Restaurant Week - ilili "Yes"

ilili, a must try. Its a Lebanese/Mediteranean restaurant that has a night club vibe to it. You walk into the restaurant through a non-descript curtained entranceway and enter a long hallway with the dim amber lighting and candles, which give the bar a dim, loungy feel. The high ceilings give the place a boisterous atmosphere, yet the warm candles give you the private dinning experience. The hostess and wait staff were extremely friendly and helpful, making sure that we are happy with the entire experience.

The prix fixe menu offered a wide selection of apps and the option to add some other meals for an incremental cost. The meal began with an assortment of appetizers. I chose Baba ghannouj, an eggplant and lebanese tahini dip with some warm pita bread on the side. The eggplant had a great smokey flavor to it. Falafel dumplings came with a tahini dipping sauce and were perfectly crisp on the outside and warm on the inside. The Calamari bi Kouzbara (one of my favorites) was calamari cooked in a cast iron skillet with white wine, cilantro, garlic and jalepeno. The calamari was tender, and the jalepeno gave the dish the perfect amount of heat. Even those afraid of spice can handle this dish, as the heat is tempered by the garlic and cliantro. The sauce was so good that it demanded to be sopped up with someleftover pita. My companion's Mekanek, lamb sausages cooked in a cast iron skillet with a lemon butter, were exotic, spicy and lean.

For my main dish, I tried the Sidon black cod on top of siya dieh rice (long grain rice) mixed in a tahini tajen sauce all topped with some peppers and onions. The cod was cooked as perfectly as fish could be. The tajen sauce was delicious, especially paired with some peppers and onions in a perfect spicy bite.

My companion had the beef kebabs, which consisted of skewers of marinated filet minon and shihito peppers paired with harissa pita. The filet mignon was tender, though it seemed closer to skirt steak than well-marbled filet. The peppers were perfectly blistered, bringing the modest spice of the shihitos bursting to the fore. Overall, the kebabs were excellent, though a diner dying for the taste of filet mignon might feel slightly misled.

By now, completely stuffed, a perfect finish to the meal was the homemade chocolate ice cream and the traditional Lebanese desert, Awaimat, which are small beignets tossed in a simple orange blossom syrup and some cut strawberries. The simple syrup was not too sweet, so it was perfect with the light, airy beignets. After experiencing what the prix fixe menu had to offer, I can't wait to go back and see what else I can dig into.

Restaurant Week - Country

COUNTRY (90 Madison Ave, NYC) : "No"

Walking into the candle lit cafe, you are greeted with friendly faces. With a limited menu to start with at the cafe, the restaurant week menu did not veer far from the normal menu. I started with a few appetizers, a celery and cauliflower panna cotta, sauteed shrimp with white beans and chorizo, and a mixed green salad. I was intrigued at first by the panna cotta's smooth consistency and subtle taste, but I was soon turned away by the odd aftertaste of cauliflower. The shrimp swam in the chorizo grease, leaving you to wonder if it should have been called shrimp-chorizo soup. Unfortunately, the mixed green salad was the highlight of the apps. I then was presented with the wild mushroom risotto. After eyeing the butternut squash risotto on the full menu, I thought they couldn't mess this one up. However the "soupiness" of the risotto left me very disappointed and thinking that I could have cooked a better one at home for half the price. In fact, the layer of oil that sat on the risotto had the unpleasant effect of recalling the chorizo-dominated shrimp. The meal ended with trying the luke warm chocolate lava cake with a side of coffee ice cream and the unchilled creme brulee. The highlights of the meal were the mixed green salad and the coffee ice cream, which leads me to suggest either don't do the restaurant week menu or don't go at all.....