Restaurant Week Lunch: Tocqueville

Tocqueville is a quiet, traditional "American with a European sensibility" restaurant with surprisingly unique cuisine.

Since our jobs prohibit us from leaving the building during the day, the bf and I rarely get to experience the beauty (and bang for your buck) that is the Restaurant Week $24.07 lunch. Finally, though, thanks to a well-timed New York staycation and the extension of Restaurant Week through Labor Day, we were able to try it out.

We picked Tocqueville because it's well-reviewed, right next to Union Square, and its menu looked intriguing, not to mention its wide variety of fonts.

We had a fantastic meal.

Our waiter was, as the bf put it, a "stuffy guy trying hard to be cool" in the sweetest way. We could tell he was a professional, but that didn't stop him from being really nice and saying things like "I'll leave you with this bad boy" when he slipped us the check. He was also the only captain (lead waiter) there, which actually was appropriate, since there were only three or four other tables filled besides ours.

To start, an amuse-bouche: some sort of cured meat, a tiny potato chip, pureed asparagus, and a tiny, half-cooked dollop of egg yolk. The bf loved it, but seeing as I can't eat room-temperature meat or undercooked egg, I couldn't eat much of it. I did really enjoy the tiny potato chip and pureed asparagus, though.

For appetizers, the bf ordered "white and green asparagus with black truffle vinaigrette" and I had the "heirloom tomato salad with tomato lemon verbena consumme and olive oil ice cream." The truffles combined with the asparagus was a perfect, if surprising, fit. They were both earthy and hearty, but the truffles brought some elegance to what could have been a "yes, it's good but I could make it at home" dish. I certainly could not have made my olive oil ice cream at home. I've never had ice cream in an appetizer before, but it was a fun thing to try. The tomatoes were fresh and juicy, the consumme was tart and had a strange but tasty flavor I didn't expect, and the ice cream tasted like whipped butter and olive oil, which was just about perfect for me.

Our entrees were equally surprising. My "grilled marinated Pennsylvania quail" came with the tastiest, most heavily buttered quinoa I've ever eaten. I could have had an entire meal of that quinoa. It was full of roasted marcona almonds and dried fruits. Even the bf took two bites of it. The quail was adorned with carmelized onions and cherries that had had something delicious done to them because I couldn't get them in my mouth fast enough. I haven't had much quail in the past. It's a dark, flavorful meat, a little challenging to get off the bone, but on the plus side it made me feel like a giant eating a turkey, which was pretty cool. The bf had the most amazing "baby artichoke and spring garlic risotto." I don't even like risotto and I couldn't get enough of it. It was beyond creamy and in the center of the dish was a ball of melting house-made ricotta cheese - how perfect! He ate every bite.

Our desserts were not as outstanding as the rest of the meal, but only because they were plainer. The bf had a "bitter chocolate mille-feuille," which was basically three layers of cookie and two layers of dark chocolate ganache, resting on a pool of chocolate sauce. The sauce was especially good. My "duo of mixed berry sorbet and sheep's milk yogurt" was more interesting - the yogurt was my favorite part, because it tasted like vanilla ice cream until just a few seconds after I'd swallowed it, when I really tasted the sheep's milk. It also came with a strange orange fruit (maybe?) that tasted pretty good but I couldn't figure out quite what it was.

All in all, we had an amazing meal and can't wait until we have enough time off of work and money saved that we can return. They have a special $39 Greenmarket lunch menu that we hope to try sometime. It has a new menu every week and all of the meat and produce comes from the nearby Union Square Greenmarket. Talk about fresh!