My week in food

I've had a ridiculously foodie week and because I feel frivilous blogging is completely permitted on Fridays, I'm going to tell you all about it.

Friday- I had been to Rayuela a few months ago with my bff Laurie. It was there that I discovered that I not only love ceviche, but I need it on a semi-regular basis to maintain my happiness. Eater had a "deathwatch" rumor circulating about Rayuela and in a fit of worry that I would never again enjoy their fab fish, I made a point to get there while it's still around. While Laurie and I had paired our fish with a bottle of wine and two after dinner drinks, I.C. and I went the mojito route. We loved it, even if Bruni does only give it one star.

Saturday- China Grill is an old stand-by in my group of friends. It's consistently good, if not great. Among other dishes, we enjoyed lobster pancakes, crispy spinach, black cod and several rounds of mojitos and martinis.

Sunday- I'm a huge pizza snob. Here's how it works. The best pizza in the world is in Brooklyn. As you move further away from Brooklyn, the quality of the pizza diminishes greatly until you're left with saucy bread with cheese. Don't tell me about New Haven or Chicago, you'll just upset me. Everyone knows it's DiFara's, followed by Totonno's, followed by L&B Spumoni Gardens, followed by every corner pizza place in Brooklyn, followed by a few select spots in Staten Island and Manhattan and that's where pizza greatness ends. Manhattan, in fact, is fairly weak for pizza so it was with great enthusiasm that I learned about the new pizza place "Artichoke". I emailed a few of my fellow pizza enthusiasts and Philip Klein wrote back about 30 minutes later saying he had forwarded the email to his brother who had sprung into action and already checked it out. Impressive, those Klein boys. Philip's brother reviewed "Very gooey and delicious. Appoaches DiFara, but not quite same taste kick. Artichoke Spinach is heavenly--really special. If DiFara is the 10, the regular pie here is a 9...and the artichoke spinach is a 9.5" That sounds about right to me. A pic of the artichoke spinach pie:

Later that night, we trekked out to Queens (Queens of all places! My father, who has an office there, calls it the "G-d forgotten borough". Yes, this is here to razz I.C. who is a Queens boy.) to go to what is hyped as the best Thai food place in NY, Sripraphai. Here's the thing. I may be into food but I'm ultimately not that adventurous. I tell and retell the story of my eating Rocky Mountain Oysters when I was living in Colorado because it's definitely the weirdest thing I'd ever eaten. So, ok, I ordered the Pad Thai at what is supposed to be an authentic Thai place, sue me. And I didn't love it. It had fish bits or something in it. Maybe a little too authentic for me.

Monday- Ah Monday. It's the day that gets the most action. Diets? Start on Monday. Go to the gym? Monday, fer sure. So it was that I got a little Monday-ambitious and made a 4lb roast chicken. Why? Well, I started reading Nigella Lawson's cookbook, "How to Eat", and her very first recipe is for roasted chicken. I got all caught up in her reminiscing of her mother roasting a chicken and how the smell would fill up the whole house. Before I knew it, I was at Food Emporium asking them to direct me to the whole chickens. No, no, not the cooked chickens, thanks, I want to cook it myself. I sort of forgot, I guess, that I'm not really into roast chicken (despite the fact that it did come out quite tender and juicy). Neither is I.C. Oh well. It was a cooking experience. I made brussel sprouts based on this recipe to go with it and they came out quite good. I also made maple walnut tarts again and took pictures of them this time.

Tuesday- back to our nonstop restaurant going. Tuesday night we went out to eat with I.C.'s college buddy Lou and his fiance Suzanne. When I took a photo of them, Lou said "I expect to see that on Alarming News." This was surprising since usually when I snap a shot of my friends, I hear "I better not see that on Alarming News!" Anyway, here's the happy couple after a good dinner at my favorite Upper West Side restaurant, Calle Ocho (previously blogged about here. Cojito! A coconut mojito!):

Wednesday- Apparently, Justin Timberlake has a restaurant in NY called Southern Hospitality. And while it's right near my apartment, I had never been there or heard of it. I.C.'s sister had been wanting to come in to Manhattan for some bbq, so we ended up settling on this place. Had I known in advance that it had gotten widely panned, I probably would've steered us to another restaurant. I'm glad I didn't know, though, because it was great! Like, impressively good. I had the dry rub ribs while I.C. and both of his siblings had the baby back ribs. Our sides were creamed corn, fries, and mac+cheese. Everything was well above average. It was a nice surprise.

Thursday- Last night was another I.C. family night, we were going to see Avenue Q on Broadway (I love it, go see it) with his folks and sister. We had about 40 minutes to eat before the show so we ducked into a nearby, emptyish restaurant to chow down. It turned out to be an Iraqi restaurant, called La Kabbr, although I'm still not entirely clear on what that means in terms of the food. You can see the menu here , where it's described as "Middle Eastern/Indian". There were definitely Turkish, Indian and general Middle Eastern influences on the menu. Everything was really good and they got us out in time for the show.

I'm completely out-to-dinnered out at this point and am looking forward to a weekend of home cooking. We go to Miami next weekend where we already have reservations at Michael's Genuine Food and Drink, reviewed by the aforementioned Frank Bruni as one of the top 10 restaurants in America. I think I'll be ready by then.