Restaurant review: Tartine

Last night, Brian and I decided to have a date night. How exciting! He chose a small French restaurant in the village called 'Tartine' (253 West 11th Street). While the average check is small, so is the restaurant. With only 10-ish tables in the entire restaurant, you'd think I'd have some leg room... not so much. The tables are so crammed that us tall folk must fold our legs up just to sit. However small the restaurant, the flavor of the food is oppositely large.

I ordered escargot as my appetizer and sauteed chicken for my main course. The snails were excellent in the clarified butter, though I would have preferred to have true French snails, in which the snails are essentially drowned and cooked in butter, while allowing the customer to remove the snail from the shell themselves. The chicken, served with a spinach salad, was tasty and properly cooked, though the chicken could have been cooked a little less, and served with less sauce made of chicken stock. The spinach salad was adequate, but hardly a salad as the spinach was simply piled on one half of my plate.

Overall, the experience is nice. A small, quaint restaurant with all of 2 servers. You're almost forced to make friends with your dining neighbors, talk about the wine they brought (as this is a BYOB restaurant), or share thoughts on the dish your neighbor is eying on your table. Out of 5 stars, Tartine gets 3 from me for tight spaces, only partially correct French food with true French titles (it's hard to stomach something French-named when it's not true French food), but excellent and quick service.

Overall, out of 5 stars, this restaurant earns 3 from me.