Panda and Pranna

Well, despite succumbing to a recent craving to make (whole wheat) linguine with spinach and gorgonzola sauce (and you know those recipes always serve 4 people), I managed to (a) actually make it last for 4 servings, and (b) lose 2.0 lbs since my last WW meeting a few weeks ago in January pre-vacation. Of course, being ill for a week probably had something to do with that dip, but hey, I'll take it.

I think I'm still kind of worn out or tired or something because I'm just completely unmotivated to do anything: clean (no one gets to come in, not even my sweetie, but then, we're still both on antibiotics), go to tonight's condo meeting (I decided to be an irresponsible homeowner and avoid the stress of two hours of screaming arguments), do laundry (there's a reason I'm starting to wear suits again), take walks or go to the gym (free money for them), get out of my nice warm bed in the mornings (of course, I woke up withOUT the alarm every day while I was out sick -- doh!), or even open mail (I know, I know -- the sooner I compile my W-2s and 1099s, the sooner I can ask for my $$ back).

Today though, I discovered that a week off due to illness is not the same as a week of vacation. The latter leaves me amused / bemused by idiotic work stuff that I can shrug off. The former just leaves me aggravated and wanting to clock the offending party / parties. Hmmm. Maybe it's PMS. I hope. Better that than a funk.

But on to more cheerful topics, like random panda bears. The person shown above was just hanging out near the office, with a tip jar, in sub-freezing weather, bringing smiles to several cranky New Yorkers on their lunch hour just in the few minutes I was nearby. Since I took a few cellphone snapshots, I gave the very friendly and fluffy bear a dollar for his (her?) plastic panda tip bucket. (Sadly, I forgot to take a photo of the tip jar. Darn.)

Other smile-inducing topics: date night with my sweetie was last night! Since we're both still dosing ourselves with different antibiotics, we decided to meet on neutral, germ-free territory instead of doing our usual dinner at my/his home routine. I wandered across a listing for Pranna on the NYC Restaurant Week website. Their South Asian menu is really interesting (and what my sweetie ordered from) while even their Restaurant Week menu was intriguing, which I consider truly impressive, since most RW menus are perfunctory at beast: steak, roast chicken, grilled salmon, NEXT!

In fact, their regular menu (check out their website) had me so gridlocked with indecision, that I fell back to the RW options, and even then, had to ask our server for help. Ah, such a luxury problem to have.

Sorry, the following photos are kind of dark (I was trying to be discreet by not using flash) until I figured out my ISO and shutter speed settings.

My engineer had a combination of crispy pork belly with Asian pear, and lamb meatballs with turmeric and ginger, all accompanied by their dipping sauces (Salty Kaffir Lime Mint / Spicy Peanut /Sour Mandarin Galangal / Sweet Lemongrass Caramel):

Then he followed up with a heapingly large appetizer as his entree, green papaya salad with soy lime dressing:

My vegetarian appetizer, Wok Fried Hokkien Noodles (“Mee Goreng”), was also gigantic (and spicy!), but didn't photograph well at all. So, onward, to my RW entree, the pan-seared cod with spicy ginger caramel sauce and asparagus and long beans, all of which was FANTASTIC! The long beans were crisp, the fish was light, and the asparagus was tender. My engineer was intrigued by the sauce and said he thought molasses might have been involved after he sampled it.

By dessert, I was seriously on the verge of hurting myself (the night before WW weigh in naturally) but no way was I passing up green tea cheesecake. SO GOOD, as was the topping. So rich that the small slice was more than enough. Even my sweetie agreed that it was tasty, and he's not generally a dessert fiend like me. Yep, we;d both go back -- there's still the rest of the menu to sample!

The restaurant itself was glossy, sleek, and roomy, but still warm in tone. And best of all, since we dined at the geriatric hour of 6:30pm, we had a table by the window, far from the other tables, but as you can see, the spacing is really quite decent.

As you may be able to tell from the photo above, they have a unique chair design. In fact, I thought it was such a brilliant design that I snuck a (non-flash) photo on the way out:

Oh, I forgot to mention that they have happy hour wine specials (my sweetie had a pinot noir) and I nursed a delicious cocktail the bartender recommended called Fallen Apples: Jim Beam Bourbon, Calvados, fresh Lemon Juice,Agave Nectar, Whiskey Bitters, Clove and Cinnamon. I was so busy sipping it (slowly -- so I didn't fall on my face) that I completely forgot to take a photo!

And now, it is way, WAY past my bedtime!