I love the concept of Feast and really wanted to give the idea 5 Forks. The idea here is that everyone "feasts" on a prix fixe menu of either the Farmers Market Feast (all vegetarian - $38) or the Nose to tail Feast (meat based - tonight's was lamb for $48) and yesterday they also had a special Scallop Feast ($58). I was DYING to get the Scallop feast but unfortunately you can only pick 1 feast for the entire table, so there is no mixing or matching if you have people with different dietary habits. I found that to be super annoying although when the meal came out, I get why they do it. But I guess my question would be, what if someone came in here to dine alone? If they can make a feast for 1, can't they make individualized dishes for larger groups? But I get that it's not an ideal situation so I didn't push the waiter on it.
Aarti and I got the farmer's market feast and even though I would have loved to have tried the other two feasts, this one was still really good and didn't make me miss meat or seafood too much. I read somewhere that they get all their vegetables from the local Union Square market, so you know that the quality and freshness of the ingredients are top notch. They start off the meal with 4 different appetizers: a market salad, baby vegetable garden, smoked goat cheese tart, and beet frites. These were all pretty bite size and although it sounds like a lot of food, it was all very manageable. The market salad was a 1/4 bite size piece of squash and then topped with frisee, roquefort cheese, pear and maple vinaigrette. I normally am not a fan of frisse but the combination of the strong cheese and tangy vinaigrette made it really tasty and made me forget that I didn't like the texture of frisse. Delicious. The baby vegetable garden were 3 small pieces of heirloom onion, carrot and radish served in a test tube with olive soil, cumin, and creme fraiche. I wasn't sure how to really eat this since the test tube was very narrow and the vegetables were cut so short that you couldn't actually dip it into the creme fraiche. I ended up putting a knife into the test tube and spreading the creme fraiche on the bread. My two favorite dishes were the beet frites and the goat cheese tart. The beet frites were like beet french fries served with herbed aioli. It was like the healthier version of eating fried food. The tart was served with a large forest mushroom on top which I loved. I would have preferred that the goat cheese to be a bit stronger but it was a great bite size tart.
Next came the entrees: spaghetti squash, stuffed eggplant, squash agnolotti, and roasted cauliflower. The spaghetti squash was served with a mushroom bolognese that I wasn't a huge fan of. It kind of tasted like cold chopped up tomatoes with the strong earthy flavoring of the mushroom. The spaghetti squash was served in a scoop formation and not so much like an actual pasta substitution. The dish was fine but it didn't wow me. But I really enjoyed the stuffed eggplant because it was stuffed with risotto, broccoli rabe and then topped with a very potent preserved lemon. It was super unique and delicious. The agnolotti was similar to a ravioli stuffed with a kabocha squash (one of my favorite types of squash) and served with brown butter. It was pretty simple and rich tasting with the brown butter but I loved the subtleness of the squash inside of the pasta. Last was the roasted cauliflower served with cauliflower puree, grapes and hazelnuts. It was a pretty simple and clean dish with the cauliflower with a nice char on the outside but I honestly didn't really "get" the point of the grapes. At this point, we were both very full but there was still a dessert course. Luckily, it was just one course: apple crisp with lemon creme fraiche. But it was a huge dessert, enough for 4 people. I loved the crisp top and the side of the creme fraiche but the inside of the apple was a little bit undercooked. But we were both so full by the end of the meal, it didn't really matter that the inside was a bit undercooked because we couldn't finish the dish.
All in all, I love what Feast is doing. It would be a great date place (hint hint anyone??) but they do make it difficult if anyone in the group has a dietary restriction. The table next to me got the scallop feast and my mouth was watering. It looked amazing and all I saw were the first two dishes (some kind of scallop ceviche and a mini scallop burger). While they said that you could order a la carte, it doesn't really make sense (financially or food wise). Even if you "have to" get the vegetarian feast, it's still totally worth the visit. Total bill with 2 glasses of wine: $65/pp with tax and tip.
Photo Credit: Yelp
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