Gonna need a bigger lunch box

You know your lunch has jumped the shark when you find yourself packing a tray for the toaster oven to prepare it in the pantry.

On the other hand, my tacos were delicious and cheered me up immensely. Read More......

The Anti-Brown Bag

I've been having a bad week, and yesterday was particularly bad, until I thought to call my friend Patrick for lunch. Despite the recession, Bar Americain was packed and could not accommodate us for an hour, but his favorite restaurant, Redeye Grill, had a table available.

I wasn't all that hungry: I mostly needed to be taken care of, and some good company. Ever since reading Taras Grescoe's Bottomfeeders, I've been trying to eat more oysters, but I don't know much about them, so I let Patrick pick. I got 3 each of the Blue Island and Pearl Point oysters. The former were large and salty, and tasted particularly good with a teensy dab of cocktail sauce; the latter were creamy, as if they were covered in a thick white sauce, and were even better with a little lemon.

Patrick's also great at picking wine, so I didn't bother looking at the list. He chose a pinot noir and we had a long discussion of why that would taste good. In a wine tasting class, I learned that proper pinot noir should taste like wet carpet, so I've avoided it since. Patrick pointed out that it tastes good with food and then glared at me when I commented that oysters taste like wet carpet too.

He had diver scallops. I protested loudly that I don't like scallops when he put one on my plate and he laughed when I went from complaining to nom nom-ing.

After the Esca experience, I wanted to get the goat cheese panna cotta, but it wasn't available ala carte. Instead we had white chocolate mousse in a milk chocolate bag, which was rich and sinful and sent me back to work in a cheery if indulgent mood. Read More......

RW Winter 2009

This was a very low-key Restaurant Week for me. Early in the week, my parents and I had theater tickets, so we ate at Blue Fin. I was somehow less impressed this time: my mother's tuna and fluke chirashi was an interesting presentation, but nothing to come back for, and her wild striped bass amounted to fish with tasty mush. I had a craving for oysters, so I had their "east & west" selection, of which I enjoyed the east. The crispy skin salmon also amounted to fish with tasty mush; I ordered it specifically because I wanted to try their brussel sprouts, but can't remember it, which probably says it all. This was the meal that made me realize I'd rather eat my own home cooking than go out, at least some of the time.

I've already mentioned how Esca fixed that misconception.

In years past, I've never been able to get a reservation for Asiate for RW, but when we went on Friday, it was half empty. The service was good and the views magnificent, but the food was adequate for the environment. The first taste of the chestnut puree? soup? made me gasp, it was so delicious, but there were so many mushrooms and the duck confit somehow didn't integrate well. My companion had the tuna tartar starter, which seemed to involve a salad, which he left. We both had the beef tenderloin - does it always come with two different cuts of meat, prepared differently? I chose the creme caramel for dessert, mostly because it came with citrus and I was curious how that would work, but I think my uncle's flan is better. I was jealous of my companion's raspberry chocolate cake, but I'm not convinced it was much better. I was initially excited to hear they are continuing the RW menu for the rest of the year, but I'm not inclined to go back, unless circumstances bring me to the neighborhood. Read More......

Esca restores my faith in great food

I'd started to think that maybe going to restaurants was a waste of time, money, and calories. Restaurant food is always less healthy and more expensive, and I've been getting pretty decent at cooking basic things for myself. 'course, it helps if you have great ingredients. Last weekend, I was running errands in Little Italy, when I found myself in front of DiPaolo's. I'd heard about it on Chowhound, but never been. I didn't actually need anything and the wait was long, but I bought parmiggiano reggiano, speck (smoked prosciutto), focaccia, and broccoli rabe ravioli. The speck was so good, dinner that night was just a few slices on the focaccia with some olive oil. Mmm...

Then I went to Esca for lunch on Friday and was reminded why we go out. The amuse boche was a white bean and tuna focaccia. They had four choices for the Restaurant Week appetizer: the crudo was tempting, but I had the crispy smelt. The entree choices were pasta with a mix of seafood or amberjack; my companion and I both had the latter. I wish I could do justice to the delicacy of the flavors and how well they integrated, but I can't. I was ready to declare we should come to Esca for every Restaurant Week, when they brought the sublime dessert: orange blossom panna cotta with winter citrus and candied pine nuts. I usually find panna cotta a little boring, but it was the perfect palate cleanser at the end of the meal. This is what a great restaurant meal should be. Read More......

RW Summer 2008, pt 1

I used to get very excited about Restaurant Week, guessing which restaurants would be participating and making reservations even before the list was published, but after 8 years, I've been to a lot of the interesting restaurants and let's face it, there's a lot of chafe. By the time this summer's RW started, I'd only made one reservation, but somehow, I still ended up at four different participants.

* Blue Fin was one of those restaurants I'd always avoided, assuming that a hotel restaurant in Times Sq couldn't be all that good, but I was pleasantly surprised. I'd go back for RW, and not just because the mixed drinks are delicious.

* While I enjoy red meat, I rarely go to steakhouses - I enjoy innovative cuisine more than large quantities of food - but my friend Kat had a reservation for Kobe Club. I ordered the RW menu, which could be upgraded from the hamburger to the wagyus, and she had the tasting menu, meaning that we could taste everything they offered, but still spend a little less than the usual. Well, not that much less. The dishes were interesting and side by side, I could taste the difference between the American, Australian, and Japanese wagyus, but for that amount of money, I'd rather go to Le Bernardin. The wine list is very interesting.

* I wasn't particularly excited about Grayz, but I needed a same-week lunch reservation in midtown west. I'd never have gone there otherwise. It's on the site of the old Aquavit, where I'd had my first disappointing RW meal, and I'm a big believer in food karma. After all that, it turned out to be better than expected. We started with a spicy tuna-kampachi tartare with a lovely presentation: there was an arrangement of tuna in the middle, held together with tortilla chips, with an artful scoop of tomato salsa on the side. The entree was short rib croque monsieur, which was too much of a good thing, alas. The black forest parfait was delicious. I was ready to go back the next time I needed a nice restaurant near work, but then they gave us a $25 coupon for our next visit, which sealed the deal. To me, that's what RW should be - an introduction to a restaurant you've never been to before, but might return if you like it.

I'll save the other restaurant for its own post. Read More......

Would you like that on Wonderbread?

Lunch yesterday at the cafeteria was chicken pot pie, braised beef tenders, macaroni & cheese, buttered noodles, twice baked potatoes, parslied (sic) turnips, and asparagus stir fry. Particularly galling as earlier in the day, I came across this article which lists obesity as a potentially job-threatening habit. whiskey-tango-foxtrot?

Me, I had a spinach-celery-ginger juice with protein powder. I've had it before, but with parsley, which was delicious. Without the brightness of the parsley, the mustiness of the spinach and the tang of the ginger conflicted too much and the whole drink was out of whack :(

Read More......