Mercat & The Bowery Hotel

A quick recap today on a night out I had with D.E.C. last week. First up was dinner at Mercat, a fairly new tapas joint in Nolita. I have to say first that I LOVED the space. It was much cozier than I pictured, dark wood, exposed brick, open kitchen, wine bottles, steel - a perfect place for a fall/winter dinner outing. We had a bunch of tapas and split them: the tomato bread (heavy on the garlic but juicy from the tomato), patatas bravas (spicy potatoes with an interestingly smokey flavor), crispy pork belly with brussel sprouts and preserved cherries (the brussels were a bit too al dente for me), a tortilla with egg, carmelized onions, potato and chorizo (I'll have that for breakfast any day!), salt cod fritters and red peppers stuffed with short rib (my favorite of the night). I paired it all with a Txocoli which was brilliant as usual. D.E.C. & I both enjoyed all of the food however our only complaint was that EVERYTHING was too salty. I'd definitely go back and try it again in the hopes of getting a different chef who doesn't own stock in Morton's Salt.

After dinner we had drinks at in the lounge at The Bowery Hotel, where we were warmly greeted by our bartendar at the back bar. He gave us a taste of all 5 of the reds and we went with glasses of Cote du Rhone and a Cabernet. The space is pretty decent sized so it wasn't overly crowded, although I didn't much care for the antiquey/mismatched decor. The strange thing is that they place no music - I guess I should say the good thing so that you can have an actual conversation without screaming. Overall, it was a good experience and nowhere near as bad as drinks on the Bowery usually are.