Flibbertigibbet

It's a Xing Thing

Tonight, the Blogless Fourth Axiom and I dined at Xing. The decor (along with the name "shing?" "ching?" "zing?") is uber hip, but faddish. The walls in the back where we sat are a red velvet. The ceiling and many of the walls and floor panels are a green, yellow, and blue striped plexiglass that is sometimes lit from behind, which presents an interesting contrast to the red and black color elsewhere. I'm afraid the decor is going to be to out of date in a year or so.

I will say that the bathrooms are nice, though. I love the unisex/stall thing the New York does so often and the bathrooms at Xing are dark, but nice and hip.

Anyway, the food was solid.

For cocktails, I had something called a Rickshaw and the BFA had something that came in a Buddha; I think it was the Electric Karma. The Rickshaw was delicious; very citrousy without being excessively sweet, which can make me sick. His drink came in a Buddha with a straw protruding out of the belly button. The result of the position of the straw was a somewhat vulgar scene that we took in good humor.

Before our appetizer came, we were served tiny bits of raw tuna with a tiny bit of cream cheese and garnish. It was good; just enough to pique the curiosity, but not enouogh to really overwhelm.

As an appetizer, we had the "Crispy Asparagus & Avocado Roll." It was great. It had a slight hint of that fishy taste that I associate with sushi, but it was not unpleasant. The outer crust was thin, crisp, and flaky. As I said, delicious.

For entrees, I had the Crispy Chicken and he had the Seared Tuna. I assume he enjoyed the Tuna; I rudely neglected to ask.

My chicken was flavorful and something I would certainly consider eating again, but I would not call it extraordinary. I was mostly disconcerted by the fact that the "crispy" part of the chicken is the skin. Yes, they served me a dish that had crispy fried skin on the outside. I pushed those pieces to the side and ate the chicken, which was perfectly moist. It was served with some fried rice and a blob of green oniony stuff, which was pretty good. I did appreciate that my food was not stacked but each element was placed on its own space on the place.

For our wine, we had a Syrah/Grenache blend. I don't think the wine was well-paired with the food, but it was good. Bold, spicey, only slightly fruity. The wine selection was limited but covered a wide range of prices. The low end was about $30 and the high end approached $100.

Before dessert, we were served a little plate of three things that we could not identify. The first seemed to be a bit of marshmellow. The second was some kind of cookie. The third seemed to me to be a bit of lychee gelatin, the texture of which disgusted the BFA.

For dessert, I had the sorbet (I love sorbet) and the BFA had the chocolate spring roll. He seemed to enjoy his. The sorbet was superior. It was tart without being acerbic or astringent. It was smooth and not at all chunky. I highly recommend it.

The service was generally good. Our waitress had the odd mannerism of not tilting her head forward when speaking to you (or maybe she actually tilted it back) which had the result of forcing her to look down her nose at you. But she was friendly and recommended the most expensive wines to us for our meal.

With the noise and bustle there is no worry that it would be excessively romantic or anything. I would recommend it for a nice meal out with friends or for a first date.

XING
http://www.xingrestaurant.com
759 9th Ave (between 52nd and 53rd)
New York