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.
From top left, clockwise: The Breslin, Chef Bloomfield laughing, Interior & RW Menu
I’ve been holding back on going to The Breslin for quite a while. Part of me wanted to go in relatively blindly, as in earlier during the first week of opening, but I want a restaurant to work out their service and possible food kinks before I can reasonably write or say anything. Since it is Restaurant Week, it’s somewhat a good idea to give them a try with my friend, Giulia. So here it goes…
Free from the grips from the GREs, I’ve made plans with my friends Helen and Seungmi to have lunch at Shake Shack. Needless to say, I craved a burger after putting myself into self-exile from my social world. I chose to meet at the Upper West Side location just so we don’t freeze our butts off and our food wouldn’t get cold within a few minutes.
Cheeseburger
I ordered the cheeseburger with everything on top since I needed to save some calories and stomach space for my group dinner at Szechuan Gourmet (I’ll talk about it in the next post) later on that evening. This simple burger was still amazing and I missed it terribly. I never felt happier.
Around the second week when Ruskie is in town, we arranged to have lunch at Casa Mono. Both of us went there before but we’d agree that it would be nice to visit there again since it’s been a while and we did like their food (in our disparate ways).
Baguette & Olives in Olive Oil
The baguette and olives were still the same as I remembered – not too crusty with fluffy crumb and the olives were still briny while the olive oil gave it additional richness. Continue reading “Lunch at Casa Mono – Take 2″ »
Eaten back on September 2nd, 2009. (I’m working on it…)
Dining Room Interior
I have to admit, if I haven’t said it yet, I love Gramercy Tavern. It has the casual, down-home earthiness yet it’s innovative of what one would expect from fancy pants fare. The service is great, as expected from a Danny Meyer institution, and I absolutely love their food. They haven’t steered me wrong from the multiple times I’ve eaten here and ever since Executive Chef Michael Anthony helmed the kitchen.
I went to their dining room for the tasting lunch. Back when I ate here (on September 2nd) and when it was Restaurant Week (about a month or so) not a whole lot changed in terms of the menu, I requested a few changes on the courses.
In case you all didn’t know, New York City’s Restaurant Week (or “weeks” should be the correct nomenclature) started last week (July 12th). The somewhat strange thing with the Danny Meyer owned restaurants, namely Eleven Madison Park, Union Square Cafe, and Gramercy Tavern that they are doing their own version of RW – broke down into one restaurant per week for City Harvest. During that week, Gramercy Tavern was doing RW; this time, I went with Helen.
Partial view of the Dining Room area
Since this was the beginning of lunch service, the dining room isn’t as packed as it would be. It was relatively calm and not too loud.
Bread service
The bread served were the usual suspects – the country bread slices or the olive roll. Both Helen and I chose the olive roll. Probably because I was starving and didn’t eat breakfast, I kept eating the entire thing, knowing that I shouldn’t stuff my stomach with a ton of bread. In any case, it was good. Slightly crusty on the outside and chewy in the inside (a little too chewy for me). The olives weren’t overtly salty and briny, just a touch.
Interior of the Tavern, left, and Exec Chef Michael Anthony
During the week when half of my lab is out to conference in the West Coast, I managed to relax a bit to have lunch at Gramercy Tavern. It also helps with timing, since I have to use their gift certificate that was given out during Restaurant Week in February. Not wanting to bother with spending a whole lot of money and time in the formal portion of the restaurant, I opted to dine at the tavern room.
Oddly enough, I spotted Executive Chef Michael Anthony sitting with another person about for about half of my stay there. The Tavern is still busy as is usually is, with diners, mostly regulars and some visitors, walking past my table and the conversations around are lively. I’m just the odd ball being the solo, quiet diner wanting to be alone with my food and take pictures of it with my large camera. Continue reading “Lunch at the Tavern in Gramercy Tavern” »
I’ve remembered reading from The Feedbag about the insane line that people had to wait in order to get in during Restaurant Week. Well, I became one of those nut jobs except the good part was that the line wasn’t that long (I was the third person/group seated) and yes, I did get some hot cider about three minutes prior to the actual opening. At least it made my insides a bit warm after standing out in the fairly cold weather for 15 minutes. Frankly, I was expecting worse. Continue reading “Dealing with the Crowd During Restaurant Week – Gramercy Tavern” »
If you remember several weeks ago (or several posts ago), I went to Gramercy Tavern with Giulia for Restaurant Week and we received gift certificates for a future lunch. We set a date on when to return and keep perusing their website if the dining room menu changes after RW. But, they didn’t. They kept the same dishes but put in a la carte prices which defeats our purpose of trying out Gramercy Tavern’s full potential. So, we opted for the tavern room and we created our own tasting menu by splitting everything we’re going to order.
The Tavern Room & Bar
The tavern room is casual, handsome, dark wood interior and exposed wooden beams, with the splash of vibrant colors along the top of the walls surrounding this room. It reminds me of an interior of a country home but it’s classier with a touch of funk from the colors. Me like. Continue reading “Our Own Version of the Tasting Menu at Gramercy Tavern” »
