Butter

Whenever I have a chance to get into the city I research the hottest, most noteworthy restaurants to see the options. Lots of things come into play before the final decision is made like price, location and dress code.  We don't typically get all gussied up for a day of walking the city, thus certain restaurants don't like our sneaker wearing feet in their restaurants.  For the most part, we can still find some great eats. 

I am normally the one to make the restaurant decision.  For this trip I came up with two restaurants I had been wanting to sample for a while.  In the end, after the group reviewed the menu options, we decided on Butter.  The executive chef is Alex Guarnaschelli.  She has a show on the Food Network, Alex's Day Off and is currently competing on Iron Chef.  She has an amazing ability to tell stories and describe food.  With her it seems more than just food.

I was excited to try out this new restaurant.  We were seated and quickly made our decisions.  Our appetizers arrived very fast and we ate them equally as fast. Clearly because I forgot to take any pictures. Sadly after that everything seemed to slide down hill. The over temperature of the restaurant was awful. It went from cold air blowing to hot air blowing and back multiple times.  I would go to shivering in my coat to almost sweating within 5 minutes and then back again. There was no regulation whatsoever.

After getting our appetizers so quickly we were all excited to try our entrees. We waited, and waited and waited.  We saw multiple tables receive and finish there meals, and these tables were seated after us.  After giving our waitress the death stare she finally came over and simply said its coming. Obviously something happened to our order because we ended up waiting more than 40 minutes between finishing our appetizers till our meals came out.  No apologies or explanations were given. She was completely blase about it.

The food was excellent.  I got the lamb shank and Mr. J got the NY strip steak. The presentation was beautiful. There was so many rich flavors.  Both dishes were served with a variety of root vegetables.  The meals felt earthy and warm, perfect for a winter night.

Would I go back?  Maybe.  It is hard for me to justify paying so much for a meal when the service is bad.  Going to the city for a meal like this is a big deal and having to wait so long and then not to have an explanation as to why is ridiculous.  It was also extremely uncomfortable to way so long when the temperature fluctuated so much throughout the night.