New York City's best cheap prix fixe French menus: Part III (Alouette)

November 7, 9:55 AMNY French Restaurants ExaminerHoward Portnoy

Previous Next

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the NY French Restaurants Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

"Early bird." "Pre- theater dinner." "Twilight dining." These phrases are anathema to many New Yorkers. They carry the stigma of quarantine, of outcast. (“Hurry up and finish eating, please. The real customers are coming.”) Yet, when you think about it logically, those terms denote a healthy symbiosis between a restaurant and its patrons. For the budget-minded restaurant-goer, they spell value in these recessionary times. For the restaurant (which is also feeling the pinch!), they represent a chance to fill tables that would otherwise remain empty at non-peak hours.

But enough of business. Down to business. Alouette, a walk-in closet of a place on upper Broadway, appears to take its early bird seriously. Certainly that's the impression one takes away from the ambitious and appealing 3-course menu, which offers (count 'em) four appetizers, six main courses, and four desserts. They promise a lot. And most of the time they deliver.

The kitchen comes through with flying colors, for example, on gougeonettes of tilapia. The fat fingers of fish are carefully browned and recline on well-dressed arugula bordered by dabs of thick, tangy aioli. Speaking of flying colors, a three vegetable terrine passes the tricolor test—you got your requisite green stratum in there, your white, your orange—but the multi-hued slab has been under refrigeration too recently to come off as anything but clammy, an impression reinforced by the murky balsamic-red wine sauce that surrounds it.

Click here for previous installments of the prix fixe series, plus series updates in the French Dining Journal. Click here for more reviews of French restaurants.

Sweet, snowy skate is cooked to the point where the proteins have set and not a second beyond—the delicate fish falls into tender tufts at the gentlest prodding of your fork. An accompanying julienne of zucchini, portobellos, and red onion provides a nice textural couterpoint. A tendency to oversauce is evident in the calf's liver. The plate is a veritable flood scene, stray bits of bacon and onion set adrift aimlessly in a turgid, mustardy lake. The mashed potatoes that serve as foundation for the liver are a casualty.

More pleasant thoughts arrive with dessert, especially if you order the fabulous flourless chocolate cake. The confection—a dense, fudgy block set down in a pool of good crème anglaise—straddles the fence between cake and candy. Apple strudel features sweet chunks of the fruit under crispy pastry: another winner.

The restaurant has done an admirable job of capturing the look and feel of a Paris bistro, from the glossy fire-engine red façade to mirrored walls framed by tied-back velvet draperies beyond. Folding French doors are folded back in warm weather, providing diners at the frontmost tables with a panoramic vista of the Sleepy's and Duane Reade across the street.

The early bird is available from 5 pm to 7 Monday through Thursday, till 6:30 Friday through Sunday.

Alouette, 2588 Broadway (bet 97th & 98th Sts), (212) 222-6808