I share the soup with a friend whose roasted lobster bisque was thin, unremarkable and uneaten. For a moment, I think of giving the rest to her, but when my bowl comes back from a tasting, I forget and finish it.
Later, it's my turn to restrain myself to only a taste, with a pear poached to cranberry on lettuce with Stilton and toasted walnuts; a fragile crab cake; and the grilled vegetable risotto. It's not easy. My slab of tuna lacks flavor and is served with a spartan scoop of basmati rice and a web of julienned cucumber. Though a coriander vinaigrette was promised, I couldn't find it.
And so it goes at Verve. Many dishes are well conceived and executed and beautifully presented. Others aren't quite there.
Mr. Walsh, 32, and now executive chef and a partner at Verve, began his kitchen education and career when the restaurant opened about seven years ago. Along the way, he watched and learned from chefs who came, cooked and moved on -- one from Park Avenue Café in Manhattan; two others from the Ryland Inn in White House.
The restaurant is long and narrow, with its door opening to a headwaiter station and the bar beyond where jazz bands play on weekends. A room divider does dual duty -- corralling smoke and softening the music to that of a pleasant background in the 40-seat main dining room. Swaths of deep blue fabric hold tiny lights that twinkle like stars at ceiling level. More strands of lights along the walls at waist level illuminate crisply clothed tables as well as the stains on the upholstery of some chairs.
But back to the food. The menu is short, only both sides of one page, with recited specials for the weekends. Many of the ingredients are familiar from other New American restaurants in central New Jersey -- lobster, exotic mushrooms, truffles, crab, mesclun, arugula, poached pear, Parmesan, risotto, double pork chop, pork tenderloin -- but there are intriguing surprises. Mr. Walsh invigorates a shrimp cocktail with wasabi cocktail sauce. He serves a beef filet, sliced thin, as an appetizer. He intensifies a leek cream sauce with truffle oil. And he dares to keep catfish on his menu past Mardi Gras.
Though nothing beats his mushroom soup, other appetizers were also table favorites. They included the pear-Stilton-walnut combination on mixed greens and the Caesar salad as well as the crab cake and the filet, though both were oversauced. There was inspiration in the salad of arugula with grilled vegetables, goat cheese and a sweetly pungent roasted garlic dressing, but there was grit in the greens too. After we complained, the waiter offered to remove the salad from the bill, but we wanted that $10 salad, degritted. After a few moments, the waiter returned empty-handed. All the arugula salads, he said, would feature the same texture.
Then there was the confusion over the wines. We ordered two bottles, a Pouilly-Fuisse and a Rioja, and midway through our appetizers realized that, though we had overruled the waiter and asked to have both bottles opened and served right away, neither had arrived. After we flagged him down, he brought glasses -- for the white wine he had suggested drinking first. It took another round of flagging before he knuckled under and served the red wine alongside. The good news is that he learned. On our next visit, he provided glasses for red and white for everyone, unasked.
Gritty arugula aside, Mr. Walsh has a way with vegetables. In addition to comforting creamed spinach and a sauté of earthy mushrooms with herbs that needed only salt to make the dish sing, he created three vegetarian entrees that more than matched their meaty competitors. A table favorite was the risotto mentioned earlier; it was creamy and crunchy with a coquettish essence of asparagus playing alongside grilled zucchini, squash, shallots, red bell peppers and roasted tomatoes. A close second was the mushroom ravioli nicely juxtaposed against that leek-truffle cream sauce. The mushroom and artichoke ragout had considerable flavor, enough to make you close your eyes, and you may as well: The dish was visually unappealing, a sea of brown chunks.
Meats are of high quality, and they are well prepared. A rack of lamb special was succulent and tender. The beef tenderloin was more than its equal, with its sweetly earthy sauce of onions in port, though a serving of potatoes (mashed, fried or roasted) cost $5 extra. The pork chop was a credible dish made more interesting by a balsamic vinegar glaze and a fine fried potato pancake. Seafood, too, was generally good, though the catfish on its bed of white rice seemed like home cooking on a weeknight.
As for desserts, if you are served a fresh piece of pear tart with its crisp crust, creamy custard and softly yielding fruit, you will want seconds. If you are served yesterday's pear tart, you will read the definition of verve at the bottom of the dessert menu and wonder when you will see the energetic and enthusiastic expression of ideas at Verve.
Sometimes it's there, on the plate. But if Mr. Walsh would
consistently deliver that definition, he would lift Verve from the
middle of the pack.
Published: 07 - 13 - 2003 , Late Edition - Final , Section 14NJ , Column 1 , Page 10