Medi, While No Marseilles, Is Pretty Good
In more carefree days, Barb got us invited to a party in Quogue, which Itty still can't pronounce. The hostess was a vivacious blonde named Edie. Her brother Gary was there. They threw the party at their parents' beach house; I dug the large metal gleaming modern sculpture out front. Looked Henry Moore-ish. Their employer and surrogate dad was a sculpture collector and his family has given away over 450 Rodin works to museums and universities all over the world. There was a DJ at the party and a friendly local caterer, who was willing to share secrets. Everyone was fresh-faced, well-scrubbed and nicely dressed.
Angelina was excited to see one of her favorite wines at the bar, a red from Cline, a south Sonoman winery. The bartender poured her glass after glass. We'd all had a lot of sun that day and eventually Angel ran into the bathroom to hurl, but she didn't know you're supposed to use the toilet?not all of her blown chunks fit down the sink drain. She cracked the bathroom door to yell for Itty and they slammed the door behind them, which raised suspicion. Edie and the rest of us barged in to see what was the matter. I guess the whole party was in there for a while; Itty the clean freak spraying Lysol on every available surface. During the evening, Barb and I smoked all of their cigars, which they couldn't have been nicer about. Good-looking Gary talked and drank with us in the kitchen. Later, I almost spilled red wine on their pink floral sofa. Instead of throwing us out, they asked us to come back the next day and hang out on their beach with them.
Edie's other brother runs Cantor Fitzgerald. They've lost more than 700 employees in the war on America. Gary was one of them. He called Edie from the 103rd floor of the North Tower to tell her he loved her, that smoke was pouring in and he wouldn't make it out. These people are so big-hearted, they've set up a direct relief fund, not just for Cantor Fitzgerald surviving family but for families of all victims .
Several days before World War III my mother called. "Would you go to Petite Sophisticate with me at 9 a.m. tomorrow?" "Mmm okay." "You don't sound excited." True, as I'm not petite, or a sophisticate, or a morning person.
There's something labeled Q where the R should be. I ask the conductor, "Does this go to World Trade?" and she says, "Yes." After Canal St. I am looking at water and the Brooklyn Bridge. This can't be good. My mom gets loudly nervous; she's had a recurring nightmare since I was in middle school in which she's lost on the subway in some unknown borough. The nice guy next to us wears a pendant with the Hebrew "mazel." He tells us to turn around at DeKalb Ave. DeKalb Ave.? Where the hell is DeKalb Ave.? He inquires what country we're from. After oh I don't know two or three hours, we stop at DeKalb Ave. Are we still in New York state? Luckily, the R train also stops there, so we're able to return to civilization.
At the mall at World Trade, in the back of Casual Corner, they have reasonably priced workaday petites. Ooh, I see a black shirtdress I want her to try. She'll take it. We haggle: I like the long jacket, she likes the short. I prevail. I want her to try the sixes and skip the eights. I win again. She only gets mad at me once; I forget why. After buying out the store, a walk by the water near the then-sparkling World Financial Center and a more direct subway trip back to midtown. At home, my mom reads Manhattan File and catnaps on the loveseat. When she wakes she says she hasn't taken the time to read a magazine and take a nap in ages. I've noticed that my apartment is conducive to that behavior.
That evening at Rockefeller Center the spiders are gone, thank God. Although the kids seemed to like the spiders. I say bring back the puppy. A large crew in gray t-shirts constructs what looks like a barn frame, where there'd been nothing, in just the time we're at dinner. (That structure has now been replaced by benches and a stirring display of American flags.)
Inside Medi, yellow glass lamps, deep blue upholstery, sunflowers and a bold yellow-and-white basketweave ceiling transform the old East River Savings Bank. I recall having walked past when the place was being gutted. Once across the plaza, I'd heard the crash of a heavy plate-glass picture window shattering onto the spot I'd been standing on two minutes before. It had been accidentally kicked out by some heavy machinery within. As for Medi's exterior, big square blue-capped, lemon-yellow umbrellas form a sunny ceiling overhead. Pastel-flowered bushes provide decoration. A smooth-skinned keyboardist/chanteuse plays Eurodisco. "The Girl from Ipanema" and late-70s Bee Gees covers make the hostess boogie. My mom tells me that the songwriters' heirs are suing the actual girl from Ipanema for using the moniker for her store. That hardly seems right.
Seated outside, we're given two menus; one a lighter "terrace" menu and the other, we're told, is for "fine dining." The terrace menu has salads, pastas, pizzas, smoked meats and crudite assortments as well as a handful of entrees. The other menu is pricier, offers more entrees, but also has a big selection of salads, including a lobster salad, and some pastas as well. A well-groomed after-work crowd surrounds us. They drink and pick at pate plates; inside skews geriatric.
Our cheesy dirty-blond waiter affirms that everything we order is "very good." A glass of Agribene cabernet sauvignon ($9.50) is dark and leathery. Salade Niçoise ($18.50) is composed of two healthy slabs of rare tuna on pickled sweet onion, untrimmed overdressed haricots verts, hardboiled eggs, pink mealy tomatoes, crisp-skinned and plump juicy caperberries (listed as capers on the menu) and baby greens in which a couple of whole super-colossal green olives make their nest.
Malfatti ($19.50) are green pasta bundles in a Gorgonzola sauce that initially waft an off-putting stench, but when I get past the stink, I do like it. The sauce is rich, sprinkled with bits of walnut. But the thick cheese sauce, the texture of condensed milk, coupled with the dense dumplings proves an impediment to membership in the clean-plate club. An assortment of boring bread has been brought, inexplicably wrapped in fish-and-chips newsprint. It's serviceable for sauce-mopping. There are sweetened whole-grain rolls in the basket that are palatable on their own. An out-of-place couple sits next to us. She, dark-complexioned in a painted-on bright orange strapless minidress, wearing 4-inch lucite heels, and he, white and four decades older. He gropes her repeatedly throughout their dinner.
Service is solicitous for the most part; there is a large conference regarding the napkin I've dropped. Dessert arrives well ahead of coffee. It's a cold poached pear ($9) in Frangelico and cream sauces and sounds better than it is, although my mom attacks it with relish. Tooth-cracking cubes of praline surround. A purple and white edible flower dusted with sugar adorns. I taste a tiny bit of a maply flavor hidden in the creme anglaise; wish there was more. The sauce tastes less Frangelico-ey and more anisette-y. I'd have cooked the pear longer.
Decaf is smoky and harsh, served in a huge china cup (yay) but my forefinger doesn't fit through the teeny handle. I look across the table to see my mom sipping away with no trouble. Oh right, she's a petite sophisticate. After my mesomorph fingers have gotten the hang of the purely ornamental cup handle, I'm asked "Would you like some more coffee?" "A little." It never appears.
Our conversation is light. This was the world in which pedestrian barricades were a big issue. As night falls, the tables are shrouded by shadows, leaving me to imagine the lovely glow a candle on each table could provide.
Medi is going for a Mediterranean feel, but it doesn't approach that completely soul-warming (and much cheaper) fish soup with garlicky rouille and sun-infused red wine indulged in al fresco under the authentic yellow daylight at one of those spots along the Marseilles Vieux-Port. Especially after an exhilarating, okay terrifying, drive and then hike through the white limestone calanques with the mistral blowing. Miss Michelle's baby sister had yelled, "Everyone put your seat belt on!" To which Michelle had retorted, "If we drive off this thing, a seat belt is really a moot point." High prices with less-than-comparable quality make Medi's terrace a bit of a tourist trap, but it's the perfect venue for sipping a kir royale and watching Rockefeller Center come tumbling down when the militant Muslims get around to knocking it over.