Catch Up Part 1: Corner Table, St. Patrick's Day

I've been away for a while.  I'm catching up in these next couple of posts.  Enjoy!

Last Wednesday I went to Corner Table with  about 40 other food bloggers.  We not only ate amazing food, we also got to cook it!  Big thanks to Chef Scott, Dan for turning over the kitchen to a bunch of foodies and to Gordon the bartender who kept me in Cava all night.

On St. Patrick's Day, I cooked up some of the sausage I got at Corner Table.  Inspired by Kate,  who did this in the Corner Table kitchen, I also cooked up some cabbage, apples and onions.  I served this with a half a baked potato for dinner.  For dessert we had Sister Mary's Irish Soda Bread - on top of which I sprinkled turbinado sugar  before baking.  I served it with the Chocolate Ice Cream my son insisted we also make.  He's three. What am I gonna say, no?  We used Thomas Keller's recipe and will never use another.  SO GOOD.  (Seriously, buy that book.)  

I drank Snakebites.  Guinness and Woodchuck Granny Smith Cider.  Yum.

This year's pour was much better than last year's.

New York: Sunday

Sunday found us eating again.  Yes.  Even after all that, and the ill-considered gelato.  We ate again!  This time we started in Brooklyn.

We went to Pies-n-Thighs, again to meet friends we'd never met.  

If you live Anywhere Near Brooklyn [Williamsburg] (yes, Manhattan counts as near), you should go for the biscuits and gravy alone.  Oh. My.  Also, on my way out, I was given a free donut hole.  What's better than that?

We then went to Greenpoint and saw this:

Hello, beautiful.

Second stop was my husband's hometown, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.  We ate pizza from Gino's.  Now, if you click that link, you get a very different idea of what Gino's is.  Or what it was.  It was a storefront.  Just a counter, a brick oven, three guys and some awesome slices. 

 Luckily, all that is still there (we ate standing at the counter), in addition to the expanded menu, wood bar, and fancy napkins.  I almost ate it without taking a picture.  This was the most perfect piece of New York pizza I've ever had, so please forgive the first bite taken before I remembered to get out the ol' iPhone.

Again, people of New York, get your heinie on a train and go to 75th Street and 5th Ave and eat this pizza.

The evening found us wanting some Old New York.  We met some of my oldest friends (like, I've known them since 1987, not that they're old) at The Campbell Apartment in Grand Central Station.  It is apparently beautiful in there, though it was so dark, even after being there for an hour, I had a hard time appreciating the details.  For example, I just looked up that link, and had no idea the ceiling was that elaborate or that the bar stools were red.  We drank fancy, ridiculously expensive cocktails.  It was lovely to see them.

We then took a cab to The Plaza and had dinner at The Oak Room. (Click "Cuisine" for the menu.)  Lovely.  Pretty.  Super Slow Service - when I say I need a minute to look at the wine list, don't come back in twenty.   Also, when I'm done eating, you can take away the plate within fifteen minutes of my Very Obviously Putting My Fork And Knife On The Plate In The "Done" Position. Seriously.  

We had an appetizer of Crisp pork belly with ramp kimchi, green curried cauliflower and green papaya that I honestly forgot we had until I just looked at the menu.  Now that I remember it, I also remember that the scrapple at Momofuku and the pork belly at Piccolo in Minneapolis are both vastly superior.  I think Bill had the duck breast with confit strudel, spring onion puree, favas (forever ruined by Hollywood), morels and mulberries.  I had a ridiculously big 30-day aged Meyer natural prime New York strip with bone marrow crust, duck fat potatoes and sweet onion marmalade.  (PS - does anyone know what "SUPP $15" on a menu means?)  We had some sides, too.  Creamed spinach with bacon and leek, sweet and sour Brussels sprouts with glazed apples, and truffled tater tots with peach ketchup.

Giant marrow-crusted steak with duck fat potatoes and asparagus.  

That teeny drizzle near the cubes is the marmalade.  Pretty much not worth mentioning it on the menu if it's that little.

No, I didn't finish it, and it took a lot to leave some on my plate.  I have meat machismo. 

Creamed spinach 

Brussels sprouts

Tots

  We skipped dessert (learning from our gelato experience the night before), and instead moved to the Oak Bar, had another glass of wine and watched the horse and carriages trot around Central Park.

One thing that was really great at the Plaza was the ladies room.

All White Marble.

I'm glad there's a changing table in here, but it looked so out of place... perhaps some stick-on bling or something?

So, I had a lovely three days of eating in New York.  We did other stuff, too, like going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, walking through Central Park, Washington Square, Union Square, Bay Ridge Brooklyn...  Here are some tourist shots.  Hope you enjoy.  

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!!

New York: Friday

First let me just say that in this time of no free snacks, but $3 for a tiny packet of pretzels on planes, if you fly SunCountry airlines, it is Totally Worth It to upgrade to first class if you can.  Not only do you sit in super comfy seats with actual room for your body and legs, you also get food.  When you get up at 4:30am and have your heinie in the seat at 6:00am, that's so worth the money.  Plus, it's good food!

Not bad for airplane food, huh?  Look at the size of that cinnamon roll!  And real, fresh berries!

We arrived in New york on Friday and met some friends at the fabulous Momofuku Ssam Bar by their suggestion.  I was so distracted by the awesome conversation and the meeting of these friends, whom we had never actually met in person (it's a Twitter thing), that I didn't take pictures of the food.  As we say, #fail.

Here's a list of what we had, though: 

Steamed pork buns - hoisin, cucumbers, scallions (we had four orders of these, they were so good)

Pork scrapple - fried egg, benton's bacon, pear mostarda (oh my god - scrapple is awesome!)

Fried baby artichokes - pistachio, sunchokes, bottarga (not great, not bad, and don't ask me what bottarga is)

Spicy pork sausage & rice cakes - chinese broccoli, crispy shallots (I could eat this all day long.  Well, this and scrapple.)

They also have this crazy thing called bo ssam that you have to order 24 hours in advance.  Here's the description from their site: 

q: what does the bo ssäm include?
a: the bo ssäm (which is korean for enclosed or wrapped) includes a whole slow cooked pork shoulder, a dozen oysters, white rice, bibb lettuce, ssäm jiang (korean bbq sauce), kimchi and ginger scallion sauce. the dish is essentially pork and condiments wrapped in lettuce.

q: how much is it?
a: $200 for your entire party. not including other food and drinks ordered or tax and tip. please note, we only accept a maximum of four credit cards per table.

After we came back, a friend called it the best thing he's ever eaten and replaced the wallpaper of his kids on his phone with a picture of it and I need to have it next time we're in New York.  Well, that and the spicy pork sausage and rice cakes.  And the scrapple.

I don't want to steal other people's content, so go do an image search of this stuff.  It's worth it.  

I'll wait.

Hi.

I don't have any pictures of the next meal either (what a slacker!).  We went to some friends' apartment and were served Amazing grilled halibut and asparagus with a delicious balsamic sauce and cous cous.  And a lot of wine.  I will get the recipe, make it, and post about it.  I had no idea I liked halibut, and was so happy to discover how much I do.  It was meaty and tender/flakey all at once and I can't wait to make it myself.

To make up for my lack of food pictures, here are some pictures of things we saw between lunch and dinner:

Stay tuned for the next installment: Saturday! (There are pictures of Saturday's food)