The Other White Meat (Urena)

We (me, C, L and H) went to Urena (37 E 28th St (between Madison and Park) last Thursday (I’m a bit behind with my postings – and Saturday night is definitely one to look forward to). I had heard a bunch about Urena and was looking forward to it. We got a nice banquette in the back.

We decided to do a bottle of wine, but I wasn’t in love with the wine list. I thought it was a bit short and a bit tilted toward the expensive end. The wine we got was okay, but I don’t even remember what it was.

We got a nice little amuse which actually had one of the best smells of any soup I’ve ever had. It was roasted carrot with truffle oil. It tasted okay, but unfortunately, didn’t quite live up to the smell.

C, H and I decided to share the appetizers. We got a plate of hams – which were amazing – the Serrano was my favorite, but I can be a bit of a traditionalist like that; I think C liked the Chorizo the best – and we all enjoyed the pickled peppers.

We also got 3 of their small plates: The dates wrapped in bacon (anyone who knows me knows that I would have insisted on that) – which were amazing; the fritters, which were really yummy (nice cheese center); and the tuna salad in a red pepper – which was good (though I think I would have liked it better if the tuna had been warm).

C and I then split the foie gras appetizer (foie gras three ways: buffuelo with spice scented red plum puree, foie gras terrine with cocoa rib garache and chocolate twile, foie gras yogurt with yellow currant). I think the terrine was my favorite. They were all good, though not great.

We also go the Suckling pig (confit suckling pig, granny smith apple puree, shitake mushrooms, wilted green leaf lettuce, truffle sauce). It was amazing! It tasted like pork. I don’t even know how to explain how good the taste of pork was, it was just heavenly pork. I don’t know that this was my favorite restaurant ever, but if I went back, it would be for the pork.

H got the tuna cured with salt. It was pretty good.

We split 2 desserts – the Granny Smith apple one, which was just weird, it really didn’t work and I don’t even know how to explain what it was – and the chocolate fritters with yogurt sorbet – which, again, was okay, but not great.

Overall, it was good - though not great.