People who reviewed Le Veau D'Or online either loved this place or hated it. Some were captivated by the time-warped quality of the restaurant; others repulsed. Some found the waitstaff charming; others found them haughty. Some gushed about how great the food was; some gushed about how awful it was.
It is on the lower edge of the Upper East Side.
Pat and I saw the good and the bad of the place. It is definitely old school: when we arrived, the only other patrons were suit-wearing old men and pearl-adorned old women. One woman's hairstyle screamed Margaret Thatcher. Possibly those customers have been visiting the restaurant for decades. Eventually, a theatrical man in a green turtleneck arrived and regaled one of the restaurant employees, clearly a friend, with tales involving Richard Gere and Jerry Stiller.
Our food was a mixed bag. You get an appetizer, entree and dessert for one price (price depends on the entree). Pat's salad was sort of pathetic, but my cream of asparagus soup had a nice taste and consistency, although it was a little too salty. My roast duck with cherry sauce over wild rice was a little overcooked, but at the same time very tasty. Pat's seafood in lobster sauce over white rice was somewhat disappointing - he liked the sauce but the shrimp were dry. Pat's dessert (flan?) was good, mine ("floating island," a merengue in a creamy, caramely sauce) was delicous.
We found our ancient waiter amusing. He talked us into a bottle of wine after downplaying whatever wine was available by the glass (not on the menu) and insisting we could get a nice bottle for almost the same price, and he was right, I think. I enjoyed the French-English mix used by everyone who worked there and I threw in a "merci" or two as we left.
I've been seeing a lot of the Upper East Side recently. After seeing how close the 6 train is to Central Park when we visited the Neue Galerie on Saturday, I decided to go for a run there yesterday afternoon, since the 6 is also right around the corner from where we're staying. I got off the train and started running in what I thought was the direction of the park, and went way too far before I realized I was going in entirely the wrong direction. So by the time I turned around and reached the park I'd already been running quite a while and didn't get very deep into it. It was a good idea with poor execution.
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