Description
Cole’s Greenwich Village is successor Cafe Bruxelles, a long-running Belgian bistro that made some of the city’s best French fries, deposited in a metal cone lined with filter paper. Eating them made you feel so adult! The new place retains its Franco-centric menu, though with American adaptations. The hamburger, coated as though it had actually been dipped in white cheddar, is very fine; though the accompanying fries are not the equal of Bruxelles’, they’re good
anyway and the perfect thing to go with the juice-dripping burger. Many of the apps are wonderful: the kabocha squash ravioli, for example, or the sardine filets in an oily green sauce on a bed of potatoes and grapes. The entrees, however, often fail to impress. Though the plank of skin-on salmon was perfectly cooked, the mélange of beans and greens underneath proved tedious to eat; while chicken that came crisp but nearly unadorned with anything but a wad of salad on top made you wish for at least a teaspoon of carbs. You could solve this problem by assembling a meal from starters -- or simply get the hamburger. --Robert Sietsema
