Daily Plate: Robert 2

I’ve been meaning to post about this place for a while now. To be completely honest, I went here a few months ago with my mom, sister, and Chris, and just haven’t gotten around to posting about it.

Robert 2 is located on the top floor of the Museum of Arts and Design in Columbus Circle and boasts a gorgeous North-facing view of Central Park. The décor is vaguely (or okay, very) groovy, and I can’t decide if that’s a good or a bad thing. Though I tend to be a fan of Lucite and beads and bright colors in general, I just couldn’t quite piece together the lounge-y vibe with the menu, which seemed like it was trying really hard not to seem run-of-the-mill but just couldn’t break out of the box. I’ll bet that at nighttime, it’s a lot more fun. In the daylight, it just seemed kind of jarring and weird.

Also, to be fair to the chef, I was going through an intense period salt-aversion (I’m super-sensitive to salty tastes, and sometimes can’t stand the stuff), so I may have just not been in the best frame of mind to enjoy a meal out. Also, cocktails at 2 pm may be great for some people, but I probably didn’t need that champagne-and-elderflower concoction, delicious as it was.

I started with a Tuscan vegetable soup that was finished off with truffle oil (I think) and topped with Parmesan. On a normal day on which salt doesn’t bug me, this probably would have been great. You really can’t go wrong with black cabbage and white beans. Though a lot of the fish dishes on the menu sounded good, I was craving salad, and ordered the cobb salad with shrimp and the green goddess dressing on the side, since I wasn’t sure if I’d like it. While the crispy poached egg was interesting, the main taste I got out of the salad was, again, salt. It was probably the bacon, which I’d forgotten to ask them to leave off. Since I’m not technically a vegetarian, I had a few bites but was kind of like, “Eh, bacon. Can I have another drink?”

I will say, though, the dessert was pretty darn good. Chris and I split the carrot cake, which had cream cheese frosting and was served with pistachios and vanilla ice cream.  As much as I hate salt, I love carrot cake.

All in all, it was fun to go somewhere kind of different, but I don’t think I’ll be going back to Robert 2. I can see it being a good first-date kind of place, though, where Mr. New-Suit can take his new friend from out of town to show them the sights or…whatever it is single people do to become not-single.