Review: Ivo and Lulu

The nameless neighborhood between the West Village and Tribeca (realtors say "Hudson Square" or "WeVar"; we favor "EarInn") doesn't get much respect—or press. Besides the SLNY namedrops, we're not sure we'd even know that Ivo and Lulu exists, or that the block of Broome St. between 6th Ave. and Varick is the place for a low-key, low-cost night on the town. Start the night at new hole-in-the-wall bar Monkey Temple, where the proprietors served us up free nibbles that did not consist of peanuts, pretzels, or popcorn. From there, it's a few doors down to Ivo and Lulu, as cool and different a restaurant as we've discovered in recent months. No wider than Monkey Temple, the place serves what's billed as French-Carribean cuisine. That essentially means that fruity surprises accompany stalwart bistro dishes like lamb. Between two of us, we batted three out of four on ordering things we liked. The best part: the place is BYOB, and nothing on the menu is more than $10. We're even willing to overlook the fact that the place is a spin-off of an Upper West Side joint—and that's saying a lot.

Review: The Spotted Pig

Continuing our quest to dine as much in the west as we do in the east this year, we ducked into West Village newcomer The Spotted Pig (W. 11th @ Greenwich St.) early Sunday night. The space that formerly housed Le Zoo has been remade in the image of a British pub—perfect for the place that aims to make the gastropub as big a trend in NYC as it has become in Britain. We sat at the bar—plenty of open seats at the early hour we chose—and ordered a pint of the Spotted Pig Lager, brewed for the place by Brooklyn Brewery. (Our advice: stick with Old Speckled Hen.) Mario Batali (an investor, it seems) chose the chef, 29-year-old April Bloomfield (see second item), who comes to the 'Pig by way of London's famed River Cafe and a summer in the kitchen at Chez Panisse. We just did appetizers, but the results were tantalizing: first, a fleet of half a dozen oysters; second, an order of gnudi, a sort-of dumpling/ravioli hybrid stuffed with ricotta and served with baked sage leaves. Enough to convince that a return trip is in order.

Review: 50 Carmine

As the Japanese housing boom of the 1980's taught us so eloquently, it is best not to purchase real estate in Japan. Also, diversification is good. With that thought in mind, we're making it a Q1 goal of Below 14th to eat out on the west side with greater frequency. Our first stop: 50 Carmine, a newish Italian place on... hmmm, Carmine Street (@ Bedford/Bleecker) that's been drawing raves since it opened last fall. The chef, Sara Jenkins, is an old hand at East Village Italians including the overpriced/overcute I Coppi, the always-terrific Il Buco and what was, under her hand, the underrated baked pasta majesty of Patio Dining (which has, unbeknownst to the good folks at Citysearch, been rebranded). Anyway. Heading west to 50 Carmine proved worth the trip: readers, a list of pastas has not excited us this much in eons. We opted for a special pasta with sea urchin, while our dining companion tried the ballyhooed pasta dyed with red wine. Both were fascinatingly weird, the kind of food you think you dislike after the first few tastes but which keeps you plunging your fork in for more. Bonus: For a small restaurant, they do an exceptional job pumping heat into the place so drafts from the door never become a bother. Good times!

Review: Hue

Has Frank Prisinzano finally arrived? His previous eateries (Frank, Supper, Lil' Frankies) are all East Village $25 and Under faves. Today, Times food critic William Grimes elevates Frank's new-ish West Village Asian eatery Hue (Charles St. @ Bleeker) to full (one star) review status in a snippy little review that focuses more on the crowd than the cuisine ("a highly desirable setting for a certain kind of person," he calls this restaurant genre). Granted, this isn't just Frank's place (his partner here, Karim Amatullah, helmed nighclub Halo), but Grimes offers the ultimate slight, not mentioning any of the principals by name. We ate at Hue a few weeks back and thought it a worthy branching out of the Frank empire. A little loud, yes, and a little overpriced, but hey, what do you expect in the West Village?

Cornelia Street

Great MUG article on Cornelia Street yesterday reminds us that it's been too long since we've eaten at Home and Le Gigot, two places where we've never had a bad meal. (Alack, others have not been so lucky.) Also makes us think of great dining blocks in NYC, two of which in the East Village we've dined anew at in recent weeks. Reviews to come when we catch up from our server crash yesterday.

Jefferson Review

Finally, some West Village love... We have a soft spot for West 10th from the year we lived near its intersection with Bleecker, and we always enjoyed the strange little dining spot Cafe Asean (W. 10th @ 6th Ave.), which serves affordable Asian-influenced cuisine in a casual, low-key setting. A few months back, the owners of Asean opened up another restaurant two doors down called Jefferson that's Asean's mirror image: sleek, hip and expensive. Ate there last night. Conclusion? Not a bad show, especially if you like Asian-influenced cuisine cross-polinated with American fare. But we'd go back to Asean before hitting Jefferson again. (Random shoutout to old fave Thali just around the corner, one of the coolest Indian hole-in-the-walls in NYC.)

Otto Review

After attending an amusing performance of Adult Entertainment last night, we headed across the village to Otto (8th St. @ 5th Ave.) at SA's ahead-of-the-curve urging. The buzz on this place is huge: a new thin-crust pizza joint from Babbo's Mario Batali, but at 10:15pm we cruised in and were seated immediately. The food is great, and a full meal with wine ran us just $60 (Petrosino, poke your eyes out). Highlight was the most unapolagetic dish I've ever seen served in a Manhattan restaurant, a true icon for these Atkins Diet times. It's a pizza called the 'Otto Lardo,' and it's basically a thin crust topped only with pig fat. Unbelievably good. Might even use the word addictive. Memo to Below 14th readers: do not, I repeat do not, tell Pizza Hut about this.

Eating Well in the West Village

MOP was in town for the weekend, and eating well in the West Village was on the menu (right alongside "good times"). After the ATMP fete on Saturday night, we hit old standby Bar d'O for drinks, then dined at Annisa (Barrow/West 4th), indulging in their wondrous tasting menu. Monday eve, it was back to the WV for my first meal ever at Blue Hill (Washington Place by Washington Square Park). It's a restaurant that I hear on more and more friends' "top three" lists of places to eat in NYC, and it lived up to that promise. But don't just take my word for it! Palmermix fills in the blanks on our Annisa and Blue Hill experiences.

Cantinetta Review

Another new restaurant report: Cantinetta (Sixth Ave. below Bleecker) joins Da Silvano and Bar Pitti on a Central Village block that now has three great Italian dining options. I love Bar Pitti for affordable outdoor dining in the summer. Cantinetta is a step up in quality and price but has a no reservations policy that allowed us to snag a table with no waiting last week... Ken tried it on my recommendation last weekend. "Very good food, service sucked," he reports by email. Does the place have anything else to recommend it, Ken? Apparently, yes. "I got laid that night!"