Category Archives: Food

food in the city

So I was in NYC in mid-June for (what else) more meetings. I did manage to attend some interesting business dinners, first at Jeffrey Chodorow’s Wild Salmon (NYMag review, official website) and the following night at Mario Batali’s hoity-toity venue Del Posto (NYMag review, official website). The food experience at Wild Salmon was disappointing – the set menu for our group of Interactive Advertising Bureau members didn’t offer the restaurant’s namesake fish – salmon, wild or otherwise. The Yellow Eye Rockfish with heirloom beans and lacinato kale was yummy enough, as was the Pacific Northwest nuts & berries salad. I probably ate too many of the oven roasted rosemary garlic fingerling potatoes served family style on the side, but that combo is a major weakness of mine.

The following night was a client advisory board dinner for clients of DoubleClick at Del Posto. During cocktails before dinner, folks were talking about the fact that Paul McCartney was playing a ‘secret’ gig around the corner – giving me momentary pause to consider abandoning dinner to see one of my idols. But the wine, cocktail morsels like buttery chopped liver, chunks of aged parmesan and other tidbits all helped to keep me there. The most delicious part of the dinner in the private downstairs dining room was the agnolotti dal plin with truffle butter. Really just enough for a tasting, these were divine. After fish the prior night, the sirloin with smoked polenta and vegetable sottaceto was my choice – fine, but nothing to write home about. By the time the crostata di cioccolato arrived with coffee, I was ready to pack it in and caught a cab back to midtown and my hotel. Hence I missed the group that headed out soon after and caught the last four songs of McCartney’s set. Bad choice on my part.

another birthday, another great day

duck

Yesterday was a fabulous day. Yes, I am a year older, but it was really nice to hear from so many friends from near and far. The day began on a high note with Sam singing ‘Happy Birthday to Daddy’ from atop our bed. Soooo cute, I tell ya! To cap the day, Amy begrudgingly went along with my idea for dinner at local gourmet spot Quinones , which turned out to be a three-hour extravaganza that had to be one of the best dinner’s I’ve had in the A-T-L (the Dining Room at the Ritz or the now-defunct Seeger’s runs a close second). And Amy LOVED it! The room is far more intimate and romantic than parent restaurant Bacchanalia upstairs – with softer settings, real linen tablecloths, lovely pink water glasses, and a generally much less uptight wait staff than Amy and I had experienced in the two dinners we’ve had upstairs. So if we can find an excuse, we’ll head back again! There’s the cute touch of the stools for the ladies’ purses, the very comfortable banquette where we sat, and then, of course, the seemingly unending stream of beautiful tastes of heaven that the kitchen sent to our table.

The service was also stellar – including the lovely touch of the maitre’d calling me on my cell a few minutes after we left and thanking us for being such nice guests, hoping we return, wishing us luck with baby no. 2, etc. You just don’t see that sort of personal attention too often. It may have been that business was slow – over the course of the evening we were only one of four tables occupied in the venue – leaving at least another ten or so four-tops open. One complaint, though – the odd couple who sat down next to us with the gentleman wearing shorts and a really ugly Hawaiian shirt seemed out of place – then again, the last time we were at Bacchanalia someone sat near us wearing running shorts. I guess folks just don’t dress up, even for the most expensive restaurants in Atlanta.

Anyway, for those interested in the gory details, here is the breakdown of the ten-course tasting menu (with eight accompanying wine pairings).

troutducklambconstant blissmelon & sorbet

Continue reading another birthday, another great day

Results

Update Monday, May 7th: Well, a night in the fridge did nothing to help out the strawberry jam. We have a solid block of a deep purple substance I can only describe as being somewhat akin to hard candy. I’ll try again soon, but this time I’ll do some more research!

With all those berries, I had to cook something up. Above, you can see the good – a yummy strawberry buckle, a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated I modified from it’s origins as a blueberry buckle for the wonderful fruit just picked yesterday I had on hand. Below is the bad. I thought it would be great to try making jam – strawberries have so much natural pectin that it’s easier than most fruit. The allrecipes.com instructions didn’t highlight how carefully I’d have to watch this – and while chasing Sam around the house I managed to let the bottom stick and burn, essentially ruining the flavor of the whole batch. I’ll test it in the morning to see how it turned out, but I do not have high hopes. But the buckle goes into the recipe book as one to keep.

Picking a Winner

With Amy pulling seven gigs in three days, I Photo by Joel Silvermanwas Mr. Mom, and looking for things to entertain Sammy. On Saturday, we headed out with Sam’s future wife and his parents to a ‘u-pick-’em’ strawberry farm near McDonough, GA. With flavor you just don’t get from supermarket specimens, and at $8.50 a bucket (around 5 pounds worth), it was well worth it. And Sammy and Sophie had an absolute blast. There is a great website (Atlanta-area farms here) that catalogs all these self-picking farms across the country – we plan to hit the blueberry and fig farms later this summer. And maybe then Sam will get to see Old McDonald – he kept asking for him! We finished the day with a wonderful lunch (shrimp and grits, mmm) at a cute place in McDonough called Truman’s – well worth the visit. More photos of the outing are here. (Photo at right of Sam’s hand with a strawberry by my friend Joel Silverman, photographer extraordinaire. See his site here).