NYC Tastes

I have always wanted to try Park Avenue (any season all seasons) but it always seemed so pricey. So when I noticed it on the Restaurant Week List this year I jumped on the reservation. Unfortunately they only offer a lunch so I had to take a half day of work. Luckily Mr. T's office is nearby so he was able to meet me for lunch and still bring home the bacon:) I walked inside about 20 minutes early and was greeted warmly by the maître d' and receptionist. Since Mr. T wasn't there yet I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered a beer from their summer beer list. This is the first "summer" thing I noticed. They had 3 beers, all wheat, listed for summer beer enjoyment. I thought this was kind of neat- wheat beer is great in the summer because it has that lemony thirst quenching ability- so why not highlight it? They also had a very nice white wine sangria special which many people were drinking. It came with some blueberries and raspberries floating in the bottom. It...

So while we were waiting for our plane back to NYC we stopped at the bar for a drink to kill some time. I was looking at the beers on tap when this one caught my eye. Alexander Keith. I had never heard of it before so I decided to try one out. It had a golden red color with a decent head. When I took a sip I was kind of shocked. It honestly had hardly any taste to it at all. I mean no taste! No good flavor, no hoppiness, just an incredibly bland and boring beer. I looked it up and apparently it's made by Labatt's which make sense why I haven't seen it in NYC. I have to say I don't really care for most Labatt beers so it wasn't surprising I didn't like this one either. It's too bad really because I really liked the shape of the beer glass it was served in.

Our first night in Buffalo my parents picked us up at the airport and we meet up with my family for dinner at a place called Prosit in Williamsville. I had never been here before but my father insisted I would love it. Why? The Beer! Prosit is basically a small (very small) Polish/German restaurant that serves lots of different Polish and German beers. Being Polish this was quite a treat! They even had a nice little beer garden in the back with a couple big wooden tables perfect for relaxing after a long day of traveling.   When we arrived, the biggest table in the back was actually being occupied by the owners sister and her daughter celebrating a birthday. Once they noticed how large our group was they immediately offered us their table in lieu of the smaller one which was extremely nice.  The rest of my family arrived and we ordered up a couple rounds of beer. I decided to go with the Okocim beer which is a polish style pilsner that is light and crisp. Perfect for a ...

So we just got back from a fantastic voyage to my hometown in Western New York. We ate a bunch of good food and even made it up to Canada for the day which I will report on later. Unfortunaely we are so exhauted from our trip I only hve time for a small post on something Buafflo has a lot of- strange sodas. Anyone who hs lived in the Western NY area will probably agree that the best drink growing up was Loganberry. Loganberry is an awesome grape flavored drink that is everywhere in the city! I mean almost every single restaruat has it no matter what. When I first went away to college I couldn't believe people hadn't heard of it before! Well we found another soda that is pretty crazy as well. Here is the Saranac Shirley temple soda. This was a great find since Mr. T actually spent a whole weekend once drinking Shirely Temples with vodka!! We had to try it out as soon as we saw it at the store. It had a great pour to it with a classic frothy head that looked absolutly thirst qu...

So I am off to Buffalo for a while to see my family!! I haven't been there since Christmas time and I cannot wait to get back and see everyone. I won't be posting while I'm gone but you can be sure I will be eating tons of great Western NY food like chicken wings, beef on weck and hopefully I'll fit in a fish fry on Friday. While I'm gone I leave you with this lovely picture of some yummy artisanal cheeses with two kinds of confiture I had the other day with a friend at Paradou. Hopefully when I get back I will have more time to report on the meal and the lovely garden in the back but....until then Enjoy!!! Paradou

I was walking around my neighborhood the other day and noticed that both Japonais and Butai have happy hour specials that seem like a pretty good deal. I was craving some sushi so I stopped in to Butai to check out their deal. I walked in around 6:30 and was the only person besides two men having beer at the front. I grabbed a seat at the bar and ordered a glass of their Pinot Grigio and asked about the specials. They had the usual rolls; tuna, salmon and California on special, but they also had some kushiyaki. I decided I had to do a little of each. To start I ordered a spicy tuna roll. This was a pretty good roll. The rice was a bit too sticky for me on the outside but tuna had a great flavor and the size was perfect. A minute later my skewers came out. I ordered the pork belly, asparagus with bacon and cherry tomatoes. The pork belly skewer was awesome!!! It was a juicy crispy bit of belly that sat a top some ponzu dipping sauce. Really tasty!! The bacon wrapped asparagus was pretty...

I happened to run into the Park avenue Summer festival yesterday as I was heading out to do some errands. There are a MILLION street fairs in the city during the summer and most of them are filled with the same old boring stuff. Crepes, mozzareppas, gyros, pashiminas and bed sheets. Well the Park avenue one had all that stuff too but it actually has some other cool stuff that make it one of the best street fairs going. They had tons of dresses, jewelry and best of all tons of free food samples. The one that had the biggest line was the Ciao Bella truck. Now it was pretty early in the day for ice cream but it was free so I had to get some! They were offering about 6 different flavors including which was a tough decision but I decided to go with the Pistachio. First of all, the sample was pretty big!! It was like ordering a regular small bowl at an ice cream place. The ice cream was dark white and had whole pistachios sticking out everywhere. The verdict? The flavor of the ice cream itse...

Last Sunday we spent most of the day holed up in a bar with friends and watching the championship game of the Euro Cup. It was a pretty exciting game and we all had more than just a few beers. Then a huge rainstorm came again right at the end which forced us to order another round so we wouldn't get wet! By the time that round was finished we were "feeling no pain" as my mom would say and decided to make a trip down to Congee Village for some much needed food. We walked into the restaurant and found it relatively empty. Not too many people want Chinese food at 5:30 on a Sunday I guess! Even though there were only 3 of us, they sat us down at a huge table and we ordered up some Mai Tai's and ton of food. First order out was our Pan Fried Dumplings. These came out with a nice crispy outside and steamy greasy insides of pork. They were good but just an average sort of dumpling. Next was a HUGE order of chicken fried rice. I am not usually a rice fan but this was really g...

I happened to be in the Sheepshead Bay area the other day for work so I headed over to the Fruit and Vegetable Market on Avenue Z. This is my favorite place to buy fruit in the city because they have such a huge selection of hard to find stuff and the quality and freshness of their fruit is really hard to beat. Not to mention they have a ton of Russian candy in bulk so I always come in and try a couple different ones each visit! So after picking up some beautiful ripe plums and a couple pieces of candy I decided to go across the street to the newly reopened Gourmet Food Market. They closed for renovations over a year ago and I was happy to see their place looked pretty goo. They had much more space than before and it seemed a little nicer. I did a quick walk around and started to head out the door when something in the bakery case caught my eye. Peering through the glass, I see this giant pastry that looks like a cross between a macaroon and a bombolone!! I go in for a closer look, and...