The rambling recipes & travels of a home baker

So the following is the email I sent to a friend at work who asked if I had any good food experience over the weekend when I visited my friend, Sunny, in New York City.  I just wanted to save it somewhere (and delete the email)

By the end, we had to go simple cause the food was too good.On Friday night, we went to Allen and Delancey http://www.allenanddelancey.net/menu.html which is on the Lower East side, not surprisingly at the corner of Allen Street and Delancey Street. It was a superb meal. I think every one of us (there were eight of us) had a fantastic dish and their menu is slightly different than the one online, but they had about 7 appetizers and 7 entrees and that was it. Which was really nice, esp. because all of the eaters had no food issues, all were carnivores or fish people and ate all sorts of assorted foods.For appetizer I had a fantastic rabbit terrine which was excellent and a super large portion. I tried some of my friends seared bone marrow (which I had no idea was so rich and fatty, but oh, you didn’t have to scoop it out of the bone) and another friend had the oysters. And other friends said the sea scallops were wonderfully prepared. For entrees, we were all over the place, but two friends shared the cote de boeuf, another friend had cod and I had a trout, which was a pink fish and deliciously prepared with a crispy seared skin. I tasted some of my friends’ “Cabbage beef and onion” dish which was block of beef, some cabbage stuffed with braised beef, an onion side and sliced potatoes which were seared in bacon oil/fat. Delicious. The bread! The bread was wonderful and warm. A small personal baguette and a brioche/egg type roll with bacon and sage and a sprinkling of sea salt.Desserts were excellent too, I had French toast with oatmeal ice cream and caramel sauce made with bacon (that’s a big trend I guess in New York). And other friends had a delicious molten chocolate peanut butter tart with a whiskey vanilla milkshake. That was excellent because the peanut butter really stood out. They had an assortment of housemade gelato – yogurt, buttermilk, ginger, etc…

So then the next morning, in typical new york brunch time (actually a little early), we (my best friend from college, Sunny) and I went and had lox and bagels and babka (where I first tasted it!) at a friend’s place and then trekked over to Williamsburg to get our hair cut at my friends’ hilarious dutch artist hair stylist guy (complete with concrete loft and huge canvas paintings) and then ate at Egg http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/egg/ which was again excellent, but by far the best dish was the fried chicken. Crispy and light, I don’t really know how else to say it, but definitely share cause who can eat that much fried chicken. We also had an entrée with duck and dirty rice and shared a scallop and pork belly appetizer that was good. No liquor license, so it’s byo.We had made reservations at Bar Boulud, for very late http://www.danielnyc.com/barboulud/barboulud.html but were too full, so we just made our way back to Upper West Side and got gelato at Grom http://www.grom.it/eng/pages/dove_NY.htm which is the only US outpost of this Italian shop. The Chocolate extra noir was amazingly flavorful as was the Yogurt Gelato.Also on our list, but we just couldn’t take another meal was Dovetail http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/dovetail/ http://dovetailnyc.com/ which is getting good reviews, but has a similar menu as allen and delancey, so we passed. Evidently similar chefs (both English).So much food, that the next morning we changed dim sum plans (too much pork) to just pancakes at the hole in the wall chain, Jackson Hole. Just good solid breakfast. Blueberry waffle and bacon (ok a little more pork).Um, enough info for you??

Oh wait, on Friday afternoon, before I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, I had an excellent French Onion Soup and Merguez Sausage brochette at a little French Bar with another friend and we went to this cookie place next door, called One Girl Cookie http://www.onegirlcookies.com/ I have a little box for Ming so hit her up for some cookies after I give them to her.Ha ha, bet you’ll never ask me again for a food weekend summary….. Marlene