Il Buco's menu is always different depending on the season. Susan and Ashley ordered for me since I showed up late. As explained by Katie, our server, this tomato salad had dried olives which were salty and chewy, a nice contrast to the creamy burrata. The ziti came with home made sausage and broccoli rabe. The home made papparadelle was mushroomy and buttery.
Olio is a new Neapolitan (I just realized that this meant "from Naples", I never really thought about it before, except strawberry, vanilla, chocolate ice cream) pizza place that recently opened in the West Village, it replaced a gross fast food sushi place. It's what I imagine a busy pizza place in Italy to be like. It's chaotic and hectic with Italian guys yelling at each other but then the pizza comes out and it's perfect and simple. I started with an arugula salad topped with slices of prosciutto and parmesan.
One thing... the outside of the building is painted an ugly bright green, I think they should change the color. It looks OK at night but during the day it's too bright, then again, this weirdness kind of adds to it's authentic Italian feeling.
At work today we were scouting for country roads. Luckily we were looking right in front of Blue Hill at Stone Barns so we had lunch at the cafe. It's a working farm. Almost all the food they serve is raised or grown right there. Today I had a bologna sandwich and mixed vegetables.
This was a mistake. Sole is a trendy, LA-ish hotel that has two locations in Montauk. I stayed overnight at the Beach location, it was fine. But the East location has a swimming pool and DJs playing lounge music. The fluke ceviche at the The Backyard Restaurant was more like fluke soup.
I had a couple of days off so I took a solo impromptu trip to Montauk. It's pretty easy to come mid-week on the Jitney, for an extra $15 you can bring your bike. Being a solo diner, I didn't want to go to some really family-oriented or action packed place, that would make me feel extra lonely. The Second House Tavern over-looking Fort Pond was just what I was looking for. They had the Yankees game on in the bar and since it was happy hour they were handing out pizza from their wood oven. The cod with beets and capers was also from the wood oven.
I'm not a big breakfast guy but I couldn't resist today. Extra tomato, cheese and bread from lunch last week, and eggs and sausage from Flying Pigs Farm. Now I feel like I'm supposed to do something important today.
There was a long rain delay at the Yankees game yesterday so Kat, Tracy and I headed to Colicchio and Sons for an early dinner. This place is so good, but I always forget about it... and it was completely empty (then again it was 5:30 on a hot July Sunday) We started with watermelon and cucumber salad with jalapeno and lime dressing. We said it tasted like "summer in a bowl"
Tomato, mozzarella basil pizza
Pizza with ricotta, rabbit sausage and squash blossoms. I loved this.
Romaine salad with a fried egg.
Dried beef with pickled eggs. This was a great combo.
Pan seared sole with potato pancake. Too many restaurants do too much with fish. This was so nice and simple, it tasted like sole with just a little lemon. This was a great meal.
We had grilled cheese sandwiches with cheddar cheese from Bobolink Dairy. And tomato sandwiches with Duke's Mayonnaise. This is my favorite mayonnaise, it's from the south and I like the vaguely Nazi-ish packaging.
A few months back Mark Bittman wrote about savory oatmeal. It's a quick and great dinner for one. This is kale with garlic and ginger, topped with soy sauce.
Pork Ribs with fish sauce and palm syrup
Mott and I met at Momofuku Noodle Bar. I've pretty much liked everything I've ever tasted at any of the Momofuku establishments, except the tamales. They weren't bad, just nothing special. Everything else was special, like usual. We had raw scallops with beets.
Snap peas with horseradish and trout roe.
The classic Pork Bun (these had more pork in them than ever before)
tamales :(
Bok Choy in miso broth
Phil and I went to Takashi in the West Village for dinner. You wouldn't want to go here with a vegetarian or someone that was squeamish about beef. We started with raw flap meat topped with sea urchin and rolled with chiso and dried seaweed.
Seasonal pickles: okra, beets, fennel, tomatoes, string beans, purslane, potatoes and most interesting-cilantro, pickled.
The tongue tasting- three different parts of the tongue including the tip (we made lots of "tip of the tongue" jokes)
You grill it yourelf and make a little lettuce wrap using this stuff:
The last course was the Chef's tasting: (first stomach, fourth stomach, sweetbreads, heart and liver) in a sweet marinade. Our server told us to make sure to cook the "white meat" until crispy--Phil said "Throw another stomach on the barbie!"
