Yet another chain store is bound for the hostile territory of bourgie Bedford Avenue, and it could be the worst arriviste yet, at least in the eye of the Burg's twee set. That downright suburban discount store, Marshalls, is considering a location in Williamsburg just across the street from the dastardly Duane Reade and it may even bring another big-box pharmacy with it, according to The Real Deal.

One broker said Marshalls was considering taking a small amount on the ground floor and the entire lower level. CVS would take a large amount of the ground floor, a broker said. 

[...]

A major retailer like Marshalls entering the neighborhood could bring along other national chains, said broker Timothy King, a principal at CPEX Real Estate. "Landlords love the traffic and credit rating that is part of the trade, and customers love the price points and selection," he said.

But Jorge Perez, the store manager at Vice Versa Vintage at 241 Bedford Avenue, said large chains could harm the entrepreneurial environment in Williamsburg. A Marshalls "would ruin that kind of atmosphere. [The chain] is too commercial. If it is a Marshalls, what is next?"

Because the only thing Williamsburg needs more than a Marshalls is another artisanal shoe pickler.

UPDATE: As if things could get any worse, Curbed turned up this rendering of the project in question. It's about what you'd expect from Williamsburg's final architectural tradition.

mchaban [at] observer.com | @mc_nyo

It represents a homecoming of sorts for the pharmaceutical chain, since it vacated its space at 340 East 23rd Street two years ago to make way for the construction of the 22-story, glass residential building. The building, which is being marketed by the Shvo Group, dubbed itself the "Gramercy by Starck" in an attempt cash in on the "cache of Gramercy Park," which is a few blocks away.

The CVS branch will re-open in about 30 days, and join the the other, decidedly un-French and un-chic commercial tenant McDonald's. Even with Philippe Starck's name attached, it will tough for Michael Shvo to spin a McDonald's in a supposedly glam condo.

TRIPLE NET LEASED RETAIL CONDOMINIUM ON EAST 23RD STREET SELLS FOR $22.18 MILLION

* * *

Eastern Consolidated represents both buyer and seller in the sale of a retail condominium

New York, NY – January 28, 2008 – In an off market transaction, a 9,500-square-foot plus 4,350-square-foot basement retail condominium located on the ground level of the newly constructed Philippe Starck designed “Gramercy by Starck” building, at 338-46 East 23rd Street, has traded for $22.2 million. The retail condominium is tripled net leased to CVS Pharmacy for 25 years with 4 five-year renewal options.

Eastern Consolidated Senior Director Roberto F. Ortiz procured the buyer, Omnispective Management Corp., while Senior Directors Ety Lee and Alan P. Miller, represented the seller, the developer of the “Gramercy by Starck”, a luxury residential condominium being marketed by Michael Shvo.

“It was one of those rewarding deals where everyone was pleased. Omnispective Management bought the CVS condo as part of a 1031 like kind exchange for their sale of 295 Madison Avenue, which our firm sold late last year.” Said Mr. Ortiz.

“CVS had previously occupied the same site prior to the ground up construction of the 200,000 sq. ft. project and vacated the premises for two years.” Added Mr. Miller.

Samuel P. Ross, Esq. of Olshan Grundman Frome Rosenzweig & Wolosky LLP represented the purchaser and Mitchell G. Bernstein, Esq. of Herrick Feinstein LLP represented the seller.

Founded in 1981, Eastern Consolidated has emerged as one of the country’s preeminent full-service real estate investment services firms, combining an unrivaled expertise in the greater New York marketplace with a worldwide roster of institutional and private investor clients. Over the years, it has been responsible for the acquisition, disposition and finance of all types of properties, including office and apartment buildings, lofts, factories, hotels, shopping centers, commercial and residential development sites, taxpayers, parking garages and lots, retail condominiums and air rights transfers.

As the hostess checked my reservation one evening, I noticed a sign by the desk: “Proper attire required.” It’s a long time since I saw this in a New York restaurant (and even longer since Jackie Kennedy was refused a drink at the Pierre because she was wearing a pants suit). What constitutes “proper attire” now, I wondered, as a model in Bermuda shorts, a tank top and six-inch stilettos strolled by. My teenage son, uncertain of the protocol, whipped off his zippered hooded sweatshirt and rolled it in a ball under his arm. He needn’t have bothered.

We walked into a large red, black and gold dining room, designed by Jeffrey Beers. In the center stands a large leafless tree, set in a square tub flanked by gold banquettes. It looks as though it had been dug up in the Petrified Forest. Its bare branches are hung with mossy green balls; I imagined them suddenly bursting open and releasing a herd of little green creatures. Red blown-glass pods the size of melons are strewn at the foot of the tree like miniature spaceships. The ceiling is made of narrow, undulating wooden beams; the walls are lacquered red brick, and the tables are set with red patent-leather chairs. Glowing yellow bottles decorate the shelves behind the sushi bar, and picture windows along one wall give onto the beautiful wooden verandah (with a nice view of the CVS across the street). The overall effect was oddly appealing; the room was comfortable and, for a change, not excruciatingly noisy.

The restaurant has two chefs, both from Japonais in Chicago. Jun Ichikawa prepares sushi and cold dishes; Gene Kato does the hot ones. The food, you are told, is designed for sharing and served family-style (although this doesn’t work so well when the sashimi arrives halfway through dinner, or when three of you try to divide a small bowl of consommé).

The sushi is first-rate, original and beautifully presented. The chef’s “Special Tasting” consists of tuna tartare (topped with a raw quail yolk that “the chef recommends” you mix with chopsticks), squid in a heavenly sea-urchin sauce and monkfish foie gras, wrapped in slivers of octopus and halibut ($26). Also excellent is the “Eight Samurai Tartare,” a selection that includes lobster, botan ebi (a large sweet prawn), Dungeness crab, bonito and octopus served with fried taro and lotus chips. “Eat it starting with the lightest first,” the waiter instructed. We did, and we could easily have finished a second round of both that and the spicy monoroll, which is filled with diced octopus topped with tuna tartare and glazed with eel sauce.

The menu is huge, befitting the size of the restaurant, but I was lucky that almost all the dishes I chose were winners. One loser was the Wagyu beef-brisket ravioli served in a too-sweet Hitachino beer broth. Another was the toban yaki of green and white asparagus (cooked in a ceramic dish)—the vegetables were a step away from raw.

But the consommé—dumplings made with diced shrimp and scallops afloat in a clear madai (sea bream) broth—was lovely, delivering a subtle, spicy kick. The lobster spring rolls were greaseless and light, served with mango relish and blood-orange vinaigrette instead of the usual dim sum sauces. Seared mustard and peppercorn lamb carpaccio was arranged in paper-thin, dollar-sized slices around a heap of lamb’s lettuce and sprinkled with sea salt and a ginger-honey dressing.

The three hot fish dishes I tried were outstanding. They included a rare salmon in a nori crust, served with a horseradish, oyster and leek stew and curry oil; broiled, miso-marinated bass in a glaze made of peaches and sansho pepper; and grilled hamachi with dumplings (similar to those in the consommé) afloat in a seafood broth laced with wild mushrooms.

“Le Quack Japonais” is the restaurant’s take on Chinese Peking duck, and it’s sure to be one of the most popular dishes for this crowd. The duck is smoked over maple leaves and roasted, served in thick slices with diced leg meat, hoisin sauce, slivered scallions, baby bok choy and mango chutney, to be wrapped in moo shu pancakes. Also good is that old stand-by, sizzling beef on a stone. Here it’s called “The Rock”: You toss thin slices of strip steak on the hot pebbles piled in a bamboo steamer and dip them in the lemon sauce provided. Fun.

My favorite dessert was hot apple toban yaki, which had a crumbly oatmeal-ginger crust. “I’m going to put this right in the middle!” said the waiter as he lifted the lid and plopped down a spoonful of vanilla-honey ice cream. I also liked the creamy passion-fruit tart with Thai basil ice cream, blackberries and lychees, a better choice than the wan offerings that make up the “chocolate indulgence.”

Japonais is a welcome addition to the Union Square neighborhood. Just thank God it’s not in the meatpacking district.

As the hostess checked my reservation one evening, I noticed a sign by the desk: “Proper attire required.” It’s a long time since I saw this in a New York restaurant (and even longer since Jackie Kennedy was refused a drink at the Pierre because she was wearing a pants suit). What constitutes “proper attire” now, I wondered, as a model in Bermuda shorts, a tank top and six-inch stilettos strolled by. My teenage son, uncertain of the protocol, whipped off his zippered hooded sweatshirt and rolled it in a ball under his arm. He needn’t have bothered.

We walked into a large red, black and gold dining room, designed by Jeffrey Beers. In the center stands a large leafless tree, set in a square tub flanked by gold banquettes. It looks as though it had been dug up in the Petrified Forest. Its bare branches are hung with mossy green balls; I imagined them suddenly bursting open and releasing a herd of little green creatures. Red blown-glass pods the size of melons are strewn at the foot of the tree like miniature spaceships. The ceiling is made of narrow, undulating wooden beams; the walls are lacquered red brick, and the tables are set with red patent-leather chairs. Glowing yellow bottles decorate the shelves behind the sushi bar, and picture windows along one wall give onto the beautiful wooden verandah (with a nice view of the CVS across the street). The overall effect was oddly appealing; the room was comfortable and, for a change, not excruciatingly noisy.

The restaurant has two chefs, both from Japonais in Chicago. Jun Ichikawa prepares sushi and cold dishes; Gene Kato does the hot ones. The food, you are told, is designed for sharing and served family-style (although this doesn’t work so well when the sashimi arrives halfway through dinner, or when three of you try to divide a small bowl of consommé).

The sushi is first-rate, original and beautifully presented. The chef’s “Special Tasting” consists of tuna tartare (topped with a raw quail yolk that “the chef recommends” you mix with chopsticks), squid in a heavenly sea-urchin sauce and monkfish foie gras, wrapped in slivers of octopus and halibut ($26). Also excellent is the “Eight Samurai Tartare,” a selection that includes lobster, botan ebi (a large sweet prawn), Dungeness crab, bonito and octopus served with fried taro and lotus chips. “Eat it starting with the lightest first,” the waiter instructed. We did, and we could easily have finished a second round of both that and the spicy monoroll, which is filled with diced octopus topped with tuna tartare and glazed with eel sauce.

The menu is huge, befitting the size of the restaurant, but I was lucky that almost all the dishes I chose were winners. One loser was the Wagyu beef-brisket ravioli served in a too-sweet Hitachino beer broth. Another was the toban yaki of green and white asparagus (cooked in a ceramic dish)—the vegetables were a step away from raw.

But the consommé—dumplings made with diced shrimp and scallops afloat in a clear madai (sea bream) broth—was lovely, delivering a subtle, spicy kick. The lobster spring rolls were greaseless and light, served with mango relish and blood-orange vinaigrette instead of the usual dim sum sauces. Seared mustard and peppercorn lamb carpaccio was arranged in paper-thin, dollar-sized slices around a heap of lamb’s lettuce and sprinkled with sea salt and a ginger-honey dressing.

The three hot fish dishes I tried were outstanding. They included a rare salmon in a nori crust, served with a horseradish, oyster and leek stew and curry oil; broiled, miso-marinated bass in a glaze made of peaches and sansho pepper; and grilled hamachi with dumplings (similar to those in the consommé) afloat in a seafood broth laced with wild mushrooms.

“Le Quack Japonais” is the restaurant’s take on Chinese Peking duck, and it’s sure to be one of the most popular dishes for this crowd. The duck is smoked over maple leaves and roasted, served in thick slices with diced leg meat, hoisin sauce, slivered scallions, baby bok choy and mango chutney, to be wrapped in moo shu pancakes. Also good is that old stand-by, sizzling beef on a stone. Here it’s called “The Rock”: You toss thin slices of strip steak on the hot pebbles piled in a bamboo steamer and dip them in the lemon sauce provided. Fun.

My favorite dessert was hot apple toban yaki, which had a crumbly oatmeal-ginger crust. “I’m going to put this right in the middle!” said the waiter as he lifted the lid and plopped down a spoonful of vanilla-honey ice cream. I also liked the creamy passion-fruit tart with Thai basil ice cream, blackberries and lychees, a better choice than the wan offerings that make up the “chocolate indulgence.”

Japonais is a welcome addition to the Union Square neighborhood. Just thank God it’s not in the meatpacking district.

Brian and I just booked our honeymoon to Maui. We picked Maui because it seemed like a fair compromise between Australia (his choice) and the comfort of our living room (mine). Who wouldn't want to spend ten days frolicking in crystal blue waters? Good question. I should probably mention that in addition to being paranoid, I'm also a miser. But why should we spend thousands of dollars traipsing through airports and security lines, dishing out big bucks to stay in sterile hotel rooms, when we could save all that cash and stay home? Thanks to my fat collection of takeout menus, I have the culinary world at my fingertips.

Spa treatments? Queen Helene's Mint Julep face masque, $3.99 at CVS, thank you very much.

Entertainment? Netflix plus HBO. You can't really do better than that.

I found the chirp of what sounded like a large bird from my rear windows rather charming, though I was curious that it chirped only at night. “Don’t they cover the bird’s cage?” I wondered. Then I peered down into the courtyard below. I saw no bird, but rather large, nimble-footed rats sampling the wares of myriad garbage bags put out by a Cuban restaurant on the block. The rats are actually much quieter than the wait staff and intoxicated customers at said restaurant (a sheet of waterproof insulation keeps out elements but not noise), where almost nightly I hear vulgar hoooo-hoooo whoops and strains of “Happy Birthday.” The super of our building pitches in at this restaurant, and we often see him dragging restaurant trash through our hallway, streaking the floor with slimy, stinky goo.

But for real seedy, clandestine color, just step over our threshold. Even before you step over, you’ll see globs of viscous sinus matter, ejected by the employees from the neighboring nail salon, who emerge occasionally to spit in front of our door. Inside is where the action is.

When our (oblivious, debonair) landlord removed the lock from the outer door of our vestibule, we became the only residence on the block to be open to the public. And what a happening hallway it’s become. Among the Thai, Mexican and Chinese menus and circulars from D’Agostino and CVS, there are cigar butts, cigarette butts (desperately smoked down to the filter), clumps of shredded tobacco, shiny aluminum vials, amber glass vials, a pipe made of clear glass, smears of ketchup, peeled-off pantyhose, matches, a red plastic Bic lighter, bedded newspaper. Half-empty (half-full?) bottles of Snapple, Budweiser cans and Coca-Cola.

But it’s the quality of guests that I find most interesting: a real cross section of humanity.

I have not seen all of them; the people who use the vestibule as a urinal, for example, are pretty much short-term, and I’ve never, fortunately, caught them in the act. (Note to self: Do not put down groceries or laundry when unlocking door.)

Then there are the bell ringers. Jehovah’s Witnesses willing to trek up any number of flights to save a soul. A mysterious, quivering Queen’s English caller asking for the last name that appears on the bell and claiming to be “a friend.” The pseudo deliveries, bogus baby-sitter and boiler appointments, and aspiring suitors, along with the simple opportunists asking, “Can you let me in?”

Once, at 3 a.m., the bell rang. Briefly. Sporadically. Three times. Four. We pressed the “listen” button and heard breathy groans. We rarely answer the bell, but when I sent my husband downstairs, he found a couple in flagrante delicto, one arm wildly and passionately flailing, randomly hitting the bell. Correction: My husband says it was her back that was pressing urgently into the buzzer.

The smoke from our vestibule crashers wafts up the stairwell and seeps into our apartment, alerting us to carcinogenic intruders. Since it’s tiresome to keep running down and up the four flights, and possibly dangerous to ask people to evacuate, I’ve taken to using the intercom to ask them to leave, usually announcing “I’m calling them now,” which our visitors implicitly understand to mean “We’re dialing 911.” This is usually followed by the sound of the door slamming; once, a well-mannered, lilting Southern voice replied, “Oh, yes, of course I’ll be leaving now.”

The other day, I came home and, when I pushed open the door, I hit something—someone, apparently disturbing her nap. It was a woman with an inventively wrapped head scarf, nodding off on a pillow of two Verizon White Pages, with a third phonebook serving as a mini-ottoman. When I told her she had to leave, she could not have been more polite—in that lilting Southern way that I was sure I recognized from the intercom days before.

She was more polite than the ever-so-cool couple my cosmically inclined downstairs neighbor encountered while they were puffing on cigarettes: impertinent and annoyed when she asked them to please step outside.

Once my husband was followed in by an unsavory character and quickly exited so he that he wouldn’t be trapped between the doors. The man confided that he’d just gotten out of prison and wondered if my husband could give him any money.

“I’m unemployed, too,” said my husband, which was true. (Of course he’s unemployed—he’s writing an 800-page historical novel.)

I wonder if someone had placed personal ads around in the New York Press, The Villager or The Village Voice announcing:

Step right up! UNLOCKED VESTIBULE IN GREENWICH VILLAGE. FREE! UNCENSORED! OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! Take a nap, take a leak, get it on, have a smoke, get high, do a popper, leave your trash!

And, in fact, our former downstairs neighbor once posted signs all over the Village announcing a party on our roof on Gay Pride Day and then left both the downstairs doors open. Strangers galore clambered up our stairwell, pausing briefly and clamorously in front of our apartment before scaling the rickety rungs to the roof. I was delighted to see a downstairs neighbor gyrating on the fire escape in a gold G-string and our 97-year-old neighbor in her purple T-shirt waving to “Dykes on Bikes.” (Later, she was shocked to learn that lavender was “their” color; what, she lamented, would her church think?)

I’m going to listen in more closely when I see those people giving Village walking tours, which inevitably end up on our corner. Might be something fishy going on. Maybe when they pause in front of our building, they announce:

“This landmark building is inhabited by genuine West Village writers, a retired-Mafia novelist, and a harpist-slash-ice-skater. The vestibule is well-known in the Village as a local urinal, crash pad and smoking haven, so if anyone needs to use the facilities, please feel free to do so now during our five-minute break.”

Do you suppose, if our landlord reads this, he’ll install a lock with a code and a video cam? With a little good editing, think of the excellent documentary film we can make with our vestibule footage—R-rated, X-rated, whatever.

Or do you suppose he will figure out a way to charge them rent?

For the last six years, Nicolas and Louis have driven down from Montreal to set up their ephemeral tree sale outside the CVS on Ninth Street and spread their jostling wares across our otherwise dreary sidewalk. They come with no family associations, no sentimental hauntings from Christmases past. Rather, the two simply come bearing their slamming French-speaking selves and a sea of naked evergreens. Angels, rejoice!

Like the holidays themselves, the Canadians’ arrival always takes me by surprise. I was lucky this year and spotted them early. After attending a homeless-and-strays Thanksgiving gathering the night before, I had woken with a Beaujolais hangover and a full-blown case of holiday ennui. Venturing out, I saw that all municipal and retail Christmas decorations had gone up on Seventh Avenue overnight. Jesus Christ, I thought, without a moment to recover from Thanksgiving, here we go galloping straight towards the season’s gaudy heart. I trudged towards Fifth Avenue and then—miracle of miracles—I caught sight and scent of a freshly slaughtered keep of pines.

Nicolas and Louis, Canadians to the core, had rigged a hockey goal out of a bucket and were shooting perfect shots, filling the bucket up with random chips of bark. Neither had changed a jot since last year: Louis, tall and dark, a Colin Farrell type; and Nicolas (sigh) a dreamy combination of a young Harrison Ford and a manlier Jude Law.

“Bonjour!” I waved and quickly ran away.

“Bonjour!” they called after me.

Word quickly spread the two were back. I received an e-mail from my friend Todd that read: “My wife just told me the Canadians are back. Look out.”

My upstairs neighbor Tim bought a tree from them days later, and it was all he could do to hide his elation at having purchased his first-ever adult Christmas tree from such charming customer-service representatives.

“It’s insane. Why aren’t they Armani models? Those boys are in the wrong business,” he said.

“Let’s not give them any ideas. I want this tradition to last,” I said.

Nicolas and Louis have an agreement with CVS, and so the two have happily returned to the same spot year after year, like migrating ducks. They chose to set up in one of the less gentrified stretches of this otherwise tony neighborhood, sort of on the slippery slope downwards towards Fifth Avenue and, ultimately, the poisoned Gowanus Canal. But here the sidewalks are ample, and the stand acts as a cattle chute for shoppers frequenting C-town, one of the neighborhood’s larger supermarkets. I’d wager that legions of Park Slope moms get a secret shot of Christmas mirth as they push Junior in his S.U.V.-sized stroller towards C-town’s automatic doors. I know I do—nothing like the gentle visages of these Christmas angels to make picking up a quart of milk a minor cause for celebration.

Last Sunday was a busy tree-buying day, and Nicolas and Louis were in hot demand. Kids spun around, barely able to contain themselves. One little boy broke out into a very adult-looking rendition of air guitar when his family’s tree was finally roped to the roof of their car. All afternoon, the two woodsmen pulled out tree after tree, holding them at arm’s length, spinning them around like girls in Prada cocktail dresses. Satie played on the van’s radio. Some buyers opted to have their trees wrapped up in the scary Christmas-tree netting/bondage machine.

This year, I screwed up my courage to speak to the two directly instead of just stealing appreciative glances and trying to drum up questions about proper Christmas-tree care. I learned the answers to many of the questions we all had: Do you sleep in the van? How do you avoid dying of asphyxiation? How do you eat? Are you really open 24 hours? Do you grow these trees from seedlings yourselves in the great wild woods of Canada?

“We are open 24 hours, seven days a week,” verified Nicolas. “At night, someone has to watch the trees.” For showers, there is the nearby YMCA. Asphyxiation is avoided with a cracked window. The trees are grown in Nova Scotia by strangers, not in Quebec by Louis and Nicolas. For cuisine, there’s take-out and two conveniently located French or French-sounding establishments to stave off homesickness, Delices de Paris bakery and the neighborhood bar, Barbès.

As we chatted, a man walked by, punched his fist into the air and shouted:

“Vive la différence!”

“Oh, yes—and people come by to practice their French,” Nicolas smiled, giving the man a friendly nod.

It must be said that the Canadians’ tree stand is most lovely at night, when the bright lights strung overhead are turned on and the surrounding sidewalk is dark, blocking out the street’s gloomy pet shop, dental clinics and podiatrists’ offices. Over 300 Nova Scotian pines—albeit pines that are slowly dying and oozing gum from their stumps—create an enchanted forest of sorts right there on the pavement. While it may not be as picturesque as driving a horse-drawn sleigh through a living forest, Nicolas and Louis are there to add a dash of beauty to the tree-buying experience. As happens every year, my threats not to celebrate the holiday in any way, shape or form dissolve once I enter their magical woodland.

Last night, Louis helped me pick out one of the scragglier Charlie Brown Christmas–type trees available, one that might never have found a home otherwise. It was not entirely clear to me whether what I purchased was an actual tree or maybe the sawed-off top of one, but it smelled good and would hold a few bulbs. Nicolas helped secure the Christmas-tree stand with its impossibly complex system of screws and vices, a tool that comes with bad memories of my father cursing Christmas and Christmas-tree-stand makers and God knows who else as he succumbed to driving nails into the walls and stringing wires at random angles like a spider spinning a web on LSD. I lofted my little tree over my head and carried it home and up the stairs to my apartment. Once I had it in place, I noticed that the tree listed dementedly to one side and had a gaping wound between its lower branches. It looked a little bit like the piney offspring of two alcoholic parents. But with some white lights and a few ornaments, it became very beautiful very quickly.

Like St. Nick himself, our two Christmas-tree salesmen quietly steal away on Dec. 25 and drive back to their own families to celebrate the holiday. They’ll be flush from their month’s long, hard work jamming the Christmas spirit into our urban hearts. I could never tell them what part they play in keeping the holidays from being a blinding snowstorm of pain, or how they help prevent my fear of the holiday from separating me from its real pleasures. In fact, these last few evenings I’ve found myself humming, “O Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum, how lovely are your branches … ” to myself and my little deformed tree. Thank you, Nicolas and Louis, for bringing Christmas to Park Slope in a sane and sexy package. See you next year.

Aleutia is all of the above, and yet quite different. Yes, it has a packed bar–30 feet long, made of concrete. And there are sofas–upholstered in gray suede, no less. But it also has unusually good food. And on the evenings I was there, at least, it was quiet enough to have a conversation without feeling that you had sung the lead in Tannhauser by the end of the night.

The bi-level restaurant is airy and spacious, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a sweeping orange panel that curves from behind the bar up to the mezzanine. Behind the lounge is a dining area, softly lit with candles and Japanese-style lamps whose shades are made with twisted pleats of white silk. On a slow, snowy Monday night, we were seated upstairs, where it's quietest. Pistachio-green banquettes stretch along one wall, and at the far end are three glass cases with small, Noguchi-style sculptures inside that look like mini Martha Graham sets. Through the picture windows, which afford a breathtaking panorama of the CVS pharmacy across the street, we could see piles of snow on the sidewalk turning to slush. Our waitress appeared with demitasses of hot chocolate laced with bourbon, a present from the chef. Each cup was topped with tiny marshmallows the size of a baby's fingernail.

"They're homemade," said the waitress.

"How do you 'homemake' a marshmallow?" wondered one of my companions, looking puzzled. "I thought they came only in a bag." Just as baked beans come only in a can.

The hot chocolate was extraordinarily good, aromatic and rich. Obviously, the chef's mother never told him not to eat a candy bar before dinner. But it certainly didn't seem to put a dent in our appetites that evening. It must have been the cooking. From the first taste of the chef's amuse (invariably pronounced "amusay"), which might be a tostado of mango and duck with barbecue sauce one night, pulled chicken with goat cheese and wild mushrooms on sweet-potato chips another, you know he means business.

Gavin Citron was briefly at Celadon, uptown, and Aja before that. His cooking is American with Asian accents, using bold flavors and some zany combinations, such as duck with banana grits and peanut sauce. (The idea, Mr. Citron said, came from Elvis Presley, who loved peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches.) The rare, crisp-skinned breast was paired with tender confit and served with stone-ground grits mashed with bananas that had been roasted in their skins, topped with a sauce of puréed roasted peanuts and smoked chipotles. Weird, certainly, but delicious.

Cod was wrapped in pancetta and slowly roasted until the bacon was crisp and the cod moist and flaky underneath. Mr. Citron laid it on a bed of runner beans studded with braised pork ribs flavored with mango barbecue sauce–a great winter dish. Chunks of grilled octopus were paired with delicate cod cheeks and served in an intensely flavored tomato broth seasoned somewhat baroquely with capers, lemon peel and black currants soaked in port. It was surprisingly subtle.

Mr. Citron is keen on truffle oil, a fact that was brought home one evening when I came with a friend who informed us, after tasting three of the first courses on the table–all of which contained the oil–that she was allergic to it. We were horrified. (More, I realized later, at the thought of her lifetime of deprivation than at the prospect of any imminent harm.) Looking at her face, which was quite flushed, I was reminded of my fifth birthday party, when the cook used the better part of a bottle of liqueur in the cake's cream filling. Afterward, one of the little girls went up to my mother and asked, "Are my peeks chink?"

Mercifully, the effects of the truffle oil wore off more quickly than that of the birthday cake, and my companion was able to enjoy the rest of her dinner without incident.

Steamed dumplings were made with a semolina dough moistened with sake instead of water, stuffed with wild mushrooms and prosciutto, and simmered in a powerful mushroom broth made with truffle juice and shavings. There was a splash of truffle oil in the sushi tuna, which was lightly seasoned with sesame, mint and cilantro, and accompanied by addictive rice crackers. The aroma of truffles also wafted heartily from the mashed potatoes that came with the juicy roast poussin.

Ribbons of cured salmon were filled with salmon roe and tartare and sprinkled with olive oil and fines herbes. Ruby-red and golden beets were roasted, marinated in champagne to bring out the sweetness, shaved ainto "noodles" and tossed with a sweet-pepper vinaigrette topped with a goat-cheese gratin. Seared sea scallops came with corn and mushroom risotto that had tiny, sweet bay scallops folded into it. Slow-basted Alaskan salmon, cooked with its skin in a cast-iron skillet, was served on a bed of wild rice, wheat berries and toasted barley in a rich sauce made with lobster and a dash of port.

I'm not sure about the dessert listed on the menu as "only for the adventurous." A rather dry pound cake laced with picholine olives was accompanied by a poached pear and black truffle ice cream. The cacophony of flavors was most peculiar. But the other desserts included a terrific lemon meringue pie with lemon sherbet and a confit of meyer lemons, and the ubiquitous (but done very well here) molten chocolate cake. The roasted pumpkin cake with praline was sensational.

When I first called Aleutia to book a table, the reservationist asked me if I had any special dietary requirements. "Just good food," I said. The restaurant delivered.

Aleutia

* *

220 Park Avenue South (at 18th Street)

529-3111

Dress: Casual but chic

Noise level: Can be high

Wine list: Interesting, fairly priced international list

Credit cards: All major

Price range: Lunch three-course prix fixe $20, main courses $12 to $18;

Dinner main courses $25 to $32

Lunch: Monday to Friday, noon to 3 p.m.

Dinner: Monday to Wednesday 5:30 to 11 p.m.; Thursday to Saturday 5:30 to 11:30 p.m.

* Good

* * Very Good

* * * Excellent

* * * * Outstanding

No Star: Poor