Harlan Goldstein’s Comfort

The relaxed version of Harlan Goldstein’s restaurants, Comfort has a great price to quality ratio considering it is in the LKF area, where drinks and grub tend to have high markups. Upon entering the restaurant, I noticed the rustic feel of the area with earth-​tones adorning the interior. The décor exudes New York industrial design — like an Upper East Side loft, only bigger.
We started off with something from the sea — Spanish octopus with a Turkish tomato salad. When a restaurants says that it serves something Spanish, I’m not sure what they are referring to as Spanish cuisine because that can mean Basque, Cantabrian, Catalan, etc. I asked the waiter and didn’t blame him when he couldn’t answer my question. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the dish, the octopus was smoky and tender albeit a bit too charred for my taste and the salad tasted similar to ezme.
We also tried the really miniature-​looking pork belly baos. What it lacked in size it made up for in taste. It uses Danish pork (a favorite of Kim Jong-​il) and went great with the hoisin sauce. These baos are better than the ones I ordered from bao-​focused restaurants, no doubt.
Pork was next in line and like the octopus, this one was slow-​cooked too. The Spanish Duroc pork ribs were amazingly juicy, tender, and full of flavor. The meat falls off the bone so easily it’s like magic. I recommend slathering the ribs with the accompanying sauce. Truly the best dish of the night.
Comfort is always scheming up new dishes that I have been wanting to try. I am prepared to overlook the portions in favor of flavor. Although, I hope that the restaurant sees this and makes their portions bigger. It can’t hurt to dream, right?

I guess you could say I dined at Comfort perfectly. We were just round the corner, having a drink in our favourite bar, and felt a little hungry. Lo and behold, Comfort by Harlan Goldstein was only a minute away. When you’re a little tipsy, what sounds better than comfort food? That’s right, absolutely nothing. Up the lift we went. We weren’t too hungry, so we thought 3 or 4 small plates would fill us up. Conclusion: just about.
Of course we tried the pork belly bao, as well as the soft shell crab bao — a two, maybe three, bite wonder that was an unimaginative imitation of David Chang’s infamous Momofuku buns. First thing we noticed was that the dishes we ordered were very small portions — two buns, fine, but a little small. My tidbit of crab could’ve floated onto my tongue if I breathed too close to the plate, and I think the sticky hoi sin glaze was necessary to keep that pork belly stuck down on the bun. Yes, they do say ‘something small’ on the first page, so that should’ve clued us in, but we were expecting a little more bao for our buck.
We also went for the shrimp gambas with chorizo, which had just the slightest heat to add dimension to the garlicky prawns. Not bad. A good few bites.
The Japanese wagyu beef croquettes were served as a set of three (three!!!), which just made the whole dinner a little awkward if it’s just the two of you and you don’t want to share the third because you’re still so hungry. But these things are scrumptious above and beyond their crispy breadcrumb crusts. I’d do without the sauces and focus on keeping that beefy center moist.
By this fourth dish, we were just about satisfied.
There is a lot to be desired with the few dishes we tried, especially considering the name Harlan Goldstein is attached to the eatery. Name aside, the food was very average — not bad, but not on any foodie bucket lists to speak of. I’d return if I ever found myself nearby and a bit lazy for grub.