Several weeks ago, I asked my family if they would like to go out eating at Sesonal, the 1* Michelin-rated, Austrian restaurant that’s located in Midtown West. Everyone except my father could attend and we set the date back last Saturday. My reasoning was the fact there aren’t that many restaurants in Manhattan that serves Austrian food (the other place I know of and went to is Cafe Sabarsky in the Neue Galerie located in the Upper East Side) and the menu sounds different and enticing enough that my family is willing to try.
My mother, brother and I perused their lunch menus and settled on the three-course lunch prix fixe since we’re planning to cook a huge dinner at home.
Front interior
Seasonal is handsomely decorated – streamlined and clean lines and curves with several paintings to add some color to the white walls, dark wood tables lined with olive green place mats. The curved bar with a creamy white leather chairs looked comfortable to linger if it was the after-work hours.
The evening of the epic chocolate tour and pastry tasting, HC and I had early dinner reservations to Fogón. My dining plans in Paris were essentially trying to get a taste of everything and I hoped to get my lips around some good, creative Spanish food. Granted, we’re not in Barcelona but it’s close enough compared to New York City.
Before we parted ways from Gilles Marchal, he told me that he knows the co-owner of Fogón, Vanina Herraiz. (Gilles was a former pastry chef at the 2 Michelin-starred restaurant Le Bristol for 8 years before joining La Maison du Chocolat and chefs have their own community and familiar with each others’ work.) Whilst HC and I were relishing on La Maison du Chocolat’s beautiful chocolates and eclairs, Gilles made a bunch of gift bags for us and one specifically for Mrs. Herraiz (Alberto is her husband is the executive chef and co-owner of this establishment, while she develops the dessert menu and manages the front of the house). His instructions were to give this particular bag to her, via the reservationist or waiter, and we should get a cocktail or something.
As a born and bred native New Yorker, I don’t exactly understand the concept of brunch. Brunch to me is basically another way to sneak in more alcohol into your system even though you had your fill of poison the night (or two, if you started on Friday) before and eat somewhat bland food during the late morning to the late afternoon in hopes to get rid of hangover or induce yourself to another drunken stupor. Since I don’t drink that much and I care more about the food, I haven’t encounter brunch food that I truly enjoyed. Until now.
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” »
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″ »
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” »
Originally taken place on July 3, 2009. The first part is from Ssam Bar’s prix fixe lunch (it started with the beef tendon dish).
I didn’t have the intention of stuffing my face with a ton of Momofuku food that day…
Burnt honey + mustard croissant?!
But Seungmi was hungry and wanted something to eat. I was presuming Helen was coming downtown from work and Seungmi never went to any of the Momofuku places, I might as well introduce her to the “lighter” fare of Momofuku Milk Bar & Bakery“>Milk Bar. When I looked up at the chalkboard, near the register, I noticed they might be selling a burnt honey and mustard croissant. Sounds tasty…
Seungmi’s first Volcano (or anything from Milk Bar)
Seungmi ordered the Volcano. Yes, that large pastry puck of potato puree and Benton’s cheese. I told her it would be tastier if she added some sriracha sauce to add some interesting dimension to this dense, sorta one-noted savory pastry. She agreed it tasted better. She’s happy and pretty stuffed that she saved the uneaten remnants for Helen. Continue reading “Epic Eating – Momofuku Milk Bar, Everyman Espresso, Bouchon Bakery, and Gus & Gabriel” »
Apologies for the almost non-existence of me blogging. It’s been hectic for the past month with my mom’s health went on limbo; going back and forth from home to the hospital. She’s fine for the time being and at home. As for me, I haven’t been eating out a whole lot because of my mom and been living off of lots of coffee but still tired despite being caffeinated. Buh. I can’t win. Anyhoo, here’s where I’ve been to whilst I have a few hours to myself during the month of March.
Discovery of Soup Dumplings in the Upper East Side
For a very long time, like during mid-winter, I’ve been craving for soup dumplings. Why? Well, because I never had one but seen a vast amount of soup dumpling food porn from Robyn‘s Flickr photostream are feeding the fire. I’ve read somewhere on Chowhound that there were restaurants that serve soup dumplings! So, I had to make arrangements to eat out with a few people so I’ve brought along my co-workers, Mary and Liz to join me for lunch at Shanghai Pavillion. (It’s not a typo, it’s how they spelled “pavilion” it.)
Interior and my friends
Stepping in from the chilly, windy streets of the Upper East Side, we settled in our seats to an upscale Chinese restaurant filled with mostly non-Asian diners. Not unusual but I was hoping there would be some besides myself and Mary. Continue reading “Summary of Meals During The Month of March” »
Two Fridays ago, I’ve arranged a small dinner with Robyn, Jess, and her roommate, Jen to Picholine‘s bar/lounge. Why? It’s because I’m intrigued by their menu, it’s relatively affordable compared to their main dining room’s menu and we’re not dying of starvation. Continue reading “A Brief Dinner at Picholine” »
After much delay due to odd circumstances and events in my life, I finally made it to Babbo! After hauling my butt from Tailor (as you read from the previous post) with Helen in tow, I’ve rushed over to Giulia and Robyn finding out the status of our endangered table. What happened during the time I was finishing up the pre-dinner at Tailor, Giulia called and left me with an urgent voicemail indicating that the maître d’ will let our table go since the full group didn’t show at the reserved time. When I spoke to her, she said I have to deal with the stubborn man and demands me to get the table stat, since she’s starving. Continue reading “Babbo (Finally)!” »
