the plaza food hall by todd english

When we were young, a food hall (or food court, as we call them in the Philippines) was akin to a culinary Switzerland—a place where my parents could take all the kids with dissimilar cravings and feed them without too much drama. All our folks had to do was give us money and we could get whatever it was our tummy desired: pizza, tempura, hamburgers, Mongolian stir-fry, halo-halo. And we could all still sit down at one table and eat as a family. But food halls in the Philippines are very much like their traditional American counterparts: usually located in a shopping mall and chock full of fast food stands—not exactly what one would think of as haute cuisine.

My view of food halls changed somewhat when I got to eat at Marché in Singapore some years ago (funnily enough, Marché actually hails from Switzerland). Built to give you the feeling that you are eating in a European market (or in some parts, a Swiss chalet), the ingredients are fresh and the food just-cooked.

Lately here in New York, the idea of what a food hall is has been turned upside down in my head yet again. In recent months, a few gourmet food halls have popped up in the city that are bears little resemblance to your momma's food court. Last night, I ventured with a big group of friends into The Plaza Food Hall by celebrity chef, Todd English. This food hall boasts eight specialty food stations as well as numerous gourmet delights to tempt any foodie shoppaholic.

My friend Jammy specifically requested the table in the demo kitchen when she made our reservation so our party of 7.25 (myself, three couples and a baby) had plenty of space to devour food in. Boy, did we need that space because we ordered quite a bit of food!

The Restaurant Week menu was available and seemed to be a good deal. The lunch menu includes 4 pieces of fried oysters with caviar creme fraiche, lemon zest and micro cilantro as an appetizer.

Add to that a Bianca pizza and a mini cheese cake for dessert and it's definitely not a bad deal for $24.07. For dinner, they change it up with half a dozen fresh oysters, and a choice between the Bianca pizza or roasted prime rib for the entree, plus the same cheese cake dessert. You could do worse with $35.00.

Seduced with the bounty of choices from the meat and seafood grills, the sushi bar, the dumpling station and the pizza station, we decided to order a la carte. My mom always tells me I shouldn't make decisions about food when I'm starving and she's always right. In a state of starvation, I went with the Food Hall Burger and its half pound american kobe beef pattie, fried onion, grilled bacon, roasted tomato and gorgonzola, all slathered in barbeque sauce.

It was good but the prime rib sliders, described in New York magazine as "piled with ribbons of tender meat, dripped with a rich Fontina dressing, and served on fresh brioche buns", probably would have been a better choice. Three of us ordered this burger and while it did the job, it wasn't the best any of us had ever had.

I didn't dwell on this too much though because the mac n cheese blew my mind. Is there anything better than macaroni, pulled pork and caramelized onions all slathered in melted aged cheddar? Ok lots of things are but none come to mind while you're dishing bite after delicious bite of this goodness into your mouth, I promise.

I had my hands full (literally) with my massive burger plus the mac 'n cheese so I didn't really get to taste everyone else's food. Consider the rest of the post as food porn. Coco and JM ordered the special: a flat bread pizza with pork belly bits, green onion and sriracha.  

Jammy and Sancho ordered one of their favorite pizzas: fig jam, prosciutto and gorgonzola on a rosemary crust.

There were a couple of rolls from the sushi bar on the table, too, but I haven't had a yen for sushi in awhile so I didn't try any of them. Thought they looked pretty (and yes, I'm sorry that's all I have to say about them). Mica had the lobster roll in the picture below while Jammy had the dragon roll further below. 

All in all, a very good meal. It's hard to find a chic place where one can eat good food at reasonable prices, get seated as a fairly large party painlessly and not be rushed out. So I'm grateful to The Plaza Food Hall for providing a bunch of high school friends and their significant others a great spot to catch up over a good meal.

The Plaza Food Hall by Todd English is located at 768 Fifth Avenue (at Central Park South), New York, NY 10019. Phone (212) 986-9260 for reservations.

restaurant week diary: brasserie

In the middle of a workday so freakishly sh!tacular that it felt like an episode out of The Twilight Zone, it was a treat to stop and sit down for a three-course lunch. A few weeks ago, my co-workers and I took time off to treat our friend (and expectant mother) to a baby shower lunch at Brasserie in Midtown Manhattan. I'd never been and was pleasantly surprised to discover this spot in our neck of the woods. Brasserie has held this location since 1959 but its current incarnation is ultra-sleek and decidedly stripped of nostalgia. The food remains classically French with clean, modern presentations.  

The lunch menu offered pretty standard RW fare: salmon tartare, seared scallops, braised short ribs and flourless chocolate cake. Not that I'm complaining; I never can resist tartare and short ribs. I did feel bad about skipping the scallops because they looked pretty delicious. However, these were served as an entree and would probably not have sated my appetite. Anyway, I really shouldn't spend my money on seared scallops since I kinda know how to make this now, right? (Yeah. Sure.)

I started with the salmon tartare with taro crisps and pommery mustard vinaigrette. The salmon was very fresh but I would've liked a few more crisps and a pinch more mustard. If I'm being honest, I actually prefer the salmon tartare that you can pick up from Grand Central Market just a few blocks away. Sorry.

For my entree, I had the braised short ribs with royal trumpet mushrooms and crushed herbed Idaho potato. It was very hearty and filling, but maybe a tad too rich for my taste.

For dessert, I picked the lemon tart with creme fraiche since I don't really have much of a sweet tooth.

What I should've picked was the crème caramel with pecan brittle and bourbon sauce. That was yummy. The crème caramel was airy and light, and the sweetness not too overpowering.

Overall, I would say that the meal was just okay. Nothing stood out for me enough that I would hurry back. But Brasserie does earn a spot on my list of places to for a more special weekday lunch in the area.

Restaurant Week Rating:

Brasserie is located at 100 East 53rd Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, New York, NY. Restaurant Week menus are available everyday during lunch and dinner until February 27, 2011. Phone 212.751.4840 for reservations.

 

restaurant week diary: mr. chow

"It's sad," I said to my friends as we dug into our Restaurant Week meal at Mr. Chow in Tribeca on a jam-packed Friday night.

"What's sad?"

"Think about all those celebrities in Hollywood ... this is what they think good Chinese food is," I replied. I like to think of myself as an ambassador of Asian cuisine of sorts to my non-Asian friends, taking pleasure in bringing them to out-of-the-way spots with delicious food they'll crave and come back for even without me. It's not often that I feel sorry for Playboy bunnies and Kardashians, but if this is what they think good Chinese food is, that's pretty tragic. 

I can't seem to learn the lesson that Chinese food is best eaten in Chinatown and not at some chi chi spot. I realized this when I went to Buddakan and found that their soup dumplings didn't even come close to Joe's Shanghai's. I'm sorry to say it, but Mr. Chow's food cannot hold a candle to our 4AM Chinatown stalwart, Hop Kee. The consolation is that we gave the spot a whirl during Restaurant Week and didn't have to break the bank to do it.

The glam interiors are a nice change from dingy Ctown tabletops, and the pushy tuxedo-clad Italian waiters easier on the eyes than pushy Chinese waiters. The blaring club music during dinner service reminded me of Bagatelle in the Meatpacking District; I half expected the patrons to start dancing on chairs while waving chicken satay in the air. The cachet of Mr. Chow is definitely in the glamorous ambience that hints at celebrity.

Not having done my research, I at least thought that we would be given nicely plated Chinese food for the price. Wrong. Mr. Chow does family style-servings much like the aforementioned Hop Kee. Our group of five was given all four options for appetizers and entrees available for Restaurant Week. The portions were fair and there was definitely more than enough food to go around.

The first starter I tried was the chicken satay, which took me aback. I didn't realize satay existed in Chinese cuisine but hey, there's such a thing as Filipino barbeque so I guess anything's possible. It tasted like lemon chicken placed on a skewer and dunked in some sweet mayo-based, peanut-inflected sauce.

The famous Mr. Chow Noodles reminded us of Filipino-style spaghetti with its handmade rice noodles topped with a sweet ground meat sauce. If an authentic Chinese dish like this does in fact exist, it explains how Filipinos came to butcher Italian spaghetti so spectacularly (Let me be clear that I do actually love and occasionally crave the sacrilegious Filipino preparation of spaghetti—but I wouldn't involve anyone who isn't Filipino in this).

The jade dumplings brought me back to that episode of Top Chef All Stars where the cheftestants commandeered a dimsum restaurant. "This is white people dimsum," grumbled one cranky Chinese lady. I can commiserate.

The appetizer that we liked best was the squab with lettuce because it tasted good and had some discernible texture (mainly because it's tough to mess up fresh lettuce).

Then came the entrees. The most popular dish on the menu is green prawns. I initially thought it was broccoli and was happily surprised to find out otherwise. Again, it's not bad but the texture is generally mushy and there's no sophisticated technique used to turn that prawn green—just food coloring here, people. I would take Hop Kee's walnut shrimp over this, any day.

The Drunken Fish, fresh sole poached in wine, tasted okay. But the textures were quite dreadful. The fish is mushy, not flaky, and obscured by some frightening-looking, cornstarch-heavy sauce. 

I think this was supposed to be crispy beef and it was tasty, though we also concurred it seemed someone in the kitchen had a heavy hand with the monosodium glutamate. 

The velvet chicken was inconsequential, and the green beans might've tasted like the dish Jamie and Antonia cooked in the Top Chef dimsum episode. Enough said.

For desert, we were given yummy raspberry and vanilla gelato—the only dish that looked right being dished out by the primarily Italian staff. What can I say about this ... they did a good job scooping it from the container? It was nice, but had absolutely nothing to do with Chinese cuisine.

What can I say? I enjoyed our dinner because of the great company and because it's good fun to get dolled up and check out "the scene" every so often. But if you come here for the food, the only feeling you'll have at the pit of your stomach is the sickening sensation of getting ripped off. If you must go, go for Restaurant Week and pay a negligible $35 per head. But if you're looking for good, comfort Chinese food, know that the $35 is better spent at a hole in the wall farther east below Canal Street.  

Mr. Chow is located at 121 Hudson Street, New York, NY 100013. Tel. (212) 965-9500

restaurant week diary: shang

Tonight I realized just how out of touch I've been with the world at large. My friends Linda and Jay had set up a Restaurant Week rezzie at this place called Shang in Thompson Hotel on the Lower East Side for us and another friend Caroline.  I recall being confused when I looked up the place. Why are four chinky-eyed folks going out for dinner in an haute Asian fusion restaurant when we know all the best spots in Chinatown that charge a fifth of the price? I had shunned TV for the last eight months so I didn't know that Shang's Chef Susur Lee was recently a very flamboyant and memorable contestant on Top Chef Masters. I used to follow that show religiously so I was pretty appalled that I didn't know what the heck was going on with it now. Thank god for good friends who always steer you in the general direction of yumminess ...

Now if I had done my research well, I would've known to order the Singapore Slaw to start. Good thing Jay (a.k.a. Buddha) is always at the top of his eating game, otherwise we wouldn't have tasted this pile of  deliciousness:

What a fantastic opening salvo this was. It's a crunchy, refreshing and absolutely addictive mixture of taro strips, vermicelli noodles, pickled red onions, jicama, carrots, tomatoes, daikon, cucumber, crushed roasted hazelnuts, peanuts, green onions and even edible flowers, all tossed in salted plum dressing. As we shoveled heapfuls of slaw into our mouths, we began planning a weekend BBQ and unanimously agreed we had to try to replicate this salad for that. Thanks to the wonderful Interwebs, I found this: 

How to Make: Zentan's Singaporean Slaw from Washingtonian.com on Vimeo

We might actually pull it off if we can find the 20 different ingredients! Aside from the salad, we ordered the calamari with spicy habanero sauce. How good was it? We demolished 3 plates of the stuff.

We also ordered a few plates off the a la carte menu. The lettuce cups were delicious, although my memory fails me on what exactly was in the filling below. I'll let you figure it out because I'm still in a bit of a food coma. I just guarantee that it's pretty good.

I would avoid ordering sushi rolls in the future. We had a couple and found them quite disappointing. The rolls kept falling apart and the rice was just not vinegary enough (I know vinegary is not a word, but it should be).

We didn't realize how slow the service was because we were so busy catching up, but it actually took quite awhile for our entrees to come out. And when it finally did, I was massively disappointed that my skirt steak did not come with Hainanese rice as advertised. You cannot, repeat CANNOT, give an Asian person mashed potatoes when your menu said Hainanese rice. That is just WRONG.

I never did get over the disappointment of the lack of Hainanese rice, but was still glad that I got to try the skirt steak because it is truly the best skirt steak I have ever tasted. I don't generally like skirt steak (I only ordered this dish because I wanted Hainanese rice!) because it tends to be tough and stringy. But this was unbelievably tender and soaked in flavor—so much so that you could almost confuse it for duck. The crunchy hazelnut shallot brown butter and the chili ponzu dip that the steak was swimming in was not bad either. We ended up ordering jasmine rice to have it with though. Mashed potatoes do not cut it! We had high expectation of the Top Chef Chicken Curry (top dish, above) but it fell short. Half of the dish was left untouched.

For dessert, we all had mango panna cotta, since there was really no other choice on the Restaurant Week menu:

While the flavor was good, the consistency was not. It did not have the light quality one expects of a good panna cotta, and instead had this heavy, pudding-like texture. Caroline, who is a trained pastry chef, was not impressed. She'll have to show us what good panna cotta is really like at our next BBQ!

All in all, Shang had both high and low points. What made the dinner really great for me was catching up with some amazing friends that I haven't seen in awhile. Thanks again to Buddha who treated us, and Caroline who hooked me up with Gucci wedges! (and thanks in advance to Linda, who will hook me up with delicious food at the BBQ in a few weeks)

I haven't decided yet if I would come back for another try ... though I am pretty sure that I'm hitting up Chinatown for some $5 Hainanese chicken and rice in the very near future!

Shang is located at 187 Orchard Street, New York, NY. Tel. (212) 260-7900

restaurant week diary: mercer kitchen

Last Thursday, we celebrated Alida's birthday (for the Nth time ... more to come!) by indulging in a Restaurant Week dinner at Mercer Kitchen. I'd only once walked into The Mercer Hotel before, back when I was a wee PR intern delivering jewelry to Ali Larter (I still haven't seen her on TV or in any movie until now, so I'm still holding on to that awe). I remember thinking it was one slick space, so I was quite curious to try Mercer Kitchen. Have to say, I quite loved the ambience. It's everything that you'd imagine a New York restaurant to be.

The food was pretty amazing too! Me being my odd-food-loving self, I zeroed in on the raw tuna pizza with wasabi cheese for my starter. I ordered it more for the experience than the expectation of getting amazing food, but thankfully I got both. The paper thin slices of raw tuna were very fresh and the wasabi cheese delivered scintillating zaps of heat sporadically while you ate. Keeping with the sushi theme, there were even thin slices of ginger atop the pizza. The julienned veggies add a nice crisp touch. Ali picked shrimps steamed on mixed greens with champagne vinegar dressing. I'm sure it was good but I was too preoccupied with my pizza to find out.

I thought I'd go the haute fastfood route and order a chi chi burger to go with my chi chi pizza. Shoush picked the slowly baked salmon with brussels sprouts and truffle vinaigrette that I was ruminating on. I've also developed a liking for brussels sprouts so I almost ordered it, but when I saw that all she got was that measly mound, I was glad I skipped it. She thought that they had a heavy hand with the salt for her dish. But I think they earned back some points with the luscious mashed potates surrounded with decandent truffle vinaigrette. Alida spoke highly of her juicy roasted chicken—which is something considering Ali is from Peru, a.k.a. the land of awesome roasted chicken. My burger was quite good, but my appetite is just not what it used to be! As I struggled to get halfway through my entree, Ali said, "That burger is kicking your ass."

I eventually gave up on finishing the burger and concentated all of my remaining willpower on dessert. I ordered the exotic fruit salad with vanilla-white pepper ice cream. Exotic is not a word to be used liberally in a party of three with one Peruvian, one Filipina, and one Armenian so we were not quite impressed with the so-called "exotic" fruit selection. But I did like the unconventional vanilla-white pepper ice cream (see now that's exotic). Mostly I was just pleased to have something light and refreshing after such a heavy meal. The girls ordered the warm Valrhona chocolate cake with caramel ice cream. Really, how can you go wrong with that?

Overall, I would still rank Mercer Kitchen among my top 5 Restaurant Week meals. The ambience of the place was pure sexiness, the crowd was sophisticated and cosmopolitan without being pretentious, and that tuna-wasabi cheese pizza is a dish I'll not soon forget. Definitely highly recommended for those heating up second dates!

Mercer Kitchen is located at 99 Prince Street (at Mercer Street), New York, NY 10012. Tel. (212) 966-5454

restaurant week diary: ilili

So ... I had this fun night all planned out. Was gonna go to Williamsburg to dance it up at Rose Land Music, where my friend Monica's beau DJ JKriv (of Tortured Soul fame) and Lou Teti were doing the first of many Deep & Disco nights to come. But my fun evening got cut short with this:  

I've developed a weakness for bone marrow. When I was growing up in the Philippines, I wasn't this crazy about bulalo, our local dish of bone marrow soup. But it's life's cruel joke, I guess, that you develop a liking for crazy fatty things just when you get to the age when you're supposed to start watching your health. In any case, I am now a bonafide bone marrow lover. So yesterday, when I sat down for Restaurant Week dinner at Ilili with Jammy, Sancho and Nina, I just went for it. And thus, my downfall. But first, let me tell you about the meal ...

I was unconscionable with my ordering. Ilili's prix fixe dinner includes two appetizers, one entree and a dessert. I went for the bone marrow AND veal sweetbreads for appetizers, then had the gall to order lamb chops ($7 supplement) for my entree. The bone marrow was served with small pita pillows that you can break apart and stuff with the unctuous bone marrow fat for a hedonistic little bite. The sour cherry tabbouleh on the side was nicely tart and fresh, and a great respite from all the greasiness—but that salad is a bit of an enabler, IMO, because then you feel refreshed enough to dive back into the fat. It's a vicious cycle.

The veal sweetbreads were also delicious. The exterior was crunchy and the inside succulent. I loved that they were cradled in crunchy lettuce cups and sprinkled with slices of kabiss turnips because it kept the richness of the sweetbreads at bay. Again, the lettuce were just enablers though because it made me wolf down two pieces of sweetbreads. Sigh. Other delicious appetizers were the addictive baba ghannouj and the steamed clams soaked in Harissa butter goodness. Sancho also ordered lamb sausages but I never got to that since I had more than enough food to deal with ...  

Along with our appetizers, we were given a complimentary taste of Chateau Kefraya's wine. Ilili is showcasing a different Lebanese wine every week until February 21, so diners who are doing the Restaurant Week menu get a free pour. The red wine we were served was nice and drinkable, though not complex enough for my liking. I did get a glass though ($9) to go with my lamb chops. I'm not sure if the lamb chops were nothing out of the ordinary or I was just too full by then. But we all agreed that the appetizers were more noteworthy than the entrees. Nina had black cod, Sancho had the Ilili burger, and Jammy had the duck kebab.

It turns out that this $35 prix fixe dinner is served year-round, not just on Restaurant Week. But what I wasn't crazy about was their rule that the entire table needs to do the prix fixe. It was really way too much food for us, plus we weren't able to order some things that we were really curious about from the a la carte menu because we were just way too stuffed. The duck shawarma will have to wait another day ...

I would love to come back there to enjoy their happy hour. It goes from 5:30 to 7:30 from Monday to Friday, and they have a pretty sweet selection of cocktails for just $7 and appetizers starting at $5. I had The Fresh Meadow, which is a refreshing concoction of gin, elderflower liquor, mint, ginger and cucumber. What I want to have next time though is the potent From Beirut with Passion: a sneakily delicious mix of basil-cilantro-mint infused vodka and sparkling passion fruit. You can check out the happy hour menu here.

One more Restaurant Week post to come and then we'll resume to regular programming. My friend Céline was begging me to put up more fashion posts because the food posts as of late just make her hungry! Soon babies ... now off to Bikram Yoga to atone for my gluttony!

Ilili is located at 236 Fifth Avenue (between W 28th and W 29th Street), New York, NY. Tel. (212) 683-2929.

restaurant week diary: en japanese brasserie

Phenomenal restaurant week meal at EN Japanese Brasserie last night! Thank god too because we had to brave frostbite to get there, with New York's freezing temps. I had never been to this restaurant before and I have to say, I quite like it! It's a modern izakaya with lofty ceilings and sleek Japanese-inflected interiors. There's a massive open kitchen that's completely staffed with Japanese cooks (not a common sight in Manhattan). The air is suffused with the scent of stone grilled meat. LOVE!

I started off with a large bottle of Echigo rice beer ($11), which lasted me the entire meal. It was quite good; a hoppy lager, slightly bitter, but strong enough to stand up to all the strong flavors in my dinner. There were so many tempting things on the a lá carte menu that I almost skipped the restaurant week menu; the uni don had me thinking for a while, but I'll have to come back for that another time. I decided to go for the full on restaurant week menu, which was totally worth it! For starters, we were given o-banzai, or the chef's selection of traditional Kyoto-style appetizers. Tonight it was one seaweed concoction and another pickled radish dish. We were also given the handmade tofu that the restaurant is known for. This tofu is made fresh, everyday, at 6:00, 7:30, 9:00 and 10:30. I love seaweed and pickled apps so I was happy with the o-banzai. And the silky goodness of that ultrafresh tofu was just awesome.

But nothing brought a bigger smile to my face than this:

The stone grilled Washugyu creates quite a spectacle when it is served, since it is such a beautiful plate. The picture's a little washed out so the steak looks more well-done than it actually was. It was actually quite nicely medium rare, which is just how I like it. The serving is incredibly generous. Even with the $10 supplement, I found this to be a way better deal than the other entree options (black cod or vegetable tempura). This dish is sold for $42 on the regular menu, so it's a good deal to do $45 for the Restaurant Week menu and get all the little trappings thrown in. We were also served onigiri and miso soup. I couldn't even get through the miso soup because I was so stuffed. Dessert was simple: a scoop of tangerine ice cream. I was not crazy about the flavor but at that point, the ice cream was a welcome respite from the heavy dinner.

At the end of our meal, we were each given $20 coupons to use towards one of their regular tasting menus, which start at $65. I totally intend on making use of that coupon one of these days! Must have more! I am also very curious about EN Japanese Brasserie's "Fish Heads, Eel Bones & Beer" dinner, which is inspired by their staff meals. It takes place at 10pm on the first Saturday of every month. It centers on the concept that nothing is wasted in a Japanese kitchen, so odds and ends like scraps of wagyu beef and fish heads are turned into delicious dishes by the chefs. Past dinners have included sea bream-head soup, crunchy deep fried eel and fluke bones, and braised wagyu beef tips. Also, this $45 meal comes will all the Sapporo beer you can drink. My kind of dinner.

I would definitely rank EN Japanese Brasserie as one of my top Restaurant Week experiences. Delicious food, wonderful service, amazing ambience and just great value for money. Meals like these are why I love Restaurant Week!

EN Japanese Brasserie is located at 435 Hudson Street (at Leroy), New York, NY 10014. Tel. 212.647.9196

restaurant week diary: bondst

One down for restaurant week! Tonight Zoe and I met up at BONDST to try out their restaurant week dinner. I'd been to BONDST before but just for drinks at the lounge, and was always curious about their food. I started with a yuzu caipirinha at the bar, which I picked because it had calamansi in it. Calamansi is a type of lime that's widely available in the Philippines, but I rarely come across it in this part of the world so I just pounced. That familiar tartness in my caipirinha was a nice way to start off my meal.

BONDST offers a rather generous restaurant week meal because of its "bento" style. You start normally enough, with a choice between salad or miso soup. Your main dish, however, is served "bento" style. It comes with three other small bites (crispy shrimp, some braised hijiki, and a steamed yuba dumpling) as well as your choice between sushi rolls or sashimi. The main courses offered are either steamed cod or strip steak. For dessert, two of the choices are a molten chocolate cake and a lychee panna cotta.

Zoe and I ended up ordering completely different things, as you'll see in the pictures below. My meal is on the left side while hers is on the right.

The salad was a great starter, especially since I've been eating so much junk lately. I quite liked the crunchy noodles on top and ginger dressing always gets my appetite going. I was quite pleased with my "bento" though last November's trip to Tokyo has just ruined the sushi experience for me. The sashimi I had was not bad at all, but since the memories of Tokyo's succulent, ultra fresh otoro and nigiri are still vivid in my mind, BONDST's sashimi was almost inconsequential. The dumpling I thought was alright but ordinary, and the hijiki was negligible. The steak was nicely medium rare, as I like it, and had great flavor but still nothing to write home about. Zoe felt similarly about her food. For the most part, the dishes were just okay—although her cod was quite delicious. The meat was plump and juicy, and the sweet yuzu sauce just gave it great flavor. What I liked most about this meal was that it was generous and had good variety. It was not mindblowing, but it's a very nice meal to have while having good conversation with a friend. Plus, I was stuffed by the time I cleared my plate so it's good value for money.

What I did passionately love was my dessert. The lychee flavored panna cotta was just so light yet satisfying. I loved that they decided to use lychee to flavor it. It ranks up there among my favorite panna cottas ever (#1 is still held by Kittichai's jasmine flavored panna cotta). Zoe's dessert, a molten chocolate cake served with a scoop of espresso ice cream, was equally delish, just richer. A great way to send me off to my next stop for the night: French Tuesdays' pink party at Nikki Midtown! More on that tomorrow ... for now, off to bed!

BONDST is located at 6 Bond Street near Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012 40.Tel. 212-777-2500

have you made your restaurant week rezzies yet?

NYC foodies, it's that time of the year again. Those two weeks that make Winter in New York a tad more bearable are coming up ... yes, it's almost Restaurant Week! It kicks off this Monday, January 25 and goes on until February 7. There are some exciting new restaurants on the list like Breslin Bar & Dining, SHO Shaun Hergatt and A Voce, but maddeningly they're all just participating for lunch and the Breslin doesn't even take reservations! So since I actually work, I don't think I'll be getting a crack at those. But that's okay, because there are many, many good meals to be had during Resto Week! Zoe and I are kicking it off with dinner at Bond Street on Tuesday, and I'm sure there will be plenty of other foodie friends who will want to indulge.

Also new this year: the Restaurant Week Truck! The RW Truck will be stopping at three different locations throughout restaurant week serving up hearty soups from 24 different establishments. The truck schedule is:

January 25–29: Broadway (bet. 50th and 51st Sts.)
February 1–3: Fifth Ave. (bet. 18th and 19th Sts.)
February 4–5: Greenwich St. (bet. Warren and Murray Sts.)

The first stop is bit of a walk from my workplace so we'll see if I am tempted enough by the thought of creamy white onion soup with duck confit and mustard oil from Marseille or butternut squash leek soup with cranberry beans and sage croutons from Nice Matin to trek over. It's only $6 for a cup of soup and a piece of bread from Tom Cat Bakery. Plus, $1 from every $6 NYC Restaurant Week Truck purchase will go to The Haiti Relief Fund at the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City, aiding disaster-relief efforts in Haiti.

If you haven't made any reservations yet, then get your foodie on by clicking here. If you want to get in the mood, check out my posts from restaurant weeks past here.

I meanwhile, will be signing off. Feeling under the weather and want to rest up for our chill country weekend getaway! Have a great one dears!

restaurant week diary: bobby van's steakhouse

For our last restaurant week meal for the season (so my waistline hopes), Mika and I joined Monkey and Buddha for a steak dinner at Bobby Van's Steakhouse down in the Financial District. The bar was packed with finance types when we came in, making you think, "Recession? What recession?"

I picked the grilled portobello mushroom with goat cheese for my appetizer. YUM. The portobello tasted rich and earthy, and that great slab of goat cheese was delectably creamy. Feeling overwhelmed with so many successive rich meals, I went with salmon rather than steak tonight. I was intrigued about the salmon being horseradish crusted, but truthfully I tasted no horseradish when I had it. I was happy though because I asked for my salmon to be cooked medium rare and they delivered. The pink meat was beautifully moist and flaky. Mika went with the sirloin, which was quite good but not extraordinary. The meat was juicy, well-seasoned, and a good size. Linda had the filet mignon, which I originally really wanted. The edges were too well done, but the steak was generally good. The garlic mashed potates were super garlicky, creamy and delish. The creme brulee I picked was good, but paled in comparison to Buddha's light-as-air chocolate mousse and Mika's scrumptious bread pudding. Oh my god, I wanted to marry that bread pudding, it was so good.

The meal was made that much more interesting when a waiter suddenly hugged Mika just as we were about to dig into our apps. It turns out they knew each other from the pool community. He gave us a round of Moscato and several rounds of belly laughs from his hilarious stories. The meal was definitely great value for money. I was so full afterward that I could barely close the clasp of my pants. Or was that maybe a result of weeks of indulging? Hmm. Salad diet starts tomorrow!

Bobby Van's Steakhouse is located at 25 Broad Street, New York. Tel. 212-344-8463

restaurant week diary: david burke townhouse

It's getting to the point where I've had so many Restaurant Week meals lately that I feel I'm waddling instead of walking these days. Good lord. I am eating nothing but salads next week.

So yesterday, I had lunch with my friends Ludette and Vanessa at David Burke Townhouse. It was my first time there but both of them had tried it before. I got excited when they started us off with such adorable bread. I try not to load up on bread when dining out but this was too cute to pass up so I ate more than I wanted to. By the time my appetizer came I was feeling full. I was disappointed that the most appealing dishes on the restaurant week menu required a $6 supplement, but I went for it anyway since I wanted to try the dishes that the restaurant is known for. I picked the parfait of big eye tuna and salmon tartare. I loved the presentation (sorry, again my iPhone pic does not do it justice. Must buy a proper camera already!). The dish came with 3 different sauces, but I felt the tartare shone most eaten without the sauce. The salmon and tuna were very fresh, and intermingled with apples, pine nuts, hijiki and crème fraîche, there was no need for further embellishment. I preferred to eat the tartare with the crunchy potato tuile on the side rather than the crostinis—so much more indulgent!

For entrees, Ludette and Vanessa picked the braised shortribs, which also entailed a $6 supplement. When I tried it, the shortribs seemed tender and flavorful, but both of them felt it wasn't all that. Ludette is a shortrib enthusiast and Vanessa is a Parisian foodie, so I'll take their word for it. Vanessa did say that the other components to the dish were very good: the handmade cavatelli, wild mushrooms and mushroom chips. I'm sure they were quite happy with the truffle cream topping, as well!

I was so overwhelmed with all the rich food I'd had over the last week that I chose a simple entree: sauteed calamari and garganelli pasta with arugula, tomatoes, olives, and crisp chorizo. It was fresh and light, but with a little bit of heat. Nothing to write home about, but exactly what I needed that afternoon.

For dessert, I had to try the famous David Burke lollipop tree, which you can get during restaurant week with an $8 supplement or in lieu of two desserts. Ludette and I shared this the cheesecake lollipop tower. I forgot though that I'm not the biggest fan of cheesecake. The only cheesecake I can eat tons of is our friend Caroline's blueberry cheesecake. I forced myself to have 2 cheesecake lollipops, which were good in all fairness, but just not my cup of tea. I did like the bubblegum flavored whipped cream though!

Some complaints: the runner spilled water on the floor when he poured water into our glasses and never wiped it up. We were debating whether one of us should purposely fall and sue David Burke for millions, but we didn't do it of course. Also, the restrooms don't smell very fresh, which shocked me for an establishment like this. Would I come back? Maybe. But I wouldn't rush back anytime soon with so many more amazing places to explore in the city.

David Burke Townhouse is located at 133 East 61st Street between Park and Lexington Avenues, New York, NY 10021. Tel. 212-813-2121