DBGB Kitchen and Bar

Remember how I made this birthday list of all the things I wanted for my birthday? Well, my family took me to Minetta Tavern, my mom’s taking me to Jean-Georges this weekend, and my other friend is taking me to Annisa on Tuesday. I have to say, I have really great friends and family and they love making me happy (by feeding me lots of good food!!)

On Tuesday, my friend Lou took me to DBGB, the new Daniel Boulud restaurant that opened on Bowery. I’ve been eagerly anticipating the opening (as have many other bloggers) and I was so excited that I made a reservation last week. The restaurant features a bar in the front and a main dining room in the back (which is surrounded by the kitchen!) The walls of the restaurant are decorated by really beautiful copper pots, all of which were sent by famous chefs (I noticed Thomas Keller’s, Ferran Adria’s, and Pierre Gagnaire’s while I was walking around) We sat at the last two top by the dessert station, which gave us a perfect view of the awesome sundae’s being made throughout our meal.

Our waitress was really friendly and brought us a bread basket to start:

Have I ever mentioned how I’m a huge fan of large chunks of salt on butter? Well, I am. The bread wasn’t anything great, but it was enough to satiate me while I looked at the menu – actually, the wine/beer menu was so large that I had to give it back to the waitress since it was taking up too much table space!

I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to order (which kind of surprised my friend considering the restaurant officially opened the day before our dinner). I read that the matzo ball soup was a great appetizer, but it was too warm for a hot soup, and none of the other appetizers really caught my eye, so we decided to just get two entrees and dessert. However, immediately after we placed our order, we changed our minds and decided to go with the cucumber soup (Lou had been eying it, anyway):

The cucumber soup is served chilled with smoked salmon grassini and a little dill tapioca. I have to admit that I’ve never had cucumber soup before (actually, the only cold soups I’ve had are gazpacho and a beet soup my mom makes), but the cucumber soup was mellow flavored, very creamy, and overall very delicious. The soup didn’t arrive until after our entrees arrived (even though the waiter asked if we wanted to get the soup first), but no biggie – just more food to eat all at once!

Since I definitely wanted to try a burger and I really dislike Daisy May’s BBQ (they top one of the burgers with Daisy May’s!!), I went with the most original – the Yankee: 6 ounces of beef served on a sesame bun with iceberg lettuce, tomato, lettuce, an Essex St. pickle, and fries:

I must be in some kind of bun funk because I really could not stand the bun on the Yankee burger. I mean, it was so dense that it almost felt like I was eating two really thick pieces of pound cake with a beef patty sandwiched in between it. Also, I really dislike shredded lettuce in burgers because it reminds me of a Big Mac from McDonald’s. I mean, if I eat a burger at a restaurant, I think the lettuce should be Boston lettuce. The meat was tender (I mean, it could still be mooing by the looks of it, but I really couldn’t taste all of the flavoring because the bun overpowered all other tastes)

The inner Yankee:

Even though the meat is incredibly red and looks really juicy, I just didn’t get the juiciness from it. Lou said he thought I was crazy for not thinking the burger was juicy, but maybe it’s because I was spoiled by the black label burger last weekend, where I had to lick the juice off my fingers because it was dripping everywhere…but I digress. The fries lacked the freshness you get from freshly fried fries – they didn’t taste stale, but they definitely weren’t fresh or super hot.

There are a lot of sausages to choose from on the menu (Daniel Boulud is a big fan of sausages- ha!) and they’re made in house by a…sausage man. You can order one (they range from $9 – $15) or you can get the sausage duo for $21. Obviously I wanted the sausage duo (because of the savings but more importantly, MORE SAUSAGE!):

I definitely wanted to try the beaujolaise (any sausage filled with pork, mushrooms, onion, bacon & red wine is a-ok in my book) and we also went with the tunisienne (spicy lamb & mint merguez, lemon braised spinach, and chickpeas). The beaujolaise, on the right, had a lot of great textures and the lentils + dipping sauce added more rich flavors that all exploded in your mouth. A mouth party, you might say. The tunisienne was actually my favorite item of the night because the mint really made the lamb not as heavy as you’d expect. Plus, the lemon braised spinach was pretty excellent – something I could eat everyday.

Originally, the plan was to get two entrees and dessert because I really wanted a sundae, but I really didn’t think I could stuff two scoops of ice cream into my belly (although if I really tried, I could’ve done it). We decided to pass on dessert, but here’s a picture of the dessert prep area:

The restaurant ran really smoothly (I guess that’s why they have a soft opening!) and was absolutely packed for a Tuesday night – almost every table was occupied and the bar was pretty full as well. I don’t think their burgers are worth ordering, but I will definitely be back (actually, on Sunday), for their sausages AND ICE CREAM SUNDAES!