Love the bottles of water they placed on each table with the name of the restaurant on them! 

First up, we were treated to some lovely thin crust pizza that isn’t part of the Feast of the Seven Fishes.  Great start to the night. 

Raviolini di granchio con brodo; crab meat filled pasta served in a seafood broth that bordered on too salty and was overwhelmingly fishy.  Not fishy in a bad-fish way, but the seafood-ness of the broth really slapped you in the face.  A diner at my table remarked that his was cold. 

Insalata di mare; marinated shrimp, calamari, baby octopus, conch, thinly sliced red onion & celery tossed in lemon thyme vinaigrette – easily my favorite dish of the night.  Super light and refreshing, with very fresh seafood, not a wasted bite was left behind.  I really enjoyed this dish. 

Vongole al forno; baked top neck clams stuffed with seasoned bread crumbs & herbs – I was surprised to see such large clams used for baked clams.  I’d have preferred either smaller clams, or to have the clam meat removed and chopped up, mixed into the breading for easier eating.  Maybe that’s personal preference, but these were kind of hard to eat the way they were, and the clams were even a bit overwhelmed by the thick layer of breading.  One of my clams was also pretty fishy… but the flavor of the breadcrumbs was good. 

Linguine con aragosta; pasta tossed with lobster meat, roasted tomato & chilies in white wine, olive oil, garlic & fresh herbs – the pasta was cooked perfectly al dente, and there was plenty of seafood in this dish.  A nice hearty dish after the lighter dishes of earlier. 

Capa santa con cavolini e melagrana; pan-seared sea scallops served with caramelized Brussels sprouts, crispy pancetta & watercress tossed in warm pomegranate vinaigrette – the scallops were cooked perfectly, though served on the cold side – it’s pretty hard to time everything so everyone gets hot food with as large a group as we were.  Another light dish, which was nice to break up the heavier dishes so we wouldn’t feel completely bogged down by all the food! 

Brodetto di pesce; classic Adriatic seafood stew of cod, jumbo prawns, sea scallops, mussels & cockles served in tomato seafood broth – I was pretty full by this point, so barely touched this dish. 

But then it was time for dessert!  Panetone gelati; Milan style holiday cake served with coffee gelato, whipped cream and caramel sauce – the cake was moist and the coffee gelato was really good.  I couldn’t eat too much of this from being so full, but I tried! 

Cannoli con cioccolata; crispy pastry tubes filled with sweetened ricotta, bittersweet chocolate chips served with chocolate sauce.  I couldn’t touch this as I was just way too full by this time, but it looked really pretty and I’m sure was very tasty!

Thanks again to La Bottega for their generosity and hospitality, and to their PR team for inviting me to join them in this lovely meal! 

I attended this meal courtesy of La Bottega’s PR; I received no monetary compensation nor was I obligated to post about it positively or negatively. 

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Feast of the Seven Fishes, press event

CT made jambalaya with chicken, shrimp and smoked chorizo. She has been tweaking this recipe for a while now, so it came out perfect! Hardly any was leftover, which shows how popular it was.

CT says: For the first time, I was really pleased with the way this dish turned out. I started with this recipe and have been tweaking it based on comments from epicurious and my own personal preferences/what I have on hand. My major changes were substituting chicken stock for the water, eliminating the tomato sauce (becomes way to tomato-y and can’t taste much else) and most importantly, adding 1.5-2 tsps of creole seasoning (I mixed my own, but can use store bought). I also used chorizo and added some chipotle in adobo sauce for personal tastes, and used white rice because I always have it on hand. I love how easy and delicious this dish is!

I made Spaghetti Pie based off of this recipe. Of course, I tweaked it a bit. Why would you choose cottage cheese over ricotta? This was only my second time making it and it also seemed to be a crowd pleaser.

CT says: Delicious! Better than lasagna! Here’s hoping TT keeps this in our dinner rotation.

Beer Boor fried up some chicken for us. It was excellent! He said he brined the chicken for a while so it was super juicy. It handled the trip from the Upper East Side and was still delicious hours later.

CT says: So juicy and great seasoning. Though BB was the first to arrive, I didn’t wait for the others. I grabbed my plate and dug into this.

Cheeeese made pulled pork in his recently acquired crock pot. He did a very good job with it.

CT says: Again, nicely seasoned and juicy. I love these potlucks.

In addition to providing us with many libations, TC brought foie gras AND duck rillettes. They both disappeared quickly as FBM definitely enjoys the finer things in life.

CT says: TC knows how to please the host. YUM.

Goats made fetus-shaped cookies. He bought the cookie cutter last year after it made news in the blogs. I am at a loss for words, hahaha.

CT says: These were much cuter than I expected when he told us what he was bringing. He did a great job decorating them too!

Hungry from Tasty Eating brought her usual plethora of dishes including:

(Cuban) Roast Pork- like Cheeese’s super juicy and tasty. It had some crispy skin as a little bonus.

CT says: More pork! What’s not to like? However, I was drooling with anticipation of….

Buffalo Mac & Cheese- We have heard about this dish for a long time now and were all drooling in anticipation. It was GREAT! Nice and spicy but cooling from the blue cheese. We were happy she brought this to our house (LEFTOVERS FTW!), but it ended up being a situation when leftovers were packed up, hahaha.

CT says: It was everything I was hoping for and more! It had a great kick to it, but a nice cooling blue cheese topping too. I think I had 4 serving by the end of the night, and was still fighting the rest of the group for the leftovers! Hopefully Hungry will be kind enough to share this recipe with me.

Later on, she sneaked in variety pack from Robicelli’s. Various cupcake flavors and some brownies for good measure.

CT says: My third serving of the buffalo mac didn’t leave much room for desserts… and that’s say a lot coming from me! So I only had a bite of TT’s cupcake. It was good. But I went back for more mac ‘n cheese.

Dean from Nommables made some Thai tea sugar cookies. I only had half of one since I was already pretty full, but it was pretty good and fortunately not very sweet at all.

He also made me my own cookie to thank me for hosting. It would be inappropriate to show you the unedited picture. Children, avert your eyes, NOW!

CT also made some peanut butter & jelly thumbprint cookies for a part of her Secret Santa present. She made a lot so the remaining were put out after we were done swapping presents. Unfortunately, I had too much “milk” and didn’t take a picture at the time.

CT says: For these I used a Martha Stewart recipe. I made them the night before and after my first batch, found the recipe called for way too much time in the oven and my cookies almost burned. Fortunately I had a couple more batches to work with and with the reduced time, they came out perfectly. Even better, the next day my crispy ones seemed to have soften a bit, so I was happy. Still, the flavors were spot on … very peanut buttery.

I think everyone was pretty pleased with the results of our Secret Santa. Some useful and some hilarious gifts were given out. Edward Fortyhands?

All in all, it was another successful FBM potluck. All of the food was especially delicious this time around. I hope the fellow FBMers will chime in on any mistakes on made or will go into more depth about their dishes.

Next week, CT & I are taking time off from posting to enjoy the holidays! I hope all of you have a great break and Happy New Year! See you in 2012.

© TT for The Feisty Foodie, 2011. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: FBM, potluck

As soon as I walked in, I was greeted with a lovely sparkly cocktail.  There was another one that bordered on spicy that my dining companion for the evening, DLS, thought was a bit too spicy.  We were quickly seated though, and served enough wine the rest of the night that it’s a wonder my pictures aren’t blurrier…

Our first course: scallop crudo with oysters, caviar, yuzu, lemon, olive oil and horseradish, was light and refreshing, perfect start to the meal. 

2nd course, Vet La Palma Spanish Sea Bass with Sauteed Butternut Squash, Chanterelles, Habanero, Scallion, Endive Marmelata, Pumpkin Seed Oil Vinaigrette: densely meaty, properly cooked fish, very tasty without being too heavy at all. 

3rd course, Muscovy Duck, Quinoa-Parsley Rissoto, Bok Choy Raab, Turnips, Huckleberry-Ginger Sauce: duck breast cooked a perfect medium-rare, musky meat, with a delicious pool of sauce on the bottom to cut the richness of the duck. 

4th course, Eco-Friendly Farm Ribeye Steak with Roasted Sunchokes, Puntarelle Salad, Bordalaise Sauce: another meaty dish that played well with its drizzle of sauce.  Lovely and perfectly cooked. 

Whipped Chocolate Flan: digging into this revealed an airy chocolate pudding on the bottom, topped by an impossible layer of creaminess.  Yum. 

Ricotta Brulee, Port poached figs and concord grape sorbet: another win. 

Chocolate Bread – I actually didn’t try this.  Executive Pastry Chef Heather Carlucci is clearly very comfortable in the kitchen and knows what she’s doing.  

I found it really fascinating that they retain a forager on staff.  Really interesting.  I recommend checking this place out if you’ve not already done so – it’s a bit of a trek from the nearest subway, but the food is very interesting and I’m excited to see what else the chef comes up with in the upcoming months!  Thank you again to Print Lounge & its PR team for inviting me to join them at this fun dinner! 

Please note that I attended this press dinner courtesy of Print Lounge and its PR.  I received no compensation to write this post, nor was I obligated to do so.  Feel free to take from it what you will!

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: DLS, press event, tasting menu

I had the great pleasure to attend an event showcasing the lovely Green & Black’s brand of chocolate, which is completely organic.  Before this, I hadn’t much experience with the chocolate, but I got to sample many different kinds over the course of the evening. 

Even more fun?  We each sat down in front of these trays and were then informed… it was a quickfire challenge!  I don’t watch Top Chef or those types of cooking reality shows, but the gist was that we had 7 minutes to create a unique tiramisu from what was in front of us: sugar, madeira wine, mascarpone, unsweetened whipped cream, espresso, and lady fingers.  Regular readers of the blog might remember how much I adore tiramisu; it’s my second favorite dessert in the world after panna cotta.  However, I’ve never actually made tiramisu… only thought about it a lot and never executed.  In any case, I quickly started assembling and making things up as I went.  The mise en place really helped with the process. 

I wound up layering espresso soaked lady fingers on the bottom, topped with lightly sweetened mascarpone blended with madeira, a bit more lady fingers (not soaked this time, to help retain some texture), then whipped cream blended with sugar and espresso.  On top of all of that, I shaved espresso chocolate on top, then added more lady fingers around it for aesthetics.

Judging began by aesthetics alone; three finalists were chosen.  I actually only took photos of mine (right), Sarah‘s (middle), and Justin‘s (left), because the third finalist was sitting far away from me.  Sarah and I made it past the first round of judging, which shocked me as I was in a particularly boisterous mood and kept trash talking her the entire 7 minutes – within earshot of the judges.  Maybe they thought I was amusing? because it was definitely not sporting! 

Then a final winner was picked based on taste.  Shockingly… I won.  I mean, I wasn’t particularly creative with my entry – everything was very straightforward, using classic flavors.  Sarah went with the “gold” chocolate, which was different at least – though I didn’t get a chance to try hers, so I’m not sure how it tasted.  I did eat some of mine and thought yes, this is tiramisu… IN ANY CASE, enough of the humility, I was thrilled that I was picked because now I can say I have award-winning tiramisu.   

Afterwards, we mingled for a bit, eating our way through chocolate and more chocolate, and then some more chocolate.  Had a lovely time learning more about the Green & Black’s brand and their mission to be completely organic and fair trade in all aspects.  Thank you for having me at this great event!!! 

Please note that I attended this event courtesy of the Green & Black’s PR, though I received no monetary compensation and was under no obligation to post about this event positively or negatively.

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2011. | Permalink | 9 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chocolate, press event

Everyone experiences this – go out to dinner with friends, the check comes, and people start scrambling for calculators, their wallets and scrounging up bills smaller than a $20.  I know it can’t just be my friends and I – it’s hard to always get exact or close, so you wind up with “can you toss in a few bucks for me? I’ll get you next time” and while that usually works out and evens out in the end, maybe you want less uncertainty in this part of your life. 

That’s where Serve, a new program from American Express, comes in.  Available for Droid and iPhone (and you can use the internet to send money via email – thus my BlackBerry in the above pic, cuz I am not elite in terms of smartphones… anyone want to buy me an Evo or iPhone? Hahaha!), you can instantly send funds to your friend sitting across the table from you.  It also comes equipped with a bill calculator – input how many people are eating, and it will even help you calculate tip. 

Awesome. 

Right now, there’s even a $10 bonus for signing up.  You should totally sign up – not just for the $10 but because for the next week, if you comment below, you’re entered to win an extra $100 to be deposited into your account! 

Double awesome.  

Good luck! 

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received a $250 stipend to try Serve from American Express. Sign up for Serve and receive $10 credit towards your first use.  Comment below within the next 7 days for your chance to win an extra $100 credit to your account! Official sweepstakes rules and regulations may be found here: http://www.foodbuzz.com/blogs/4622317-win-serve-dollars-giveaway-official-rules

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2011. | Permalink | 24 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Product Reviews