Share the Love... and Those Noodles While You're At It

...a continuation of the love feast from Saturday night...

We ended our night at Spice Market in the Meatpacking District on W. 13th St and 9th.  Although it can feel a little themey, I love the design.  It's very warm, dark and sensual, just like me.... hahahahaha.  OK... moving on.  The interior is speckled with glimmering candlelight and ginormous fabric wrapped lanterns, and you're surrounded by old carved dark wood that looks like it's been there for ages, or stolen from somewhere where it had been for ages.  My favorite part is going down the stairs to the lower level dining area.  There's a landing midway down that's covered like a little pagoda.  I feel like I'm being transported to a far off land.  Cheesy, I know.  

But it works because it's always packed for dinner, especially on a Saturday night; we didn't make a reservation, so it was going to be at least an hour wait for 4.  It was nice because there was seating at the bar, but they also had little groupings of seats strictly for the bar patrons so we didn't have to stand around and clog up the entrance.  I ordered a white passion sangria, which was just ok, but not very good for $12.  Man!

Luckily, we didn't have to wait long at all, and the host was able to seat us within 15 minutes.  Although I love the decor, I'm not so convinced with the seating.  The tables are way too small and some of the benches are grouped around the columns so that if I'm sitting against one of them, facing out, I could potentially be bumping elbows with the person sitting around the corner from me from the next party.

Now the dining experience is quite different from the traditional restaurant.  The concept of Spice Market is based on the street foods throughout Asia (mostly Thai influenced) and is meant to be shared.  So basically everyone orders a dish (sized for one serving) and the waiter brings each dish out one at a time.  Better hope you're there with good friends because you're pretty much forced to share or else if your dish comes out first, everyone sits around and watches you eat.  I personally don't mind sharing because I'm Asian and that's how I grew up eating at the table.  The best thing to do is share everything and just make sure you order something that everyone will generally like and then split the bill equally.  Just don't double dip and everyone will be happy.

We ordered chicken samosas with cilantro yogurt, chili rubbed beef skewers with  a thai basil dipping sauce, beef short ribs with egg noodles and pea shoots, lobster with butter fried garlic, ginger and chilies, and sweet sticky rice wrapped in a banana leaf.  The samosas were the favorite.  It was so flavorful but the cilantro yogurt accompanying it was amazingly yummy.  We all just sat around and savored the sauce even after the samosas were gone.  The beef skewers were next: savory, tender, smokey, and the thai basil sauce was almost as good as the first.  It seemed like forever before we got the next dish which was the beef short ribs.  The short ribs were so "fall off the bone" tender and flavorful.  I wish the broth and noodles it came in did the same for me.  It was almost ridiculous how we had to split some of these dishes up sometimes.  Between the four girls, some of the plates provided just a little taste, always leaving us wanting more.  This dish was definitely lacking in the noodle department.  Good thing we still had rice and lobster coming, or so I thought.  What a joke.  For $35 we got a shrunken lobster tail with what looked like the meat of one claw.  Don't get me wrong... it was really good, but we were wondering where the rest of it was.  It sat on a bed of mystery greens which garnered different reactions.  I liked what looked and tasted like fried Thai basil that was salty and garlicky and gingery.  The other green stuff was on the tart side and resemble some form of spinach.  I like spinach, but this was not my favorite.  The most disappointing for me, from a restaurant/serving/dining aspect was that the rice came right before we were nearly done with the lobster.  It was odd and didn't make sense to me.  Isn't rice supposed to be eaten with the other dishes and not on its own? The rice was wrapped in banana leaves alright, but it would have been further enhanced if it were steamed in the leaves, in order to take on the unique flavor and aroma of the banana leaf... just like how my mom would cook sticky rice sometimes. 

Although everyone was happy with the flavors overall, we all agreed that the portions were way too small, especially for what we paid.  The other girls said the food was good, but the portions were not good enough to entice them back.  Expect to pay at least $35 including tax and tip and $45 if you're getting a drink.  That's right, one drink.  Call me a pig, but I had a little room left over for more.  We were more satisfied spending $10 on dim sum earlier and the food was just as good.  But why am I complaining?  I keep going back, nevertheless, and will continue to go back... if only I had someone to go with :)