the submission of our order, I think that was the queue for the bread monster to be released. The next thing I know 2 ginormous popovers are brought to the table. From the onset, I thought they were going to be heavy just from the sheer size of them. The waiter places them on the table and my friend says “You are going to lose your mind when you eat this.” I grab one with one hand and realize that I probably need to use both. Just from the touch of the popover you realize it’s very light and flaky. I pull a piece off and the inside is hollow but with a perfectly cooked dough. I slather a little bit of butter on the small piece that I’ve torn off and my mouth starts to salivate. I pop the piece into my mouth and it’s unbelievably delicious. Flaky with a nice crust on the outside and moist but not chewy on the inside. I polish off my popover in a few minutes wanting another but I know better. If I indulged by desires I would not be able to finish my meal.
Since we both ordered steak, we decided to order a bottle of wine. They send over the sommelier even though we didn’t request him. The sommelier arrives and we find out that the wine my friend ordered when she was here two weeks ago was no longer available. Needless to say she was not happy and he now had to find a replacement wine that was just as good. Here’s the thing. We’re both red wine drinkers and have a discerning palate. Immediately he comes out with “what’s your price point.” Which I know he needs to ask but it’s a little bit of a turnoff. We share with him our price point of no more than $220 for the bottle. What he does next amazes me. He recommends a full body red that is well under our max. I kinda like this kid. He recommends a bottle called Maze. It’s from Napa, it’s a 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon. For those who may or may not know 2010 was a banner year for Napa wines. He pours a taste, I swirl it. “I’ve been at this restaurant for awhile and I’ve never seen anyone aerate the wine correctly as you do” he says. Not sure if he’s trying to disarm me before I take a sip of his recommendation or if he’s really impressed with my wine swirling capabilities. Either way, I take a sip, acknowledging it needs to breath, but I do taste a full bodied, earthy wine with subtle hints of blackberry and bittersweet chocolate. I share with him my tasting notes. He’s impressed. We let the wine breath for 20 minutes. While we wait for the wine to open up we continue our chitchat and revel over the popovers. 30 minutes past and we pour our first glass of wine and realize that our meal had not arrived. Another 20 minutes past. Nothing. We are now working on our second glass of wine and still no meal. It was another 30 minutes before our entrees arrived. At least we were satiated with wine while we waited over an hour for the entrees to arrive. Not the best impression. At least the plates were hot.
I dig into my waygu skirt steak. At first I see it’s cooked perfectly and the chimichurri sauce was fresh and had just the right amount of heat. My dinner partner’s filet was also cooked perfectly. As silence befell the table we took the time to thoroughly enjoy the meal. My crankiness about the long wait dissipated with each bite of my steak. The truffle mashed potatoes were divine. Not too much truffle but just the right amount that accompanied every bite. Nice. If you can believe it, we did have room for dessert. Jason strongly recommended the Chocolate Molten cake. He had me at chocolate. We agreed to share it. I was in the mood for dessert wine so they sent the sommelier back over to our table. Since he did a nice job on the entrée wine I let him pick the wine. Problem number one. What he recommended basically would pull every filling out of our mouth. It was metallic and extremely dry. Strike 1. He saw the face I made and made another suggestion. I can’t even explain how bad the second bottle was. Strike 2. Needless to say, we passed on the dessert wine.
So here’s my recommendation:
Romantic Restaurant for Two? Definitely
In General: Yes and No. The service was good, the food was prepared well (even though it took an hour to get it) and the wine selection is notable. The wait for the entrees and the mishap with the sommelier didn’t make it an outstanding experience but it wasn’t so bad in that I wouldn’t go back.
BLT Prime / 111 E 22nd St, New York, NY 10010
http://www.e2hospitality.com/blt-prime-new-york/
