…Where 'La Gourmandise' is not a sin!

A few months back I had a bet going with Normita about something that I have totally forgotten about, and the loser was supposed to buy a nice restaurant meal for the other. I thought that I had fulfilled my duties last week, but it seems that the meal’s absolute fiasco did not comply with the nice meal part of the deal. This morning we went to see a movie at the World Trade Center (WTC) here in Mexico City, which happens to be about 5 minutes walk from home. The movie was a long one, and before someone asks it was Da Vinci’s Code, which was exactly like the book, very long, slow paced and boring. At least Normita somewhat enjoyed it despite the excessive length, but I think that they could have cut about an hour from it and made a better, tighter movie. I also had problems with the casting of the film as I always feel like Tom Hanks plays only one character, himself, in every movie he stars in. I did enjoy Ian McKellen’s portrayal of Sir Leigh Teabing, and thought that they underused Jean Reno one of my favorite actors, but this is not a movie review, so let’s move to other things…

On the way out, since the movie was so long, we both were starting to feel hungry and since the chicken that was defrosting in the refrigerator was sure not to be ready to cook for some more hours, we decided to look around for a place to eat. Since I still owed Normita that meal, we decided to try a new Italian restaurant that is located in the Crowne Plaza hotel next door to the WTC. A few clients she had sent there had reported that the restaurant was both good and inexpensive, so it was worth a try.

The hotel has only recently opened so the restaurant is a new operation. The decor is open and airy and the ambiance relaxed. At what would have been a busy lunchtime for locals (2pm), the place was mainly empty as the hotel caters to foreigner here on business. The service was attentive, but somewhat disorganized. I think that the newness of the restaurant was showing, and the waiter mentioned that he was very new in a very new restaurant so we will have to try again in a few months to see if the place has improved.

We ordered our meal, with the starters being for Normita carpaccio of salmon and for me carpaccio de vitello, veal in Italian, but strangely translated in the menu to Spanish and English as beef, for the main course linguini al pesto for Normita and spaghetti carbonara for me. We wanted some wine with the meal, and they failed to bring a wine list, and when the first course arrived I inquired again about the wine list and they told us that they had Italian wines by the bottle, but no wine list, and also had unnamed Italian house wines by the glass at a fairly high price of ~$7, which I would have like to know exactly what I was buying at that price. We wanted to know what wines they had by the bottle, and they could not tell us for a good 10 minutes while our first course was waiting for us, because nobody had the key to the nice cellar at one end of the room.

This reminded me of another restaurant incident, again with the Padrino, in New York City at Windows on the Worlds at the other WTC, where they could not find the key to the storage room to bring us some cheese at the end of the meal and where the waiter also brought us a bottle of 1975 Gruaud Larose shaken not stirred, but that story will have to wait for another day…

Luckily during the time we were waiting we enjoyed some of their delicious bread, baked on the premises, with a nice salsa of olive oil, tomatoes, onions, and basil. Of course, when they finally managed to find the person with the key to the cellar, the whites were at room temperature, so since our first course had already been served for 15 minutes, we did not want to wait for the wine to cool down. We decided to look at the reds. The waiter brought 3 random bottles to the table and asked for a choice without telling us the prices. A few more minutes were wasted while he found a price list, and when the offering were in the $40-55 range, and I really had nothing to compare in price with a known value to assess if the price was fair, we decided to forego the wines entirely.

We started on our carpaccio and noticed that they did not bring us the usual thin toasts to eat it with. The waiter told us that they might have to get their storeroom open as they only had their regular bread. The problem was fixed quickly though, when he brought us some toast, that unluckily was somewhat limp instead of crisp, as it had been serve in a towel on the bread plate, where it steamed itself.

The quality of both the veal/beef and salmon was excellent, but strangely enough the delicate thin slices were not dressed at all. Even a few drops of olive oil would have given an extra dimension to the plate. Mine had a small dab of what seemed like a mixture of mayonnaise and mustard on one side and a nice pile of chopped mushrooms in the middle, and Normita had some chopped onions, chopped parsley, chopped capers, and chopped egg yolks, a nice combination, but a tad dry without any dressing. We remedied the problem by drizzling some of the nice olive oil from the salsa and using some of their nice thin house bread instead of the limp toasts.

While we were starting the first course, the waiter brought each of us a courtesy glass of white wine, because of out problems with the inexistent wine list. The wine was crisp and somewhat vegetal in taste, reminding me a bit of a Pinot Grigio, but I might be wrong there. There was a faint hint of oxidation on the finish, but we were not about to complain… I hope that the poor waiter did not get into trouble because of this, as he was swept away to a meeting with what I think was a supervisor near the end of our meal.

The main course was solid fare with nice al dente homemade pasta, and a delectable sauce though not exceptionally so. Luckily the portions were not overwhelming like they tend to be in some Italian restaurant and we finished our meal well fed, but not stuffed. I definitely was not in the mood for a dessert, but Normita was and asked for some Baileys ice cream and I settled for an espresso. The espresso was concentrated and bitter the way I like it, and while I was finishing it, they told Normita that they did not have the Baileys ice cream, so she decided to go without her dessert.

Overall the restaurant definitely shows some promise, but is in a definite need of organization. The quality of the food is high, but a bit of refining of the recipes is in order, and definitely they have a serious need of creating a decent wine list, as their haphazard method of presenting their wines will lead to lost clients. Another peeve was that I though it was a bit excessive to charge $2.50 for a can of mineral water. I think that we will give them a few more months to get their act in order and try again before making out final judgment. The food is good now and could easily become great, especially since the basic constituents are of good quality, but I will withhold my recommendation until they have straightened their organizational problems. It was good enough though to count as the nice restaurant meal I owed Normita. Maybe we just caught them on a bad day…

Lucito

PS. While I was writing this, Normita had another bet with me about another Tom Hanks movie, as she thought he was working for DHL in Castaway, and I was sure he was working for FedEx. I am glad that I did indeed win my bet, and now she is the one who owes me a nice restaurant meal.

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