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My mother and I were spending a lovely day together and when lunchtime came, we found this listing recommended on her Iphone on Yelp. Yes, that’s right. Mom is more technologically hip than I. Well, it came in handy for both of us when it pointed us toward this large, bright, open space with a menu that invited trying new things. I was hoping to find a current menu on their website so that I could give more precise descriptions of these unusual ingredients, but it looks to be an outdated version. I will do the best I can. The business lunch is a fair price for an upscale, 4 star restaurant and it included three courses. I started with a soup made from parsnip, mushrooms, (I think they were chanterelles but I’m not sure) thyme, (which added a warm, earthy undertone that I loved and initially mistook for rosemary) and honeycrisp apples. It was really excellent. Creamy- but not too rich and filling. Each flavor stood on it’s own but complemented the others. The presentation was lovely, in a whimsical, lopsided bowl. My mother had the autumn squash soup which was also superb. The lovely foam on top was anisette flavor- but it was so subtle that it didn’t disturb me at all. Maybe this taste is actually growing on me after many years of loathing it. With our soups we had some grainy rolls and sourdough with a cauliflower and curry spread. My mother really liked the spread, but I only appreciated the consistency of it. The bland flavor wasn’t appealing to me at all,  and I couldn’t detect the curry. For my entree I ordered the scallops which came atop a bed of salsilfy that was soaked in red wine (it looked like beets, but had a more crunchy, fibrous texture to it) and some awesome shredded brussels sprouts. The presentation of my entree was so beautiful with crunchy fried strips of yucca (?) on top and a red wine reduction in dots around the plate. The scallops were super fresh and perfectly seared, but slightly over-salted.  For dessert, I had the pumpkin pie with spice cake and pear sorbet. Although it was plated beautifully, my eyes enjoyed eating it more than my palate. The pumpkin part was a wonderful flavor, but no one wants creamy pumpkin jello and it was that springy. The cake underneath was spicy and moist, but I wanted a little sweetness to contrast the savory pumpkin and it was no where to be found. The pear sorbet on the other hand, was fantastic. My mother had rice pudding with fruit and an apple cider sauce. Also, not my favorite dessert, but it was creative, pretty and very seasonally appropriate. Overall, there was so much on the menu that I wanted to taste that I would definitely consider going back. I love that they clearly know what is good at the farmer’s market and showcase the best produce they can find. 

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The coolest thing about Burger Joint is that it’s tucked away inside of the opulent Le Parker Meridian Hotel. You feel like you know about a wonderful insider’s secret when you see the little neon burger hanging behind a hallway of dark velvet curtains and step inside. This tiny burger den looks like it could be found in the back of a bar in random small-town USA, but nope, here it is in a fancy NYC hotel lobby. The walls are covered in the scrawl of teenagers and tourists alike, and it was really surprising to see a sign urging patrons to stop doing so. Really? The wood paneling is so far gone, it looks like it’s meant to be written on.
After waiting in a short line (which, as we saw can sometimes get quite long) we placed our order and scored a couple of seats. I had a cheeseburger with the works (lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, mayo, ketchup and mustard) and shared mediocre fries. I also had a taste of my dad’s chocolate milkshake which was frosty and creamy, but a little bit icy. The burger was a complete mess, but a very tasty one. I wouldn’t rank it higher than my favs: (J.G. Melon, Shake Shack and Dumont Burger) but definitely better than average. The hole-in-the-wall atmosphere actually enhanced the overall experience and I would love to go back to bring someone else who likes hidden finds there.

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Today is the third rain, raw, chilly day in a row and I am pretty happy to have no reason to leave my cozy apartment. I walked the dog this morning and am working from home this afternoon/evening. I’ve also logged 15 miles in the past 3 days running-wise, so I really don’t feel guilty about hunkering down and ordering in.
Hale & Hearty is a NYC chain that actually makes pretty good soup. I’ve tried a bunch of different flavors over the years, but have a new favorite as of today! I ordered the chicken and corn bisque with sourdough and it was really the perfect lunch for a dreary day. The velvety chowder was loaded with fresh kernels of corn and shreds of white meat chicken. Creamy but not heavy, with a touch of tomato and parsley. The sourdough is fresh and moist, but not quite as sour as it should be. It really tastes more like Italian or white to me. Either way, it’s tasty and very useful for sopping up soup. Since they have a $7 minimum for delivery, I also ordered a small veggie soup with a piece of seven grain bread. All this for $11 including tip! Great deal for 2 meals! (p.s. other favorite flavors are broccoli/cheddar, Senagalese chicken with peanut, and clam chowder. I am not a fan of the chicken noodle soup, it’s way too salty and there’s too much ‘stuff’ and not enough broth)

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I have a very suggestible appetite. This morning, one of my friends had a Facebook status update about simmering meatballs in spaghetti sauce all day and it sparked an insatiable craving in me. This was at 10am. At noon I went for a 4.5 mile run and it was pretty much all I could think about the whole time. MmmMMM pasta and meatballs on a chilly autumn day. I ran pretty fast in order to get home in time to order delivery and chow down before my first voice student was due to arrive.
I chose Abitino’s to try because it had some great reviews online and was priced very reasonably. Less than $20 total for a lovely green salad, a roll, and a huge portion (that will feed me for 2 or 3 meals) of ziti, marinara sauce and about 6 big meatballs. This is not your run of the mill average pizza shop trying to make decent Italian food. I was SO pleasantly surprised, especially since the expectations my all-day-craving had could easily have set me up for disappointment. The salad was made with romaine, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions and olives with a great light Italian dressing on the side. Yay! No useless iceberg here! The huge roll was also excellent! Fluffy, buttery, chewy, fresh and light. I’m guessing that they actually make their own rolls there instead of ordering from their distributor…Very nice touch. The meatballs themselves were very impressive. Very flavorful, not too dense, not too salty, not too breadcrumby. Just the way I like them. The pasta was not overcooked as it often is from similar restaurants, and the food all arrived steamy and piping hot. Overall, this lunch was a complete success…and I’m excited to eat the rest of it for dinner.

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How sad is it that I’m eating a pretty awful Lean Cuisine microwaved pizza for dinner as I’m writing about my amazing lunch at Mario Batali’s casual restaurant, Otto? So sad I could almost cry about it. The food was so incredible that not once did I find my mind wandering to Mario’s horrible trademark orange Crocs and gnarly hair!
My dear friend had been raving about this restaurant for months and I finally had the chance to join her there for lunch today. She affectionately calls it her second home and now I totally understand why she’d want to return twice or more per week. It really is a great choice for dining alone; with friends, with clients or even with a large group. There are so many wonderful dishes that are perfect for sharing that I bet it’s really great to go with a party of 4-6. They also have a ridiculously long wine list that would impress the most selective connoisseur.
I let C choose for us since she has tried pretty much everything they offer. There was SO much on the menu that I wanted to eat. I think I may require at least few more visits for the meats, the pasta and the pizzas…not to mention the myriad flavors of gelato. The bread that came out right away was crusty and chewy and moist and ooooohhhhhhh. Yes, please. We shared 3 unbelievable cheese selections that were served with OMG the most outstanding dipping sauces. I wanted a straw. Or an I.V. catheter. Honey with truffles, brandied cherries and apricots. WOW. As if melty, creamy, velvety cheeses even need a dip…but oh, once you try it you realize that of COURSE they do and the bread does too! Wow. I’m truly almost speechless about how much I loved those incredible cheeses. We also had a few antipasti: corn with fregola- autumnal amazingness; octopus, celery and lovage-light, summery and wonderful; and  a small green salad of romaine and red onions over a thin slice of excellent provolone, which was fine but kind of on the boring side with just a simple vinaigrette. When we finished everything in front of us, I was comfortably full, but not overstuffed. I also wanted to re-order everything for a second round just to have a few more precious moments with all of those wonderful tastes.

For dessert we each had a delicious cappuccino and shared the Olive Oil Coppeta. What an interesting dessert! Olive Oil gelato has gotten very trendy around here lately and I was looking forward to trying it. As a true chocoholic, I’m can be a fairly tough crowd with non-choco desserts, but It was VERY good. I was surprised at how much I loved the olive oil flavor. It wasn’t at all ‘oily’ which was what I was worried about. It was served with lime curd, basil syrup, raspberries and little anisette crumbles on top. Although I do NOT like the flavor of anise, I did really surprisingly enjoy the slightly bitter contrast to the sweetness of the berries. Overall, this was not my favorite sugary indulgence in the world, but very unique, unusual and refreshing.
Strong recommendations to visit Otto if you are in the area…or even if it’s a little out of your way. It’s definitely worth the trip.

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I saw an online deal (kbgdeals.com) this morning to get 6 cupcakes for $8 and since this is a new bakery near me with a cute name and an even cuter logo, I figured I’d give it a shot. Normally, those same 6 would have cost a whopping $16.50.

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I am SO lucky to have a friend who continually buys coupon deals for great restaurants and then realizes that they are about to expire. Being the friend of hers who works at night and is usually free for lunch, I seem to keep benefiting from these purchases with lovely lunches and great company.
Today we went to Gustorganics near Union Square. I looked up the reviews online to find a very mixed bag- some great and some horrible. Lucky for us, we had a great experience.
The atmosphere is bright, sunny, clean, modern and springy. We loved the ‘living wall’ behind the bar filled with beautiful growing plants. The tables and menus were woody/grainy organic-ness that coordinated so nicely with the whole feel. Grass green cushions on the benches and chairs felt earthy too, and were surprisingly comfortable.  Displays of stones and moss were tasteful and carefully placed in thoughtful stacks. Even the bathroom was cool- with a long wooden sink and open feel.
The menu was very reasonably priced for organic food- and really for NY food in general. Plenty of sandwiches, salads, pizzas and more to choose from for under $10. I sipped my tasty 1/2 iced tea,1/2 lemonade while we figured out what we wanted to order. We decided to share two entrees and a dessert. The flatbread pizza was delicious, covered in caramelized onions and fat, juicy mushrooms. The thin crust made it perfectly chewy without being too filling. The sandwich was grilled veggies and cheese on a folded tortilla with a small side mesclun salad. Again, it was all very tasty and fresh. Healthy, but satisfying.
At the suggestion of our waitress, we shared 2 cookies for dessert. Shortbread filled with dulche de leche cream. One was dipped in dark chocolate and the other was rolled in coconut. Both were rather enjoyable and different from any cookies I’ve had before. I would definitely recommend Gustorganics if you’re nearby and like clean, healthy, organic food. Though I’m not a big drinker, I plan to go back for cocktails someday because the drink menu was extremely appealing with only organic wines and liquors. Great find!

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I always look forward to attending the U.S. Open each fall. I’m not a huge tennis fan, I don’t know all the top players names and at best I’m only a semi-decent player myself, but there is something about the thrill of watching incredible sports played live and the buzz of the excited crowd.
The kind of people who go to watch tennis are so different than the type of people who go to see football or baseball, and the plethora of options in the food court reflect that. You’ll only see a tiny of handful of people with hot dogs and beer here, these folk tend to gravitate more towards things like grey goose cocktails and sushi.
Following suit, my mother and I decided to share the lobster and shrimp salad and the salmon sandwich. Considering the generous amount of seafood in the salad, I actually thought that $18.75 was fairly reasonable for it. (The $4.50 soda was the real rip off- available in only one size which was medium-ish. If you wanted a bigger one, you had to buy the $6.50 souvenir cup which was ridiculous) The shrimp and lobster were totally delicious although there was a lot of mayo in there which neither my mom or I am a big fan of. Large pieces and cooked the right amount, the seafood was a pleasant surprise when we really expected to get just a tiny bit on top of greens. The salad was very lightly dressed with just a tiny bit of lemon juice, and it was a fantastic lunch on a hot summer day. The salmon sandwich wasn’t quite as good, but it was fine- simply prepared with tarter sauce, lettuce and one really minuscule piece of under-ripe tomato. The roll was kinda crumbly and not that fresh….but still, MUCH better options than the expected hot dogs and beer.

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My friend bought an online deal to this restaurant and I was thrilled to get to try it out with her. They have a very pretty little outdoor seating area in front, but it was too hot to stay outside so we opted for in. It’s a  pretty setting with lovely flower arrangements, but it was mostly empty except for a few tables. The service, considering that there was hardly anyone else to wait on, was polite but very slow and not particularly attentive.
On a hot summer day cheesy macaroni with truffles isn’t exactly the first thing I’d normally gravitate to on a menu. Since the offering was an appetizer, and my friend really wanted to share it, we went for it and it was a good decision. So creamy and delicious with pieces of truffle big enough to see and taste. It was by FAR the best thing we ordered for lunch today.
To offset our ridiculous saturated fat indulgence, we both chose salads for entrees. My friend had the chopped chicken salad and I had the shrimp Cobb. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t one of the key elements in a Cobb salad the bleu cheese? Well, pictured below our mac & cheese is the ONE tiny piece of bleu cheese that came with my salad. Ummm. Really? Did this one crumb fall off of another salad or was it deliberately placed there? If the latter, wow that’s pretty f-ing ridiculous. If not, maybe the chef needs to brush up on her key cobb salad ingredients list. By the time the waitress came back to check on us, I had already eaten half the salad and was too full to bother sending it back. She asked if I wanted a side of bleu cheese- but I was already pretty ‘over it’. It was otherwise a pretty poor salad anyway. The dressing was completely boring and not even a little bit original or creative- I’m pretty sure it was just olive oil and lemon. The shrimp were fresh and grilled nicely, but almost inedible they were so over-salted. The tomatoes, given the fact that this is the prime time of year for awesome tomatoes, were very so-so. The bacon was just bad. Chewy thick chunks. Ew. I barely finished half of my entree and was pretty glad we decided to have the appetizer and the yummy bread and butter than came first. So, aside from the fact that my evening run is going to be carb-fueled as if I’m running a marathon and not just a few miles, this lunch was a pretty huge waste of time and money. (Although It was a real pleasure to catch up with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while) All in all, it was such a disappointment that I didn’t even bother considering dessert…and for me and my sweet tooth, that says a lot.