I had a dinner a couple of nights ago in NYC that cost $168 per person for a prix fixe meal at Nougatine. It was bad. And even though I don’t use Yelp anymore, I thought I’d go back and write this one up. You can read about it here.
Food
That was my lunch outside yesterday at Table 31 in Philadelphia. You know you’re in the big city when a plate of tomatoes and mozzarella costs $16. (For that price I was thinking that it would have been nice if they had fed it to me bite-by-bite.)
That picture is completely unretouched, by the way. I took it with my iPhone…and wham! Maybe it was the glare off the Comcast building at noon that did it, but that picture is how it was.
My buddy, Big Dog, is the King of the Grill. That dude grilled a giant grill’s worth of delicious Angus prime steaks for a party at his house this past weekend. He really knows how to put on a shindig. Outstanding!
“Find us a place to have dinner.”
That was my text to Matt yesterday afternoon. He’s been back at NYU for a few days. He texted me back a few minutes later: “I have a place for us.”
That place was ABC Kitchen. It was fabulous.
Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s restaurant at 35 E. 18th in the Flatiron District is an instant favorite. If I lived in NYC, I’d go there several times a week.
Here’s what the NYT review says (they also have great pictures of the place):
The notion of the place is haute organic and Hamptons sustainable. The restaurant is airy and open and relaxed the way the second homes of the wealthy often are, with LED-style lighting over warm floors. Ingredients for the cooking, as a position paper on the back of the chic cardboard menu declares, are “consciously sourced.” The breadbaskets were “handcrafted by the indigenous Mapuche people of Patagonia.”
The words tumble out like refrigerator magnets onto the table. Everything here is: Fair trade! Globally artistic! Reclaimed and recycled! Soy-based! Post-consumer fiber!
Matt said his burger was the best he’s ever had. I had the lobster. It was out-of-this-world good. We also had appetizers — I had the heirloom tomatoes and mozzarella…with jalepenos. Matt had the meat and cheese place. We were happy boys.
Ate dinner Friday night at Ai, a fabulous sushi restuarant in Chicago. I felt like having something different. I got it. Poisonous fish.
That’s a picture of fugu, a Japanese puffer fish, the second-most poisonous vertebrate in the world. The restaurant had a sushi chef in from Japan who is one of the very few in the U.S. who can legally prepare fugu. When done right, the fish gives you a little buzz on your upper lip. When done wrong, you die.
I took the chance. Ate fugu. And lived. Can running with the bulls be far behind?
