Resto

111 E. 29th Street
New York, NY  10016
212.685.5585
www.restonyc.com


I'm in New York City again! For Memorial Day weekend no less.  I know that sounds counter-intuitive since most people generally flee to the beach or some other body of water for this long weekend which is exactly my point of being in NYC.  Long weekends, especially Memorial Day weekend, are the best time to go and try out NYC since its relatively empty.  The waits for tables are shorter, the bars are less crowded and the weather is almost always nice.


For my first night here, we started off at Resto in Murray Hill while waiting for one of our friends to get off of work.  We just planned to get a few drinks and a few appetizers and then move on to the West Village.  Resto is a quaint little bar found on a quiet cross street in Murray Hill.  It touts itself as a Belgian Pub but I couldn't identify what makes it Belgian or not.  On their menu, they talk about their love of the Pig which I definitely could identify with and was well reflected on the appetizers we ordered.  We ended up just getting three, the Tete de Cochon, Deviled Eggs and Charred Octopus.

I took pictures of all of them which I'll post but I have to apologize for the picture quality since we took the table out front so we could eat outside which was nice but it also meant it was dark.  I didn't get a chance to snap any more pics so they probably won't make a slideshow.  I started with the Deviled Eggs which was a typical deviled egg with maybe a bit more paprika than usual but not enough to bring a ton of heat.   What made the dish outstanding was the was that it was sitting on what they called pork toast.  It was basically a deep friend hot pocket of porky goodness.  The outer coating was a thin breaded dough crust and the inside was a puree of herbs and pork parts (probably every part possible) which was all deep fried.  The puree reminded me of a terrine or a pate but warm, runny and explodes in your mouth when you bite in.

The charred octopus was three to four very large pieces of octopus tentacles grilled and placed on a bed of some white beans (cannellini I think), and chunks of fried sausage broken up so it reminded me of a sausage breakfast patty.  The octopus was expertly grilled so that it had a nice char on it and any signs of toughness were gone.  It had a nice flavor but generally I find octopus to be a bit bland.  The beans and sausage, however, were a nice compliment to that.  The sausage was rich and a bit spicy and the beans gave you a nice chewy contrast.

Tete de Cochon was the last thing we ordered which were basically pork sloppy joes in between pieces of toasted bread.  Again, I'm not sure what parts of the pig were used but the name of the dish may give us a hint of that.  The menu says there is a pastrami rub with jalapeno and slaw.  I didn't notice the slaw in the sandwich but it was dark.  The rub and jalapeno were a bit evident with the slight amount of heat the sandwiched evoked.  This was, again, an explosive bite of flavor and if this was pig's head then I would order that every chance I get.

The menu for Resto says Nose to Tail dining and with just the small sample size of dishes we tried, I think they carry out that philosophy quite well and hopefully will open up the eyes of a lot of diners that there are parts of the animal which are equally as tasty as the parts they are most familiar with.  Resto gave us a great start to an evening in NYC and as we headed to the West Village, I hoped that our next stops would give us more of the same amount of good conversation and great food.