Balon

This week, I reviewed Balon which is located on the Upper East Side at 245 E 81^st St. The exterior has a new-looking, pretty, brick facade with a big entryway and some plants outside to liven up the street. The inside is just as lovely. The bar feels like a trendy, modern, European café. French music was playing the entire time I was there, the bar has all different types of leather and wicker seating, arched doorways, a painted ceiling, and there is a garden in the back. Even the view looking out onto the street is quaint. Everything about this place is luxe. It’s definitely not a casual place! I would have felt very odd had I been wearing jeans.

The wines are moderately expensive with glasses starting at $10 and up to $18 and bottles are $40 to $79. The average price of a glass was about $15, however. Many of the wines were from France, so I decided to order a 2009 Florian Mollet Pouilly Fume because it’s my favorite French wine to say. It’s pronounced “Poo ee foo may”. Fun, right? Pouilly Fume is a dry white wine from the Loire Valley of France and it's made with the Sauvignon Blanc grape. It generally has a smoky or mineral-like quality to it, although I didn’t taste or smell either of these in this particular wine. It was yummy, though. It smelled like lemon and perhaps a little bit of mineral? It was difficult to pick up on if it was there. It tasted like grapefruit and honeysuckle and it had a tart finish with a solid acidity that left my tongue feeling a little tingly. The wine was served in delicate stemware, but the pour was on the small side considering how expensive it was.

While the space is gorgeous, the atmosphere is kind of cold and uptight. Customers, myself included, that were there just for drinks were refused seats at the empty tables in the back of the bar. Instead, we could sit at the bar or at one of the café tables in front. It seemed a little uptight to me. The staff was nice and although they were chatting with another one of the customers seated at the bar for a bit, they weren’t very attentive. I was completely ignored between being served the wine and finishing it. The bartender was actually openly reading her Kindle and was probably in the middle of 50 Shades of Grey a chapter when I finished my wine because it took her a while to notice that I was either ready for another glass or the check. Good thing I wasn’t in a hurry. I finally got the check and….there was a $30 minimum for credit cards. I didn’t notice this useful piece of information anywhere on the menu, so this was a surprise. Businesses get charged a certain percentage for charging credit cards, I get it. But do you have to inconvenience your customers because of this? Who carries that much cash around these days? That was the nail in the coffin. Sorry, Balon. I also think you owe me the $3 fee for the ATM that I had to walk two blocks for.

This wine bar is really nice, but I wasn’t particularly blown away by anything aside from the fantastic space. Props to whoever designed the interior here! The wine I had was very good, but I don’t think I enjoyed it enough to order another $15 glass of it. Relax the atmosphere a bit, throw out this ridiculous credit card minimum, and this place would be cool. For now, I give Balon a rating of 3 out of 5 glasses.

The cool exterior of Balon

My glass of Pouilly Fume

The beautiful interior of Balon

The quaint view of 81st St from inside the bar