Tag Archives: stuff i ate

New York Taste Event 2014: Thanks NY Mag!

17 Nov

My job has a lot of perks.  Because we work with a lot of magazines and websites, we get to take advantage of some of their more exclusive events.  Usually the events are more like big parties, which are fun but not really my thing.  But when New York Magazine (which also happens to be the only magazine I read as a consumer, every issue) invited me to their annual TASTE event, I was thrilled.  They even let me take a Plus One, so I had to invite fellow food lover and blogger, That Lori, of Stuff I Ate, to join me.

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I’ve always wanted to go to TASTE, seeing as though it features a taste from some of the best restaurants in NYC, including some of our favorites, all’onda, Barbutobetony, Butter, Gramercy Tavern, and NoMad.

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The event was in a space called The Waterfront Building on 11th Avenue between 27th and 28th Streets.  It was built in 1891 as the Terminal Stores building and it looked (and looks) like a medieval fortress.  Rail lines ran right into the building from the Hudson river docks and when it was built, it was the only building with direct access to the river, the road, and the rail.

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It was a great space for this event; long and narrow with enough room to get around (though when the masses came in, we were certainly tripping over each other (and the poorly placed floor lights).   Though it certainly felt crowded at times, we never waited more than a few minutes for any food (though by the final hour, most were out of food… not that we could eat any more at that time anyway though!)

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As we walked through the event, I kept noticing that they had great music on. I was actually surprised when we got to the end and it was a live band.  They sounded like a recording.  Great band.

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But now onto the food!  I was impressed to see many of the celebrity chefs working their booths, including Alex Guarnaschelli at Butter and Dale Talde at Talde.

One of my favorite celebrity chefs, Jonathan Waxman, was behind his Barbuto table.  As soon as I lifted my duck liver pâté crostini with apples and saba up to take a picture, Chef Waxman immediately laughed at me and said I was being cute by taking a detailed picture.  I blushfully told him how much I loved his chicken at Barbuto and he told me that he hopes I loved his duck liver even more.  I’m not star struck by many people, but for some reason, Chef Waxman turned me into a giggling little girl.

And yes, his duck liver was superb (though blurry in this picture, seeing as though I was giggling…)

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Here were some of my favorite bites of the evening:

Truffled hummus from Claudette.  I would never have thought to bump up hummus by adding truffle, but this was spot on.  From now on, if I want to make my hummus a more elegant meal, I will be adding truffle salt.

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And while we’re on the topic of truffles, Toloache was serving a beautiful slice of raw tuna with quinoa, avocado aioli, and fresh slices of truffles. It also had a spicy sauce on top which they (kindly) left off of mine.  This was so fresh and just popped with flavor.

 

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The Writing Room was serving a chicken liver mousse with green apples.  The mousse was so fresh and the apples were a great foil for the richness.  A very enjoyable bite.

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Sadly, there was so much food that by the end, I just couldn’t fit another bite.  But I just loved the look of these lettuce cups with egg from Tao.

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But my favorite bite of the evening was squash with pistachio and truffle from Piora.  It was so good, that Piora jumped right to the top of my list for next restaurant I want to try.

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My favorite dessert was the chocolate lollipops from Wallsé. They were so rich and had such amazing flavor.  I went back for one more at the end of the night, but no surprise, there were none left.

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I loved this event and even if I don’t get the opportunity to go as a guest next year, I think it will be worth it to pay for it and bring Mike.  It was an absolutely delicious and fun evening.

Thanks again, New York Magazine!

 

Eataly: Manzo Ristorante

21 Feb

When Eataly first opened, I was excited, but it was SO crowded.  I had been to Birreria before for a client dinner, but that included a reservation. And I had gotten lucky finding a spot to sit at the Crudo bar.

But when That Lori (from Stuff I Ate) and I were looking for a place to celebrate our birthdays, we jumped at the chance to try Manzo, which is the only place that was accepting reservations.  Every restaurant at Eataly has  theme, and Manzo’s theme is MEAT.

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We started with a lovely looking basket of bread. The sourdough was awesome.

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We were torn on the menu. So many delicious sounding things. Our waiter advised that the plates were small, so we decided it was a sharing night.  (Though our arms never really needed to be twisted to share… one of many reasons I love dining with That Lori).

We started with the mozzarella with brown butter and guanciole. It was a lot softer than I was expecting, but the garlic toast that came with it really allowed us to sop up all the deliciousness.

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I liked the compliments of flavors very much.

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Our second dish was the Tajarin with Sugo d’Arrosto.  This was a pasta made with the drippings from a roast.

They very kindly split it for us, but even our half portions were quite substantial.

And this was SO. GOOD.  This is everything that is wonderful about pasta… a perfect compliment with the meaty flavored sauce.  Simple looking yet so complex.

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We also split the hay smoked veal chop.  This came with canneli beans and speck.  This was HUGE.  I have no idea how anything we got was considered a “small” portion.

And the meat? The hay smoking gave it this great grassy, earthy flavor.  It was delicious, and cooked perfectly.

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Since we split everything, we luckily had room for dessert.  We decided to split the chocolate crostada with plums and sliced almonds.  This was very rich (but I LOVE rich) and the ice cream and plums were great to make the flavors more complex.  Very enjoyable.

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Overall, Manzo was just a spectacular dining experience. I highly recommend sharing so you can experience much of what it has to offer.  We were so tickled by our experience there and we really loved all the food.  Every bite was fresh, complex, and bursting with flavor.  Exactly the way it should be.

Total Nom Points: 7.5 out of 10

Total Nom Points: 7.5 out of 10

Proud to “Blog with Substance”

28 Oct

I was honored when Amy (from Amy Shops the Web) gave me “A Blog With Substance” award.  I think it’s a fantastic way to honor the incredible blogging that goes on around the web.  I’m sure there are a lot of bloggers just like me who do this entirely for fun, but secretly wish for a bit of notoriety for all the hard work.  Then there are those very popular and “famous” bloggers that we love and inspire us to keep on blogging. And who better to judge bloggers than fellow bloggers?

As for Amy, she started a blog to get her thoughts out there and found herself blogging about a few passions.  As time went on, she realized that the passion she could really sink her teeth into best was fashion.  And I am sure glad she did! I also had the opportunity to guest blog for Amy while she was finding her direction.  

As a relative newbie to online shopping, Amy has given me advice and suggested sales to check out that have been invaluable.  I always know when ideeli or gilt has Badgley Mischka on sale and Amy is the entire reason that I love the site modcloth.com.  Her intro to other shopping sites has also given me the opportunity to find a 2 hour special for pampering at a spa for $99 and some awesome wine glasses that are a hit at every dinner party.  Not only is she savvy about the space, she has great taste.  It’s an honor to be nominated by Amy.  

This award has 3 great rules:

1) Thank the person who gave me the award:
It appears that everyone who writes this award doesn’t want to be thanked in return, including Amy.  I think thanking people for the things they do, big or small, is incredibly important.  So Miss Amy… I will not ignore this rule.  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!  

2) Sum up my blogging philosophy, motivation, and experience using five words:
Fun. Honest. Informational. Me. Nommy! 🙂 

 
3) Pass it on to 5 other blogs that I feel have real substance:

Stuff I Ate: Lori is the best foodie friend one could ask for.  Not only is she a great cook with fantastic recipes that make me want to run out to try them RIGHT NOW, but she is a fantastic Nomming partner who fully embraces the concept of sharing to enhance enjoyment! We have fully enjoyed our journey through food together and I always look forward to reading her latest posts (and to our next meal together!)  She inspires me every day.

Feisty Foodie:  Even though I do not know Yvo personally, I would be completely remiss to not nominate her for this award.  She has inspired me as a successful food blogger and I am so impressed (ok… and maybe a little jealous) by the fact that she quit her 9-5 to go back to school to do this food thing full time.  I first found her through Lori, and then I was hooked when I realized she was a fellow Mets fan.  One of my all-time favorite posting events she did was her exploration of Banh Mi around the city that she titled “On a Banh Mi Bender.”  

WinedAndDined:  Continuing on the awesome food bloggers that I don’t know personally, I have to give it up to Wined and Dined.  They curate some of the best food deals and events around the city and I have explored quite a few fun opportunities because of their advice.  It is so hard to find this information scattered across the web, so I never miss a posting where they put it all in one place and make some recommendations.  They also have aggregated their posts into great topics including NYC Happy Hour Deals, Free Food, and a place to get your own personal recommendation.  They get it.

Confessions of a Pioneer Woman: Ree is a new find of mine who I only started reading after I saw her speak about food blogging at the LA Times Food Festival.  Her personality was both charismatic and humble and I just found myself immediately drawn in by her blog.   Her lifestyle could not be more different than my city living.  She lives on a ranch with her husband (who she calls Marlboro Man) and children.  She writes about food, but also about home schooling her kids, vocabulary lessons, photography, and her life on the ranch.  I love her photos and she really does a beautiful job of photographing every step of her recipes.  She inspires me to take better, more intimate photos of my cooking.  She wrote about what she has learned from blogging and seriously has more followers than most national website.  She’s kind of my blog hero.

Single Infertile Female: My final nomination goes to someone who has absolutely nothing to do with food (shocking I know!)  To go even farther removed from my life, SIF moved to Alaska to settle down after partying it up in San Diego for a number of years.  Her life plan flew off course when she found out she had an insanely aggressive form of endometriosis and set upon a quest to become a mom, even if a man was not even on the horizon.  I am inspired by her bravery.  Not only for posting to the entire (judgmental) world about becoming a single mom through IVF (it still upsets me that these are both such controversial topics), but also for going through one round of IVF that didn’t work and picking herself up by her bootstraps to try again.  She is painfully and hysterically honest.  I enjoy reading her entries and I can’t help but root for her.  I hope this next round works, but even if it doesn’t, I can tell just by reading SIF that she will be okay… and be an inspiration moving forward.  

Thanks again to Amy.  This was fun!

And, as always, Happy Nomming!