I wish everyone HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Jeebus, time flew so quickly… I’ll probably write a review of the past year soon, say, on the day of the new year? I’m not too sure on that. If not, I have a more personal post to write about anyways.
Going back to Friday night, I went to WD-50 with Ariel for dinner since he’s particularly intrigued with molecular gastronomy and Chef Wylie Dufrense since he’s the only person in New York who really does this particular style of cooking. And the fact that he likes food that has weird flavor combinations.
Last Saturday was officially my last day of school. No more classes. No more quizzes, papers, and tests! Good riddance…at least for now. I’m giving myself a break from school for a year. Get a real job (but still go out eating, of course) and then go through the madness of applications of either law school or grad school. To kind of celebrate this event, I asked several friends to have lunch with me at Taïm.
Seungmi was in the city before the supposed time where all of us should meet, I hanged out with her, browsing through a few stores on Greenwich Avenue. That’s until our old high school friend, Si called me and said she’s here and can’t find her way in West Village since she doesn’t come down here often and she goes to Cornell.
Eventually we all met up and Seungmi’s ranting that she’s starving and threaten to pass out due to the lack of food in her stomach. Since it’s about fifteen minutes ’til everyone’s supposed to meet, we went into Birdbath just to warm ourselves up and Seungmi gets something to nosh on.
Last Wednesday, when most of my finals were pretty much finished, I had breakfast Bouchon Bakery for the very last time. Yes. It’s time for me to give up the days where the photogenic (albeit a tad pricey) pastries are my usual go-to since I’m graduating. What I ended up commemorating this place were their wonderful bacon and cheddar chive scone and a cream cheese, orange marmalade danish.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and your family! I’m going to skip a few posts about places I’ve eaten since it is time-appropriate and it’s one of those rare home baking posts. Ooooh… I can bake.
Notes: In case you haven’t noticed, I’m approximately a week behind what I should be blogging about. Somehow after finishing school, I’m becoming a lazy bum, just procrastinating the inevitable task of writing a post. Anyways, this is a post that’s taken place last Tuesday. If you want to jump to the review of my lunch at Fiamma, click here.
Somehow, I went backwards that I started my afternoon with dessert. A decadent, dense one in fact: a chocolate cheesecake at Birdbath.
The past Saturday Ariel and I went out to brunch at DavidBurke & Donatella. Why in the world would I go to the Upper East Side for brunch? Well, he’s been bugging me about eating there ever since the Momofuku dinner back several weeks ago. I know if his food lovin’ heart is set on something, I have no choice but to tag along and be his dining companion. But then I found out the day before our brunch, he got a cold. And he still wanted to go there! Now, that’s dedication.
Earlier before I had my actual late lunch with Sam (last Thursday) on the previous post, I did have an eye-opener of a dessert tasting at Dessert Studio at Michel Cluizel inside the luxurious bohemian housewares store, ABC Carpet & Home. This particular dessert bar, if you will, is ran by the well known, avant-garde pastry chef, Will Goldfarb, who used to run Room 4 Dessert about a year ago, which I admit I haven’t been to.
Anyways, back to the story. I went there around 1:30 on the awful Thursday afternoon with the cold wind and rain. I just thought of having something sweet or intriguing for the sake of making me happier. Hey, I love sweets; make it interesting and delicious, you got me.
I grabbed a table in this tiny seating space where lights were dim, not many people were here since it is bad outside and I don’t think anyone would want a full blown dessert at this time of the day…besides me. As I waited for the server to arrive, which is basically the same people who help out on the chocolate counter, I just perused the short dessert menu. Just look below.
The past Thursday, when the weather in NYC was atrocious: it rained then changed to sleet, transformed to snow, then back to the pouring of rain. Isn’t Mother Nature great?! Sighs… The good thing was that fact I don’t have classes but I had to study for my finals since they’re starting on Monday (4 finals in a row = mind suicide).
Anyways, ever since I had my previous dinner at Momofuku Ssam with Sam and a bunch of other friends, I never really hanged out or went fooding with him. Since he’s going back to his hometown in Missouri next week and I don’t have time due to the aforementioned finals, I made time from my study schedule and had a late lunch with him at Boqueria.
Over the weekend, I wanted to go brunching for some reason. Maybe because of feeling restless from sitting on my butt in front of my laptop writing papers ENDLESSLY or studying from law textbooks just makes me want to blind myself? Possibly… So, for a few days before Saturday, I’ve contacted my almost dependable fooding friend, Ariel to ask if he wants to have brunch? After exchanging e-mails infrequently that I known practically last minute where and when we’re meeting. Thanks to my iPod Touch’s WiFi capability, I got the message before leaving the city and abandon Ariel.
Anyways, we met on Saturday at 3 at Houston and Broadway and eventually walked over to the Lower East Side. Honestly, we don’t really know where we’re eating. We’re basically roaming around a few places that he had in mind that strikes his fancy. We stopped by some Latin bistro/tapas place somewhere in the LES, but I don’t remember where it was. All I can recall was that it was a pastel pink exterior and the name started with “A.” It didn’t appeal to me at all and eventually Ariel changed his mind and he wanted to go to Stanton Social.
We started to walk on Stanton going east since I don’t wander around the LES that often and depending on Ariel that he knows where he’s going since he said he passed by this place a few times. Once we were on Clinton & Stanton, we stopped and I was thinking out loud, “Wait a minute…This doesn’t seem right. We’re heading toward WD-50.” Ariel thought a minute and said, “We should be going the right way…I think?” Since we’re doubting ourselves, Ariel whipped out his cell phone and called his younger brother and hope that he would actually give him the address. But since his bro didn’t pick up, I just remembered about my iPod! I prayed mentally that I could pick up a WiFi signal. And yes, it worked! I managed to Google: Stanton Social and I got the address. It turned out, as expected, we were heading the wrong direction. We’re supposed to head out east, not west.
Note: If you want to jump to the review of my lunch at Del Posto Enoteca, click here
I’m summarizing my old stuff since it’s not really notable, per se. What I’m referring to were my visit to Macaron Cafe (which you can start viewing photos and my comments on them from here) and a lunch at Balthazar at their bar since there weren’t any tables available when I visited that afternoon (those food photos start here).
Just to sum it up, the macarons from Macaron Cafe were hit-or-miss but it’s really inexpensive. From what was available that morning: cranberry, chocolate, and key lime (which I bought one of each), the best of the three was the key lime but a far cry from Pierre Herme’s heavenly macarons. They’re the size of my palm (about 3 1/2 inches) for $2. It’s the cheapest in the city so far.
