It’s been three years since I ate at Del Posto. Back then, it was still considered an ambitious restaurant with its grand space with an enoteca, a sort of bar/lounge space that’s considered the casual portion of the restaurant, co-owned by superstar chefs Mario Batali, Lidia Bastianich, and her son, Joseph Bastianich. In winter 2009, Del Posto renovated the space to get rid of the enoteca and make it as luxurious as the dining room itself with a greater ambition to get the coveted 4-star rating from the NY Times.
Since then, I haven’t been to Del Posto as my eyes (and stomach) shifted to other places I haven’t eaten yet. A good friend of mine, Dr. Y has expressed interest to eat here before he leaves New York City back to his home state of sunny California in a few months.
Interior
As we entered the sumptuous lobby, the host greeted us and took us directly to our table. Sitting down on the plush cushioned banquette, I looked at the entire dining room: dark mahogany wood contrasted with lemon yellow walls and touches of marble. Heavy drapes on the windows to hide the bright afternoon sun on a hot July day. Carpeted floors to hush the footsteps of servers and diners as they walk on by.
Hearing good things about Maialino, I cannot help but make a reservation during Restaurant Week when I found out they are participating. It’s inexpensive compared to what one would pay for lunch, as most of their pastas hover in the upper teens, as the main courses are in the twenty dollar range. And it’s run by Danny Meyer’s restaurant group, generally speaking over my many years of eating out, a bad experience is rarely encountered. I’ve asked three friends to join me and we’re all hungry, anticipating greatness as to what Chef Anderer’s kitchen has in store.
Views of the dining room
Entering the dark lobby of the Gramercy Park Hotel yet as I’m into the bar area, the bar and dining area are bright and rustic with dark walnut wood. It feels pretty cozy.
I went to SD26 last Friday with Helen and Seungmi in tow for Restaurant Week. Part of the allure was the fact that this is the reincarnation of the old San Domenico (think refined and genteel) that went downtown hip.
Top left, clockwise: Kitchen view, Salumi area, and Interior
Entering the restaurant from the windy, bitter cold, we’re greeted by the hostess and saw the automated wine dispensers, something that reminds me of Clo Wine Bar in the Time Warner Building in the Upper West Side.
When we entered the dining room, it’s minimalist in design: a huge bar before one enters the dining room; the dining room done in neutral beige walls with high ceilings, while the private booth areas were in painted in a bold red, the open kitchen, and a salumi area which stank from the opened wheels Parmigiano-Reggiano. The odd things were the fabric art objects that hung along the back wall, close to where my table was. Seungmi called them “pumpkins” – colorful, fuzzy pumpkins, in my opinion. (I don’t have a photo of them because I have a bad angle from where I was sitting.)
Place setting and RW menu
Perusing through the Restaurant Week menu, we pretty much agreed on the same appetizers and went almost our own way through the meal.
Back when Motorino (the East Village location) started to serve lunch, I asked Giulia if we can meet up and try the pizza that everyone was talking about. I missed out on the opening week when dinner was served. But then again, I’d rather stick with the serene atmosphere that isn’t crushed by a ton of people who eat there after work and give the pizzeria some time to work out their kinks – service or the expensive brick oven that’s left behind from the former Una Pizza Napoletana.
Mixed salad
We decided on sharing the $12 lunch prix fixe and added an extra pizza, getting some healthy greens, the mixed salad to balance out the carbs from the pizza we’re about to consume. A large pile of fresh, tender leafy greens lightly dressed in vinaigrette was quite welcoming for us. Continue reading “Glorious Pizza Lunch at Motorino, East Village” »
To those of you who are really waiting on my Hong Kong/China vacation posts, please do be patient. I’m trying to post up the Restaurant Week stuff before it’s irrelevant to read (like the Gramercy Tavern post I did previously; they’re not participating RW now).
Last Thursday, I’ve arranged lunch with Mary to Alto for Restaurant Week. The two reasons why I want to go to Alto are: 1.) I want to see Mary. It’s been too long since we’ve eaten out. 2.) Curious about their food yet not willing to fork my a large chunk of my money on a non-RW time.
Interior
As we trudged our way over from the Upper East Side to Midtown and walked right through their small outdoor dining space into a similarly narrow lounge area where the maître d’ was located. After checking in, we’ve been escorted down to the dining room – narrow, lined with plushly banquettes and neutral-colored walled, and for the other half of the room, wine bottles are filled from floor to ceiling. Patrons here are mostly business lunchers.
Bread service
The bread served here are pretty good. We have a choice of foccacia, olive roll, and a regular white roll. I chose the olive roll and Mary gotten herself foccacia. The bread was served warm, the texture was good and the flavors were balanced, though my olive roll was a bit more saltier than the one I had in Gramercy Tavern last week. The olive oil provided was fruity and viscous, nice to dip with the bread. Continue reading “Restaurant Week at Alto” »
Probably you’ve read enough food blog posts about Porchetta that your sick about reading it. Well, I’m one of those pesky bloggers who would jump ship to try something relatively new. I’m not saying I’m trying everything new for the sake of being “hip” but more of the idea of loving to get my hands on an awesome sandwich. What made me travel all the way down to East Village from the Upper East Side was for the love of pooorrk. Don’t you know I love pork fat (or any animal fat)? Continue reading “Another Porchetta Review (and a dessert suggestion)” »
Late yesterday afternoon, I went over to Il Buco‘s “Sagra del Maiale” in hopes to get my hands on a piece of the 200 lb Ossabaw pig that’s slowly roasted between two large iron griddles with wood fire above and below. Alas, I came in late at 5 PM that all that remains is its head and hooves. Damn. Continue reading “Il Buco’s "Sagra del Maiale"” »
Lately, I’ve been on a run with eating out with new stomachs people recently, which is refreshing since Helen can’t join me because she’s all the way up at Columbia University for her rotation (in other words, internship for her pharmacy program). Robyn and Kathy are busy with work. So I met another reader, Drew, for lunch at Otto.
Prior to meeting up with Drew, we exchanged emails in terms of what he’s interested in trying. I found out he never ate gelato before. NEVER ate gelato?! That’s…sad. Since we’re here, this is the perfect spot to try out the best one, in my opinion for fabulous gelato.
The past week, I took one of those luxurious lunch hours and went to Mia Dona. Why would I pick this place? Well, given to the fact that there’s been quite a bit of press from Alan Richman’s GQ blog, Ed Levine written a little post about it, and NY Magazine has a video about the food – all seem very positive and enticing that I thought to myself to go there and try it out.
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.
