Brasserie Cognac de Monsieur Ballon

Brasserie Cognac de Monsieur Ballon

1740 Broadway (at 55th Street)

New York, New York 10019

212-757-3600

(Steve Reich, the Hindenburg Disaster and Brasserie Cognac)

It’s burst into flames! Get this, Charlie; get this, Charlie! It’s fire… and it’s crashing! It’s crashing terrible! Oh, my! Get out of the way, please! It’s burning and bursting into flames and the… and it’s falling on the mooring mast. And all the folks agree that this is terrible; this is the worst of the worst catastrophes in the world.

Herbert Morrison, WLS Radio broadcast, describing the Hindenburg disaster

The Three Tales

It is a beautiful Tuesday night during Indian summer in November and I am going to Carnegie Hall to celebrate Steven Reich’s 80th birthday.  The International Classical Ensemble (one of my favorite groups in New York) is performing Reich’s Three Tales.

In the Three Tales Reich explores technology in the 20th century. The music was supported by Beryl Korot’s video production. The Three Tales are the Hindenburg, the atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll and Dolly the cloned sheep.

Reich selected the Hindenburg because it was the first failed technology to be captured on film. The Bikini test was the first technology that was powerful enough to destroy all life on earth.  Bio-tech, genetic cloning and robotics point to what our life may look like in the future.

Brasserie Cognac is just around the corner from Carnegie Hall so I decide to give it a try before the concert. Little did I know that it would be a prophetic choice to accompany a concert about disasters.

Restaurant

The restaurant is large and busy, and I was hit with a blast of noise when I entered. I did not have a reservation but I was promptly greeted by the hostess and given a table in the front room.

Brasserie Cognac is an attractive restaurant. Apparently, the owners had some of it made in Paris and shipped to New York. It has three seating areas. Behind the hostess station, is a wooden clock structure that holds shelves of sliced bread. There is a back room which is more formal and than the front room. It has a colorful mural of a dining scene from Brasserie Cognac. There are classic photographs on the walls and glass shelves holding bottles of liquors. It has gold script on antique and distressed mirrors. The lighting is soft and golden and there is an antique mirror on one wall.

The front room, unfortunately, is  hard and glassy and there is lots of reflected noise. There is a zinc bar off the front room. The bar area is small and crowded.

From the front room, there is a nice view down Broadway but it is unfortunately blocked by a TV that no one was watching.

Along the window to my right, I could hear a pretentious bore who never stopped talking about his politics and social media. His date in a black dress sat motionless as if frozen in the river of words. I wished they would bring his food quickly so that he would eat and not talk. I think she wished for the same thing. There was a table of Asian tourists on my left. On my right was a friendly group from North Carolina that was going to the theater.

Service

The service was very busy and impersonal. It was disorganized. To their credit, the waiter did notice that my water glass was dirty and replaced it. However, another waiter who I had never seen came up and dropped a hamburger and fries on my table without asking if it was mine. I sent it away but the smell of grease and burned meat lingered over my table.

The bread was bad. It was sliced wheat bread and white rolls cut in half.  It was stale, without flavor or texture. It was insipid. It had nothing to do with French bread. There was no reason to eat it. Why would a French restaurant serve inedible bread?

I am sure that this bread was parbaked.  Professor Kaplan, an international authority on bread defines parbaking as:  “It’s the baking of dough that’s been rapidly frozen. And that is not artisanal baking, which excludes freezing, which [in turn] impedes the flow of fermentation from reaching its apogee.” The result is tasteless bread.

I ordered a glass of Merlot. I was informed they were out of Merlot. I ordered a glass of Cab. They had a Cab but it was a long time in coming.

After they served my dinner, the staff did not check in to see how I was doing.

Food

I had the Cognac Rotisserie Chicken (with mashed potatoes, haricot verts, and tarragon jus).  The chicken was boring and flavorless. The mashed potatoes tasted like they were made from a mix and the beans were over cooked to a tasteless green mass. It was like a dinner you would get in a hospital cafeteria.

I considered trying a dessert to round out my review but I could not get a waiter’s attention and needed to get to Carnegie Hall.

According to Brasserie Cognac, it is trying to do three things; provide high quality ingredients, please guests with professional service, and offer reasonable prices. Brasserie Cognac has succeed in one of its goals: it is the cheapest bistro that I have reviewed.

Overall, it was one of this dinners where you just want to get it over with as soon as possible. You just want to survive until the last act so you can leave the theater. I cannot recommend this bistro but if you are desperate it will do in a pinch.

Ratings

Service: 5.  The service was inefficient and impersonal. The staff had no timing and showed little concern about the quality of my experience.

Atmosphere:  5. The front room is hard and noisy. It is touristy and busy. Book a table in the back room if you can. It has a better atmosphere and is quieter.

Food: 4. Boring and average. No excuse for the bread.

Archetype: 7. More brasserie than bistro. Attractive baguette tower at hostess station, attractive zinc bar and beautiful back room. Book a table in the back room and enjoy the mural and antique mirrors.

Resources

Brasserie Cognac

http://cognacrestaurant.com/

Professor Steve Kaplan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082300291.html

Steve Reich

http://www.stevereich.com/

http://www.stevereich.com/threetales_info.html

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/mar/01/steve-reich-schoenberg-coltrane-radiohead

The Hindenburg Disaster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Morrison_(announcer)

http://www.airships.net/hindenburg/disaster

Carnegie Hall

https://www.carnegiehall.org/