Sunday, May 29, 2011

I may not be that social but Stanton is


Hello readers. I know all three of you have been anxiously awaiting my newest post, grinding your teeth in suspense. Between grad school, catching up on Fringe, and sleeping, time has really flown by in between my posts. For that, I am sorry. Please forward me the bill for the meds you've been taking to deal with my absence.

Anyway, after my vacation to Paris then my boyfriend's business trip to California, we needed to have a date to spend some alone time with our threesome partner, Good Food. I've been itching to go to Stanton Social for a few weeks ever since my sister suggested we double date. Like the great sister that I am, I decided that we should go to Stanton Social without her and her new guy since reservations for two are soooo much easier to get than for four. Sorry sis, but between you and a good meal, I will most likely choose the latter. Now reader, by now you're familiar with my proclivity of using abbreviations, but something feels inherently wrong with praising "the SS" several times in a post, so bare with me.

A few $3 Stellas later (thank you Epstein's), Chris and I walked into Stanton Social. For those of you unfamiliar with the restaurant, S Soc is the love child of chef Chris Santos, Richard Wolf, and Peter Kane that serves up tapas style revamped American classics. Sound awesome? That's because it is.
Since the tapas sized portions allows for tasting more of the menu, Chris and I avoided our usual debate over which dishes to get which usually evolves into tension. Again, I wish I were a true fat kid and not just one trapped in a petite frame... oh the places I could go! We both agreed that 5 dishes would probably satiate the both of us and leave some room for dessert, considering I only ate a slice of cheese and three crackers that day in preparation for dinner. Eliminating some dishes were tough so we ordered more than we originally planned: french onion soup dumplings, red snapper tacos, barbecued duck confit and black bean empanadas, crabcake corn dogs, and two sliders (the Kobe Philly and the Rhode Island style lobster roll). Oh helllllll yeah.

Now, I'm not saying I was disappointed because I wasn't. The food was fantastic. But one thing bothered me - the FOS dumplings. Mr. Santos, I appreciate that you combined two of my favorite foods and amplified their flavor by creating some hybrid awesomefood but these are not french onion soup dumplings. They are french onion dumplings. When I see the words soup and dumplings in the same menu item description, I expect to have to strategically bite into the dumpling to suck out the soup. It's common sense, dude. However, Mr. Santos, the flavor was impeccable and I respect the added note of the toasted crouton. Bravo. Moving on, the crab cake corn dog was very tasty and the presentation was clever, but I expected a bit more of that deep fried crunch indicative of corn dog culture and the empanadas were more beany than ducky, which was a little bit of a let down. But I will give you crazy mad props for those sliders. Kobe beef, truffle, and goat cheese?! Genius. AND THAT LOBSTER ROLL! Me and my taste buds are forever in debt to StantSo.

Now we did get some crazy chocolate dessert thing for two that was HUGE. Chris being a great boyfriend understands that I'm very territorial when it comes to my food and I don't like to share, so he ordered some gigantic dessert thing. But, alas, I was full thanks to my inadequately sized stomach. Such hardships in life; this too shall pass. But, dear reader, by now you have also probably realized that I'm a lush and enjoy sucking back $13 cocktails, and I can say that StntScl has great cocktail choices. In the words of my father, "if there's no gin, I'm leaving", therefore I naturally ordered the Bea's Gin-Lemon Mojito, made with Bombay Sapphire, mint, and lemon -- tart and fabulous.

Yes it's difficult to get reservations but there is a trick - the upstairs bar offers a similar menu and doesn't necessarily require reservations if you get there early enough....

Stanton Social
99 Stanton Street
New York, NY
http://www.thestantonsocial.com/menus/food_menu.html

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