Landmarc – TWC

After what seemed like the longest semester EVER, I caught up with an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages over dinner at Landmarc in the Time Warner Center.  I’d been to the location down in TriBeCa – twice – although looking at those reviews, what was I drinking when I wrote them?  I bash everything and then say I like the place.  Haha I guess I’m a lot pickier now – in any case, I didn’t re-read those first, I just remembered writing positively about those experiences and enjoying my food.  Plus Blackboard Eats had a special deal that pushed us in that direction – 30% off dinner or lunch, plus a free dessert tray for Visa Signature members.  Guess who’s a Visa Signature member?  😉 

The bread was fairly standard. 

Unfortunately, I can’t find the cocktail menu online, but I do know I had a lemonade type drink with gin in it.  I’m discovering within me a fondness for gin.  I liked this drink quite a bit.  I wish I could remember the name or what was exactly in it, though! 

I remembered that I’d enjoyed the ricotta fritters previously, and suggested we order these.  I thought I’d referred to them as biting into cheese-flavored-air…

but was disappointed to find these were soggy, no crisp exterior, and the inside tasted more soggy than like whipped cheese air.  Sadface.  My friend seemed alright with them, but made no positive nor negative comment, just ate her share. 

And then she ate her steak, which was also consumed without much comment on the food.  Well, not everyone is as food obsessed as I am, to be fair.  She happily nommed as we caught up on each other’s lives. 

I’d tacked on an order of creamed spinach for us to share, which I liked.  It was creamy, slightly garlicky, and tasty.  She must’ve liked it even more, since she basically inhaled the rest of it before I could eat too much… 😡

Since I wasn’t that hungry, I decided to make a meal of the bone marrow appetizer alone, knowing how filling marrow + bread can be (for me, anyway – that beefy fatty goodness!).  I eagerly dug in and was immediately confused.  Running through the marrow in each shank were thin bones, about the width of fishbones, but stuck to the bone.  Like the cow had had… weird… extra calcium deposits or something, or grew thin bones inside its shank.  I don’t know that the restaurant could have known about that, but it really ruined the experience for me as they got more and more frequent and actually made it near impossible to get more than a teeny bit of marrow at a time.  I hardly ate any after that, digging briefly through each bone just to see what I could get, and then gave up.  I was pretty disappointed – I know you can’t compare, but I’ve had such good experience with marrow (both at home making it myself, and with ordering it – notably, at Blue Ribbon).  So… fluke, or regular occurrence? 

Our free dessert tray, courtesy of BlackBoard Eats’ special deal.  Normally $16, it includes one each of the desserts on its menu.

Closer up – blueberry crumble, chocolate mousse, creme brulee.

Cream puff; lemon tart; tiramisu and chocolate mousse. 

Honestly, none of the desserts were bad (maybe the tiramisu… but I won’t get into that) – and the lemon tart was pretty fab! the blueberry crumble was pretty good, too! – the rest were pretty standard.  Pretty cool that it came free of charge! 

With our check came a dish of caramels… so good!  I ate my two very quickly and hid the wrappers, hoping she’d think there were only two.  Haha just kidding.  I ‘fessed up.  These were bangin’ though! 

Yvo says: Our check came to $55ish, plus a generous tip (tip on the PRE-DISCOUNT AMOUNT, please!!!) … about $80.  Totally awesome BlackBoard Eats deal, and overall, a positive experience – we weren’t treated differently even though we had to tell them from the start that we were planning on using the deal.  Our service was fabulous, and though I didn’t like my actual meal that much, I felt like it was a fluke and I could go back and enjoy another meal there.  Or just stick to the steak there, like I once conjectured…