New York: Saturday

Saturday morning we went to Colicchio and Sons for brunch.  We love the man.  He's a manly man who doesn't mince words, knows what he likes and doesn't skimp on the salt and pepper.  My burgers are better because of this man, who taught me through the television set to season-my-food-for-god-sake.  

The restaurant was empty.  We were the first ones to arrive, and it felt both really cool to be in the place before anyone and see only it, and really lame to be served in an empty restaurant.  About 20 minutes later, people started coming in, and I had a mimosa under my belt, and everything was great.

The ambiance was really cool.  Lots of windows, lots of wood, lots of right angles.  The music was weird, but fine - sort of eclectic to the point of funny.  I'll have to amend this post later when I can ask Bill if he can remember what we listened to.  I can only remember we both commented that my mother would have requested it be turned down, if not off.

Here's what we ate:

From back to front: 

Peekytoe Crab Omlette with Spring Onions, Nettles and Fontina Mornay

Toast.  The most perfect bacon ever.

Toads in the hole with spicy tomato piperade (which seemed to be more red bell peppers than tomatoes, but was Ah-may-zing.)

And we had jelly doughnuts.  

You heard me.

We then walked along The High Line, an elevated park that will eventually be a mile and a half long.  It's really cool, and if you go to New York you should put it on your list of things to see.

Art on The High Line.

Saturday night we got a real treat.  Bill's cousin, Paul Gerard, is the chef at the SoHo Grand Hotel.  Bill's in-town family joined us and Chef Paul gave us the royal treatment, bringing out plate after plate of food.  It was everything I could have dreamed of - delicious food, interesting stories from Bill's childhood, stories from behind the line at a fancy hotel, and the charisma of a chef who will someday add the word celebrity before his title, I'm sure.  Here's the food we ate:

Mushroom Toast - goat cheese and thyme (!)

Tuna Tiradito - raw sushi grade tuna, soft herbs, sea salt and roasted lemon toast

Fried Calamari - szechwan salt and pickled jalapeno

Trio of Flatbreads

Fresh Mozzarella, Tomato and Basil

White Pizza with Cracked Black Pepper

Ricotta and Meyer Lemon (!)

We then moved out to The Yard and had some more.  These were all on the outside patio menu, which is not listed online, so I'll do my best remembering what everything is.

Guacamole

Pork Buns (not so different from the ones we had at Momofuku the day before - and also delicious!)

Fried head-on prawns

When it started to rain, we moved back inside, but continued with the grill/patio food.

Burgers - there were three different kinds, but I missed the picture.  Drat!

Dale's Pale Ale.

Many kinds of sausages.

There was a Cuban, with ham wrapped around the sausage.

There was one with roasted peppers.

There was a greek sausage with goat cheese and meyer lemon (!)

Also, Piquillo Peppers stuffed with short ribs (!)

Let's see those again.

Piquillo Peppers stuffed with short ribs. (!)

Oh, yeah.

I have never been this full, and seldom been this happy.  Thank you, Chef Paul.  Your food was delicious, your hospitality generous, your bloodline fabulous.

Then we were stupid and walked to Little Italy, to this place:

And got this:

And then my stomach burst inside my body and I died.

Not really, but I sure was sorry I ate that gelato.

And happy to get in bed....

More to come!!