I believe I've previously mentioned how much I enjoy Restaurant Week - not only do I love to eat, but I love trying new restaurants. Especially restaurants that may normally be outside my price range. That's why Restaurant Week (henceforth known as RW) is so grand, I can have delicious food AND I can eat at special-treat places for an everyday lunch. As soon as the reservations opened for this summer's RW (which is closer to a month, but who's complaining?!), I booked four restaurants I've wanted to try. Yesterday was my first booking: The Lambs Club.
I've been to the Lambs before, for a NY Food & Wine Festival event and for a couple of work events, but I'd never sat down for a meal there. I was really looking forward to it, since the chef/owner is a tv favorite of mine. I took an exceedingly handsome gentleman with me and enjoyed a delicious lunch.
The RW menu is served upstairs at the bar, which is a gorgeous space, full of light and art deco touches. We sat in a very nice large banquette and were treated to lovely service from top to bottom. The exceedingly handsome gentleman and I decided to have iced tea as our beverage, since we did have to go back to work. The iced tea there is served with large ice cubes made of iced tea, so there's never any dilution. Brilliant! They also serve it in a little pitcher for your table, along with a small container of simple syrup. Very smart, all the way around. And the warm bread they brought us was so delicious! I think it had some coarse salt and black sesame seeds on it - just yummy and a nice way to get ready for the meal ahead.
Meal-wise, I started off with the arugula and Asian pear salad. It was a generous plate, filled with spicy argula, crunchy matchstick-sized pieces of Asian pear, pickled ramps and shards of parmesan. There were a lot of contrasts in this dish and the predominant acidic punch was delicious. I would never think that pickled ramps would be such a star of a plate, but they were great! This was a lovely starter and it was hard not to finish it, but I did want to pace myself for all three courses...
For my entree, I ordered the roasted cod, which was served with creamed fregola and hazelnuts, roasted cauliflower and a harissa-scallion vinaigrette. This dish was so light and delicious, it got a huge thumbs up from me. The fish was tender and moist, but still firm, with a crispy exterior. The roasted cauliflower added an almost meaty, deep flavor, and the creamed fregola was out of this world. I usually choose a dish that has fregola included, since I always enjoy it and never cook it for myself, but I've never had it creamed before. The consistency was really great and adding the diced hazelnuts (cut just the same size as the fregola) added a nice crunch and punch to the side dish. I had thought the harissa vinaigrette might be overly spicy for me, but it wasn't. It had just the perfect amount of complementary flavors - I also thought I detected a hint of soy, but I could be mistaken. Oh, there were also some shaved carrots on top - I'm not quite sure what they added to the dish, but you can never have too many carrots. Bottom line, I really liked this dish. The exceedingly handsome gentleman got the burger, which I made him photograph since it was so gorgeous. I'll include that photo below... :)
For dessert, there was an option for lemon pound cake, so of course I chose that. I cannot resist a lemon dessert. Well, I can barely resist a lemon anything, if we're being honest. Anyway, this lemon pound cake was served over a bit of Greek yogurt, with macerated raspberries and buttermilk sorbet on the side. Jeepers, this was yummy. The cake was warm and nicely lemony, the sorbet was cold and fresh; there was sweet and sour, some slightly bitter notes and also a bit of crunch from some kind of crumble on the bottom. Plus, it was all the perfect size, so my taste buds were happy but my stomach wasn't stuffed beyond belief. Just a delicious, delightful lunch.
I was very pleased with my lunch at the Lambs Club and I would definitely go back. Some chums and I talked about going back and trying some cocktails and bar snacks - I would definitely be up for that. As for Restaurant Week, I have lunches scheduled for the next three Fridays. I am so looking forward to them...
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