Orsay: Upper East Side

I need to stop going out to eat during Restaurant Week. I went to Orsay and decided to order off the regular menu instead of the prix fixe for Restaurant Week. $$$$! But I was having a weird day and I wasn’t in the mood for the items on their restaurant week menu. So… yeah. $$$$.

First picture: butter covers. Love that extra touch! Also love the orange because the whole restaurant is drably colored and then POP orange butter cover. I liked it. I also liked this:

For some reason I thought I deserved a $14 cocktail: Strawberry Fizz. Strawberry puree, vodka, champagne… something else? Something good. It did NOT go with the rest of my meal whatsoever but it’s what I wanted! I tell ya – this week has been weird so I was being weird myself.

This is Lisa, making another cameo on City Mitten, and this is also the healthiest-looking plate I have ever seen come out in a restaurant. And I have never seen salmon in such a perfectly round shape.

Me, I wanted some mashed potatoes. Yes, chicken and mashed potatoes is not an original dish but you know… There was a chicken on the Restaurant Week menu with mushroom sauce and noodles and I didn’t want that. Also I didn’t want either of the desserts on that menu – a lemon tart or ice cream. So this is what I got. I also had clam chowder which was good and came with a little puff pastry in the center. I love clam chowder. Aaand I took half of this chicken and mashed potatoes home to make up for it.

So yeah. I gotta stop doing Restaurant Week. Except not really because I have reservations next week for Colicchio and Sons Tap Room as well as Gotham Bar and Grill – because that is my favorite nice restaurant ever and they have the best chocolate cake!

This week I also went to Frank restaurant and had my camera but no memory card for the 15 millionth time.

OH – One final thing about my Orsay experience. The Upper East Side… is cray cray. I have been spoiled with my B and Q trains and sometimes the C/E because I forgot how INSANE the 4/5/6 is. That Second Ave subway line needs to get here fast because I was being trampled and trampling others at the same time and I thought WHERE IS THE ALLURE to living on the Upper East Side? Seriously. Unless you have a driver. But I still wouldn’t want to live there.

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5 Napkin Burger

I apologize, but you’re going to gain one hundred pounds just reading this entry. To justify myself, this was the only meal I went out for this past weekend. So I might as well make it count, right?

5 Napkin Burger has for some reason been on my list of restaurants to try for awhile. It reminded me a LOT of BLT Burger, but they had their milkshakes listed on the dessert menu only, which I thought was a big mistake because I would have had a shake WITH my burger (split with KP, of course). Speaking of – we split this mac and their 5 Napkin burger that comes with melty cheese and onions. I’m sparing you the picture, actually.

SO the mac and cheese was good, if a bit on the soupy side (get your act together, NYC restaurants!) It had a bit of an alfredo flavor, not gonna lie. But I love macaroni and cheese made with shell noodles, probably cause my mom makes this awesome pasta dish with elbow noodles that I love.

AND since it was the Upper West Side at approximately 4p.m. they must have assumed we were having dinner like the rest of the families with small children present, because they handed us a dessert menu and Chloe, KP, and I did not resist:

Chocolate brownie, espresso ice cream, salted peanuts. I told you I made it count.

The other thing I liked about 5 Napkin Burger is first, the walls are subway tiles, and secondly they had two really cool chalkboards covered in cartoons. You can sorta see in this picture:

So I would say go to 5 Napkin if you’re in the hood, but I think I still prefer BLT.

Also: today I’m eating a salad. Maybe.

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Franny’s: Park Slope

This is depressing. A certain friend of mine is texting me pictures of him and another certain friend of mine hanging out together in LA. I’m posting pictures of spaghetti.

At least it’s good spaghetti. Franny’s in Brooklyn is the real deal and *so* Brooklyn. It was on Martha Stewart’s Brooklyn episode actually. Menu that’s constantly changing with what is available and in season, everything sustainable, something about renewable energy, cows butchered right in the back… okay maybe not that last one, but they do have a butcher shop somewhere I believe?

Like I said, it’s the real deal. And the spaghetti with meyer lemon was insane. I think it involved lots of butter, which was awesome. Also, this pizza:

It was a white pizza, which means no tomato sauce. I wonder if my sister Emily would be down for that since she’s not into the red sauce so much. What was on this pizza? Prosciutto? I think maybe. Whatever it was you probably can’t get it anymore, but you can probably get something similar. I want to go back here on a date. Don’t I say that about most places? Is that bad? Like, “Hey friend, this is fun and everything but I’d rather be here on a date”?

Anyway, to my friends having a blast and a half on the beach and places with palm trees and fancy clubs: I could kill you.

I need to go to LA this year. And PDX. And Chicago. When is this gonna happen? How about that pizza?

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Dessert at Blue Smoke

Yeah yeah, so I’ve talked about desserts at Blue Smoke before… but that was banana cream pie! This is different!

So… Kelly and I went to dinner with D at Blue Smoke last night. Of course we had lots meat to begin with and I’m realizing I actually don’t eat a lot of red meat usually. I ordered the brisket and when I got my plate I was thought, “Woah, that’s a lot of meat.” Which is good, because I’m not too good or too cool for leftovers.

But for dessert we got chocolate cake and apple crisp. My advice to you would be to get the apple crisp or the banana cream pie that I had last time. Good stuff.

I don’t really have anything else exciting to say about this night except that at one point D got up and did mini jumping jacks because it went along with his story. And the service was spectacular.

Aaaand here’s me and Kelly Purkey because she is ALWAYS ALWAYS my partner in crime:

Also, I am THRILLED it’s about to be the weekend. CAN I GET A WITNESS.

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The John Dory Oyster Bar

So the Ace Hotel is kind of awesome. First is the hotel by itself, with a super sweet lobby, and then there’s Stumptown, and then there’s The Breslin and then finally, finally is the new John Dory Oyster Bar.

It’s definitely a bar, you’ll be sitting on bar stools at the counter at the windows (like we were) or on bar stools at a tiny round table. Their raw bar presentation itself is pretty neato, and I wish we were seated over there. But instead we got to watch the random strangers go by outside.

So oysters are $3/pop, doesn’t matter what kind you get. We got Mermaid Cove and Royal Miyagi, which are both good stuff. After that we got some small plates:

This is the oyster pan roast with the uni crostini on the left. I wasn’t sure what an oyster roast was going to be, it was a creamy soup and Kelly and I were actually confusing it with the clam chowder we also got, both were very good but they were kind of similar. To the right are the Parker House rolls which were A-mazing. Best rolls ever. We almost stole some from the plate of the people next to us, but our mammas raised us better than that. We also had mussels stuffed with mortadella which was kind of like a meatball inside the mussel, also very nice.

The only thing that wasn’t so nice was the dessert:

On the left – Honeycrisp tart with almonds and creme fraiche (meh) and on the right – chocolate pot with whiskey cream and oatmeal cookie. Well I don’t care about oatmeal cookies to begin with but this one was hard as rock aaaaand the chocolate pot was very similar to a certain dessert I often have elsewhere. Interestiiiing.

ALSO – I feel like there’s been a lot of hype about The John Dory but we went around 7/7:30 on a Saturday night and were seated immediately, which was awesome. So here’s the scoop: I really like The John Dory and I like everything The Ace Hotel does, pretty much as a rule. So I would definitely go back to The John Dory when I’ve got money to burn, or when I’m with my momma cause I think she’d really like those rolls. Kelly and I sure did!

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Patsy’s Pizza

Well, folks. It is Monday! Martin Luther King, JR day and I am at the office, how about you?

This is Kelly going all Pacman at Patsy’s Pizza. She’s probably going to love this picture so much she’ll use it for her Valentine’s Day cards.

Patsy’s Pizza is pretty popular and there are quite a few locations, so it’s interesting that I had never been until the other night when we visited the UWS location. This was actually right after I met good ol’ Johnny Weir.

Patsy’s is pretty good. We got pepperoni and sausage pizza and a caprice salad because you know, we needed some more cheese. The next day I heated up some Patsy’s in the office kitchen for my lunch and had two huge slices on my plate when some Salad Girls walked in. That was awesome. Sometimes you just need some pizza!

What’s the best thing YOU ate this weekend?

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Al Di La: Park Slope

Guess it’s time to go back to restaurant talk! Last week I went to dinner with my fabulous friend Mara in Park Slope at Al Di La. It is just adorable and there’s a really nice chandelier, and you know those fascinate me. And the house wine is pretty dang good, which I know because Mara works in the wine industry so for her to say that means it’s really legit! We had some. Of course. And we shared entrees. Mara got the braised rabbit with polenta and I got the duck. Both were good but I would recommend the rabbit, although I’m pretty sure you actually couldn’t do any wrong here.

This is the swiss chard and ricotta gnocchi which was A-mazing.

And then for dessert we had some chocolate ice cream thing with hazelnuts and whipped cream which was also A-mazing.

Yep. We went big at Al Di La! They also have a little wine bar next door if you can’t get a table at the Trattoria. I highly, highly recommend going here. Their website may be the worst website in the history of the world, ever, but apparently it’s not stopping them from getting any business – so hey!

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Johnny Weir, My New Bestie

Oh ma gawsh. I had quite the experience yesterday meeting Johnny G. Weir at the Borders in Columbus Circle.

First of all: this was my first book signing I’ve ever been to EVER and I’m not sure if this is just the way things are done at Borders in general or just Johnny Weir specifically, but he couldn’t personalize the signings and we weren’t allowed to take pictures with him. So I was PEESED. I mean, I went so I could A) meet Johnny B) Get a picture with Johnny and C) Get Johnny to write something in Russian for my sister. BUT IT WAS NOT ALLOWED!

I got to the book signing an hour and a half early cause, as I said, it was my first book signing experience and I wasn’t sure if there’d be a cutoff or anything. Well LET ME TELL YOU, us people who got there early were the fools. Because they rushed you like crazy and the people at the end got to take their sweet old time. BUT I did get to talk to Johnny about A) The Olympics B) Him and Sasha Cohen being my favorite figure skaters and C) My little sister moving to Russia. He even told me, “Tell Alexandra I said good luck.” DONE!

Look at how cute he is! Him and his little posse. I love it.

ANYWAY let me tell you how that top photo came to be because I am so proud of myself for it. Soooo… since the signing flew by, I decided to stick around and see if I could get a picture with him when it was all done. So I waited. And waited. And people left. And I waited. There was about a dozen of us waiting on the side while he signed some last copies and TOOK PICTURES WITH BORDERS STAFF. I could have killed them. We weren’t allowed to take pictures with him and there they were snapping pictures away right in front of this. Like I get that’s your perk for working at the Borders in Columbus Circle but have some TACT.

ANYWAY so we were standing there and Johnny answered some questions for some interviewer and then he walked in the opposite direction of us and started putting on his coat and his entourage started walking in the opposite direction of us too. So I’m thinking, “Oh no, oh no.” And all of a sudden I just go, “JOHNNYYYYYY!” and he looks over at me and I wave and I go, “Will you come over here, pleaaaaaaase?” And he walked right up to me and I asked him if we could take a picture and VIOLA!

Of course after I got him over to our side and took a picture with him, the other people around me started asking for one too and as I left I go, “You’re welcome, everybody.” Because seriously. Sometimes if you want something, all you gotta do is ask. :)

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Brunch at Freemans

You know when you see a face and it just makes you smile? Well this is my love letter to you, Kelly Purkey, because when I was just going through my pictures and came to this one that is what happened to me. Love this girl.

Saturday we had a date day that started with brunch at Freemans, followed by some scrapbook action, followed by nap time, followed by Shake Shack in Times Square and then Blue Valentine. As you can imagine, we ended on a high note with that movie. A high, depressing note that makes us reevaluate what kind of relationships we want to be in (if any). Outside of each other, I mean. ;)

This is the fall vegetable hash. I love hash for brunch. Some veggies, some potato, and some egg. Mmm mmm mm. And did I know that I was into brussels sprouts? No, but now I do. So that was fab. And it was only $10 making it officially the cheapest brunch I’ve ever had with Kelly Purkey, except for the one time it was free (we got the hookup sometimes, we do).

And here is KP again. You may think she’s thinking, “What the what?” but she actually knows exactly what’s going on here.

Another fun fact: I love Freemans and the only other time I’ve been was for dinner on a then-very-promising first date. Oh, how we (re: me) get excited about things and they crumble so fast. Ah well. Thought that would be an interesting fun fact for you. So Freemans is good for any date, but they’re especially good for dates with Kelly Purkey.

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Lamb Burgers at The Breslin

If you’re a Michigan State Spartan, as I am, The Breslin means something very specific to you: basketball. But in New York City, it’s a newish restaurant in the Ace Hotel that everyone has been talking about. And so we meet the lamb burger.

Above is Nora who came to town for New Year’s Eve. We started with a seafood sausage which is whaaat seafood made into sausage. I don’t even remember all the seafood involved, definitely some lobster but it was phe-nom-e-nal. You must try it. Sounds strange, yes, but SO GOOD.

And here is the lamb burger which is so good it is now tied for favorite burger ever with The Spotted Pig. This burger is lamb (duh) and there’s a block of feta on it which is AWESOME. I always order my burgers plain, no cheese, but feta is the exception as feta can do no wrong. So there’s that.

For dessert we had the doughnuts which were warm and covered in sugar. The sauces were sea salt caramel (I think), maple, and something cranberry. The caramel was the best, naturally. While eating this I thought I really need to take my mom there.

So The Breslin is cute, it’s kind of decorated like the Spotted Pig now that I think about it. But the Ace Hotel is trendy, trendy and there’s usually a wait, ours was only 20 minutes on a Thursday night – so not too bad.

So yes, I would definitely recommend The Breslin to anyone – Spartan or not.

Also, a sidenote – I think it’s funny when people complain about limited menus. The Breslin doesn’t have a lot of entree options but I personally think that’s one of it’s strengths. What’s wrong with just focusing on some really great dishes and who needs a thousand choices anyway? So I dig it.

Another sidenote – my rent just went up crazy huge this week (16%!) so yay for that! I may have to resort to eating cereal for dinner a few nights a week because I am not ready to move out yet. Moving sucks! Am I right or am I right?

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