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[Photo: Kathy YL Chan]

We're back at Café Kristall for lunch today. A few weeks ago we feasted on fat bacon dumplings floating in a creamy wild mushroom soup, and a buttery dish of Quark Ravioli. It was a delicious lunch: incredibly heavy, a pad-your-stomach for winter meal. Today, we're taking the lighter, but no less flavor-rich route, where paper-thin slicing is a theme. Let's start with the Red Beet Terrine ($10). A silky line of black pepper-marked horseradish mousse divides the terrine, slices of sweet red beets packed in tight and served chilled. Slice down, and dab on a bit of the side of whipped horseradish—pungent, a bold foil to downright creamy beets. Follow with Octopus Carpaccio ($11), where marvelously thin circular slices of the pressed octopus are arranged overlapping on the plate. A scatter of briny black olives and fresh bites of lime would have you believing that summer is just around the corner.

Café Kristall

Inside the Swarovski Crystallized Boutique
499 Broadway, New York NY 10012 (map)
212-274-1500
kg-ny.com

About the author: Originally from Honolulu, Kathy YL Chan writes A Passion For Food, where she chronicles her eats and travels adventures between Hawai'i, New York and beyond. She firmly believes that there is always room for dessert.