Binge NYC: A Food Blog

Thanks to a friend that works with the fabulous Lizzie Grubman PR, I scored a seat at the soft-opening of Le Souk Harem. So, dragging Tess and Marissa avec moi, we hit the Harem last week. Having experienced the original Le Souk through a hookah-and-alcohol-induced haze, I was interested to check out their latest foray into dining. After arriving at the restaurant at eight pm, we were quickly whisked up to the third floor dining room. We immediately ordered a bunch of drinks (for reviewing purposes. right.): a jalapeño margarita, a mango mojito, some pear-nonsense, and a pitcher of red sangria (everyone else was drinking it, so we felt obligated to check it out). The sangria was decent, but the real standout was the jalapeño margarita. Many people might find it a touch too spicy, but Tess and I both really liked the kick of burning hot pepper spiking the sweet margarita base.

Now that the many glowing lanterns were starting to look a bit blurry, we grabbed our menus and ordered an array of appetizers and entrees. We started with the Pasteque Et Fromage - watermelon salad, deariati cheese, purple Moroccan olives, cilantro and mint. I am honestly not a huge fan of watermelon + cheese, and I absolutely abhor cilantro, so I didn’t much care for this one. Overall, it was our least favorite dish.

Calamars Marines - marinated calamari over a bitter green salad, with smoked paprika-ginger gastrique. This was actually pretty good; the squid had a lot of flavor and was nice and tender. I didn’t taste much in the way of smoked paprika-ginger, but overall the dish was satisfying.

Our final appetizer was the Merguez A L’oeuf Poche – grilled homemade lamb sausage with a poached egg, tomato fondue, and chermoula. Our favorite appetizer by far; the sausage was delicious, the tomato fondue was silky and pleasantly spiced, and the egg yolk added a delicious richness.

On to the entrees: I was most excited to sample the Cotelette D’agneau – grilled lamb chops with watercress, dried fruit and an anise confit. My excitement was misplaced; the lamb was overcooked. SIGH. That alone pretty much killed the dish for me, however, flavor of the dish was very good. Simple case of death by overcooking, unfortunately, as otherwise I feel I would have really enjoyed this.

We also tried the Tangine De Pagre Rouge - roasted red snapper with potato, peppers, beefsteak tomatoes, onion, and Moroccan spices. Again, this was a dish with great flavor, only executed in a bit of a clumsy fashion. Overall, it was not great, but good.

To my huge surprise, the best entree of the evening was the Petit Poulet – roasted chicken with eggplant confit, couscous, and red pepper coulis. I generally find chicken breast to be sort of boring, usually dry, and lacking the depth of flavor of either red meat or a great piece of seafood. This chicken, while not much to look at, was really fantastic. The chicken was perfectly cooked, very tender, and faintly flavored with tumeric. Delicious.

Our fabulous waiter (the service was great all night) brought us a lovely rose-scented hookah while we enjoyed dessert. I will first say that I am not a huge sugar-person. I’ll take savory/salty over sweet most days of the week. So, no huge surprise, I found dessert to be a bit of a sugar-bomb. The Macaron Sandwich was composed of a scoop of vanilla ice cream between two halves of a giant coconut macaron, all drizzled over with chocolate sauce. I can’t lie though, for some reason, I couldn’t put my fork down, sugar-overload and all. (Sort of the same as the fried-twinkie effect – you know its not good, you don’t really like it, but you’ll eat it anyways. And by you I mean ME).

After all that food, we relaxed and smoked the hookah, enjoying another round of delicious jalapeño margaritas, and watching the evenings entertainment – a rather enthusiastic belly dancer with a sword balanced on her head. Finally, with the scene inside the restaurant pleasantly swirling in front of our eyes, we headed out. Final impressions? Le Souk Harem excels at what Le Souk has always done right – drinks, hookah, and debaucherous entertainment, in a dimly-lit, vaguely Middle-Eastern setting. Although its nice to know there is a decent menu available should hunger strike while viewing the sword-swallowing, fire-breathing, fortune-telling craziness.

Le Souk Harem is located at 510 Laguardia Place, between Houston & Bleeker Streets. Check out their website for additional information.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 3:15 pm and is filed under Eat Out. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.