Aquagrill

When I told Ed I wanted to take him to dinner and asked him where he wanted to go, he said he needed to do some research. He came up with Aquagrill, a restaurant he's been wanting to go back to forever (he'd been before but I hadn't) whose name he could never remember. So we called and found that they had a table available at 8:30, booked it, and headed to SoHo for what was to be one of my favorite dining experiences in some time. 

I knew nothing about the place initially but was immediately optimistic upon seeing a sign declaring it an "oyster bar" as we approached. I was further cheered to see a heaping mound of unshucked oysters packed in ice on the bar as we entered. Oh yes, this was going to rock. The waiting area was crowded, but we were led to a table in the back almost immediately. The decor left a little something to be desired, though I thought the light fixtures - large spheres of translucent shells surrounding a hidden bulb - were pretty cool.

Piles of oysters

Ed asked whether I wanted to order oysters, a very silly question, then how many I thought I'd want, which was a more reasonable question. He said that he thought we should get at least 12, and I agreed. We settled on 14. Ed is a fan of Blue Points, but the list was very long and there were too many other choices on it for us to decide, so we told our waiter we wanted a chef's selection of east coast oysters, preferably of different sizes, with two Blue Points thrown into the mix. He returned with a plate of ice on which the shucked oysters shimmered. We consulted the slip of paper listing all the varieties as we slurped them down. The Blue Points were tasty, but my two favorites were the Watch Hill and the Beau Soleil, mellow and briny all at once. The problem with oysters is that it always seems you are ordering a lot, but they are gone in moments. 

I was too busy scarfing down our oysters to take a picture of them, so I pulled this picture from Aquagrill's website. Our platter looked remarkably similar, however. This type of dish doesn't vary much.

Scallops

I worked myself into quite a tizzy trying to decide what to order. First of all, every single item on the menu was a seafood dish. Many of you know that I'm a pescetarian, meaning I don't eat meat, though I do eat fish. I'm used to having only four or five options, at most, to choose from. Having a whole menu at my disposal was overwhelming, but I finally did narrow it down to two dishes. One was scallops served with crabmeat risotto. The other was truffled cod served over mushroom ravioli. I mean, seriously, what the hell is a pescetarian to do? I agonized and made faces for five minutes before finally deciding on the cod, though, as I complained to Ed, I was pretty sure that either choice was ultimately going to make me unhappy, no matter how good it was, because I'd know I wasn't going to be eating the other one. Ed was unsympathetic, having chosen his meal easily. But when the waiter told him they were out of the special he'd wanted, he decided to order the scallops! I beamingly told the waiter how thrilled I was about this because I'd wanted to try both, and then the waiter became my favorite person on the planet for a while by offering to have the kitchen split both dishes between two plates and serve us half of each dish in a two-course line up. Bliss, I say. Sheer, unadulterated bliss. And both dishes were absolutely divine. The scallops, seared to perfection, were tender, sweet, and buttery, and the cod was delicate and tasted like truffles, which is really about the highest compliment I can think of. My only complaint about the meal was that it made me far too full for dessert. I guess I shouldn't have eaten all three pieces of bread they brought me, though one was onion focaccia, one was cornbread, and one was chewy french bread, and really, how is one to resist? We did get a complimentary plate of petit fours after our entree dishes had been cleared away, which was very nice, as I always like to end with something sweet, however small.

Truffled cod

The best part of the evening was yet to come, however: My credit card was declined. Turns out someone had tried to get a cash advance using my account number a few weeks ago but had entered the PIN incorrectly three times in a row, so any purchases that seemed "unusual" were being flagged and declined. So Citibank is sending me a new card, and dinner, despite my best intentions, was on Ed. Looks like I owe him.