The Omnivorous Fish

We spent last weekend in Connecticut, land of milk and money. Of course, there are areas in Connecticut that are normal, middle-class places, but when you live in New York City (and you don’t decide which of your homes to go to for the weekend) Connecticut just has the connotation of people named Muffy and having live-in maids.

The wedding was lovely, we saw dozens of people that we don’t often get to see and was a complete success for the lovely bride and groom.

Except for the food. I don’t know, maybe the bride and groom loved it, but all I could think about was Wallse, where we ate last week.

Wallse is as much a state of mind as it is a restaurant. It’s teutonic in the extreme, from the black carpet and white walls to the paintings by Albert Oehlen. The flatware, the Riedel O glassware and the all-Austrian wine list whisper sweet ordnung in my ear.

It has been there at least six years, but I only recently discovered it while clicking links and reading an old review of it by one my lesser fave NY Times food critics, William Grimes. The Agent and I are still swooning a little over our Valentine’s dinner at The Modern, and, truth be told, I have always had a penchant for things Oesterreichisch. When I was an apprentice, my chef (a French chef, American by birth, German by extraction, trained by a Hungarian) referred fondly to “the dumpling belt” and we learned the likes of lebenknoedel, erdapfelknoedel, serviettenknoedel and stirum.

The food at Wallse is like those foods’ thin, exotic, runway model cousin from Hawaii. I had an appetizer of poached lobster with fava beans and a butter sauce which had a perfect but unexpected foil: sour cherries. Don’t laugh, I know: lobster; cherries, lobster; cherries. WTF? It works. The cherries burst into a tart, fruity little tapdancer in your mouth, enrobed in a Martha Graham butter shawl. On a subsequent visit, although I think in reality it was just as good, the surprise of the cherries wasn’t there. I guess you can never go home again… with lobster. Or with lobster and cherries. Or. Whatever.

The rabbit spaetzle almost reminded me of an Italian-style braise with pasta, except with spaetzle. (For you cognoscenti, the spaetzle are the pie-plate-with-holes style [as opposed to potato ricer method, or the end-of-the-spoon-on-the-lip-of-bowl method I learned as an apprentice]). Tender, salty bits of rabbit swam through the creamy herbed spaetzle. Truly memorable. I think, however, the appetizer de résistance had to be the palatschinken (very thin whole weat crepes, perhaps buckwheat) stuffed with smoked trout and horseradish. They were served rolled up tightly and sliced, laid over identical asparagus soldiers.

For main courses, on our first trip the Agent had the special fish: rainbow trout, panfried with bunashimeji mushrooms and served on top of braised Belgian endives, garnished with supremes of oranges. A supreme, in case you are unaware, is a very fancy, but highly specific term for a citrus segment, without any pith or seeds. Again, I know it sounds crazy, but it works. The crispy skin foiled the moist, flaky trout, and the mushrooms added interest to the texture and earthy flavor. But just when you were afraid it was all going to be too salty or rich, a juicy orange crush lit up your mouth. Browned, soft Belgian endives made a nice little nest for the fish. Another bizarre-sounding combo wins. I had the Wiener Schnitzel. What is this iconic thing, you may ask, subject of Bugs Bunny cartoons? A veal cutlet. Breaded and fried, end of story. This particular one was excellent, served with a lingonberry conserve (much better than the one at Ikea) and a light, flavorful potato salad. Something more ethereal than that of a church picnic, it was further lightened by paper thin slices of cucumber. Cucumber, it seems, was- outside of diner pickles- almost erased from my culinary experience for a time, but thankfully, Wallse has shown me the error of my ways. There’s something to be said for that light, crisp taste, bursting with water.

On our next visit, everyone had fish but me, and I think I may have missed out. Halibut hit the table twice, once with cucumbers and once with light and wonderful dill sauce. Red snapper was another crispy-skin triumph, and I had Kavalierspitz, boiled beef shoulder with beautfully cut and perfectly cooked vegetables. It was served with the most highly evolved potato roesti I’ve ever seen, and “creamed spinach” which turned out to be entirely pureed. Elegant? Yes. Flavroful? Eh, give me my spinach in pieces, thanks. A tower of freshly grated horseradish cascaded over the meat, very pretty and pragmatic, since you’re going to want some in every bite. Let’s face it, at the end of the day, boiled beef is boiled beef; but, as boiled beef goes, this was clearly the zenith.

Unsurprisingly in an Austrian place, the desserts are no slouches, either. I had a cherry strudel with pistachio cream and some richly good but nondescript buttermilk ice cream. It was sort of a “concept” strudel rather than the big, flaky slice you’re used to, but it was excellent, and a little trail of chopped pistachios made a disappearing, winding road off into the distance (of the corner of the plate). On a subsequent trial, this rocky road wasn’t there, and I have to admit I was disappointed. It was just slightly whimsical, very attractive, and we got cheated out of a tablespoon of chopped pistachios. Jeez.

There was a chocolate “pudding,” more like a molten-center chocolate cake, (not very much like a steamed pudding) which I found a little dry at the edges, but the raspberry sorbet and candied beets it came with went a ways to make up for it. Not far enough, in my opinion, but the agent loved it, as did a friend of ours. On the second trip, the shaved-ice presentation of the sorbets caught the Agent’s eye, and he went with the lemon sherbet and Riesling granité with mint and cassis. Were they good? Absolutely, but for my dough, at an Austrian restaurant of this quality, I’ll save the ices for in between courses. A huckleberry Salzburger nockerl was everything it’s supposed to be, a light, barely sweet puff of browned meringue with some perfect fruit in the bottom. It wasn’t the alpine-crested nockerl I have seen in the past, but it was so good it could have been shaped like mouse-ears and I would have devoured it.

The wine list is a bit of a bear. First of all, it’s all Austrian. Hands up, everyone who knows a lot about Austrian wine! Let’s see… ok, nobody. I believe there was one Australian and possibly a German selection by the glass, and that’s about it. And it’s not cheap. It starts around $50 and goes up to $150. After talking to two different waiters and the man I believe to be the sommelier (he did not identify himself as such, but spoke knowingly about the wine program) it seems that if you’re going to get any real Austrian wine-drinking on, at least at Wallse, you’re going to need to go into the $80-plus range. Like German wines, Austrian wines are largely demarcated by ripeness, the most common on the list being federspiel (less ripe) and smaragd (more ripe). Our waiter told us the federspiels would “drink more or less like any crisp white wine,” but the real action was in smaragd. Was he right or trying to pad the bill? Dunno, but we went with the wine he suggested, a smaragd Gruener Veltliner from Wachau, made by a producer called Knoll, who is apparently among the newer generation of producers committed to producing world-class wines (at world-class prices). Was it good? Yes. Was it better than some off-the-shelf warm-weather crisp white wine? Yes. Was it better than the $20 bottle of tocai friulano or the $25 bottle of Alsatian riesling ten feet away from me? Not really. It was complex and minerally and floral and slightly tropically fruity and $90. We also had a bottle of Schlumberger sekt (sparkling wine, $45) as an aperitif. Again, it was good, but was it better than the $12 bottle of prosecco sitting in my stash? I can’t say yes.

The wine list does, at least, make an effort to educate. The wines are largely broken down by region, and each page has an introduction to what you’re going to find on it. It is a bare-bones guide, however, I wouldn’t be afraid to ask for help. One thing that does irk me about the list, though, is the its arrangement by price (within subcategories of region and grape). I mean, come on. Also, I like to have a small ice bucket on my table. I don’t want my white wines whisked away to someplace where I can’t see them, and can’t pour them for myself, in a quantity that I want them. I should have asked if they had any, and when I go back (which I will) I will ask. I will also, as a control, order the cheapest bottle of wine on the list and see if it makes a damn bit of difference.

Wallse
344 W11th St, at Washington St.
212.352.2300