“THE LEFT BANK,” 15 Street & 6th Avenue, NYC….Er, um, well not quite.

If the food at Manero’s was good, no one could ever have accused it of being interesting, but then in those days no one wanted food that was interesting. To be sure, Westport had an excellent Chinese restaurant, West Lake, and the Italian food at the Apizza Center in nearby Fairfield was wonderful, too, but aside from a couple of New England-y seafood places—The Clam Box, etc., and a “French” restaurant downtown where they flambéed everything, but most of all the bill, the town offered slim pickings for anyone who really loved good food with the exception of the rather mysterious Café Varna, which served, rather amazingly in retrospect, Bulgarian food.

The local restaurant pulse quickened in the seventies with the opening of places like Viva Zapata, a Mexican place that Grandmother Drake heartily disapproved of—“Barbara,” she’d say to my mother, “You shouldn’t feed food like that to growing children”—and a fun little café called Bon Appetite.

During a recent trawl through southwestern Connecticut, I thought of this long ago gastronomic landscape and couldn’t help but be amazed by the variety of ethnic eating now on offer in the area, a reflection, I think of how Americans have become so much more adventurous at the table than they were forty years ago. I mean, who’d have ever thought that there’d be a half-decent Thai restaurant, the Little Thai Kitchen, in a white-bread suburb like Darien (Their pineapple fried rice is killer good) Or Ola, a really good pan-Latino place owned by Guatemalans in Orange, Connecticut just outside of New Haven.

To be honest, I didn’t expect much from the later on a rainy Sunday night, but my friend David was enthusiastic, and while traveling in the U.S., I enjoy being “off-duty,” and so rather less exigent than I am in Paris. The colorful “fiesta loca” décor and location in a strip mall encouraged me to seriously temper my expectations, so it was a surprise when lobster and avocado quezadillas with chipotle creme fraiche came to the table and were delicious. My churrasco beef—marinated skirt steak served with rice and beans. lime-horseradish-and-parsley chimichurri and long wands of deep-fried plantain, was excellent, too, although I’d have liked a bit more fire in the sauce, and David’s shrimp “Bahia” was wonderful—plump shrimp in a gentle but nicely seasoned sauce of coconut milk. With a good bottle of Rueda rose, this was an unexpectedly pleasant meal, and a perfect example of how terrifically cosmopolitan dining options have become all over the United States.

Back in New York City, I had one of the best Italian meals I’ve ever eaten at Danny Meyer’s new Maialino restaurant at the Gramercy Park hotel. This place is his homage to Roman trattoria, and he nails it perfectly with absolutely stunning food. The four of us swooned over a daily special of insalata Catalana—perfectly poached squid, prawns, and fish with diced tomatoes and tiny croutons in a brilliant lemon vinaigrette, a superb plate of Italian charcuterie, and tripe cooked with mint as first courses, and then tucked into malfatti with sublime shreds of roasted sucking pig in a lemony sauce, spaghetti alle vongole, roast suckling pig, and swordfish, all of which were outstandingly good.

In fact the only things I’d didn’t like about this place were the prices—staggering, and the décor, which was too high-concept with a fussy marquetry style floor. But the service was charming per all Meyer restaurants, the wine list had some terrific off-beat bottles, and the crowd was fun, too, including the just-in-from-LA couple nearby. She, a perfect cooing Barbie in sequins, and he sort of a junior Phil Spector type. Former boss and fellow diner Ruth Reichl advised me that Maialino also does one of the best breakfasts in New York, and I can’t wait to try it on a future visit. In the meantime, I’ll be remembering that roast suckling pig with rosemary potatoes with gunning salivia glands until my next trip to New York, where my other stand out meal was a superb dinner tasting menu at Kajitsu, a very beautiful Japanese restaurant in the East Village where the tempura sweet corn on steamed rice with corn soy sauce and Italian parsley was one of the best things I’ve eaten all year. In fact, the only place I really wanted to get to and missed was Kyochon, the Korean chicken restaurant on 5th Avenue that David Lebovitz made sound so appealing. What Grandmother Drake would have made of Korean fried chicken or udon with yuzu is beyond me, but I have a hunch she’d have preferred Manero’s. Myself, I return to Paris more impressed by the food in the U.S. than ever before.

Kajitsu, 414 East 9th Street, New York, NY, Tel. 212-228-4873, Tasting menu $70

Little Thai Kitchen, 4 West Avenue, Darien, CT, 203-662-0038, Avg lunch for two $60

Maialino, Gramercy Park Hotel, 2 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY, Tel. 212-777-2410. Avg dinner for two $150

Ola, 350 Boston Post Rd, Orange, CT, Tel. 203-891-0522, Avg dinner for two $100.

The post TRAVELS IN THE NEW WORLD: NYC—Maialino, A-; Kajitsu, A-; CT—Ola, B; Little Thai Kitchen, B- appeared first on Alexander Lobrano.

OTH SOMBATH (pictured) is the new Paris address of the talented Thai chef of the same name. I first tasted his cooking a longtime ago when he had just arrived in Paris and was cooking at the Blue Elephant restaurant near the Bastille. Inspite of the fact that the Blue Elephant’s main claim to fame was a dramatic mis en scene of an avalanche of air-freighted orchids, tropical greenery and a little foot bridge over a reflecting pool, I immediately noticed that Sombath, from the northern area of Thailand near its border with Laos, was a serious cook. He’s also a charming man, so it was no surprise that he went on to build a brilliant career in Paris, which culimated with Le Banyan, his own little table in the 15th arrondissement, before he was tapped to move to Saint Tropez and set up a restaurant at the groovy Hotel Benkirai.

Now Oth is back in Paris, apparently with the backing of Eddy Barclay, and his new duplex restaurant on the rue du Faubourg Saint Honore in the 8th is one of the prettiest new restaurants to open in the city for a very long time. The serene ivory, gold, and saffron look, which seems to have drawn inspiration from sources as diverse as Courreges, NASA and Thai temples, is the work of interior designer Patrick Jouin, who has emerged as the most influential restaurant designer in Paris right now (his last opening, Le Jules Verne at the Eiffel Tower, is also stunning).

I went for dinner with a friend the second week that this place was open, and though service was still a bit unsure and portions were too small, we had a very good meal. In fact I loved his beef tartare with Thai spices, a starter and a dish that perfectly expresses what he’s trying to do here, which is offer his own very suave version of a sexy meeting between French and Thai cooking. If his nems (fried spring rolls) were a little soggy, the shrimp in yellow curry were superb, and we both liked the banana nems with coffee ice cream and red wine sauce. Bravo, too, for such a terrific wine list, including the heavenly Willi Brundlmayr Austrian Gruner Veltliner we drank with our meal, a perfect wine to team with Asian food because its mineral spine stands up to all spices.

Unfortunately, however, it isn’t likely I’ll be eating here again anytime soon, since prices are high enough to nudge this place into the special occasion category, and since I actually like Oth Sombath’s food so much, I worry for him in light of the strong head winds that are broad-siding the restaurant business in Paris right now. It might, in fact, be a good idea to offer a “Discovery” prix-fixe menu for the next six months or so to build up a clientele for this place.

184 rue du Faubourg Saint Honore, 8th, 01.42.56.55.55.

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