My Big Lunch Date

Yesterday was the first time in a loooong time I ate lunch at a place that didn't have a kids' menu. I had been wanting to try t'afia for a while. The owner/chef was nominated for a James Beard award, and she runs the Midtown Farmer's Market. The big deal at t'afia is Friday's prix fixe lunch, which is why I was there.

So for the first course I had sweet and sour shrimp soup. Which was ... so help me, there is no other way of saying this ... interesting. It seems like it was Indian-inspired, with curry and coconut milk, but there was also a muddy taste that reminded me of gumbo roux. It was somehow neither bad nor good, just entirely unlike anything I've ever had before. John had the arugula salad in vinaigrette with white chocolate shavings. He won the first round: that salad was delicious. The white chocolate shavings weren't too sweet, so they came across as a creamy type of cheese.

For the second course I had a fried soft-shell crab with french fries and a bit of purple coleslaw. The sauce for the crab was some sort of creamy mustard with ... curry? I couldn't quite tell. It was good, if a little tame. The frying was well done. The potatoes were thin, just like I like them, but a bit limp. [Do I sound like the pickiest wanker of a restaurant reviewer? I'm afraid I might.] The sauce for the fries was ketchup. Heinz, I believe. John's second course was swordfish paillard with sun-dried tomatoes. It was delicious. Again, John won that round. His fish came with some sort of squash gratin, which I did not try but he seemed to enjoy.

Finally, we both had the chocolate bread pudding. I'm not a huge bread pudding person -- I like it, but it stops there. Still, our other choices were lemon-thyme sorbet (which I wish I could say I tried, but I chickened out at the last minute, hesitant about the thyme), and peach crumble. All I can offer in my defense is that I don't like peaches. I don't pretend that it's a reasonable opinion, but there it is. Anyhow, the bread pudding was pretty good. I thought that they were a bit stingy with the sauce (as they were in the second course), but I'm kind of piggy about sauce.

I'm really glad I went to lunch there. For the first time I had the feeling about food that one has about unconventional art, or clothing, or music: the thoughts provoked by the art are enjoyable in themselves. One needn't always reach for those things which are more immediately pleasurable. I appreciate, for example, the combination of Indian and Gulf Coast elements in the soup -- our areas have similar climates, so it's natural to look at fusing the two cuisines. I'm not sure that the end result was at perfect pitch, but in a way that's beside the point.

Anyway, before I get too hifalutin, I should point out a couple of things: first of all, I have no background in cuisine of any sort, really. It is certainly an uninformed opinion that I offer. The second thing I need to disclose is that I had fast food nachos for dinner.

Addendum: t'afia had a lovely vanilla-infused iced tea, but they did not have lemonade. Quel dommage.