I was never convinced that squid, like revenge, was a dish best served cold. Why have squid salad, often with the texture of a deck shoe, when you can have supple chargrilled squid or tender squid slow cooked in a basil and tomato sauce? One bite of a squid salad and those milk white rings quickly quickly morph into rubber bands before your eyes. So I couldn't have been happier when the Oyster Bar, tucked away in the bowels of New York's Grand Central Station, served up a plate of the most exquisite squid salad I'd ever had.
As a good portion of the menu is cooked in butter or coated in flour, the squid salad seemed the only reasonable option. While my husband gussied himself up for a messy encounter with a whole lobster, I felt I was making do with my squid salad. It's hardly the kind of food that makes you travel across continents. I pictured those coiyts, grisly and liable to pass through me intact. What turned up was as far from that nightmare as you can get. Lightly marinated in a purple basil dressing, the squid salad brought a tear to my eye. If I hadn't considered the squid salad worthy of a transatlantic trip, well, I was wrong. I would cross the Sahara basted in chip fat, wrapped in aluminum foil and strapped on to a camel next to Mariah Carey to get my hands on another plate of that salad.
If you live in New York then run to the Oyster Bar. If you don't, then start saving.
Grand Central Terminal, New York, NY 10017 212-490-6650
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