Donatella

On a chilly clear Friday recently, Niko of Dessert Buzz invited me to join him for a tasting of the desserts at Donatella.  Of course, once we sat down, it was clear that we had to taste some of the savory items too… right?  Right!  We started off with an order of Donatella’s famous tomato braised veal meatballs.  I have this thing for meatballs properly done, and these were pretty good.  Not too much bread crumb, but not too little, either, which I’ve found gives a meatball a dense, hard texture, more like a burger, very soft and lots of [...]

Lupa

Recently, Spicy Ninja came back from who-knows-where to visit NYC, and before he knew it, his month was up and he was heading back to wherever… but not without eating a meal with his favorite food blogger!  (That’s me, in case you were confused.)  On a super chilly, windy day (way before the snowstorm), we met up at Lupa, where I’d dined over 2.5 years ago, but had deemed “must come back to see what’s really up”.  Like last time, we started off with a rosemary foccacia.  I found this way too oily – completely not in need of the olive [...]

Convivio

As I mentioned yesterday, I sought to reach 6 Michelin stars in the month of October.  Continuing that trend, we returned to Convivio since we’d so enjoyed it in April when we’d gone and sat in the lounge.  This time, reservations were secured for the day of my birthday in the main dining room, which… pleasantly turned out to be lit well (I wouldn’t say brightly, but well enough that I wasn’t squinting and my pictures aren’t blurry dark blobs like last time!).  Waiting at our table was a sealed envelope that said simply, “The [BF's last name] Party” – [...]

Marea

  Sometimes I get a crazy notion in my head for my birthday, and forget that execution isn’t always as easy as saying “I want to do that” – but that’s where I realize I have the most amazing friends ever. What was this year’s idea? To hit 6 Michelin stars in the month of October. First up, lunch at Marea, which has 1 star this year, but 2 stars for 2011.  Let’s see if it lives up to that; I’d really enjoyed Convivio when I went earlier this year, and Marea boasts the same executive chef. The brightly lit [...]

Convivio

After our lovely brunch + museum, then running around the city to buy various items for ourselves (comics, groceries, fun stuff!), BF was hungry and wanted to eat Italian.  We were parked near Grand Central (across the street, actually) at the time, and I whipped out my BlackBerry and just Google’d… and stumbled on Convivio.  Now, despite the fact that I write about food, I don’t actually have time currently to keep up with blogs or food news (school is killing me), so I just knew I’d heard the name previously, and I had a vague notion that it would [...]

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