Irish Immigrant Food Snobs

3 New York restaurants

1. The Owl’s Tail

Upper West Side

The joy of New York is that there is just so much to discover. Even if you never left your 5 block radius, you’d still happen upon restaurants and cafes or cinemas or theatres or little parks you’d never seen before, all the time. We had friends coming to stay and they told us they’d been recommended a bar by friends who told them it was their favourite bar in the city for wine and cheese. This bar was a 10 minute walk from our home and we’d never even noticed it. The Owl’s Tail. Such a fabulous find. The staff was amazing (which is not always a given) and our waiter took a fabulous photo of us (one of the main things I look for in a waiter, actually).

The cocktails looked great and I ordered a blueberry Pimm’s. On the recommendation of the waiter, we had the devilled eggs and biscuits. The truffle devilled egg was so sublime that two people at the table (me included) let out a little groan of pleasure upon tasting it. Biscuits are not biscuits as we know them, though they are sweet and also something you wouldn't expect to see at the dinner table: they are scones. These scones were served warm with jalapeno butter. Like mini scones you’d get at an afternoon tea, that somehow didn't seem stupidly out of place alongside the meat & cheese charcuterie board we also ordered.

There was a beautiful smell in the air and when we asked what it was, they said it was their almond pound cake. It would have been rude to leave without trying it so we did try it and it was moist, perfectly moist. I loved it.

The food was excellent - “Unusually so, for America” was David’s review. Imagine Irish immigrants to America being food snobs! How times have changed. My friend’s mother did a J1 one in 1969. She was 19 years old and from Kerry and she said she didn’t know until that point that there were different flavours of ice-cream - she thought the only flavour of ice-cream was “white”. Her job, back in the summer of ‘69, was to mix shredded cabbage, carrots and mayonnaise together to make coleslaw. She had never heard of coleslaw before and couldn't believe the constituent ingredients of something so tasty were right under our noses at home all this time! How could carrot and cabbage combine to make something so delicious? Incidentally, a man from Dublin who moved to Trim, to open a deli in the 1980s, claims to have introduced coleslaw to Trim. It seems like a bodacious claim but my mother (also a 1980s Dublin transplant in Trim) says: “I’d say he did”. There you have it, case closed.

2. Wildair

Lower East Side

We met two friends for dinner in Wildair on Orchard Street. The menu consisted of small plates and the server recommended 2 to 3 plates per person. I’m no mathematician, but I counted 13 plates on the menu and joked that we could just order the whole menu. I wasn’t actually joking; I just dressed it up as a joke so that I had an out in case people thought it was obscene. They didn't think it was obscene though, they thought it was a very sensible suggestion. So we ordered the whole menu and a bottle of wine from Transylvania because we’d never seen a bottle of wine from Transylvania before. And then we ordered a second, even though by that stage, we had seen a bottle of wine from Transylvania before.

3. Bad Roman

Columbus Circle

Bad Roman is in a shopping centre, but don't let that put you off. Critics look down their noses at it because it caters too much for Instagram, but don’t let that put you off either because the food is actually excellent (and…surprise! Instagrammable!). It has the rep for being difficult to get into but definitely don't let that put you off because any time I’ve shown up for lunch, I get a spot no problem (though I have to go through the big show of the host poring over the reservation book, while I pass the time by looking around the vast and empty restaurant).

The décor is Italian, in that it is how I imagine a flamboyant mobster might decorate his home. The room is more orange than Donald Trump’s face, there’s a giant stone warthog in the centre of the room and the toilets are black. The actual porcelain of the toilets is black, that is, and the bathroom walls are papered in black paper with a black print.

The service was a little bit slow but it was a Sunday evening and we were not in a hurry. We ordered the garlic babka for the table. Miniature. Very cute. As well as the whipped ricotta. This was the star of the show. It was piped out in waves and the waiter drizzled truffle-infused honey over it with a glass honey dipper from the glass honey pot. It was served with cracker breads and it was divine. We were distracted by the fact that these were described as “for the table” when in fact, what they were, were starters and we went ahead and ordered four ‘piattini’ (starters) before our four main meals with sides and then dessert.

To start, I had the tuna tartare which I really enjoyed but which underwhelmed everybody else. My husband ordered the calamari fritto misto, which reminded me of being on holidays, specifically our holiday in Cinque Terre, a tiny town (5 towns) in northern Italy. Cinque Terre also happened to be where our white wine was from (chosen because it was the cheapest on the menu; it still it cost $83).

For main, I had the viral Cacio e Pepe Raviolo, which is a fillet steak with a raviolo on top. Cutting into the raviolo - setting the cacio and pepe sauce free to drip down, was an unexpectedly sensuous experience. I went for dessert which was the only real disappointment of the night. A Caramelized Chocolate Tart & Olive Oil Gelato. Olive oil gelato, I soon learned, is simply gelato with olive oil poured over it and I don't know what was caramelized about the chocolate tart other than maybe it was slightly burnt on top.

Overall though, a very fun restaurant with great people-watching, both within the restaurant and without (it perfectly overlooks an apartment block where everyone keeps their blinds up).