...more recent posts
Hoi An at 135 West Broadway was fine, aint Vietnam, but is there anyplace in NYC to come anywhere close....I used to live at #135 WB and thats where Linda and I first hung out, Brooklyn has allowed me not to miss 135 WB...I very much miss the Slanted Door in SF, thats good Vietnamese, all whom have been long for more....Steve help me out, I saw a listing and a yummy looking photo about Pho Van in Portland (1012 NW Glisan), is it good??:>)
we take a car service to Queens on some road I remember being on only once before, we mill around Kew Gardens circling 83rd Ave looking for #120-35, we have mapquest so we tell the driver to drop us in front of this big beautiful house....one block away we find the sign Uzbekistan Cultural Center / Uzbekistan Tandoori Bread House / Kosher Restaurant, in my bag I have a 1968 Rioja and a 1930 Dulce Monastrell, and my pals are well equiped also...we enter to many onlooking eyes, sit down and dig in, the first round of food was fantastic (lamb noodle soup, lamb dumpling soup, salad of carrot/slaw/pickles, big lamb dumpling, rice pilaf w. boiled lamb, fried potato, glorious bread), room had murals and great paintings (one of which by the end of the nite I was asking the owners to buy, and we are still talking), soon the music began and people were dancing....the mains (griled meats shish kebob(sp?) were less good for only two correctable reasons, too much salt and overcooked...great nite!!
Ate at Washington Park last night. Beautiful room. Very good service. Extensive wine list. One app sparkled (pasta with crab and heirloom tomatoes) but the rest of the food, while good, didn't excite any of us. Desserts, on the other hand, were yummy. Nice night, but I'd need to hear something different to try again.
remember the new york (and elsewhere) on $10.00s a day books ? how about a
new york on $10.00 a day for wine post (one or two bottles for ten and under). i wont tell anyone.
raise the bar -- wine and dessert
finally ate at Petrosino, and talked with the chef for a while....he gave me a tour of the new room being built and the cellar could be room #3....the four 1/2 dishes i ate at the bar we very good (great if you consider he charged me $10 for them all), would like to go back and really eat
pasta, pasta, cake....dinner tonight at al di la was purrfecto, tortelli with corn, summer truffle, and chanterelle's followed by tortelli of fava bean with chesse and mint followed by chocolate/pear torte...ROCKING
The Voice discovers Locanda Vini & Olii.
finishing some unloading in the neighborhood, i took 3 virgins to the 24th/9th GSI...and while i don't have any real new news, i somehow feel obliged to report that it's Still Delicious. chicken auzhou, whole fish with scallion (god was that luscious), soup dumplings, red pork, wonton with red oil etc etc etc...after overindulging until my stomach cried out in pain last night i was nonetheless ready to go back for breakfast this morning
last nights meal at aKa was yummy we thought, the soups, slider rocked, squid was a real meal deal....
"But the tradition continues. When Mr. Snyder was growing up, the cousins all worked at the store each summer. And last week, his cousin Ellen Smith seemed perfectly content to drop her fruit knife and wait on customers as Mr. Snyder sat and talked at the front of his store at 95 Orchard Street, between Delancey and Broome Streets. Despite his dedication to New York, his personal energy is mellow enough to qualify as Californian. The most worked up he got all day was over how many skins should go into the Black Grape Sorbet."
favorite pizza slice of the moment is at Pintaile's called Salamino made with a whole wheat crust, plum tomato, fresh mozz, and capicolla--YUMMY (order it extra crispy)
went by the space that will be Counter (designed by the guy that did Jewel Bako and Alais), this place is going to be beautiful i believe, food is all organic, the kitchen size is hugh (owner said there is a giant area for prep), the wine list will be all organic farmed, cert organic, bio-dynamie, or cosmoculture which is bio + stonehedge ++, i am lookinf forward to what they do, expecially since i need a new diet for 2003.....
Recently I've become a Google cook. What I mean is, shortly before supper time I look around for some combination of foods I've got on hand and which seem like they might go together. Then I 'google' them... and browse through the results until I find a recipe that appeals to me.
one app at Il Gattopardo has me hooked, met the chef and he is a hands on humble guy that worked (was the chef?) at a one star Michelin near Milano, going for a full meal soon....had dinner last night at Phi Lan and while it boarders on very real Vietnamese food and was delish, it aint like the homeland....
a visit in Tommasso's cellar (first time down there) was a highlight of the year, we drank well and i found a few wines for next time from the 50's:>)
an absolutly amazing meal at Jewel Bako, from start to finish, stunning fish, fun small courses and little things, a great event!!
We had a nice meal at Brewster Fish House on Cape Cod, I still cant understand why there are not more, but part of my problem I bet is just finding them...I still long to go back to Fresh, lucky we live near The Minnow, and of interest could be Mermaid Inn (by the owners of Red Cat and The Harrison) to open in East Village and all dishes under $15....
our kitty loves mint, he eat a little chocolate mint from the market this am, than we gave him the freash catnip, he went wild, eat a lot and went on a trip, he is still bonkers, eating twice his normal crunchies (munchies??), and the bouquet of catnip is still by his bowl but he hasnt gone back, is he having a bad trip....