Cosme

What's better than writing a blog post on the same day as the NY Times' review hits the internets? Either it shows that I sort of know a little bit about something, or that I know absolutely nothing about, well, everything. 

By sheer coincidence, we ate at Cosme last night. Now, I pretty much know next to nothing about Mexican food; I only know what I think tastes good  - and what I like to eat. So the scallop and jicama aguachile was great...

Scallop Aguachile - look at that brunoise!

And we inhaled the seafood stuffed avocado, though I thought it tasted like nothing so much as a classic shrimp cocktail - unsurprising, since its sauce is composed of ketchup and horseradish...

Stuffed avocado - seafood vuelve a la vida.

There's an interesting dichotomy between those two plates, as the stuffed avo is quite rustic, whereas the scallop dish had a brunoise of cucumber so perfect, it brought back sweaty memories of cooking school, although brunoise was nowhere near as annoying as tournée.

And yes, Pete, those tortillas are fine, especially wrapped around the barbacoa of mushrooms and squash, with hoja santa providing a great, complex flavor profile - I counted maybe a half-dozen types of mushrooms, some barely there, they were so tiny...

Mushroom and squash barbacoa.

Significant Eater, due to her many years spent in the desert southwest, had to have the purple corn pozole with pork jowl...and who am I to argue - she gave it a mighty thumbs up...

Purple corn pozole with pork jowl.

By the way, the guacamole to snack on at the start is pretty good, though Sig Eater proclaimed my home-made version to be better.  

Dessert, of course, had to be the by-now famous husk meringue with corn mousse.  Strange stuff to this Jewish guy from Long Island - and strangely good.

This much I also know- we liked the room, where you actually have some personal space, and the service was gracious and knowledgeable. The one cocktail we tried was the Expat Martini; it was chintzy, it was served in a ridiculous glass, and it failed to come with the advertised house pickled tomatillo. See for yourself...

Chintzy Expat Martini Sans Tomatillo.

There are a number of wines by the glass, a bunch of beer, both on draught and by the bottle or can, and a deep wines-by-the-bottle list. That'll be nice to explore, because after I do some research about the foods of Mexico, we're sure to head back.

Cosme - 35 E. 21st St., NYC