Two For The Table : NYC 2012 : Friday

Friday, October 5, 2012

Friday morning the sun was shining! While the clouds and drizzle had not dampened our spirits, it was nice to see the clear blue sky.

We usually have lunch and dinner reservations for every day we're in New York, but it's not unusual for us to make changes, particularly towards the end of the week. Today we had planned Katz's Deli for lunch, but shifted gears and walked to 27th between Park and Lexington for lunch at Danny Meyer's Blue Smoke.

Danny Meyer was born and raised in St. Louis and attended John Burroughs. In 1985, at the age of 27, he began his career as a New York restaurateur by opening Union Square Café. As they say, the rest is history; Danny has created a restaurant empire in the Big Apple.

We've met Danny a number of times and he's a genuinely nice guy. He's partial to diners who visit from his hometown and it helps to get a reservation if you mention you're from St. Louis.

Blue Smoke is a warm and fuzzy BBQ place in the heart of Manhattan. They serve comfort food in a comfort setting. And after dining all week at various high end venues, comfort food hit the spot.

On this sunny October afternoon, we took a table at the front window. No wine at this meal; we each had a pint of Blue Smoke Original Ale.

We knew the menu and it didn't take us long to order — a full slab of Memphis baby back ribs with "magic dust" and original sauce, sweet potato wedge fries with maple dip, and roasted Brussels sprouts.

The following picture is worth a thousand words — and many more calories. But those calories were perfect calories.

After lunch, we walked west to another of Danny Meyer's fine eating establishments — Shake Shack.

Shake Shack is patterned after two of Danny's favorite St. Louis eating haunts — Ted Drewes and Steak & Shake. They serve burgers, fries, hot dogs, frozen custard, concretes, beer, wine and more. The Madison Square Park location was so successful that Danny EXPANDED. He now has eight Shake Shack locations in the New York area, seven throughout the eastern United States, and two in the middle east.

I persuaded Marlene to share a concrete. Unfortunately, the line (as usual) was much too long and we moved on. It's amazing how long people will wait in line for a burger and a shake.

From Danny Meyerland we walked a few short blocks to Mario Bataliland — Eataly.

Eataly is Mario Batali's fantasyland of food. You can order from the sandwich bar, the pasta bar, the ice cream bar, the coffee bar, the pastry bar, the chocolate bar, the wine bar and various other bars — and then eat elbow to elbow with hundreds of others. Or you can buy and take home virtually any prepared food or food to prepare you can think of. It's Whole Foods on steroids.

Since we had just eaten and we were not at home, we left empty handed.

We headed back to the apartment to recharge and then took a taxi to Barrow Street in the West Village to see "Tribes" at the Barrow Street Theatre.

It was a small theatre, setup in the round, and there were times throughout the two-act play when I could have reached out and touched the actors from our front row seats. I didn't. And they didn't touch us. The playwright tried too hard with too many metaphors, we were not drawn to any of the characters, and the acting was just OK. We know others who liked the play and it received good reviews, so I wouldn't advise not seeing it. But we were both underwhelmed.

Marlene's map skills were greatly improved on this evening. From the theatre, we walked half a block on Barrow Street to our dinner reservation at Annisa.

This was the third time we had dined at Annisa. Their website states that "award-winning chef Anita Lo offers first-class cuisine and service in an intimate, sophisticated setting. The restaurant features Chef Lo's inventive contemporary American cuisine [which combines] flavors inspired by her Asian roots, her travels, and seasonal influences with her classic French technique." That pretty much sums it up.

We've ordered the tasting menu in the past, but it was too late for that on this occasion. So after ordering a delicious bottle of wine recommend by our delightful server Simone (Gigondas – Domaine du Gour de Chaulé 2007), we ordered first and second courses, also recommended by Simone.

Marlene started with the artichoke gnocco with lemon confit and I ordered the barbecued squid with thai basil and fresh peanuts. The gnocco was good. The squid was fantastic.

For seconds, Marlene ordered Long Island duck breast with layered confit/potato and I ordered
grilled Wagyu with escargots, garlic chives and Alba mushrooms. Both dishes were fantastic.

Simone told us Long Island ducks was so large breasted they couldn't fly. (Marlene told her she knew women with a similar affliction.) In any event, the duck breast was melt-in-your-mouth tender and the confit/potato combination was perfect.

Wagyu beef is akin to Kobe beef. It was appropriately prepared rare, and the combination of tender rare meat, escargot, garlic and sauce was spectacular.

We were satiated and satisfied, but . . . I had seen a particular dessert come out a number of times and I couldn't resist. So we ordered the pecan and salted butterscotch beignets with bourbon milk ice to "sample." But Simone decided to punish us and she also sent out the poppy seed bread and butter pudding with Meyer lemon curd. We did much more than sample!

It was a perfect meal with perfect service, and we were now MORE than satiated and satisfied.

Saturday, October 6, 2012