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Showing posts from January, 2010

Late Night Eats- NY Noodletown

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It's no surprise that one of our favorite late night eat joints (especially now that Ziggiz's is gone)is NY Noodletown. This place is always packed into the wee hours of the morning with everyone from drunken hipsters to extended family get togethers with grandmothers, grandfathers the whole lot! I had been reading about a dish on Serious Eats last week that I had yet to try there. It looked so good that late Saturday night, or possibly very early Sunday morning between a choice of bedtime or food time, we chose food.  We chose the Singapore Chow Funn. Big broad noodles perfect for soaking up all the spicy sauce from the chilies and onions. There was a surprisingly large amount of shrimp and pork throughout the entire dish making this one hearty inexpensive meal. We really could have split this and been full be we had to order one more thing- Mr. T's favorite. The Salt Baked Squid. Usually we order the Salt Baked Shrimp but they were surprisingly not listed on th...

Restaurant Week at Aureole

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It’s that time of year again when big New York City restaurants lower their prices and offer special menus for winter restaurant week. As usual I am trying to go to at least two meals- preferably lunch since that’s the better deal and preferably something new. This year I made my first reservation for Aureole. Aureole had closed a while back and relocated from its former townhouse to brand new digs right near Bryant Park. The space was pretty impressive walking in. A gorgeous big dining room with huge ceilings and lots of natural light from the windows to the left. This was my first time dining at a Charlie Palmer restaurant so I was pretty excited to see what was in store. I had a table reservation for two but since it ended up being just me I asked for a seat at the bar instead. Thanks goodness I did- this may be my new favorite people watching bar.! The big windows in the corner looked right out onto the end of Times Square. I had a ton of characters outside to keep my bread mun...

Yerba Buena- Service Please!

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Last Saturday morning we came home from a wonderful wedding in Long Island. We had so much fun the night before we wanted to keep the fun going. So we dropped off our bags at home and went right out to the West Village for brunch. I had heard a lot of good things about the new Yerba Buena and there was an open reservation on Open table so we headed there. We got there right around 2:00 and the place was barely even half full. That should have been my first clue that maybe this place wasn't going to be very good. I gave my name at the hostess station and she looked up the reservation with a kind of glazed over expression. Then she walked us over to a dimly lit table behind the waiter station in the back. This was by far the worst table in the restaurant. Now I'm not very picky about seating, but why put us here when there are plenty of open tables that are much much better? Well I didn't want to make a big deal about it so we just sat down anyway. But what happened next wa...

A quick bite at Inoteca Liquori

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We stopped in for a quick bite at the bar at Inoteca Liquori last week. I ordered the usual delicious octopus spiedini and a new dish the romaine, radicchio, grana & roasted garlic salad. First of all, this salad was enormous. It’s listed as an appetizer but it could easily be a main course. The grana is actually a very coarse, bitter cheese much like Parmigiano reggiano. It was grated over the top and was a nice complement to the zesty lemon dressing spicy garlic chunks on the lettuce. This salad was light and refreshing. It really reminds me more of a summer dish but added to one of the hearty pastas it could really round out a fantastic meal.

Sweet Delights from Momofuku Milk Bar

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Mr. T was craving something sweet the other night so I ran out to one of my favorite dessert places to see what I could get at Momofuku Milk Bar. I was so excited to see a ton of new offerings! I think it was autumn the last time I stopped in. They still had my usual chocolate chip cake and compost cookies, but now there also had a carrot cake, banana cake and a slew of new pies. I had my eye on the banana cake but then I remembered that these dessert choices should be more about Mr. T’s likes and not mine. So I ended up getting the Cinnamon Bun Pie and the Chocolate Malt Cake. The Cinnamon Bun pie was kind of a disappointment. First of all, I was expecting a great cinnamon smell from the microwave when I heated it up. Unfortunately the heat did little to intensify the pie smell and just made it a little more soft and melty. The middle of pie had all of the cheesecake and brown butter filling while the outside was just a big mass of bread. The filling was so sweet I coul...

Croissants at Panya

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I stopped into Panya Sunday morning to pick up some breakfast bites for myself. I couldn’t decide if I wanted something savory or sweet so I got both! The first was their mini ham and cheese croissant. Wow! I was really surprised how good their croissant was! I wasn’t expecting much but it was a perfect flaky, golden and buttery delicious delight. It was stuffed with big pieces of salty ham and chunks of gooey American cheese. Now exactly a healthy start to my day but certainly a delicious one! The other croissant- the cookie croissant didn’t fare as well. I was intrigued because of the name but it didn’t really have much substance. It was a little bit dry and kind of devoid of any flavor, much less something sweet. Compared to the former it was certainly an inferior product. I’ll be sticking to the regular croissants from now on.

Lunch At Marea

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Where else in the world can you wake up on an average boring Tuesday morning, contemplating the start of another work day, only to find yourself just hours later enjoying a ridiculously delicious Michelin starred meal with the one you love while staring out on gorgeous Central Park. Only in New York my friends, only in New York. And that’s the way it began. My alarm went off Tuesday morning and I headed to the bathroom for my usually shower and go routine. However on my walk from the bedroom to the bathroom I noticed something. A feeling of dread. Now I have to say I'm kind of lucky. While I wish I never had to work for a living, I truly don’t hate my job, I even kind of like it. Which is why this feeling of dread kind of startled me. I don’t usually feel like this? However there it was and there was no denying it. I was dreading absolutely everything about going to work that day. The weather was freezing, my commute was to the farthest office and I was so sleepy I felt a lit...

An Upsate Lunch at Bridgeview Tavern

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To end out the football season I headed up to Tarrytown to watch the final game of the regular season the same way I began it- with my friend Carrie. We decided to check out a new bar that had just opened a little ways away from the train station- Bridgeview Tavern. This place doesn’t look like much from the outside but the inside is actually quite nice. They have a long wooden bar up front with a huge window for street watching and a separate dining room in the back. Besides having the NFL Sunday ticket our other reason for coming was the beer. Bridgewater Tavern boosts quite a fantastic craft beef list. Dogfish Head 90 minute, Troegs Mad Elf, Allagash White, Ommegang Abbey Ale and Rouge Dead Guy Ale were just a few of the many beers they offered on draft. I decided to stick local and had a pint of Captain Lawrence Freshchester Pale. This beer was excellent. It had a nice balance of crisp caramel flavor with a little bit of hop. Very drinkable. About halfway through the ...

My Love Affair with Danny Meyer Continues at Maialino

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Just one day into the new year and I can already say I’ve been to a place on my 2010 wish list! Maialino! I truly can’t believe it took me so long to get here as it is. Danny Meyer is an absolute genius in my book. I have had some of the best meals of my life at his restaurants and luckily they are almost all within blocks of where I live. Actually with the opening of Maialino it is now the closet one to me! So on Saturday, with the blustery frigid winds blowing, Mr. T and I took a quick two block walk down to the Gramercy Park hotel to see if we could score a seat at the new Danny Meyer resto. Reservations for this place have been impossible to get since it opened but I figured we could just get a seat at the bar. It was only 6:00. Who in NYC eats at 6:00?  Well apparently at hot new places a lot of people do! All of the bar stools were full! I couldn’t believe it. Luckily there was one last table in the bar area open and we were able to get a seat. The last time I was inside ...

A Meat Feast at Resto

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For New Year’s eve every year, a group of us have been regularly finding a dinner and drink deal where we can celebrate with some good food but without the hassle and craziness that goes along with this annual night. One year it was a great meal at Sala One Nine where the food and drink for 3 hours was plentiful. One year we went to Angelo & Maxie’s where the food and drink deal was also great, but the crowd got a little out of hand for us. This year we were throwing around ideas of what to do when we got an email from Resto about their New Year’s eve event. The Pig & Poularde in Half Mourning Large Format Feast. For $150 it promised some amazing dishes made from two animals from local farms. A bunch of tasty desserts and all the Belgian beer, wine and spirits you could handle. Hmm…tons of meat, all the Belgian beer I can handle….Maybe one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made! We got there right at the start of the event at 9:30 and they were still setting up so we...

Holiday Treats

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It was another wonderful holiday season spent with friends and family. We started out this year at Mr. T’s parents where we enjoyed some fantastic beer and wine. To celebrate our engagement, Mr. T’s brother bought us a bottle of 2002 Cristal to celebrate with! I never thought I would have the opportunity to even sip this champagne much less drink two glasses full! It was absolutely exquisite. Light on the note with big nutty flavors and hints of citrus- this was everything I have heard it was. There were so many different flavors going on at once. The first sip tasted almost robust but the finish was as delicate and smooth as ever. It was decadently delicious. (If we knew this was coming we would have gotten engaged earlier!) Another fantastic treat we enjoyed was a bottle Clos du Mont Olivet Chate Chateauneuf-du-Pape. I’ve been a big fan of Chateauneuf-du-Pape’s lately and this one did not disappoint. It had big notes of cherry and leather with hints of tobacco. There was ...

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year Everyone! I'm recovering from a huge meal filled with lots of meat and Belgian beer at Resto last night. More on that later when I sift through the alcohol laden memories. I’m actually still working on completing my wish list from 2008. I’ve done pretty well but I still have three more places to go. I figure I will just tack them onto this year’s wish list and see what happens. I know Mr. T and I have to be a bit more frugal this year what with wedding expenses coming up and all. However this list could always be extended into 2011 if it needs be (and it probably will need to be). So here goes- the first three are the ones still from 2008: Perilla (completed 2/14/10) Dressler Union Square Café (completed 9/13/10) Corton Bonnie’s Grill (wings) Marea (completed 1/14/10) PDT (completed 12/10) Tpoutine (closed) Loconda Verde Del Posto( completed 8/20/10) Char No 4 Le Bernardin Maialino (completed 1/2/10) Shopsins Yerba Buena (completed 1/26/10) Keens...