August 15, 1989 |
Vintage Insatiable
Flamingo East: Nest for Pack Brats
What makes a new beanery hot? Sometimes just saying so… often enough, in the right places. I’ve been reading again and again that Flamingo East is an East Village nesting spot for pack brats with keen homing instincts. But it’s a summery Saturday, and only a few bright-lights-bedazzled moths buzz the bar as we venture through the anonymous black door and around a curve of steel mesh into a setting that is slightly fifties, slightly 2010 – concrete pillars, odd juttings of wall, gray leatherette booths and banquettes, spots of violet, jade and cobalt, music getting livelier by the hour.
Everything host Darrell Maupin knows about restaurants he learned from Brian McNally – first as a waiter at Odeon, then as maitre d’ at Indochine, most recently putting the Canal Bar together. But even Maupin cant quite pinpoint McNally’s genius. “Intuition, I guess,” he offers. Wisely, the menu prices are temperate: oysters $1.50 each, appetizers $3 to $6, half-orders of pasta just $4, entrées $14 to $23 (for rack of lamb).
Still, the young women who serve, lithe and outrageous in layers of what could be underwear, latex accentuating the obvious, have that McNally aura of fresh innocence and exotica. They are only fitfully attentive – not mean, just space-walking. Our waitress upends an empty wine bottle in the bucket and leaves it on the table. A runner from the kitchen studies our written order dutifully, then, smiling in triumph, puts each dish in front of the wrong person.
But chef Alain Eigenmann who says his mother sent him off to cooking school when he was a thirteen-year-old juvenile delinquent in Alsace, can really cook. Perhaps working for brilliant Claude Baills in Ho-Ho-Kus has honed his skill. Too bad he’s still a delinquent. He doesn’t know quite where to stop.
True, we are recognized at once. I begged my companion not to wear a navy blue suit, although our simply being over 25 might have aroused suspicions. In classic tradition, the chef sends an offering – spears of endive carrying prosciutto or nuggets of chicken in sour cream, with potato chips, orange slices, and fine crumbs somehow glued to the edge of the plate. At this point, a card-carrying sensualist would flee. But I get paid to sit there and smile.
Sometimes it hurts. The tuna gravlax is warm and bland. (More sawdust and fluted lemons frame the plate.) Pesto-steeped linguini is better than black-green-and-white fettuccine with overcooked salmon and sun-dried tomatoes. Sautéed shiitake with lentils and arugula have a pleasant vinegary note, but the untoasted pine nuts are a nervous tic, adding nothing.
Now, at last, the kitchen picks up. A special of the evening, tasty lobster in couscous, doesn’t need potato chips standing en garde. Seared tuna in slices with a peppery edge is wonderful. Veal chop, rack of lamb, duck magret, and splendid tender filet of beef on a potato galette in a garlic-confit sauce prove the cook’s mettle. And the wild-and-white rice timbale that is served with most entrées is irresistible. If only Eigenmann could kick his bad habits – the red-and-yellow pepper dice scattered everywhere, the silly plate-framing crumbs (with finger-drawn patterns yet).
Midweek, the downtown hipsters are crowding in. Every table in the room seems to be celebrating a birthday – with much applause and, I hope, the house’s fabulous praline-adorned floating island. “We started a little fancier than we need to be,” says Maupin. He knows. He’s working on it. Hurry up Darrell. Birds of a feather are fickle flockers.