The Week of Eating Dangerously: Meat Market

Play "Can't Take My Eyes Off You"
by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons

After Monday night's dinner, I should have gone to a salad bar.

Instead, I passed by my favorite Swedish coffeehouse, paused for a moment, and went two doors down to Quality Meats, which was recently written up in a New York Times article about how women are using their carnivorous tendencies to lure online dates.

Without a reservation but wanting to eat, the hostess led me to the charcuterie bar at the front of the house, where I could get a good view of the street outside and diners walking in. Behind me was the gleaming bar (below), above me was an overlook where random guys would pop in to check out the crowd or talk on their cell phones.

AvroKO, the rising-star design consultancy, came up with a butcher theme. There were lots of clever touches throughout — a ceramic steer's head as you walk in, meat-hook chandeliers in the main dining area, butcher's knives turned into wall art. The charcuterie bar itself is surrounded underneath with butcher's block. It had the rugged feel of a lodge, but with more glass and stainless steel.

The service, which started off OK, became nonexistent when the crowds started pouring in. Reviews seem to consistently complain about bad service. Then again, this is a Smith & Wollensky restaurant, which has a reputation for terrible service but great food.

Though Quality Meats is a steakhouse, I thought better of it. Then I got the menu and thanked myself for not having my heart set on an aged rib steak. The prices are astronomical. Instead, I ordered smaller dishes.

First, the bad:
Do not order the gnocchi and cheese. The pasta is grainy and gummy; the cheese, grainy and runny. I ordered it on a whim. Bad idea.

The good:

• A pan of flat, silver dollar-sized cipollini onions, which I first discovered in March at the Chelsea Market. These carmelized gems were slightly sweet and almost creamy.

• Roasted bone marrow — but you have to like fat. Two bones were served blistering hot with slices of toasted, crusty bread.

• Polesio Sangiovese from Italy. It didn't quite have the pepper Sangiovese is known for, but it was still pretty good.

• Tropical fruit sorbet served atop cubes of tropical fruit in a light syrup.

The great:

• Traditional steak tartare and slices of crusty, fresh dark bread with four seasonings: sea salt, coarse salt and cracked black pepper, spicy mustard, and green olive tapanade.

Most steak tartare is raw, fresh, good cuts of steak seasoned, then mixed with green onion and thrown into a meat grinder or chopped to ground meat consistency.

Here, it was raw steak straight-up, cut into tiny cubes no bigger than a centimeter, served in a little bowl with a raw egg yolk on top. Fleeting thoughts of mad cow disease, E. coli and salmonella raced through my head, but I threw caution to the wind and lived to blog about it. Lovely texture, delicious taste. We'll see how I feel in about four days.

• The vegetable compote that came with the bone marrow: cubed vegetables and smoked, dried Italian ham coated with a thick balsamic vinagrette reduction. Tangy and salty, I would have loved to get the recipe for this.

• The dried pineapple shaving about the size of a gaufrette that decorated the sorbet. It's stunning how great something so simple can taste.

Go if you like meat, want to impress, or have an expense account. But don't go if you want speedy and attentive service.