Smile with your Lobster and the world smiles with you.
You can never have too much Lobster in your life and we are always on the lookout for new lobster friends! It's not who you know, it's WHOM YOU KNOW and now we know Luis! Like many restaurant owners we've met and liked, he is the walking talking American Dream story. Luis Villanueva came to New York from Oaxaca, Mexico in 2005 and he began as a dishwasher and today, he's one of the two founders and owners of Casa Bond, the most sophisticated Mexican place you'll find in Manhattan today. Of course we worked with him directly and he was a shining beacon of hospitality and we hope he keeps it up! Executive Chef Rodriguo Abrajan, also a native of Mexico, was not present because he was in Mexico getting ingredients; we are told 95% of the ingredients at Casa Bond are sourced from Mexico and arrive weekly. This sounds like an excellent reason to not be at your restaurant to us; we had sky high standards before but Francis Staub raised the bar much higher for everyone when he came from France to meet Peachy the minute she walked in for the first time and we are still upset that Chez Francis closed. Our Spanish is limited but we do know that Casa means house.
Casa Bond earns high accolades from us for authenticity of owners and ingredients!
Forty percent of the menu changes three times a year.
It opened November 2, 2023, and it's named after Bond Street.
(not to be confused with the London street.)
Everyone knows Peachy loves lobster, and the Lobster Guacamole will wow you with its gorgeous presentation first and its incredible taste second. Habanero, jicama, cilantro macho and obviously lobster teamed up to perch upon freshly made totopos (the chips) of Corn, Blue Corn and Multigrain. Allow us to emphasize the word FRESH. These are not some inferior commercial chip. They are crafted just for you like they should be.
This was our favorite item.
Salads matter.
There are two choices at Casa Bond:
Noho Verde, above, we liked best. It is composed of Organic Mixed Greens, Toasted Walnuts, Anjou pears which we particularly liked and is one of a short list of sweet anything we would want to see in a salad, orange wedges, and white truffle pecorino cheese which was incredible. The dressing is cherry vinaigrette.
Jicama Salad is authentic to Mexico; it was crunchy and different to meet with gem lettuce, carrots, cucumber, commendable naval oranges with all the white strings removed, watermelon radish and the dressing is poblano vinaigrette. We chose to add shrimp which elevated it tremendously and across the board we like to see protein choices to add to salads. In general, we like to see choices for the diner to make on menus to make items to their liking.
In both salad cases they listened and put the dressing on the side for Ms. Pretty Picky.
Of course as always, pictures are unedited.
You win like Luis and team or we do not publish.
Peachy's second favorite edible from this inaugural review are the Gobernador Tacos.
For someone that does not go crazy for tacos or even Mexican food usually, Casa Bond has won the picky one over. The Surf and Turf concept excels with shrimp and steak on a flour tortilla handmade every morning with vegetable lard not pork to make it healthier we are told.
Chihuahua cheese, tomato and poblano come to the party. We also loved the red tomatillo sauce.
Enchiladas Suizas we would suggest with skirt steak! A chef's blend of melted cheese joins obviously the steak, star of the show, green tomatillo and serrano creamy salsa. Of course if you are going to be a successful restaurant in Manhattan you better have a convincing cheeseburger and show us that you know what medium rare is...as you can see Peachy cut it herself. Peachy said enchante to the Oaxacan (the region Luis is making famous) cheese which is of the Quesillo variety from a cow as it successfully partied with eight delicious ounces of sirloin, Mexican chorizo, guacamole and freshly cut Idaho potato fries. Of course Peachy is a cheeseburger monster akin to the cookie monster and she did love it at Casa Bond. We can't wait to see the Oaxacan cheese again and Peachy sipped on a California Cabernet that she liked.
Pescado Zarandeado (means charred) is wonderfully broiled, beautifully butterflied branzino! It's intelligently marinated in a annatto-guajillo with obviously fresh (you know this by now if you have read carefully!) hand-pressed tortillas. The convincing fish was made even better by the solid sides of asparagus: we love green vegetables when they are shining in their proper glory and refried beans: credit to Isabel Cuevas! It's her recipe and guess what, there's avocado leaf and oja santa herb mixed in. She's also famous for being Luis's mother.
Luis asked Peachy if she likes dessert. She asked Luis if they had chocolate. Not only do they have chocolate lava cake but also they personalize it with 32-ingredient Mole inside and obviously everything is better in life with genuine ice cream (not the fake stuff-guess who does not like fake anything). And of course because this is not your average place but since when are we interested in average, you don't have vanilla but you have White Toasted Sesame Ice Cream. Outstanding! And we've never had that before.
