Of all the gin joints in this city, Time Out sent me to this one.
The strange thing about that comment is not that Time Out sent me to a gin joint, but more so that there aren’t many gin joints in this town at all. In fact, besides Madam Geneva, I can’t think of one.
Plenty of bars have the word gin in their name, but none seem to really specialize in the libation. Except Madam Geneva, which is also a psuedo-speakeasy hidden in the back of Double Crown, a hip gastropub restaurant in the East Village. Double Crown was on the TONY list last year and I mostly enjoyed their food. They serve Asian-influenced food in the style of British pub food. I don’t really get the concept, but I did enjoy the flavors.
Now I guess since Madam Geneva is attached to Double Crown, I shouldn’t be surprised that their food is related. And it is, but I wouldn’t expect Asian flavors to complement gin. And I’m still not sure they do. But since we were here, we ordered some interesting gin drinks. I got one of their signature jam cocktails. The drink featured pineapple and vanilla jam with… you guessed it, gin. It was interesting and I liked the texture from the jam, but the drink was a bit sweet for my tastes.
The dish on the list was the Spicy Beef Salad. I enjoyed the flavors, which were rather predictable Vietnamese flavors. The lettuce was replaced by cilantro, there were some sweet mango slices, and fried shallot pieces which added texture. The main flavor that was missing for me was the advertised flavor: spicy. This dish was tasty (if too small), but not as advertised. I can’t even imagine that my mother (who is overly sensitive to heat) would have found this spicy.
The salad was a fine starter size (so I was a bit frustrated with the $14 price tag), but I wish it had more zing. Maybe they toned all that down to make it pair better with the gin. Whatever the reasoning, it tasted fine but I was hoping for something closer to what I ordered.
Would Madam Geneva’s Spicy Beef Salad make my Top 100 of the year? Even if the beef were actually spicy, I don’t think this rather predictable (but flavorful) small dish would find its way on my list, but it still gets a 6 out of 10.
