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Showing posts from August, 2010

Today is the Day!

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!!! I've been waiting all summer for this- Eataly opens today! I'm so excited I don't know how I'm going to get through a full work day. Not very productively that's for sure. What could be better than a giant Italian food hall with cheese, seafood, meat and wine only two blocks away from my apartment! Oh wait- they're opening up a Dogfish Head beer garden on the roof in November as well- that's better!!! Cross your fingers for me that I at least get inside today. I assume the line will be huge when it opens its doors at 4:00. Eataly!!!!!! Eataly

Happy Birthday Dad! Part I

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I was lucky enough to have my Dad in town for his birthday last week. He and my Mom came down for a quick visit after a wedding in Connecticut over the weekend. Mr. T’s parents joined us for a fun dinner Sunday of mussels and beers at BXL and then Monday it was time to celebrate my Dad! It was a cold and rainy day in the city for sightseeing so what better to do then go for a relaxing fabulous lunch! Café Sabarsky is one of the two places in the city my father loves to eat at. We got there right around 12:00 pm and the place was packed but we were the first in line. After about a half hour wait, the line now snaking around the gallery, we were seated at a beautiful table overlooking Central Park. I was off for the day and about to consume sausage so a beer was in order. I had an old favorite the Franziskaner Weisse. Mr. T and I visited this brewery in Munich and loved it! It’s the perfect thick, malty brew for what I was about to eat. This is the Weisswurst mit Breze

Another Summer Lobster Roll

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Just by looking at this picture below would you be able to guess where this roll came from? Maybe if you lived in the Westchester area you would know. It’s a Stew Leonard lobster roll! Yes! Stew Leonard the supermarket! I had no idea they carried such things in their deli. There were a couple nice big chunks of lobster, a little mayo and some dill on a buttered potato bun. This is obviously no where near the huge glorious bounty of lobster of Pearl lobster roll, but it’s not too shabby either. And for the price it can’t be beat. This little guy cost me $5.00. That’s all!! I talked to a few Stew Leonard regulars and they said the price is usually closer to $8.00 but my roll was a little on the skimpier size. I’ll admit I could have had a bit more salad but now that I know I’ll just ask for another scoop! This almost makes me want to move to the suburbs…errr well not quite just yet.

Brunch at Dos Caminos

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We ended up hitting up a ton of places after our Del Posto lunch- Brass monkey, The Standard, Cowgirl Café, Fat Cat, Grassroots… I’m not even kidding this list goes on and on. None of them are connected or make any sense. It was just a sporadic bar crawl around the city. The next day we chilled out a little more with brunch at Kittichai, some touring around and a great dinner of Indian food at Dhaba. Sunday we woke up and had one more opportunity for food before Christine’s plane. She loves Mexican food and I heartily agree. The nearest option was Dos Caminos in the pouring rain so we trekked quickly up there for brunch. How could we not have a great time- they have a complimentary prickly pear margaritas with brunch! For my main I ordered the Machacado Breakfast tacos. They filled three huge soft taco shells with machaca style beef, scrambled eggs, salsa and Vermont cheddar cheese. This was so damn tasty it immediately entered into my top five brunch dishes. It had everything I wa

Fancy Lunch at Del Posto

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One of my best friends from college was visiting this past week which always means an excuse for some good food and drink. She flew in Thursday and we kind of hit the ground running and never stopped. It began with a delicious Koreatown dinner late Thursday at Mad for Chicken, where the insanely addictive wings pretty much blew her off her seat. I try to explain the wonders of this chicken to people from Buffalo but you truly have to try it in order to understand. I love Buffalo wings but there is nothing that compares to the candy like shell of skin at Mad for Chicken. Friday we all slept in a bit and then took our time getting ready for our fancy lunch of the day- Del Posto. Ever since Del Posto launched their $29 prix fix I’ve been dying to get over there for lunch. Christine’s visit seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally try it out. When we first walked in I got a little nervous. I had been here numerous times for drinks at the bar and always enjoyed the ambiance

Sweet Treat Day III

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Today’s sweet treat come all the way to NYC from Maine! Feast your eyes on some REAL Whoopee Pies!!! Okay I’m not a Whoopee Pie expert, but if I’m going to indulge in one, this is the kind I’d like to eat. The Cranberry Island pies are sold in the freezer section of the Lobster Place in Chelsea Market. All natural ingredients and a beachy seashell shaped case make these whoopee pies stand out from the rest. Even though the pies were in the freezer section after only about 15 minutes of rest time the cake was pliable and moist. The cold inner filling was not only refreshing but insanely delicious! I really felt like I was in the Florida Keys enjoying a fresh slice of key lime pie! The entire Whoopee pie was lighter than most and the filling to cake ratio was perfect. They carry Chocolate pies at the market as well but I would be hard pressed to pass up the lemon lime. So there you have it! A little bit of Maine right in our own backyard. You know what I suggest? Order a lobste

Sweet Treats Day II

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I started out the week with an old favorite but today is time to highlight my new dessert destination- the Limelight marketplace! The beautiful old Episcopalian church that once housed the notorious Limelight nightclub (and Mr. T’s hang out in younger years) has been reconstructed into a mini mall filled with three floors of different goodies. Today we are concerned with the first floor you have the festival of shops, gourmet food and last but not least the sweet room. The sweet room is where my current obsession of a treat lies- Mari’s NY. Mari’s specializes in artisanal dark chocolate brownies that come in a variety of flavors. I am obsessed with their Thai Coffee brownie which is so rich, fudgy and delicious I almost consider it a shame to be featured in the same category as a regular old brownie. This little guy has so many layers of flavors- strong espresso notes, deep chocolaty tones and an almost tobacco like aftertaste. This is the kind of treat that screams for a n

Sweet Treats Week at Nyctastes!

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It’s Sweet Treats Week here on Nyctastes and every day this week I’ll be featuring some of my favorite delicious and affordable sweet treats throughout the city. Okay it’s already Tuesday I know but Monday went by so fast I don’t even count that as part of the week anymore. I have to start with one of my favorites of course the mini cupcakes from Baked by Melissa. This month’s special flavor is seen here in the middle- a Brownie hot Fudge Sundae Cupcake. Wow this is extremely fudgy and sweet. It truly did taste like a brownie sundae to me but overall it had a little too much sugar to enjoy more than one. The others in the box are my standby favorites. Red Velvet with its wonderfully addictive vanilla frosting and the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough whose cake is always incredibly moist. Much moister than all the other flavors which is a little odd. At $1.00 a cupcake these bite sized creations are pretty expensive. However if you have impulse control issues when it comes to

Upstate Dinner at the Washington Irving Boat Club

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I traveled up to White Plains on Sunday to do some serious shopping at the Westchester mall. Shopping is one of my least favorite past times but my friend Carrie and I really needed to pick up some summer wardrobe items before fall fashion season begins. After about two hours we had completely canvassed the entire mall, each bought an item and were ready to call it quits with a couple of beers and some good food. We drove down to the Washington Irving boat club in Tarrytown and had a couple beers on their beautiful outdoor patio that overlooks the Tappan Zee Bridge. Once we started to get a little hungry we moved over to the restaurant part of the club, Sunset Cove, and got a wonderful seat right on the water’s edge. We weren’t starving so we decided to just split some appetizers, which ended up being a great idea since we really filled up on the first item- the bread basket. Now I am not a huge bread fan, but this was fantastic. I could smell the rosemary roll off the bas

Ed's Lobster Bar

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On a random Monday night we decided last minute to meet up with some friends for dinner. After a few drinks at Sweet and Vicious we ambled our way over to Ed’s expecting a slow Monday night crowd. We were wrong. Ed’s was packed! Who are all these people eating out on a Monday night? We put our name in and went next door for a drink while we waited. About 45 minutes later (and a good 15 minutes standing outside because they said our table was ready when it wasn’t) we finally got seated. We were all starving at this point so we ordered a bunch of appetizers for the table. My favorite appetizer, and probably my favorite dish of the night was the Fried Oyster Sliders. This was one of the specials that night and it was damn tasty. They fried up an oyster, wrapped in bacon and then topped it with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise. A mini oyster BLT. What’s not to love! These are the fried Ipswich clams. While I loved the fried oyster I did not love these. We had just had

More Treats from Everything Frosted

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After a quick trip to J&R last Sunday we decided to chance the impeding thunderstorms and walk through Chinatown for some food. Mr. T had dumplings on his mind but I had something quite different planned- cupcakes! After picking up a bag of frozen dumplings across the street we trekked upstairs to Everything Frosted and ended up with an array of sweet treats. From the top left clockwise- White Chocolate Strawberry pudding, Coffee Mocha cupcake with Chocolate Frosting, Yellow cake with Almond Butter Cream frosting and a Banana cake with Peanut Butter frosting. The White Chocolate pudding was Mr. T’s choice and it was velvety smooth and incredibly light. Along with the fresh strawberries inside was a bit of angel food cake. Of the three cupcakes the Coffee Mocha cake was by far my favorite. The coffee flavor was very pronounced in the cake and then you hit the center jackpot. Extra mocha frosting oozing out! Yum!! The other two cupcakes were a little disappointing

Dinner at Bohemian

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Mr. T’s birthday dinner is usually reserved for a sushi eating throw down in front of the man himself Yasuda. These dinners are always amazing, extravagant, and above all-expensive. I’m sure you could have a great dinner at Yasuda for a reasonable price but we always get carried away sitting in front of him. That’s half the fun actually! Not wanting to hinder that fun factor, we decided to skip Yasuda this year and go somewhere a little more wallet friendly for our budget. Mr. T left the choice up to me so knowing he loves Japanese food I got us a reservation at Bohemian. Bohemian is a secret little restaurant located in the back of a meat market in NOHO. I couldn’t even call them to make a reservation. I had to email them first, tell them a little bit about myself and then they sent me the secret phone number. Hey- it’s a little crazy but whatever. I kind of dig stuff like this. Friday night we arrived right at 7:30 for our dinner. The space is small and very serene.

It's Almost Friday Cocktail!

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We stopped into Angel’s Share before Mr. T’s birthday dinner last week and I was happy to see some new summertime cocktails on the menu. Always a big fan of almost anything these bartenders throw together, I felt fairly confident ordering the new watermelon basil martini. I don’t know why I even had a moment of indecision. This cocktail was fantastic! The watermelon was slightly tart and incredibly refreshing. I loved taking a little chew of the basil leaf with each sip to give it a more savory smooth taste. Angel’s Share does it again!

Another Spectacular Meal at Gramercy Tavern

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Have I told you how much I love Gramercy tavern before? I feel like I’m starting to sound like some sort of walking advertisement for the place but I truly can’t get enough of it. Last Thursday Mr. Trekker’s Mom was in the city and after her and I did some shopping we met up with Mr. T around 6:00. Since it was pretty early the tavern room was only about half full so we easily snagged a table for three. I’ve been on a big oyster kick lately so I decided to start off with some as my appetizer. These little guys Misty Point oysters from Virginia and they were softer than the Canadian oysters I usually order with a nice salty kick. I usually don’t use my cocktail sauce with oysters but it really complemented the briny flavor and smoothed it out. Mother and son ordered the same appetizer- Sweetbreads with summer squash, shisito peppers and mushroom puree. I love sweetbreads and Gramercy Tavern always puts together some of the best. They were delicately fried and given a nice su