NYC RESTAURANT REVIEW: OLIVER'S

Don't walk-RUN past Oliver's Restaurant

EDITORS NOTE: From time to time we have had restaurant reviews about places around New York City or the Hampton's. We have received many e-mails requesting we review more places and not just by readers in the NYC area but from readers around the world who are interested in the type and quality of food in the worlds biggest city. Since no one would know restaurants better than a New York City publicist who books events for their celebrity clients in almost every location, we have acquired one of the top publicists in the business to review for us. To keep his identity a secret, he wishes to be referred to as 'Nostalgic New Yorker'. And of course I will also review places that I happen to dine at and tell you the real scoop.

'The Nostalgic New Yorker'

Oliver’s Restaurant

190 West 4th street

Check up another New York tradition gone by the wayside.

Resuming our Sunday ritual of church and brunch at a favorite lively but comfy West Village eatery Boxer’s, we told some friends to meet us there on the corner of West 4th & Barrow street at 1pm. Knowing how jammed the place gets even in the dead of winter, we got there early to snag a table for five in the light filled front section (all the better to read the papers).

Beyond the fact of a name change to Oliver’s everything appeared the same – cracked chairs, red checkered table cloths and the very same rickety table we had been straightening with matchbooks for years. And by gosh, the same menu!

That’s where the similarity and the old fashioned easy going feeling of welcome ended. 5 people ordered with results from just passable to down right fraudulent and inedible. Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, a typical New York nosh offered not the bright orangery pink seen in smoked salmon, nova and lox but a pale pasty beige mush that was clearly the remnants of a BAKED salmon with all the briny taste associated with 2 day old fish. Ditto the Salmon Eggs Benedict and overcooked “eggs over easy” for two others with bacon that had been clearly given the last rites weeks ago.

Our salmon ordering pals complained and the waitress started to take the plates back to the kitchen when the bartender doubling as manger grilled her about the problem. We heard him saying “give the guy who said it tasted bad another dish and charge the other. The waitress knew all something was definitely and argued. Our friends re-ordered simple ham & eggs and they botched that, too.

Suddenly, it dawned on us that there were only five tables filled of the 30+ and the usual wait for a table non-existent. Now we know why. If you’re in the Village, wave when you pass by and say so long to another great hangout, just don’t go in.

Photo By: James Edstrom