It has been a week for getting together with LCB classmates. Today it was lunch with Steve and Julia at Del Posto in NYC. Del Posto is a Mario Batali 1 Star Michelin restaurant on 10th Ave in the meat packing district. Julia and I became fast friends when we found ourselves in the same practical group among a bunch of young 20 somethings. We had shared a few meals together in Paris and had last met in January at the restaurant Boulevard in San Francisco where I had met Steve and Julia for a nice dinner.
It was great to meet once again over this delicious 3 course meal. Regrettably, I have no pictures to share (how could I forget my camera!). It was lots of catching up and talking about food, restaurants, and LCB classmates as we worked our way through the fixed price lunch. By the way, this is a great deal for $29! I had done my research on yelp and the consensus is that the fixed price lunch is the way to go. I had a lobster salad for the antipasti (Additional $10), the grilled lamb chop with ceci and swiss chard ragu for the secondi, and the chocolate ricotta tortino for the dolci. The service was impeccable with a team of waiters hovering about at the appropriate times. Great lunch!
It makes my layovers so much fun when I can actually meet friends and share such great dining experience with them. Julia has no plans to further attend LCB, but as she cooks in her own kitchen she is realizing, as I have, the depth of the education we received in Basic Cuisine. One of these days we'll have to get together and cook.
I always maintained that one of the most rewarding aspects of my culinary education in Paris was the people that I met. Today I made a trip up to my old town of Healdsburg. I lived there for 2 years in mid 2000's and it was fitting to go back to meet my old LCB classmate Alan (the "big guy" as I would refer to him in my posts). Alan is in Northern CA for a week from his home in Wyoming. It was great seeing him. We managed to meet at one of my favorite restaurants Willi's Seafood which is actually not really a seafood place but a tapas restaurant. What a place to meet a fellow foodie! As the plates of delicious tapas paraded across our table we talked about the past and the future of our culinary worlds. It was great fun rehashing some of our favorite memories of LCB, what we have done with our acquired skills since, and our course for the future. What fun!
It's a possibility that Alan will be going back for Intermediates this year!
In the tradition of exploring good food in NY I decided to head down to the West Village Meat Packing District to try dinner at the trendy and rustic 5 9th with my friend Al. I had been here before with Beth for a drink. The Meat Packing District, as the name
implies is where all the meat butchering and packing took place in NYC and was home to over 250 butcheries in its day. Over time, the area fell into disrepair and became a haven for sex clubs, and prostitution. This was until the 1990's when some visionary developers and retailers began transforming the area into a hip and funky area laden with boutiques, clubs, and restaurants. It's a real cool area to visit. For foodies, it's also the home to Chelsea Market where the Food Network resides and films their Iron Chef series. OK...back to 5 Ninth:
5 Ninth stands for Building #5 on 9th Avenue. It's a rustic 3
story brownstone built in 1848. The first floor is the bar and a backyard garden with seating. The 2nd floor houses the dining room with 6 fireplaces, and the 3rd floor is candle lit lounge with chairs and sofas. The place has a very cool ambiance. I think it was voted as one of the hippest bar/restaurants of NYC in 2005. My buddy Al and I headed there for dinner. We sat at the window on the first floor (the window on the right in the above picture) which is elevated above the street with a bird's eye view of the happening on 9th Avenue. I ordered the grilled hanger steak with a cherry tomato, raisin, grilled oyster mushroom, frisee salad with white balsamic dressing. It was made perfectly. The meat was a perfect medium rare and the balsamic dressing was nicely balanced. Not the most sophisticated dish, but cooked very well. Yelp gives it 3 1/2 stars. Zagat rates it 19/22/18/$52 (food/decor/service/avg. cost). I would consider going again not because the food blew me away, but the whole package of ambiance, hip, and trendiness all combine to make for a nice dining experience on a summer night in NYC.
It has been a week for getting together with LCB classmates. Today it was lunch with Steve and Julia at Del Posto in NYC. Del Posto is a Mario Batali 1 Star Michelin restaurant on 10th Ave in the meat packing district. Julia and I became fast friends when we found ourselves in the same practical group among a bunch of young 20 somethings. We had shared a few meals together in Paris and had last met in January at the restaurant Boulevard in San Francisco where I had met Steve and Julia for a nice dinner.
