Date Lunch - The Bather's Pavilion at Balmoral

Last weekend we were fortunate enough to have Di come over and babysit and this enabled Tracy and me to head out for a date lunch at The Bather's Pavilion at Balmoral. We'd been down to Balmoral the week before this and had admired the restaurants on the promenade and mentioned we should really eat there some time. 

The day was cracking weather wise and we were only disappointed that we'd forgotten to bring our togs. It was fun to get back on the scooter as it had been awhile since we'd both been on it together. Much easier to deal with parking on a busy weekend day.

We got there a tad early and enjoyed a lovely cocktail at the bar. We snagged a window side table and this was great to people watch and soak up the beach. The food was really solid as you can see from the pictures. I had duck for main while Tracy enjoyed beef cheek. The highlight though was the desert with this crazy pavalova style ball with strawberry sorbet inside. 

One tough Sunday.

Where's my duck breast? This toasted cheese business is just not c

The Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare

I was so looking forward to Friday night and I'd managed to miraculously get a booking at The Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare. Let me give you a little background as to why this is such a big deal. First off the Chef's table is the only 3 Michelin star restaurant in Brooklyn. It's a small outpost linked to a supermarket and notoriously difficult to get into.

Booking is hit and miss in itself. They open bookings exactly six weeks in advance at 10am on the Monday morning. They close off at 2pm. You've basically got to sit and call and hope for the best. I called in a favor of a friend over there who did the dialing for me. Lucky as 10am NYC time is some ridiculous hour of the morning in Sydney. The reason it's so hard to get into is they only seat 17 people per sitting.

So let me set the scene for the night. I was heading there with a friend from work. In my excitement I got the booking time mixed up and we got there a little early, 6pm instead of 6.45pm. We ended up round the corner at this cool little bar called Bijan's. It was a real find as the open fire place and delicious cocktails made it the perfect spot for a pre-dinner drink on this chilly night.

After wetting the palette we headed back around to the restaurant. The Chef's table is a small space with a U shaped stainless steel table around a kitchen. The chef and his assistants prepare the food in front of you and bring it out in many little courses. Paired with wine it's a real culinary treat. The food itself contains a lot of japanese style seafood such as sashimi and the mains become more French orientated. 

Our seats were right next to the kitchen and we had quite a few chats with the chef. Chef Cesar Ramirez is notorious for his dislike of people of taking photos. I wouldn't have said he was the friendliest person in the world but he wasn't as bad as some of the people had commented on various blogs out there.

Not my picture but gives you an idea of the dining room. I sat on the far right seat by the kitchen

The food was amazing and there were some 20 odd courses of the stuff. I'd love to describe it or show pictures but my sieve memory has served me again and taking photos was a real no no. It was a really amazing experience.

Once dinner finished we headed back into Manhattan to Midtown and went to catch the last set of Matt's gig at Somethin Jazz Club. A solid NYC night.

And We're Back - NYC Midweek Style

So it's Monday morning and after the weekend I just had I thought I wouldn't eat anything for at least a day or two. Well that was wishful thinking. My trip to NYC coincided with NY restaurant week. This is an event where lots of restaurants have fixed price menus for very competitive prices. It's a great way to hit up exxy spots without the usual expense. I needed this after last night at Jean Georges.

My mate, Matt, who's a kick butt jazz pianist also happened to be playing Monday night at Le Cirque Cafe. This is a decent place over on about 59th and they were also participating in NY Restaurant Week. It ended up being a really good night. I asked the waiter to go slow on bringing the food out and kicked back and listened to some really good tunes. Outside of the awesome music the cream brûlée they served up was a really solid effort.

Tuesday I headed back to my roots and down to the West Village. I ended up at a place called Pearl Oyster Bar. This place has been around for awhile although I never managed to get there. It was literally about four or five blocks from where I used to live but that was the epitome of the Village. There was always somewhere new to check out. I was looking forward to getting here as there was some positive chatter online about their lobster rolls. They certainly delivered in the food stakes. Some oyster's to start with were delicious and the lobster bisque was really good. My third lobster roll for the trip came out and it was ok. It was covered in a bit to much mayo and that overpowered the taste of the lobster and butter on the toasted bun. Any lobster roll is better than no lobster roll but this was probably my least favorite of the trip so far.

Wednesday I ended up at Angelo's Pizza on 57th St. This was an old Friday lunch haunt. They do coal fired pizza and they're really good. Their tomato sauce is super rich and the thin coal fired bases have a great texture. Dripping with fat from the pepperoni they were super good. Sorry no pictures of this one. I did take a hike after down to Times Square, something which I quickly regretted. It was about as cold as I'd been on the trip and lasted a solid 10 minutes down there before heading back to the hotel.

Thursday during the day I headed to The Burger Joint for lunch. This is next door to work and was a real favorite. It's on the tourist radar as the spot hidden behind the curtain in the Meridian Hotel on 56th Street. It's pretty simple here. Pick you burger, add some fries and a drink and that's it. The burgers are really good. They'd give Corner Bistro a run for their money for the best burger in NYC but would end up a close second. Always worth a visit though. Thursday night was a right off of two-for-one martinis at Pazza Notte, a sneaky stogie at De La Concha and possibly some Karaoke in the mid town region.

I did want to make one comment at De La Concha. This is a cigar shop on 6th Ave between 56th and 57th Street. You walk in and are immediately greeted by walls of cigars. I'm no connoisseur of the stogie so I normally get one recommended from the guys behind the counter. They're really helpful and don't judge. The highlight though is pulling up a chair in the 'lounge'. The lounge faces towards 6th Ave and has floor to ceiling windows. You've got the hustle and bustle of midtown Manhattan right in front of you as you sit in comfy chairs smoking those vile things. What is truly unique though is listening to the banter of the regulars. I swear some of the guys in there were there the last time I went there just before I left. It's like a real life episode of Seinfeld. It's comical listening to the conversation and observing the random twists and turns that it takes. I never really felt qualified to participate. I'm sure they would have been fine but listening alone was a truly entertaining and interesting experience.

Stay tuned for Friday night. The Mac Daddy of dining on this trip.

The Flynn Crawl

Well the little fella is now crawling. Check out Mr Mobile......



For those on iPads:
http://youtu.be/f2K1LC-z1Rg

Cull & Pistol vs Jean Georges

What's the best way to prepare for dinner at a three michelin star restaurant? That's easy, go out for lunch. More on that later in the blog.

After the food fest of yesterday I needed to do some serious walking to work off the desert calo-fest. I headed down to Chelsea and went to the northern end of the High Line. Wow how much it has changed. At one point a temporary bar and skating ring had been setup but now there was a 25 story condo complex and heaps more construction going on. Construction all along the Highline was evident and similar to Brooklyn, many buildings had been demolished making way for condos. 

Once at the Southern end I wandered around the Meat Packing District. This is also undergoing change and seems to becoming more and more like SOHO every day. The character it had is slowly being replaced by modern convenience. At least the cobblestones are still there but I wonder how long for.

This used to be a French restaurant called MPD, sensational cream brûlées.

I ended up at the Chelsea markets and was making a beeline to the fishmonger for a lobster bisque. The challenge was I had to go to the bathroom and the Chelsea Market bathrooms are not somewhere you want to go anywhere near on the weekend unless you want to queue for half an hour.

So that brought me to my dilemma. By this stage it was 2pm and I had a 6pm booking at Jean Georges. Also the fish monger had opened a hole in the wall oyster bar next door to it call Cull & Pistol and lobster rolls were on the menu. So let's assess the situation. Queue up for half an hour to pee in a public toilet or go grab a seat at a cool oyster bar and smash a lobster roll and use the bathroom there. Not a difficult decision.

I started off with a mixed oyster platter with a crab claw. Shucked right in front of where I was sitting these were solidly fresh. For main I had a lobster roll which was really lovely. My ever increasing cholesterol level got the better of me and I rebelliously knocked back the side of fries in favor of a salad. The first and last on this trip. 

I swung by Citipups to have a squiz at the rovers there. This is where we got Dash from. The guy we bought him from was there and we had a good chat. A tad more retail and I made it back to the hotel to suit up for dinner.

Jean Georges is in the Trump Tower up by Columbus circle. It's been around for awhile and is a well reputed restaurant in NYC. I was surprised to be able to get in only making the booking the week before. Maybe that's saying something about the place. It's high end stuff although the room is relatively benign in comparison to places like Eleven or Daniel. 

I went with a friend from work and our first challenge was figuring out which tasting menu to have. First world problems. As tempting as the black truffle inspired tasting menu was, the $200 supplement on top of the GDP of a small country cost of the base was a bit of an inhibitor. We both ended up going with the signature menu which is a variety of the chef's signature dishes. The two things which were memorable was the egg and caviar. It was a lightly scrambled egg with cream on top and osetra caviar. The other thing was the chocolate desert tasting plate. Extreme goodness. They say you eat at this place purely for the food and the interior is deliberately bland so as not to distract from the menu. this was clearly evident.

What an awesome foodie weekend.

Ok not the best angle consideirng it looks like something Dasha coughed up.....but it was nice

Tracy would have been in heaven

Day 1 - Part 2

All the walking during the day had made me work up a serious appetite and what better place to load up than my favorite restaurant in NYC, Meme. Meme is down in the West Village on Hudson and serves up Mediterranean style tapas. To me it's the epitome of a NYC restaurant. Cosy, pressed tin roof, awesome food, that real buzz you get from a thriving place, pedestrian traffic and constant yellow cabs going past. Meme is also in a really unique position as it's at the elbow where Hudson turns into 8th Ave. It's the only spot I know where you can sit and look all the way down one of Manhattans North-South Avenues. Let's not forget all the awesome memories we've had there as one of our local favs.

I met my mate Matt and I had one thing on my mind. Ricotta gnocchi in a  cream truffle sauce. This dish is without a doubt the most delicious thing I've ever eaten. Something Tracy and I could never get enough of. I was a tad nervous as menus change but I was stoked to see it still on the menu. We shared a bunch of different things such as muscles, meatballs, lobster cake and mushroom risotto to name a few. Washed down with an Allagash (white ale) and I was in culinary heaven.

Ahhh the gnocchi

But like late night t.v., wait there's more. After finishing dinner we headed over the road to Bleaker street and to Magnolia Bakery. Most well know for it's muffins, Magnolia serves what I think is the single best cheesecake in the world. It's a simple vanilla bean cheesecake that blends a perfect texture with a vanilla infused taste. Sensational.

While we were in the hood i thought I better take the opportunity to hang a bit on my lovely sister. We headed further down Bleaker to Rissotria. This restaurant is 100% gluten free and was a real fav. I took the opportunity to smash down one of their chocolate eclairs. I offered to bring one back!

By this stage I was starting to fill up but the night was our oyster. We headed back to 8th Ave and to my old local, the Tav on Jane. The Tav is a quaint little West Village pub hidden behind an unassuming facade on 8th Ave and Jane Street. It's a real local's place but they welcome anyone. The food is good, beers cold and they're open to 4am every night. Winter is awesome as they crank up a log fire and the place heats up. Their menu was solid but their standout dish was their chocolate molten cake. So what's desert number three for the road. We smashed one down and at this point were about as stuffed as one can get during a West Village desert crawl.

All the tables at the Tav have crayons which they encourage you to draw on the paper table cloths.