Restaurant Week 2010: Spice Market

Restaurant week was afoot ! Paul and I trudged through the 15 degree weather on a Sunday to the meat-packing district in Manhattan to Spice Market. I recounted a story about the ridiculous outfits that the servers rumored to wear there, akin to the opening scene of Garden State where Zach Braff works in an Asian themed restaurant in Los Angeles. When we walked into Spice Market, both Paul and I exhaled a quiet "Wow." The interior was Pacific Island-y with palm, bamboo and dark rich reds and oranges. There was a shelf lining the entire restaurant with travel cases and trunks as if we were all passengers on a food train to awesome-town. Even though it was frigid outside, it felt like we could have very well been escaping 90 degree heat.I couldn't take a picture of their outfits, but yes, the servers were wearing thai iced tea colored hospital scrubs. Each member on the floor had a top that corresponded to their job. Runners wore long sleeved shirts while lady servers wore backless, flowy tops and the dude servers wore orange chef coats with high necks. Our opening snack was lentil papadum with a tomato chili paste. We were starving ! They were done in an instant.
To quench our morning thirst, Paul got a kumquat mojito and I got a lychee raspberry bellini:
The restuarant week menu was kinda small and I was allergic to the chicken curry, so we veered off into the regular menu. Everything is family style and we started with the avocado, radish salad with onion tempura, red wine vinegar, spicy chinese mustard and wasabi powder. My favorite part was the tempura battered onion rings, they weren't scalding hot from the fryer and they had a strangely comforting buttery mouthfeel like avocados. Makes sense!
Paul chose the char-grilled chicken with kumquat lemongrass dressing. It was pretty spicy!
We also had a side stir fried pencil asparagus, lotus root and lily bulb. The lotus root was really peppery and I couldn't eat too much of it. However, the lily bulb was sooooo nice. Like a very friendly pearl onion that didn't give you dragon breath.
I decided to try out the crispy salt and pepper skate with thai basil and lime foam. The servings were HUGE and I could only finish half of one piece ! The texture was striated like crab (not flinty) but held together more like fish. IT was breaded like fish n' chips, reminded me of the haddock at Salt and Battery. I loved the basil lime foam and was dipping the chicken in it, too.
Closer look at the inside of the skate:
For dessert, we got glasses of Moscato and the exotic fruit salad. Oh maaaaaan, probably my favorite part of the meal. Pieces of kiwi, pineapple, dried cherry and other mysteries floated in a soupy kumquat broth with a scoop of the white pepper ice cream and an oreo-like chocolate disc. The whole thing was spinning ever so slightly in a glass bowl in a bowl of ice. Consider me dazzled.

Holy crap, have you been to Spice Market? Did you like it?