Restaurant Review: The Redhead

It's a rare occasion when you can walk away from a restaurant without anything to quip about. Shortcomings can range from food-related offenses ("That pork was more fat than meat!"), to service-related ones ("It's been an hour and we still haven't gotten our drinks"), to attitude-related ones ("That server clearly doesn't think we are spending enough money").

The Redhead, a bar-cum-restaurant in the East Village, left me with nothing to quip about. The restaurant manages to leave pretension aside and deliver a comfortable meal at reasonable prices.

The Redhead is just as much bar as it is restaurant, which lends a comfortable, low-key vibe to the entire space. The front half is devoted to the bar and a few tables, while the back space is outfitted in deep-red banquettes and a few tightly-spaced wooden tables. Despite the atmosphere, I decided I was just going to stick with water to drink, and the waiter never made the slightest indication that he was unsatisfied with my doing so (which seems like a simple courtesy, but is actually much less common than one may think).

We were each provided with a roll to start, a tasty piece of bread with a biscuit-like texture. We then ordered the bacon peanut-brittle, which convinced me that even dessert has room for pork. Bacon peanut-brittle, in fact, might be the perfect bar snack. Our order arrived to the table in a small Mason jar, and there was just enough bacon amongst the candied peanuts to add a salty bite, without overpowering them.

The menu is divided into four sections: snacks, appetizers, entrees and desserts. Despite the appeal of the entire menu, Andrew and I avoided the entrees category for this particular visit and ordered two appetizers each. I started out with a beet salad. The salad was beautifully assembled with both red and yellow beets and baby onions, and topped with cheese, pistachios and mini grapes, which lent a sweet taste to the dish. My second appetizer was a crab and leek tart, made with a pecan crust and topped with a wild mushroom sauce.

Andrew decided on a shrimp theme for his meal, first ordering a corn soup adorned with mushrooms and shrimp. The soup was thick, silky and buttery and topped with plump seafood. His second appetizer incorporated low country shrimp with slices of andouille sausage on top of a rich and creamy, slightly spicy bed of grits. Despite the portion being appetizer-sized, Andrew was stuffed after it was finished. And after helping him out, so was I.

But I had made up my mind at the start of the meal that I wasn't leaving without sampling The Redhead's version of a Ho-Ho. Thankfully, the dessert didn't let me down. Resembling two thick slices of a jumbo-sized Ho-Ho, the dessert's base of chocolate cake was, as dictated by the original, accompanied by a creamy white swirl in the middle and a crunchy chocolate ganache around the outside of the treat. Unlike the original, the Redhead's Ho-Ho was accented by slightly-salty caramel sauce. In this case, altering the original was to good effect.

By the time we left, the entire space was bustling. Apparently I wasn't the only one who appreciated this cozy, charming gem of a restaurant.