Dinner with Friends

The View from Above and Below

I had vague cocktail plans with my British friend Monday night and I was also invited to a cocktail party at the new Trump Soho Hotel in their latest space to open, SoHi, so asked him if he wanted to go with me. It's a glass room with marble floors (more on that in a moment) on the 46th floor with some of the most spectacular views I have ever seen. Really. We had the opportunity to get there while it was still daylight but for the hour we were there it changed from daylight to dusk to night and it was all quite exquisite. The floor bothered me as standing in heels for a cocktail party on marble is uncomfortable and if you were having a meeting anyone who needed to get up and walk out, then back would make so much noise as to be disruptive-the pushing back of a chair, the click or clump of a heel. The cocktails seemed a bit watery to me but the food was rather good. My favorite was the tiny toast piece holding buratta mousse and 1/2 an heirloom grape tomato (the play of textures and flavors was almost perfect, I would have preferred toast instead of a cracker). There was a tiny taste of crab salad in a spoon, an espresso cup of sweet potato bisque, there was tiny puff pastry circle piled high with a tiny dice of short ribs, there was a duck thing I forget the details of, I'm sorry. There was also a ceviche bar with a shrimp and a scallop version each in a large martini glass. I don't happen to like the texture of the fish that ceviche's citrus bath gives it but it's fun to taste anyway. There was also an autumnal bar I guess one could call it-marinate mushrooms, olives, pumpkin risotto with blue cheese, perfectly seasoned orzo with feta chunks, and a cheese platter of brie, fontina, blue cheese, and a yellow blue cheese that I had never seen before (the chef warned us it was very potent so we took minuscule pieces but it was so unpotent I can now barely recall it's taste). But it looked cool. We laughed and chatted and marvelled at the view. 

From there...we decided to go into Williamsburg to a dive bar where his friend was performing (with really fabulous silver and black eye liner that I want to learn to copy!) and many of our mutual friends would be joining us, including my glam BF who has been away, hanging with his parent's in the South for 10 whole days!! We were thrilled to see him. So let's just say dive bars are so incredibly not my scene and point out that my Lanvin shoes were sticking to the floor. However, I had a very fun time event hoping.

 

 

 

 
 

Vermillion

Vermillion, a restaurant that has been on my list of places to try since it was new (please understand, it's a very long list) is modern ultra stylish and an Indian Brazilian place. Lest you wonder for too long, the chef owner's parents are one from one country and one from the other, influences abound. It's grey and white, silver and red with glam crystal chandeliers covered in fabrics though some of the crystals themselves were red.

The food was fascinating-Indian and South American go together better than you think. Sadly though neither the waiter nor the bartender knew what a negroni was (gin, campari, and lemon) but the bartender made a valiant effort and though it wasn't my favorite negroni they tried so hard to please I could do nothing but drink it happily. We shared little appetizers duck vindaloo over arepa, blue corn crusted scallops, juhu ki pani puri; we then had main courses-I had the crab konkani with some divine quinoa-it was not earthy and nutty as so many of these ancient grains are-it was silky and rich. We had Miris Sri Lankan whole fish and a lobster Portugese. Dessert was a dream-such deep dark chocolate cake, served with orange slices and blueberry ice cream and a bread pudding wafting the taste and smell of walnuts.

I went with an existing friend, he brought a friend of his who I feel comfortable telling you is now a friend of mine.  A truly lovely evening was had by all.

Whole Wheat Pasta

I read Melissa Clark's article in the NYT's food section last week about the changed taste of whole wheat pasta. Apparently it tastes good now. I haven't had any in 15 years, I can't really remember liking or disliking it but I must not have liked it very much if I didn't re-eat it in 15 years. 

Since I was in Eataly I bought whole wheat bowties. In the Times article Ms Clark. offered a recipe for sausages, tomato sauce and the pasta. I know my husband is allergic to tomatoes so I couldn't follow that but I could figure out something close. He said he would try the whole wheat pasta too. I always have sausages in the freezer, I buy them to use for hors d'ouevres and then forget all about them (since they're in the freezer and not in my line of vision I forget to make them or run out of time to start cooking them for guests).

I started the salted water boiling and added the pasta, sliced, then sauteed the turkey sausages. Once both were done I de glazed the sautee pan with chicken stock, added a little pasta cooking water (ladled about 1/2 a ladle from the boiling pot) drained the pasta and added it to the sausages to incorporate it all together. I misjudged the amount of pasta to sausages. I took the mixture out of the sauté pan and sliced up more sausages quickly made the rest of the package then put everything back together. It was delish and my husband loved it. He asked for the rest of it for dinner the next night but since I had one of my very rare days of staying in bed all day, I ate it for lunch. My husband was so disappointed so I rooted around the freezer and found more sausages. I made more but wanted more flavors. Something to make it taste like a meal rather than pasta and sausage cooked together. I called him to ask if I could add pumpkin (he's an extremely picky eater but I know he likes butternut squash a lot). I sauteed the sausages, deglazed with stock, added the pumpkin then the pasta and a bit of cumin. It was even more delicious. I made lots. Next I want to make macaroni and cheese with the whole wheat pasta which means I have to go back to Eataly for more...

A Famous Few Days

I live in NYC and am in Manhattan almost every minute of every day and have been for many many years. There are famous people all around me I just never happen to see them...well rarely anyway and that's really fine with me, I do recognize fashion people when I see them and chef's. But somehow, this week I saw Isaac Mizrahi, Lidia Bastianich, Gabriel Byrne, Amanda Bynes, and Mario Batali. Not only this week but all since Wed!! Mario was the only one I was close enough to talk to though. I told him I thought the food at Eataly was spectacular but that it was so difficult and uncomfortable to get to, whether eating in or buying groceries. We chatted about pasta then he taught me the trick of handling the place. You must get there before noon. I'm fine with that, and will try it this week.  I bought two kinds of pasta-whole wheat bowties, and vermicelli noodles (when we were in Barcelona I fell in love with fiduea, it's paella made with noodles instead of rice (my husband "we" not Mario "we") so it will be fun to try to recreate it. I tried once and bought angel hair pasta, boiled it, then painstakingly lined up the cooked noodles on a cutting board and cut them into one inch pieces. Needless to say I only did this once. Now I can do it with the proper noodles-already in one inch pieces. I also bought a tomato mushroom sauce that I'm excited about. Trying to pay at Eataly is just as difficult and uncomfortable as trying to eat there. But now that my new BFF Mario taught me the trick I will go back again for the gorgeous produce and fish.

Eataly

I finally got to go to Eataly, it's near my office and everyone knows of my love of restaurants and love of going early to the hot new places.  I had to hide the fact that I hadn't gone...even lie once or twice...how could I admit to such a thing?  My glam BF and I planned to go a few times and for some reason each attempt was postponed.  Last week I put my foot down and said that if he wanted me to continue to wait for him we had to go this week.  So we did.  It is quite the place, let me tell you.

It is part fancy Italian high end grocery store and part fancy high end Italian food court.  It's part of the Mario Batali and Lydia Bastianich kingdom and we saw Lydia (very fun!) and that was at night, this morning at breakfast with a friend at Maialino (yes, again, I know...but the coffee and the experience really is that good) we saw Isaac Mizrahi.  It's similar to the food court idea that Todd English created in the basement of the Plaza Hotel but the food is better here, though it is less overwhelmingly busy there and much easier there.  At the Plaza you can sit at one of the several bars and order anything off the complete menu of any of the bars.  At Eataly you can only eat at one bar at a time.  We started out at the fish counter because 2 seats happened to open up-we shared a lovely spicy tomato fish soup (cioppino) and a skewer of grilled shrimp, lemon, croutons, and squid which was delicious.  I had a prosecco that I really liked and he had a red wine that he started out liking but by the end didn't love it, I guess it didn't go with the food...?  We talked over the din and then moved to the cheese counter and ordered the cheese platter-gorgonzola, parmesean, ricotta, talleggio,and one other served with honey, candied orange peel and stewed dried figs. The bread and the honey with the cheeses was almost perfect and unexpectedly I liked the parmesean least and the ricotta the best (I adore parmesean generally).  We thought about sharing a pasta next but the line for the counter was so long we gave up but gave in to the divine gelato.  The front door opens right to the street and the ice cream counter is right there-as my glam BF points out-for the winter they need to come up with a better solution. 

The food was delicious but since it was so crowded it all became a pain.  I want to go back during the day to see if it's less crowded but most of all I want to back, by myself to concentrate on groceries!!  And the gorgeous produce.  And I want to taste the coffee.

The Hurricane Club

NY is in the midst of a trend- tiki bar after tiki bar has opened. Last night my glam BF and I went to the most glam, the most dressed up version since the Trader Vic's in the Plaza Hotel, The Hurricane Club and we had FUN! You walk in through glass doors painted white so you don't know what to expect, to a vestibule of natural stone tile with closed double doors in front of you so you still don't know what to expect. When you open those doors the excitement just hits you! Dark walls, white walls..RED walls...brightly colored huge orchids are everywhere towering above you!!! In the center is a white marble bar with an immense crystal chandelier over it and lots of buzz. There are secret nooks and red chandeliers...cabana boys...and downstairs rooms... The food and cocktails is of the South Pacific yet modern. The poke of Hawaii, you can order a luau (only with advance warning though), there is a spun coconut shrimp, oysters with a yuzu gel, Pekin duck sliders, noodle dishes even including a green glass one, pineapple papayas and mangoes abound but didn't overpower anything we ate with their sweetness-in fact everything had a pleasing tartness to it. The cocktails were gorgeous! Color and fruit! We had mai tais-in NYC in October! Very fun! Watermelon slices and orchid garnishes, sweet apricots mixed with cardamom to prevent any of the drinks from falling into lollipop territory all well balanced for fruit and liquor and flavor. Our waitress bounced everywhere!! I can't wait to go back-I have other islands to taste!!!!!

The Shop

 A two restaurant day...my gorgeous boss took me to a fancy new restaurant for lunch today to celebrate our 8th anniversary together. I cannot believe it's been so long and how fast it went, and that I have stayed so long, I've never worked in one place so long in my life. 2-3 years was the longest anywhere else...

We went to check out the new Andaz a very high end top of the line Hyatt Hotel of which there are only 5 in the world, 4 of them in the US but guess what, 2 of them in NY!! Is anyone surprised at our fabulousness?!??!! You walk into a slate floor, matte silver metal walled, white accented lounge, not lobby. Beverages abound... There is a shiny white opaque cube off center to the front door with a squiggly white metal sculpture emerging from it, attached to the ceiling, few laptops and a few beautiful people hanging around and this, my friends, is the front desk. The restaurant is elegant but casual with modern Mediterranean/ American food. I started with a salad of mixed greens, tomato slices, shaved cucumbers (a bit uninteresting), and some sort of cheese called blaak which was actually cheese colored but very good against the other components. The dressing was olive oil and lemon juice which threatened to be overly bright but the matte richness of the cheese prevented that. I then had the steak salad which was a small piece of flank steak (very rich and tender) with red endive strewn about the plate and cubes of roasted butternut squash hiding underneath the endive. My boss had a salad of greens with feta, olives, tomatoes and some other things-great creamy salty textures but the olives were triple the normal size of an olive. I wonder what their martinis are like???? She followed that with seared salmon garnished with perfectly seasoned roasted beets and carrots. All the food was full of glorious color!!! Dessert left a little to be desired (which translates to no chocolate option) and when I told our waitress she sighed with me and went over the list of baked goods in the upfront breakfast area and she could bring us anything we wanted. My boss had the chocolate biscoti and I had the double chocolate cookie and none of that drecky white chocolate! All delicious, as was the coffee-rich and flavorful.

 The whole operation is really new so I'm sure the silly service mishaps will clear up...our runner kept giving each the other's food and when we ordered coffee no one told us the only choice was Americano and my boss doesn't like espresso so it was a bit of a pain (Americano is a shot of espresso with the rest of the cup filled up with water).

The hotel tries to be very New York centric which is great-there are sandwihches from Katz's Deli (a NY institution since before WWII-one of it's tagline in fact is "send a salami to your boy in the army") the cheese is from Murrays and all the smoked from Russ and Daughters (the BEST!). The second floor of the hotel is it's "business center" but you would never recognize it as such which is why my boss and I loved it-so forward. It is designed to look like you have made it in NY and have an endless Tribeca loft complete with kitchen, den, and bedrooms. The kitchen is the working kitchen for your party so you can talk to the chef's and take food directly from the stove!! We're looking at it for my boss' annual cocktail party and I for one would love to have it there! We'll start doing events and meetings there very soon.

We also got to meet the hotel's general manager who was quite a charmer and ultra glam. I bet he wears Thom Browne suits! And he went to school with one of my company executives so I can have his attention any time I want! What could be better than all of this!?!!??

 

 

 

Jellies

I have become obsessed with jellies. Not food...jam...but plastic shoes I can wear in the rain that look cute and will not be ruined.

2 or 3 years ago I actually bought the one and only pair of shoes I ever bought at Payless. I saw an ad in Vogue that the very obscure French designer, Abaete was doing a season for Payless. I went to look and didn't like what was shown in the ad but found a pair of calf high black vinyl mod boots with a 1-inch Lucite wedge. The box said $110, the shelf said $68 and when I got to the register they were $10!!!!!!!!!!! I should have bought as many pairs were there but I really had no way of knowing how good looking and how comfortable they would turn out to be. Finally cute rain shoes. And it rained a lot that year but I was cool. Of course by the time I was ready for another pair I couldn't find any others. Now they have begun to wear out and I have tried Googling "cute vinyl mod boots" but nothing really comes up.

I was wandering on Madison Ave one weekend day a few months ago and walked past a store with very cute plastic ballet flats I went in and had so much fun talking to the lovely ladies- I bought a pair of brown plastic tortoise shell ballet flats. Enter the Vivienne Westwood for Melissa jelly! I discovered she had almost every conceivable style of shoe or bootie-even strappy sandals with spikey heels!! In plastic, for the rain!! Sadly, they don't make 1/2 sizes and I am a 1/2 size, so I bought the 6 as my foot fell out of the 7 as I knew it would. They are not the most comfortable shoes on earth but my feet are dry and my really good leather shoes aren't being ruined and I look much more stylish than I did before the Abaete vinyl boots. I don't believe one has to give fashion for comfort or comfort for fashion-and now my theory is complete. Rain was the weakness in it. Throughout the summer I found really cheap pairs of jellies at fancy stores and scooped them all up! At BCBG, at French Connection (ok, maybe not so fancy) even at Donna Karan.

Saturday I was doing some errands and went into Bergdorf's to say hello to a friend who works there and on the 5th floor shoe department I noticed a group of jellies. Some even by Jean Paul Gaultier!!!!!!!!! The salesperson brought out the 3 pairs I was interested in and stayed with me while I was deciding, thereby foregoing other customers. When I decided on which pair I wanted I gave him my Neiman's card (Bergdorf's and Neiman's are owned by the same company and one can use either card interchangeably, I'm very happy to say!) he refused to take it as it had a man's name on it. I "politely" told him it was my husband's card, I'm an authorized user and I've been using it for years all over the country" he refused to check with the credit office and I left him with the shoes, however not before telling him he was quite foolish for wasting his time, that he lost other customers because of the time he spent with me and that meant lost commission. I reminded him that there is a little thing called the internet where one can get anything one wants.

The very next morning I went online and not only found my shoes within seconds at Saks and they were cheaper! And all black whereas in Bergdorf's they we're black and white two-tone which made me a little uncomfortable going into the winter. My shoes arrived yesterday and I wore them home-very comfy (!) everyone I showed them to got the same kick out of them that I did. Classic men's oxfords done in plastic!!! I'm thinking about going back to BG and showing that stupid man but I have decided to be a gracious winner. And besides there is another pair I want that seem (so far) to be only at BG, they are a sheer grey with black lace embedded in them. I will just make sure not to try to buy them from that stupid man.  By the way I was in Bergdorf's last night buying something and guess what, they took my Neiman's card with no problem.