Marlow and Sons Visited 3/28/10 4 Forks

Marlow and Sons 81 Broadway(between Berry St & Dunham Pl)

Marlow and Sons has been on my radar screen for a long time but have always felt that it was always too crowded and expensive to go. But after Dan got called into an ER on a Saturday night, his boss said that he could expense his next meal on the company. I could see how the lines get really long here on a busy night. The place is very small and the tables that do exist in the place are squished together to the point where it's a bit uncomfortable. The menu is very small and I initially was a bit put off by it. But after the waitress explained all the ingredients in each dish, they all sounded great. The place is famous for oysters but at $2.75/each, i just couldn't justify spending that much since I had amazing oysters in New Orleans for less than $1 each. We started with a crostini ($8) that had a sweet walnut raisin puree, pesto, and topped with a peashoot bean. We got 2 large pieces, which was surprising, I just assumed places like this would only give us 1. We also had 2 types of cheeses, the Haylen Brazen and Moses Sleeper ($6 each). The Haylen was very similar to a blue cheese but not as strong and the Moses was similar to a brie. The cheese dish came with some soft breads and they were all delicious.

For entrees, I got the brick chicken ($22) which was very juicy and tender. The dish came with 2 enormous piece of chicken and a side of roasted potatoes. After eating all the other apps, I could barely muster down 1 piece of the chicken, but what I did have was very good. Dan got the risotto milanese ($21), which was an extremely buttery risotto with this very tender beef stew-like meat that just melted in your mouth. I think what Marlow and Sons is great at is taking very few seasonal ingredients and doing them really well. you could tell that everything was high quality and you definitely are paying for it. On top of our meal, we had 3 different cocktails ($10/each). Dan got a honey/vodka type drink that was very sweet and some sort of whiskey drink that seemed to taste like just whiskey with some ice. I got the grey gardens, which was similar to a grapefruit/vodka but I forgot that I don't like drinks rimmed with anything (this one had sugar and salt). Overall, the meal was extremely solid and high quality. But when the bill came out to be $101 without tip, it's definitely one of the places that I would go on special occasions.