Remember how I said a friend was supposed to have her 50th birthday party at City Hall Restaurant on Friday night? Well, that morning, one of NYC's ancient water mains broke and flooded the restaurant's neighborhood. Whoops! They had to promptly relocate to another restaurant, but reading the menu intrigued my engineer enough that he decided we were going to go have dinner there tonight.
Wrong! Tonight, the restaurant was hosting the filming of a Law & Order episode. Heh. (By the way, speaking of franchise crime dramas, I was stunned to realize that the actress who plays the current 2nd chair, Alana Del La Garza, played the doomed wife of David "I always pose with my hands on my hips" Caruso on CSI: Miami. On there, she was a total airhead and frequently looked like Bambi in the headlights... though I suppose having to stare at David Caruso's sunglasses all the time could have that effect. On L&O Classic, she actually seems smart enough to be believeable as an attorney. I guess that's what they call acting!) Anyway, my sweetie has taken tonight's barring of the gates at the restaurant as a sign that this means we are destined not to eat there. Heheh.
Actually, this turned out to be not such a bad thing, as we wandered across another restaurant which turned out to be very well-reviewed (I only found out about the well-reviewed part after I got home -- while we were there, it was just damn tasty). The photo above is actually from Marc Forgione f/k/a Forge and it was nice because the kitchen (and staff) really seem to CARE about executing well. I strongly urge you to read their menu for the full details of each dish, because I am just going to give you the Cliff Notes below.
We started off with some amuse bouches from the chef, scallop tartare on the toast (him -- I'm not yet ready for sushi ) and sorry-but-I-forget (me -- it was tasty though; I blame chemo brain and my longing for sushi)
And then some potato rolls with scallion butter -- the rolls were soft and fluffy but way too salty, alas
I had the watermelon and shrimp soup (I know it sounds odds, but it works)
He had squash blossoms stuffed with 3 cheeses (he liked them but said the sauce was overly assertive -- having tried a sip, I just called it too tart; dunno about the squash blossom tempura)
He ordered English cut lamb chops (thumbs up he said, though I'm not sure what English cut means...)
I had seared sea scallops with super-crispy pork belly (yummmmmmm... scallops AND bacon, how could it miss??)
My dessert looks blobby in the photo but was quite appealing on the tongue: sauteed peaches with orange blossom mousse and almond cake (drooling now just typing it up...)
His dessert was apricot bread pudding with bourbon creme and toasted almond ice cream (note his prescient sign of approval)
We had wine with dinner too (Hungarian reisling for me, a wonderful rose for him) and he had Madeira with his dessert.
And now, I will finally stagger off to bed and hope that I won't wake up at 5am again, as the heartburn from hell has finally subsided. This heartburn was not from dinner. Oh no. It's another pleasant parting gift from the chemo: this afternoon I was in such pain that it felt like I had been waterboarded with seltzer saturated in cayenne pepper. (Gee, guess I will be refilling that $50-copay prescription of Nexium after all. -- Oh hey: finding the manufacturer's webpage will save me $25 on each refill for a year! They have a rebate program on their I never knew about -- Score!) Luckily, it had subsided by the time I left work, only to return late tonight. (I will spare you all an accounting of all of the other unhappy GI bonus parting gifts I experienced today.)
On that note, it is now 1:59 according to my PC clock, and I bid you all adieu (we'll see if I continue my post-[or more!]-a-day marathon this week... )
Wrong! Tonight, the restaurant was hosting the filming of a Law & Order episode. Heh. (By the way, speaking of franchise crime dramas, I was stunned to realize that the actress who plays the current 2nd chair, Alana Del La Garza, played the doomed wife of David "I always pose with my hands on my hips" Caruso on CSI: Miami. On there, she was a total airhead and frequently looked like Bambi in the headlights... though I suppose having to stare at David Caruso's sunglasses all the time could have that effect. On L&O Classic, she actually seems smart enough to be believeable as an attorney. I guess that's what they call acting!) Anyway, my sweetie has taken tonight's barring of the gates at the restaurant as a sign that this means we are destined not to eat there. Heheh.
Actually, this turned out to be not such a bad thing, as we wandered across another restaurant which turned out to be very well-reviewed (I only found out about the well-reviewed part after I got home -- while we were there, it was just damn tasty). The photo above is actually from Marc Forgione f/k/a Forge and it was nice because the kitchen (and staff) really seem to CARE about executing well. I strongly urge you to read their menu for the full details of each dish, because I am just going to give you the Cliff Notes below.
We started off with some amuse bouches from the chef, scallop tartare on the toast (him -- I'm not yet ready for sushi ) and sorry-but-I-forget (me -- it was tasty though; I blame chemo brain and my longing for sushi)
And then some potato rolls with scallion butter -- the rolls were soft and fluffy but way too salty, alas
I had the watermelon and shrimp soup (I know it sounds odds, but it works)
He had squash blossoms stuffed with 3 cheeses (he liked them but said the sauce was overly assertive -- having tried a sip, I just called it too tart; dunno about the squash blossom tempura)
He ordered English cut lamb chops (thumbs up he said, though I'm not sure what English cut means...)
I had seared sea scallops with super-crispy pork belly (yummmmmmm... scallops AND bacon, how could it miss??)
My dessert looks blobby in the photo but was quite appealing on the tongue: sauteed peaches with orange blossom mousse and almond cake (drooling now just typing it up...)
His dessert was apricot bread pudding with bourbon creme and toasted almond ice cream (note his prescient sign of approval)
We had wine with dinner too (Hungarian reisling for me, a wonderful rose for him) and he had Madeira with his dessert.And now, I will finally stagger off to bed and hope that I won't wake up at 5am again, as the heartburn from hell has finally subsided. This heartburn was not from dinner. Oh no. It's another pleasant parting gift from the chemo: this afternoon I was in such pain that it felt like I had been waterboarded with seltzer saturated in cayenne pepper. (Gee, guess I will be refilling that $50-copay prescription of Nexium after all. -- Oh hey: finding the manufacturer's webpage will save me $25 on each refill for a year! They have a rebate program on their I never knew about -- Score!) Luckily, it had subsided by the time I left work, only to return late tonight. (I will spare you all an accounting of all of the other unhappy GI bonus parting gifts I experienced today.)
On that note, it is now 1:59 according to my PC clock, and I bid you all adieu (we'll see if I continue my post-[or more!]-a-day marathon this week... )
We refer to CSI: Miami as "the orange show." The second you turn the channel to it, you can identify it even without any of its stars onscreen because of the ovewhelming wash of orange.
ReplyDeleteHa! Come to think of it, the original CSI is frequently green-tinted. I believe they try to have a distinct "look" for each of the 3 CSI shows, but i refuse to watch CSI:NY since it is of course filmed in LA.
ReplyDelete