The bar in the 'hood

A friend is back in town for the first time in 5 years and is eating her way through some of the city's best restaurants. While I would love to join her for every meal, I have decided that I would only do one big meal per day these days, and agreed to accompany her to Neighborhood for her first meal.

The Kitchen Nazi has not let people (translation: me) sit at the bar counter for a while now, but as the restaurant was busy on a Thursday night, he decided to put us there as it also enabled him to have more of a conversation and interaction with our friend.

Of course, with the Kitchen Nazi being himself, he arranged everything for our friend and there was never any question of us ordering what we wanted to eat...

Boiled artichoke / liver mousse / truffle - having this for the second time in a row, and that liver mousse packs a real punch when it comes to richness and bitterness. I do like it, though.

Rubia Galega carpaccio / bone marrow / caviar - we watched as The Man in White T-shirt beat down on some raw beef with a paring knife to tenderize it, and this is the result.

OF COURSE I took this with the sourdough bread. Gotta get the beef on first, before adding the warm and jiggly bone marrow plus the caviar. This was so rich thanks to the marrow, and the unseasoned raw beef balanced out the salt from the caviar. Yum.

Deep-fried sillago - fried fishies are always so satisfying, and the spiced yogurt sauce instantly brings us to the Subcontinent.

Red whiskered shrimp - I couldn't believe that these were my favorite (and our CC's and Kuma's favorite) red whiskered shrimp (赤米蝦), because they were even smaller than the ones I'm used to getting. Tonight I got to see the Kitchen Nazi scoop them out of the big bucket they're marinated in, spray some magic, drizzle some oil, then do his Salt Bae move with some fleur de sel and a little piment d'espelette. I really adore this dish. So much flavor.

Since the Kitchen Nazi told us that we are meant to "eat all the dishes together" or something along those lines, I decided to add a couple of these babies on top of bread already loaded with beef, marrow, and caviar. Can't beat this!

Kajiya Farm salad / persimmon / homemade bottarga - interesting to have very thin shavings of sweet persimmon offset the salt, umami, and bitterness of the bottarga. Then we've got some fragrance from the white truffle.

Grilled Sicilian baby squid - the record of this dish showing up at every single meal continues... but I ain't complainin'!

As always, I loaded up the bread with a bunch of these tiny little babies, and made sure I got plenty of the garlic and parsley sauce. So, so, so, good!

Salt-baked virgin mud crabs - my friend loves crab, and I have a feeling that she would have preferred to not share this crab with me...

Look at all that roe in the crab!

Fourfinger threadfin tail - looking at the size of this tail, ya know it's gotta be one big fourfinger threadfin (馬友)!

This was done the way the Kitchen Nazi loves to serve fish in his signature style - with tomatoes, potatoes, and basil. That acidity works so well with the fatty fish, whose flesh is just so silky and tender.

Mille-feuille

Canelés

I brought a bottle of my favorite Swiss pinot noir in honor of my friend who lives in Basel...

2018 Gantenbein Pinot Noir - showing big and toasty nose right off the bat, with lots of juicy red cherries. Young and powerful.

My friend wanted something else to drink, and scoffed at the wine I chose from the restaurant's wine list. I think she was pleasantly surprised... Coincidentally, today was the first day that 2024 Beaujolais Nouveau could be popped open.

2022 Alex Foillard Beaujolais-Villages - fresh and lively, nose of eucalyptus and cool fruit. Good acidity on the palate but tannins are obviously still around.

For the first time in a long time, I left the restaurant without feeling I needed to roll down the hill. Something's up these days, as I survived 2 meals in 2 weeks from 2 chefs who always want to kill me. A very enjoyable night out, then...