A score at Perry St.

Yesterday, I made my way out to the city for a sample sale, which was a success, yes! So I found myself hungry in the meatpacking district around lunchtime with many places to choose from. However, I've been really wanting to go to Jean-Georges for lunch since it's supposed to be one of the best deals in the city($28 for 3 courses), but it was too far. I remembered Perry St. (another one of Jean-Georges restaurants, just more casual) is open for lunch and much closer so off we went. On the way we pass Jerry Seinfelds garage which was open so naturally i did some peeking. I thought this was some kind of urban legend, but I saw it people, its real! Seriously, why am I not that rich?
Back to the restaurant, located right on Perry & West St. (aka west side hwy to me) in one of the glassy Meier buildings, we entered this really elegant and simple dining room with lovely buttery white leather banquettes and dark wood tables. The room did feel a lil vacant not being full, but a fair amount patrons were in the dining room.
We get a table immediately with plenty left to spare. And menus down, lets order, I'm hungry! They start us off with a sweet potato/parmesan soup amuse bouche. An amuse bouche which literally translates to mouth amuser in French, is a bite sized way to excite your taste buds before the first course sent out by the kitchen in some fine dining restaurants. This one was just so creamy and looked and almost kind of felt like microwaved butter with that white foam on top except tastier. I had ordered cream of tomato soup as one of my courses and quickly changed the order after the amuse bouche for fear of getting another flavored buttery, creamy, just too heavy for lunch soup. I opted for the artic char sashimi with crispy skins, lemon & olive oil instead, which I was pretty happy with. It was light, fresh and tasty. Misha, who's been with me the whole time btw, ordered the roasted beet, ricotta and crystallized wasabi salad, like I knew he would. I really liked this dish as well, the ricotta was so nice and fluffy, beets were super flavorful and there were also some kind of candied nuts that were really delish and added a nice touch.
Next course, I got skate with a fennel sald. The skate was equally crispy and equally plump and juicy, pretty tasty. There was some kind of citrusy sauce on the skate which with the fennel salad was just a lil too much acidity on the dish, which I think maybe another ingredient could've improved it. My other half got a slowly cooked salmon with maitake mushroom, green onions and a black truffle sauce. The salmon was very tender and moist and all the components went quite well together, I thought. The black truffle sauce was also nice, as these tend to be very over powering, this one was mild and perfect for the well balanced dish.
And then there was dessert. One was a molten chocalate cake with pistachio ice cream and it was devine! You really can't find a chocolate cake like this just anywhere, with a crispy outside and a gooey center just so yummy. The second was a ricotta cheesecake with a concorde grape sorbet. The cheesecake was good, very good, but for me that sorbet stole it's thunder.
Overall, I was pretty happy with the whole lunch. The quality was wonderful, the service was good and the price was right, well except for the $10 bottle of pellegrino, but all in all, I was a happy camper.