One of the few good dishes doesn’t try too hard or present any strange pairings: buttery, boneless skate.
Whelks are snails bigger than escargots and nine times tougher. Good trivia, but best to just stick with escargots.
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‘If it was 2 a.m. and I was really drunk, I’d probably think this was great,” said a young friend of the soggy fried-calamari salad at Bowery Diner.
Well, the place does serve till 2 a.m., when it buzzes many nights — but at the boring stroke of 9 p.m., calamari and frisee weirdly sprinkled with parmigiano cheese is a dish whose time has yet to come.
Bowery Diner, from Motorino pizza god Mathieu Palombino, is one of those new “fun” joints so eagerly awaited, so long blogged about, you’re tired of it before you take a bite — or a look. Yup, another retro-proletarian pastiche of pressed aluminum, white tile, formica and 1950s pastels on the former Skid Row.
The “diner” shtick’s about as edgy as at mommy-and-kids fave EJ’s Luncheonette, but downtown, next door to the funky New Museum, it’s taken as ironic homage to the Bowery’s factory-age aesthetic. Belgian-born, French-trained Palombino similarly aspires to culinary/cultural ambiguity.
Those who love Motorino’s delicious, unconventional riffs on Neapolitan pizza might fall for it. Pick at shellfish towers and choucroute in schoolroom chairs and HoJo-style booths!
The hosts are welcoming to all, despite a no-reservations policy for parties fewer than six. But bread served in paper bags should not come with butter wrapped in tinfoil. Cocktails like the bourbon-and-lime Jenny Lee ought not change color, flavor and strength from one night to the next.
A huge wall photo shows an old subway car being dumped into the sea. Better they deep-six the menu, which mingles burgers and whelks.
Whelks are snails bigger than escargots and nine times tougher. Un-tenderized, cooked and served whole in scary, sharp-edged shells, no amount of “escargot-style” garlic and butter can make them palatable.
Why not just serve escargots? Because they’d leave customers dressed for “fun” with nothing to talk about, except maybe why so many guys wear bad hats during meals. What is it with bad hats on guys here and at every other joint below 14th Street?
The best entrees are the most conventional — simply grilled bass one night, skate buttery and boneless with squash puree another. The latter sat on a landfill-like heap of soggy shoestring potatoes that neither salt nor ketchup redeemed.
Choucroute scored high: a piggy feast for $24 including pork loin, smoked kielbasa, bacon, boudin blanc, a fat hot dog and fine sauerkraut.
But Palombino works the obscure repertory like an overreaching cabaret artist. Odd combos click one time in four. Bay scallops from Long Island’s Peconic waters — “We’re one of only two restaurants that get them,” the waitress beamed — were served in their shells over fiery kimchi that smartly parried the scallops’ sweetness.
On the other hand, tough clams steamed in duck fat would test a hyena’s jaws. A stump of duck confit was unattractively plopped amid limp french fries.
All the fries bottomed out, whether curled or straight, thick or thin. A foot-tall cone-full did no favors to hanger steak ordered medium-rare that arrived medium-plus.
More ordinary items were as inconsistent as fancier ones — a gristly double-patty Bearnaise cheeseburger, respectable grilled cheddar on toast.
How big was a marinated beet salad? “Decent,” the lunch waitress said honestly of the size. But if cold beet slices were marinated in anything, it might have been a Del Monte can.
Although pricier than a true diner, the lineup’s at least reasonable enough (starters at about $16, sandwiches slightly more, dinner entrees in the mid-$20s). And straightforward desserts hit the spot — sweet, unpretentious and perfectly turned out, especially crisp-crusted cherry pie. But they’re too few, too late.
One night we asked the waiter about a noxious smell in the air.
“Somebody burned the menu,” he laughed.
No, the customer wasn’t disgruntled — the laminated list “got singed by a candle.” But take the hint.