Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

cattitude and I have developed the custom of going out together to celebrate when one of us gets a new job: either a new-and-better job when already employed, or a job after being unemployed.

This time, we waited almost a month after my first day in this job. (A nominal three-month temp assignment feels enough like a real job to celebrate.)

Dinner was at a place called Le Jardin Bistro, on Cleveland Place [1,2]. I'd noticed it while walking up from lunch in Chinatown to get cheesecake at Eileen's Special Cheesecake, before heading back to work. The menu seemed plausible, they had a Zagat thing in the window, and the one review I found online was old but good (Eric Asimov, from the mid-1990s). I was in the mood for either French food or sushi, and wound up with a very traditional French meal: escargots (in garlic butter, of course) and cassoulet.

Both were very good, and I managed not to burn my mouth on the escargots.

The cassoulet had a fine duck leg confit, some very nice tender lamb, a slice of mild, tasty summer sausage, and some excellent pork. The pork was good enough that I made cattitude have quite a bit of it, since he's fonder of pork than I and would appreciate it more). There was also an indifferent garlic sausage, which Cattitude suggested would have benefitted from simmering with everything else, but that would have over-garlicked the rest of the cassoulet, so probably best not. The beans were rich and tasty; it was an excellent dish for a winter night, or even an early spring one such as we had Tuesday. I was too full to finish the cassoulet, and explained to the nice waiter that no, I didn't want dessert, if I had room I'd have eaten more beans. (He tried to persuade me to have sorbet, or mint tea to settle my stomach, but I declined both.)

Cattitude's starter was smoked herring, served warm over potatoes, with bits of lightly pickled onion. We both liked it, and the serving was quite generous (my escargots were the traditional half-dozen.) He had been going to order cassoulet as well, but the waiter told us about the specials, and the venison with currant sauce tempted him. Just as well: not only was the venison good, but two big servings of the cassoulet really would have been excessive. As was, there was plenty to share tastes--I had a few bites of venison, he had bites of all the different meats in the cassoulet and of course the beans.

It was a bit of a splurge, but I suspect we may go back sometime, and try having two starters, sharing an order of cassoulet, and see if that leaves room for dessert.

[1] one of the many obscure Manhattan streets, it's what Centre Street turns into before ending by merging into Lafayette. [Heading for the subway afterwards, I took us a short block out of the way, purely to walk a street I'd never been on: one block of Jersey Street, which is two blocks long.]

[2] 25 Cleveland Place; 212-343-9599