Bar Q's Asian Barbecue-Inspired Fare
Annisa always had the air of a well-guarded secret, the coolly excellent little den coyly tucked away on a West Village side street, hidden from the throngs and duly appreciated by those in the know. With Bar Q, chef Anita Lo seems to have set aside that aesthetic of quiet elegance. Palely gleaming onto bustling Bleecker Street from two storefronts, the new restaurant has none of Annisa's coziness. It's about as cozy as Penn Station, and manages to feel both austere and cramped. Its tall banquettes, walls, and recessed lighting are all white upon unceasing white, while the tightly packed-together seating is made of hard blond wood. Eating in the glass-and-steel greenhouse out back may well be more comfortable, but it's currently closed for repairs following a fire.
The word "bar" has been seriously devalued in recent years, especially when there's another word following it. Joe's Bar is a bar; Bar Q, like Bar Blanc, Bar Boulud, Bar Milano, and others, is a full-fledged restaurant. Here, the name is a wan pun: The cooking takes cues from Asian barbecue. Ms. Lo's menu bubbles over with clever, appealing ideas: tuna ribs, pork "wings," vodka bubble tea. The so-called wings ($12 as a starter or $24 as a main) are really a braised bone-in cut of shank, fatty and tender, with the sturdy, meaty flavor of good pork. They're glazed with gochujang, a soy-based Korean chili sauce with a distinctive malty sweetness; what this meat wants instead is a vinegary complement. I resorted to piling bits of Asian pear and shiso herb from the side salad onto the shank.
Pigs don't have wings; but tuna do have ribs. I'm not sure what usually becomes of this part of the animal, which has a fishier, gamier taste than the commonly eaten filets. At Bar Q, the meaty, pencil-thick bones are slathered with tart, mouthwatering yuzu citrus and grilled into an unusual delicacy ($15). The rib cage is fertile ground for Ms. Lo, who also serves a spare rib main course as well as a starter of baby back ribs ($11) thickly plastered with "my mother's barbecue sauce," a dark, sticky concoction with the fruity tang of hoisin sauce.
The kitchen seems hard-pressed to keep up with its chef's creativity. On a busy night, the wait between courses can stretch to uncomfortable lengths, and the food that comes out of the kitchen feels slapped-together, adequate but not as delicious as it should be. In a plain seafood stew ($25), clams, mussels, and a tough, overdone slab of fish are forced to wallow in a reddish broth that looks and smells like shrimp stock but tastes flatly of salt and little else. Grilled eggplant can be wonderful, but here the thick, mushy strips ($18), paved over with sweetened white miso and charred under the broiler, are heavy and lifeless.
When the ideas and the execution do come together, it's great, as in that thick slab of spare ribs ($23). The pork is deboned, hollowed out, and replaced with different pork: finely minced stuff mingled with bits of mushroom and noodle. The effect is brilliant, turning the sweetly tangy, lemongrass-scented ribs into a more tender, more flavorful version of themselves. A duck breast ($26) is smoked with tea, giving it deep, pervasive flavor and an unusual firmness under its crisped skin. Its accompaniment of sesame-dressed soft noodles is almost insultingly incongruous, the dull, flabby pasta like a plate invader from a Midtown salad bar.
Bar Q has a serious, well-priced, 60-bottle-strong wine list, assembled from some dozen wine-producing countries (Slovenia, Argentina) by Roger Dagorn, sommelier of Chanterelle. I like my Asian barbecue with beer, which Bar Q pours on draft in sadly tiny glasses. For dessert ($8 each), stifle your curiosity about the warm walnut soup — it has the floury taste of raw pancake batter — and opt for the hot rice-dough balls with cognac-caramel sauce.
Anita Lo is capable of phenomenal things. It's too bad those things can be hard to find in Bar Q's mixed bag.
Bar Q (308-310 Bleecker St., between Grove Street and Seventh Avenue South, 212-206-7817).
