L'Ecole 2.1

New York, New York! Probably around two times a year my husband and I like to travel to NY for just a 2 or 3 days get away vacation. And of course what can be better than to check out a couple good restaurants, pizzerias, delicious New York hot dogs or pretzels. This time my story is going to be about restaurant “L’ecole,” at the International Culinary Institute, located on Broadway and Grand. This is our second visit to this restaurant. The reason is prices are more than reasonable, food is absolutely outstanding, and the service is marvelous.
The concept of this restaurant is based on serving a prix fixe menu. Personally I love this concept, the same as in France. The cost is $49 for a 5-course meal: starter or appetizer, fish course, meat course, small salad, and desert. The restaurant works as a non-profit establishment, and young chefs could express theirs new knowledge and God given talent.
For my first course I got the Parisian gnocchi with prosciutto and asparagus. The dish was delicious all around. The fish course was Halibut with squid. The presentation was great, unique, and the fish was fresh and flaky. This dish was served with sweet creamy corn. I thought it was the perfect combination. My meat course was a hanger steak. Oh my God, it was superb. The perfect temperate, med-rare, nice color, with the right balance of seasoning and marinate. Moreover, how tender was that! I never in my life tried hanger steak perfectly cooked, and that moist and tender. Obviously, the chefs know what they doing back there.

To accompany our dinner we had a fairly inexpensive bottle of Malbec priced around $40. It was nicely paired with all of my food items, maybe not just with the halibut. But oh well that is ok. For dessert, my husband chose the chocolate trio, and I had my favorite fromage - you cannot go wrong with cheese as a last course of your meal. I would not say that the cheese was as good as in France, but still great quality. It is very hard to find good cheese in the USA; all of them are pasteurized. This kills the flavor and the structure of the cheeses. However, this is a different story.
The waiter presented the plate of cheeses, 1 ounce of each. It was just perfect to finish my dinner with. It was a great selection: creamy and tangy goat cheese, strong flavored hard cheese, double cream soft cheese family of brie or camembert; I do not know exactly which one it was, and stinky, strong and pungent blue cheese. Oh, that was my favorite! All my cheeses I paired with LBV port. The restaurant was completely full by 8pm, and we had the best seats in my opinion, right by the window.

The interior of the restaurant was typical French: a lot of wood, white table clothe, nice glasses, and plates. Service was outstanding as I mention before. Everything was just in time and as we requested.
Visiting this restaurant has become a tradition during our trips to NY.

I love this place!