The 9th Avenue Blue Seafood Bar and Eatery Inaugural Review Our Coverage Sponsored by Fresh Origins
Owners Executive Chef Andrea Giacomoni and Dorian Gashi, a winning team!
The Grilled Spanish Octopus
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Mover and Shaker Charles Kipps, guess what! We found a new talented Albanian you should meet-owner Dorian Gashi of The 9th Avenue Blue Seafood Bar. Other than writing Peachy Deegan into a novel as a character and a cocktail, Charles Kipps is famous for marrying awesome Albanian Aida Kipps! And other things too- so read his interview, silly.
You know the book Charles put Peachy in was Times Square Trouble, but he also wrote Hell's Kitchen Homicide. Hell's Kitchen is turning into a culinary mecca in Manhattan right now and one of the jewels of 9th Avenue is without a doubt the 9th Ave Blue and its competitors are green with envy.
The amount of seafood restaurants in Manhattan is highly underpopulated; we are glad to have found a winner new to us. Opened on October 22, 2015, 9th Ave Blue excels in all kinds of seafood and though there are many tapas on their menu, you know our philosophy is to look for full serious dishes always. Under raw dishes, we began with King Salmon Tartare, above. They thoughtfully put the lemon dressing on the side and this beautiful salmon was enhanced by cucumbers, mango, tarragon and soy pearls de provence. This venue changes their menu three times a year.
The salad we opted for was a brilliant homage to fall: Grilled Butternut Squash Salad.
The squash was perfectly grilled and the baby arugula, red wine poached pears (phenomenal!) walnuts, ricotta and curry dressing which they are happy to put on the side is a bastion of flavors that enhance each other well.
We absolutely adore crab and we aspire to have a column dedicated to only crab however we cannot find enough places that are great at crab with enough crab dishes to do this yet. (If you think you qualify as a restaurant owner, email your menu to peachydeegan@gmail.com with a minimum of five sophisticated crab dishes please). We were elated to meet Mr. Krabs (2 oz) and if he had a claw, we would have shaken his hand. Note the finesse of presentation achieved here: the bowl resting upon ice surrounded by seaweed made this jumbo crab meat with sishito pepper aioli taste even better.
One of the saddest moments in our history was when Solera closed and we are still crying our eyes out and there is no other Spanish restaurant in Manhattan that can compete with Rufino's talents still to this day. Culinary King Rufino Lopez will tell you that every time Peachy Deegan visited him, she ordered garlic shrimp. Even Barbie did. To that end we were super excited to see the Gambas al Aijlo which is the only spanish Peachy will probably ever learn because it means Garlic Shrimp! This time their version is pan seared in lemon sauce, garlic, evoo and Spanish paprika culminating in a convincing entry. We'd be more aggressive with the garlic; we love garlic.
A test of a restaurant new to us is the octopus test. We like Goodyear tires on Corvettes, not the consistency of them on our plate. There is a place for everything! We are pleased to say the quality of this popular dish is superbly sublime and we were particularly charmed by the salsa tonnata: white wine, mayo, tuna, olive oil, anchovies and capers. This sauce was just as terrific as the octopus itself. Roasted fingerling potatoes and caper berries come to this party on a plate and if you had eight extremities too, you'd clap them all if they weren't busy holding your fork. This is gorgeous and obviously it had its hair done by Edward Tricomi.
Chefs from Italy have earned high accolades on this website and the path has been paved well for Andrea before this first visit; the Garganelli lobster was the best part of the review. We could eat it every day and we cried when it was all gone. You know that Garganelli is a twisted type of penne and joined by lobster meat in a creamy saffron bisque with fresh chives, it is absolutely off-the-charts fabulous!!! What a smart combination: French bisque with Italian pasta. We cannot WAIT to eat this again.
If you are in the mood for a carnivorous endeavor, do not ignore the Angus Beef Strip Loin Steak: 14 oz Grass Fed Angus Beef is prepared in the classic Italian style with Arugula and Parmesan incorporating your greens and your cheese! Their cuisine is simple with traditional ingredients but the results are tremendous and this is the most impressive first-time reviews we've had in 2016.
Finally, a seared sea scallop served with cauliflower puree and black truffle perfectly punctuated the conclusion of our visit.
The 9th Avenue Blue Seafood Bar and Eatery is Terrific Takeout and we look forward to seeing what they do next.
