NYC Tastes

I’m so lucky to live where I do. Over the past year about 5 new places have opened up near by which are all awesome. Eataly, The Hurricane Club and Hill Country Chicken just to name a few. But even before these places existed we had a slew of neighborhood favorites. Gramercy Tavern of course, L’Express and good old Giorgio’s of Gramercy. It had been a couple years since we last pulled back the black velvet curtain and stepped inside the narrow red antique space that houses Giorgio’s. Interestingly enough we were seated at the same table we get every time. Maybe they remembered? Probably not but it was nice regardless. The chef started us out with a Smoked Trout and Cream Cheese Crostini. The smokiness of the fish and rich cream cheese played perfectly off each other and really excited my taste buds- just as an amuse bouche should. For my main I ordered the Caramelized Sea Scallops with cauliflower fondue, fava bean, golden raisins, cauliflower salad and balsamic gl...

We went out for our “Valentines dinner” this past Sunday. We always celebrate a day or two later. I hate going out on the day itself. I feel like it’s very hard to get a true representation of a place on such a crazy restaurant day. This year we didn’t even try something new. We wanted to stay around our neighborhood so we decided to go to Giorgio’s of Gramercy. We used to frequent this place quite a lot but hadn’t been in at least a year. We started the night out first though with drinks at Gramercy Tavern. We grabbed the last two seats at the bar and each had a lovely glass of Tocai from the Channing Daughters to start. Gramercy is such a wonderful place to relax and after our glass of wine we decide to stay for one more drink since we just enjoy the surroundings so much. This time we went for one of our favorite beers the Saison DuPont. Between the wonderful selection of beer and wine, great smelling food and lovely ambiance it was hard to tear ourselves away from Gramercy ...

My parents came to visit for the weekend, which is always the best excuse to eat out for every meal of the day! Thursday night we went to Alta and had a fantastic meal. We showed up right around 8:00 with no reservation and were seated immediately right near the fireplace on the first floor. We ordered too many things to write about but I'll give you the favorites of the table. Spinach salad with dried cherries was great- those 2 flavors go together so well together. Goat cheese w/ honey, confit of pork tenderloin, lamb meatballs and Moroccan spiced cashews (so good we ordered 2) were all fantastic. The 2 potato dishes, one with paprika and one with trout creme fraiche I wouldn't order again. Just not very tasty. Overall though a great meal. My only complaint was the pacing of the dishes. We got about 5 dishes at once literally 2 minutes after we had ordered. They kept coming in this sort of fashion. There was barely enough room on the table for them all. I wish they would ma...