Food & Drink

Pan-Asian eatery is Talde-ly excellent

The big news in Park Slope isn’t the loony Food Coop’s proposed (and mercifully rejected) Israeli products boycott, it’s Talde’s whole branzino—the best new dish I’ve had this year.

If you eat out a lot, you’re up to the gills in branzino (a k a loup de mer, lavraki or plain, vanilla-sounding sea bass). I’ve enjoyed it at American, French, Italian, Greek, Mexican and Chinese places. But never as much as at loud but lovable new Talde, where a three-star “Asian-American” menu is trapped in a 1 1/2-star party scene.

We’ll almost give them a pass on 90-minute waits for tables, thanks to no reservations for fewer than six unless you’re a critic — it’s Brooklyn, after all. But a restaurant aiming and scoring so high owes us more than a single, love-it or hate-it dessert that loses its juice after your first bewildered nibbles.

Talde holds down a long, high-ceilinged corner windowed on two sides. Brooding mahogany frames the space — a colossal mantlepiece over the besieged bar and elaborate moldings and window frames are all over the place.

The dark wood’s carved with dragons, samurai warriors and elephants, the work of a 19th-century Japanese sculptor improbably salvaged from the mansion of department store founder Arnold Constable.

The cheerful exoticism keeps locals happy as they wait in the bar. Not all know what they’re waiting for. Once, a customer asked affable co-owner David Massoni how long the wait for a table would be. Told it might be two hours, the guy asked Massoni to put his name down.

Then: “Thanks — by the way, what kind of cuisine do you have?” Brooklyn!

Chef and co-owner Dale Talde’s pan-southeast-Asian kaleidoscope glimmers through the prism of his Filipino-American heritage and stints at more restaurants than anyone should be able to claim at age 33.

Hokey-sounding at times (pretzel, pork and chive dumplings?), with whiffs of David Chang, Zak Pelaccio and Joe Ng, it’s an electrifying whirl through Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Vietnamese and Malaysian flavor constellations, executed with rare, equal respect for each cuisine.

It’s best enjoyed in booths with enough table space to indulge the “meant to be shared” style. Quickest to vanish from everyone’s Melmac plate is branzino based on a “famous dish of Cha Ca La Vong” in Hanoi. Served with the head on, it looks unboned beneath a jungly frond of banana leaves, but it’s perfectly fileted.

Fleshy, flaky and sweet, it was winningly permeated by a kind of jam made from roasted tomato, turmeric, mustard seed, cardamom, coriander, ginger and garlic. Did I mention chili for spark?

Korean-style fried chicken arrives sectioned and fired with kimchee elements minus the cabbage; the meat’s tender enough for a baby, the skin crackling-battered. Moon-surfaced Saigon crepes enfold a delirious interplay of shrimp, dense Chinese bacon, arugula and bean sprouts, all of it lit up by Vietnamese fish sauce.

I’ve rarely had better ramen soup in a Japanese place: the wheat noodles ultra-thin and glistening on the tongue, the vegetable broth textured with firm, smoked tofu and shiitake mushrooms.

All great — until dessert. It’s called Halo Halo, a shaved-ice folly involving Cap’n Crunch cereal, coconut, bananas, pistachios, tapioca pearls and kaffir lime- and lemongrass-tea syrup.

I love Malaysian shaved ice, but not this Filipino-inspired zoo, too complicated to be simply refreshing. When we jokingly asked Talde if he’ll add a chocolate mousse option, he smiled uneasily and said he’s got new desserts “in the conceptual stage.”

A meal so long in coming deserves a happier ending. But I’m not going to boycott Talde over it. May the rest of the neighborhood come to its senses.