Asia de Cuba: Wily Chayote
Inventing a new cuisine has got to be a kick. Ask the Rube Goldbergs who bring us Asia de Cuba. A new cuisine can be a free-form mosaic, a Tower of Babel. This one began with the notion of Chi-no-Latino. Yin and yang. Intellectual and sexy. Perfect for an Ian Schrager space designed by Philippe Starck—a cool corner for a hot crowd.
But the classic Chino-Latino hash-house menu (black-bean soup alongside Chinese spare ribs) that made La Caridad on upper Broadway a fueling pit for cabbies and thrifties would never do for the new restaurant at the Morgans Hotel, I suppose. China Grill veteran Jeffrey Chodorow, clutching the lease on this lofty-pedigree spot, determined to mix it up in every dish: Chinese-roast-pork empanadas with sour-orange-and-ginger cream. Tuna tartare picadillo-style on wonton crisps. Hunan fish stuffed with crab escabeche.
And chef Robert Trainor couldn't suppress his yen for the Zen flavors of Japan. So there are orange-pineapple ribs to dip in traditional Japanese dashi infused with jasmine. Not to mention Japanese crumbs called panko cocooning the coconut shrimp. In no time, all borders have become meaningless—Chino-Latino spiced chicken with Korean kimchi. Yuca-crusted grouper with red-wine-miso sauce. Ropa vieja of duck with Thai basil. A spy at the opening calls to warn me: Everything has a million ingredients.
The shock is that some of this bizarre mishmash is wonderful. It's not just because the polyglot cocktails are irresistible (even at $8 and $9 each), so maybe I'm sloshed. This elegant spring-green pisco sour tingles. My friend's mai tai is the best I've ever sipped, complete with half a pineapple in skewered chunks, and not the usual itsy paper parasol but a beach umbrella vast enough for Barbie and Ken. I don't think any of us would tax a Breathalyzer on the smidgen of alcohol in most of these potions. But heaven knows, folks all around us are game, sipping "Tiki Puka Puka" with long straws from communal bowls big as bathtubs. Indeed, my "Blood Oranj" could use a serious transfusion of Stoli as well as Campari if I'm to feel even a faint buzz. "Our drinks are lighter than most," one waiter boasts with naive pride.
Not that all of us aren't intoxicated anyway. We're high on the glamour of this room, the billowing white curtains with an inner glow that washes decades from every face. Apollo has spoken to the architect. One of my guests, with night-crawling encoded in his DNA, exults that even the tiny rectangles of rosy light on each step of the stairs are magical: "Isn't this amazing? The light makes your shoes look beautiful."
Lissome commuters from upper Madison try not to look uncomfortable eating off cocktail tables at lowish settees in front of the fireplaces (upstairs and down). Our sextet rates a tall half-moon booth of white pebbled leather with a view of the 30-foot slash of marble that makes a radiant communal table. Random twos and threes and an occasional single mingle, flirt, and share tastes with total strangers. Indeed, the whole room is whipped into a froth of uninhibited bonhomie. Like the guy at the next table who overhears us admiring the urban monuments woven into our pal's suspenders. "That's not the Space Needle," the eavesdropper cries. "It's a big silver vibrator. My stepmother has one just like that."
At last, the slightly delayed stop-and-start of the kitchen brings food to distract us: Tunapica, the raw fish chopped with Spanish olives, black currants, almonds, and coconut in a subtle soy-lime vinaigrette with a side of feverishly peppered cucumber. Splendid Thai beef carpaccio with not-quite-ripe avocado and Asian salad in a hot-and-sour dressing. Five-spice-rubbed foie gras in an amusing liaison with yuca-bread French toast, cashews, and a tropical salsa. Sensational deep-fried calamari salad, reminiscent of the Chinois-on-Main knockoff at China Grill but even better with the addition of chayote, hearts of palm, and banana. We love the oxtail spring roll with black-bean-tomato-cucumber relish as well as the Havana noodles. And the panko-crisped shrimp, too (though not its inedible thatch of shaved sugar cane). The orange-pineapple ribs are so sweet, we take advantage of the preview-week offer to send back anything we don't like and delete it from the bill. This fantasy doesn't come cheaply—not with entrees up to $27 and $5 for a pot of boutique tea.
We've ordered platters to share, heeding the servers' advice, impressed by how savvy they are so quickly. "We've been tasting for six weeks," one waiter confides. "The chef used us to adjust the seasonings. Like we're the average person." One of them flubs occasionally, forgetting to deliver condiments in their handsome flacons or describing the mild vinegar as "dangerously hot" and the torrid siracha ketchup as "mild" or forgetting to bring the Cuban fried rice with its pleasant wok taste and avocado salad on top. The kitchen is still feeling its way, too. As Chef Trainor concedes, "my cooks from Park Avenue Cafe and Picholine don't necessarily get it yet."
Even given a scattering of mistakes and misconceptions, I'd still recommend the grouper on its luscious bed of spicy fresh hearts of palm and the sirloin with scallions and ginger. Or the hacked-lime-and-garlic poussin and the showy striped bass, stuffed with crab and cooked whole. Tamarind-and-rum-glazed pork is worth a try, as is the coffee-and-vanilla-lacquered duck, for the juicy confited leg if not for the too cooked and dry sliced breast
The frosted chocolate "Latin Lover" collapses when I fork it, but, even on the horizontal, it's sexier than "Guava Dynamite." After its flaming sparkler dies, it is only sticky guava mousse in a chocolate tuile. Go for the "Moon Over Havana," Cuban flan and cookies with wonderfully prickly passion fruit.
Need a cigar about now? Take your beautiful shoes up the stairs to the rum bar on the smoking-anywhere balcony with its pulsing Latin beat and a bird's-eye view of the churn below. "I wonder how long it will take the wrong people to find this place," the night-creeper broods. "The wrong people will come."
Three young women in colorful getups peep in through the billows of white at the door. "I think they're already here," I whisper as we exit.
On the sidewalk, he stamps his foot in triumph. "No they're not. Did you see what happened? They took one look and left. They knew they didn't belong."
237 Madison Avenue, near 37th Street.