Naks Is Halfway to Becoming a Great Restaurant

The nearly 20-course tasting menu at Naks — the latest from Dhamaka’s Roni Mazumdar and Chintan Pandya — is a noble experiment, but it didn’t quite work for me when I tried it last December soon after opening. Available only in the back room of the East Village restaurant (201 First Avenue, near East 12th Street), the menu presented an extended discourse on Filipino food, both traditional and experimental, on the part of chef Eric Valdez. Between courses, the chef and staff came out to explain each one, sometimes using childhood anecdotes, sometimes with details of how courses had been created.

Valdez is likable and well spoken, but I’d rather have encountered these stories in the New Yorker than between the tiny courses. Sure, there were triumphs, like the sea cucumber served with land cucumber; the soup of beef tripe, blood, and flank in a black cauldron; and the chicken-skin skewers. But the meal didn’t really take off until the noodle course with pork belly and fried egg arrived on a banana leaf near the end of the tasting.

Last week, I returned to eat from the a la carte menu in the front room, which presents quite a contrast to the main dining room’s tasting menu ($135). The room itself is more brightly lit, with tables nestled next to big windows; a jazzy, colorful mural on one wall furnished with intimate booths; and a blue-tiled bar for quick bites. And as we quickly found, the menu incorporates versions of some of the best stuff on the tasting menu.

One example is soup no. 5 ($19): The light broth bobs with pig testicles and pizzle. It’s much better than it sounds, with the organs forming scrumptious chunks and tiny soft swirls, respectively. You wouldn’t know what it was if the menu hadn’t told you, and it’s well worth ordering not only for cred, but for the soup’s delectable textures and flavors with a crossover Chinese sibot spice blend.

Paul McDonough/Naks

Nearly everything a friend and I tried that evening was good and sometimes spectacular: Best of all was a pritong itik ($41), a half duck presented head, talon, and all; its bronzed skin seasoned with bay leaf, with a layer of fat between skin and lush dark flesh. Nearly as good was a crab transformed into a molten coconut-milk stew delivered in its own carapace.

Hopscotching around the menu, we enjoyed a hearts of palm salad with pomelo and mustard greens placed in a tangled thicket at the bottom of a bowl; as well as some wonderful boneless fried chicken thighs, the crust dotted with black peppercorns that left a burning sensation on the lips quite different from chiles. The chicken, facetiously called KFC (kanto fried chicken), references street food in Tagalog, and man, if the chicken were this good at the real KFC, you’d go every week.

One dish we didn’t dig was the pork ribs ($15) glazed with pineapple, which we found too sweet, though the flesh separated easily from the bones and tasted plenty porky. On a menu with few things that are spicy hot, the egg noodles and mushrooms dressed with thick soy sauce called pancit were pleasantly so.

There are plenty of alcoholic beverages, of which the signature cocktails are frankly unusual but often very drinkable. One is the concoction called “para sa paborito kong apo,” in a line swiped from a famous McDonald’s commercial. Translated from Tagalog it reads, “This is for my favorite granddaughter.” In the TV ad, a memory-challenged grandfather can’t remember her name, as he splits his burger with her. The drink itself is a mixture of gin, mezcal, Campari, ginger, and citrus sherbet, and is accompanied by a cast iron vessel with a singed frozen orange peel on top. It tastes mainly like orange juice, and didn’t seem quite worth all the trouble, though the price ($16) is merciful.

Beer goes just fine with this food; I recommend the Filipino brand called Red Horse ($10) — a powerful lager that stands up to the strong flavors of a menu that takes a decidedly playful and innovative approach to the national cuisine. And you won’t find a restaurant quite like Naks the in Filipino neighborhoods of Woodside, Queens, or Jersey City’s West Side, making it unique in the metro area.