Archive | September, 2014

Spoiling myself for my birthday

8 Sep

As I’m sure you can tell from this blog, I don’t exactly deprive myself of delicious things. But when I’m not out at incredible restaurants, I do try to eat healthy as much as possible.  I realized a long time ago that skinny just doesn’t taste very good.  So I’ll take a few extra pounds and be very happy… I just try to watch it when I can.

For my birthday, however, all bets are off.

And my birthday is a multiple day extravaganza, of course, so the eating just keeps on rolling.

The Friday before my birthday, I treated myself to one of my favorite breakfast sandwiches: The Works from Piccolo Cafe.  There are 3 Piccolos in the city (UWS, Midtown East, Midtown West, and near Union Square).  “The Works” has nicely toasted bread, eggs, tomato, lettuce, parmesan, and truffle spread. It’s awesome (they also have really nice pastas).

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I took a half day so on my way to a lovely birthday mani/pedi with my mom, I stopped at Bon Chon Chicken and had my guilty pleasure, fried chicken drumsticks, and a Sea Dog Wild Blueberry Beer (from Maine).  I didn’t totally get the Bon Chon craze, even after trying it, but I find myself craving this chicken on regular occasions and I really have no idea why.

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And for dessert, I was ECSTATIC to find out that Fresh Direct now stocks the very Maine gelato we brought in special for our wedding, Gelato Fiasco.  If you have not tried their Caramel Sea Salt gelato yet, you have not lived. It’s sensational.

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And, of course, the one time each year that I allow myself to have a full fat, full whip, Frappuccino is on my birthday.  This was a caramel frap with chocolate cookie pieces on top. I really wanted the Caramel Crunch one, but that is a seasonal, apparently. This was a close second.

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All these treats were in addition to an amazing meal at Sushi Nakazawa and an impromptu dinner at Lafayette.

A very successful food-filled birthday, if I do say so myself!

#happybirthdaytome

 

 

The day I bought juice for $9.25 (AKA: I am the problem)

5 Sep

I was feeling a wee bit hung over after a party the night prior (and the sad part is, I had all of about 3.5 drinks over the course of 4 hours… I’m getting older!) and decided I needed some hydration and electrolytes. I popped into Fresh & Co, simply because it was the first place I passed, with the intention of getting some coconut water.  Much to my dismay, they had no coconut water. But they had some lovely looking juices lined up, so I picked up a flavor that looked tasty (Pineapple, Apple, Mint), and went to the register to pay.

She said the price, which I paid zero attention to, and I pulled out a crisp (probably not so crisp) $10 bill and handed it over.  She handed me back 3 quarters and I exited the store.

Then I looked down.

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3 quarters?

I scratched my head.

I walked back in.

There was a line at the register now so I approached the juice shelf.

For a few hopeful moments, I assumed she must have charged me for 2.  (Oh how naive I was!)

And much to my shock… this juice was, in fact, $8.50 before tax.

Why I didn’t throw the juice into the air and scream “ROBBERY!” I will never understand, but I sheepishly walked out of that store with my luxury juice in hand and stared down on it in dismay.

This had better be some DAMN good juice.  Was it made out of gold? Was it going to instill me with super powers beyond my wildest dreams?

Only time would tell.

I was even more dismayed to see that it is ONLY 82% juice!  For $9.25, this should be 100% dammit.

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But I took a sip.

And it was just fine…  If it were $3 juice.  Even better if it were $2 juice!  But for $9.25? Hell to the no.

And there was no gold.

And no super powers to be had.

Besides the super power of feeling like I am what is wrong with this country.  More than $9 for JUICE?!

As I contemplated how I was solely responsible for perpetuating that this robbery was somehow okay, I decided to lift my juice bottle to its austere place in society by photographing it in front of the Empire State Building.

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I briefly toyed with the idea of keeping this bottle with me and taking photos with it at  major tourist attractions in NYC, figuring if it couldn’t give me super powers at least it could provide me with a little bit of company and amusements as I strolled the streets of my fair city. But after taking a few extra moments to get this picture where you could actually read the label while also seeing the building behind it, and then lowering it to realize that people were staring at me JUST like I stare at the silly tourists who take silly pictures as I pass by them on my way to work every day, I opted to toss it into the next trash can.

And I hummed “Taps” in my head as if a (very expensive) living creature had passed away.

Lafayette

5 Sep

After a really nice day of day drinking with some friends at the (very cool yet very particular) Campbell Apartments in Grand Central Station (note: DO NOT WEAR SHORTS!) we were hungry for food. It was my actual birthday, and even though we had enjoyed Sushi Nakazawa just the night before, we looked up what was available last minute on Eater and wound up at Lafayette.

I had just read that the chef was leaving, and I am not sure if he left the day we dined or a few days prior, but we would never have known something was a miss during our meal.

It was a beautiful evening and we sat outside.

First, we enjoyed Egg Lafayette with smoked sablefish & trout caviar. This tasted as good as it looked.

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These gorgeous little mouthfuls were all the smokiness you could want with a great texture and combination of flavors.

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Mike got theDry-Aged Strip Steak Frites with béarnaise butter.  It was good but not overly special. Just a well executed version of Steak Frites.

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I got the Skate Wing a la Plancha, summer squash, buckwheat, smoked tomato.  I loved this dish.  The skate was perfectly cooked and just a bit crispy on the outside, with excellent, fresh flavors and lovely textures from the buckwheat and flavorful foam.  If I can be picky, I thought there was a lack of buckwheat.  I love the taste of buckwheat and was excited to have it, but under all that skate there was maybe half a teaspoon of buckwheat in total.  Not that I left hungry, though, by any means!

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Our meal ended with lovely macarons from the kitchen.  Light and fluffy and lots of great flavor in these little cookies.

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We really enjoyed our dining experience at Lafayette. It all felt very seamless and if I closed my eyes, I would think we were back in Paris.  The food was mostly exceptional, especially those egg starters. I cannot wait to go back and try more. I’m especially curious about their brunch!

Total Nom Points: 7.5 out of 10

Total Nom Points: 7.5 out of 10