Double Crown 316 Bowery 212 254 0350 The superbly well- located Double Crown suffers from menu over- reach. Two really pretty rooms with painted, sculpted wood walls from design powerhouse AvroKO houses a restaurant serving up what they call Brit/Indian/Asian eats. But really there's also Italian influences and don't be fooled; it's practically the whole continent of Asia. There's Malaysian, Cantonese and Japanese. Add to that a slew of experimental ingredients and it's like being asked to do factorials in school. After awhile your mind swims. Similarly the palate can't handle it. The combinatorics? A pheasant and licorice – that's right, licorice - pie done with smoked bacon, lavender and baby snow pea shoots. "Pigs in a wet blanket" done with lychee and coconut sauce. An Heirloom tomato salad served with curry leaf paneer croutons and layered on top an olive oil and lemon basil cream. But even when the ingredients singularly work in the dish - and yes with some, it's not half bad (the coconut chicken salad done with mint and snow peas is simple and nice and the Singapore laksa over green tea noodles with crisp bean sprouts is mild and pleasant) - even then, the infinite polynomials don't work. The laksa doesn't taste good when eaten in proximity to the heirloom tomato salad or after the white bait. And the challenge is, none of the selections are large enough to stand alone. Rare is it that we say a place should move more to the mainstream - after all, we can boil noodles ourselves at home - but we hope in time, this spot will scale it down. Particularly poor acoustics in the second room may curtail your meal - or possibly send you running into their attached lounge, Madam Geneva. |
'wichcraft 15 East Ai Fiori Alma 33 Aurora Williamsburg Bar Centrale Bistro Vendome Bobo Buddakan CO-OP Food & Drink Ca Va Cafe Cluny Centro Vinoteca Chinatown Ice Cream Factory Da Silvano Cantinetta David Burke Kitchen DavidBurke Townhouse Del Posto Delicatessen Double Crown Eataly Ed's Lobster Bar Eighty Four on Seventh El Porron Ellabess Ember Room Emporio Esperanto Fig and Olive FireBird Fishtag Freeman's Gemma Gnocco Guantanamera Highpoint Bistro and Bar Hill Country Hudson River Cafe Hundred Acres Imperial No 9 Indochine Izakaya Ten John Dory Oyster Bar Kingswood L'Absinthe L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon Lavo Lunetta MPD Mama's Mudsliders Marble Lane Minetta Tavern Morandi Morimoto Mr Robata Mr. Chow's Tribeca Num Pang Sandwich Shop Per Se Perbacco Piccola Cucina Pop Art Bar + Restaurant PopBar Pulino's Pó Rabbit in the Moon Rouge Tomate STK Sant Ambroeus Scarpetta Schiller’s Liquor Bar Sofrito Stanton Social Tartinery Tenpenny The Darby The Dutch The Hurricane Club The Lion The Pan American The Spotted Pig The Tangled Vine The Tea Set Tiella Tocqueville Vai Spuntino Via dei Mille Villa Pacri Waverly Inn Zutto
terms of use |