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Also this issue: Off the Menu |
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July 18-24, 2002
food
 See Food?: Shrimp and scallop with tomato and avocado napolean, baby arugula and crispy white beans. (Background: seared tuna with sautˇed spinach.) Photo By: Michael T. Regan |
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Trust121 S. 13th St., 215-629-1300
Appetizers $3-$8; entrees $9-$17
Lunch, Mon.-Fri., 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m.; dinner, Mon.-Sat., 5-11 p.m.; tapas served 11 a.m.-1 a.m. weekdays, 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Sat.
Wheelchair accessible. Smoking permitted. Reservations recommended. All major credit cards.
Tony Goldman, developer extraordinaire, plans to turn Center City’s South 13th Street into Broadway. This grimy strip gets a stab at its former glamour, with tiny lights that throb and change colors planted into the pavement, and a promise of more exotic sights inside, from Trust, the latest restaurant built from a bank.
Sure enough, upon entering you're hit by a blast of sound from the circular bar, the busiest spot in the place, where they have concocted many yuppie drinks and even put battery-lit ice cubes in them. Take in the handsome braided wood ceilings and the phallic red fixtures that hang from them. (What's with all the sexy lighting around town? First, the vibrator-shaped lamps at Morimoto that would thrill the gals from Sex and the City, and now these tumescent, balloonlike objects.) The back room is curtained from the bar area, but try to get a seat there. On each visit, I was given a table in the front, where there are no tablecloths and the smoke and noise can be overpowering. At least the upholstered chairs are very comfortable. It's a very New York, New York room.
Goldman, who redid Soho and the art deco area of Miami Beach, has big plans for the area east of Broad Street. He enlisted star chef Guillermo Pernot of ¡Pasión! to create the menu, announced more restaurants and apartments to be built, and remained the darling of the media. Well, Trust opened in February, and though I know the bar is always busy, I seriously worry about the dining room. First off, those lines from Yeats keep running through my mind: "This is no country for old men..."
All around us, young people are sipping drinks in lurid colors and eating pizzas and a few tapas. There is much, much more food listed on the large menu, which runs all over the place, from tapas, through appetizers, then pastas, entrees, sandwiches and dessert. Servers seem confused by the variety of dishes, and they're short on explanations. The staff needs more training, but the Goldman team was so anxious to get Trust started that they seem to have overlooked that little detail. The few nights a week that Pernot is there are definitely the times to go -- the cooking falls into place and the servers pay more attention.
We naturally decide to start with the tapas, of which there are many, and even at $3 each, they can add up. Hummus is creamy and smoky; fresh white anchovies are tender and vinegary; olive salad is flavored with harissa, the Tunisian spicy blend; little balls of goat cheese are rolled in chopped green olives; cigares (fried Moroccan meat-stuffed pastries) are crisp and delicious. The list goes on. After all, this is one of the things that Pernot does best -- little pieces of fried trout with capers, spicy Merguez sausage, glorious Serrano ham, empanadillas filled with chicken, Moorish kebabs of lamb and vegetables, and probably the best french fries ever, coated in truffle oil. The menu is truly Mediterranean -- roaming wildly from Spain to North Africa to Greece (tzatziki with flatbread) to Italy and maybe to a tiny corner of Provence. Even the wine list is varied, but the prices are not low. Go with Spain: The Rioja is $29, but the 1996 Pichon-Lalande is $225. There are a number of half-bottles, wines by the glass, beers and enough of those colorful drinks to satisfy anyone.
The Serrano ham with melon is silky and first rate; however, the grilled octopus is a little tough, tossed with a deliciously lemony tabbouleh salad. Rabbit and wild mushroom ragout is shredded gamey meat and woodsy mushrooms over pappardelle. The panzanella salad of bread cubes, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and olives is one of Italy's best exports -- I love wet bread. Go figure.
Entrees, especially when Pernot is in attendance, are fine if you stick to the simplest ones. Grilled culotte steak is rare and complemented by "anise carrots osso buco"; the garlicky grilled shrimp on a pilaf of oven-roasted eggplant is a favored dish. I love what sticky, sweet dates and almonds do to crispy duck, playing off of the meat and the picholine olives and flavoring the couscous salad beneath. The nightly special one evening was a splendid snapper, grilled for two, boned and filleted tableside, and sauced with an unexpected snappy puttanesca sauce, hot with capers, peppers and anchovies.
Some desserts were quite captivating too: Citrus beignets in a kebab have a sprightly mandarin orange sauce, and the creamy panna cotta employs Mario Batali's combination of berries and old balsamic vinegar. Poached apricots side with lavender ice cream, and other ice creams -- chocolate mint, pistachio, blood orange -- are equally good. The most interesting is a walnut cake topped with a thick pomegranate glace. It is moist cake, gelatin and honeyed crème fraîche, all in one bite.
Then, everyone must rush down to see the vaunted powder room, which is painted all blue to resemble a pool area and has a communal sink à la Ally McBeal (but the striking white toilets are separate). As I trudge back up the stairs, I think I am the oldest person there, for the beat goes on and on. Pernot is one of my very favorite chefs, and co-chef Brian Weiss tries hard, but this is simply too big an operation, at the moment, for Pernot to run on just two nights. Perhaps if they consolidate the menu a bit, and give some of the staff a good spanking, things will consistently shine. Trust me.
