Lunch at Almond

Almond is one of those restaurants I seem to always forget about. It?s only one block away from my apartment yet I?ve only eaten there once. After having one of their sandwiches from the Madison Square market it was back on my radar. I stopped in the other day to check out lunch.

Almond has an a la carte menu and a special prix fix lunch. For $20 you get an appetizer, entrée and a glass of wine. This seemed like a pretty good deal so I went that route. I should have taken a closer look at the wine that was offered. It ended up being a White Merlot. Let?s just say I won?t be buying a bottle of that anytime soon!



My meal began with a Field Greens Salad with Goat Cheese and Dijon vinaigrette. This was a pretty ample portion for a first course! I really enjoyed the vinaigrette on the salad but the goat cheese was a downer. It was quite dry and almost stuck to the roof of my mouth. I ended up leaving it to the side and just eating the greens.



For my entrée I had the Crispy Skate Wing with cauliflower, macerated raisins and fried capers. When this dish arrived I was a little bit baffled. There was so much happening on the plate I literally had to dig around to find the skate (this picture is after I finally found it). Once I did find the fish I was disappointed. The edges were lean and crispy but the middle was a soggy mess. I loved the cauliflower, raisin and caper accompaniment but half of the dish was doused in a very strong lemon dressing.



There was so much of it that a small pool had formed in the middle of my plate. Once I finished the untouched veggies I had to stop eating. The lemon flavor was simply too overpowering. So unfortunately I didn?t really enjoy my lunch at Almond this time which is too bad because I loved the environment. It was my first time sitting inside and the whole atmosphere was very lively. They had great music playing and the warm breeze from outside wafted in through the front door. I?m hoping it was just an off day. I can?t imagine anyone liking a dish so heavily sauced and I really want this to be a go to place in the neighborhood.

Almond