Last week I went on a week long getaway to New York City! We were lucky enough to have some amazing weather and a wonderful apartment to stay in, which made indulging in some over the top meals much more doable. On our first night there, in our lack of sleep red eye time change haze we stumbled out to an Indian food restaurant called Nirvana. Since it was a Monday, the place was not too packed and the service was amazing. I just love when restaurants give you free food. Makes paying $50 for a bottle of wine much more enticing. They gave us some papad with quite the selection of spicy chutneys to start. We also ordered some garlic naan, which really just can never be bad. I went with the Paneer Makhanwala for my main course which was absolutely delicious and way too much food for one person. We seriously had a mini-feast going on at our 2 person table. Such delicious food, great service and amazing ambiance that we decided to come back our last night for another delicious meal... and being in NYC that is really saying a lot! The second time we got some free Indian ice cream. I'm normally not too into the selection of deserts at Indian restaurants but after having a meal that was so so so spicy, this was a welcome treat. If you're ever in the city, you should definitely check this place out!
To cap off an amazing birthday day spent boating in the Central Park lake, visiting the NY times headquarters and wandering down 5th Avenue I got to enjoy an Italian dinner at Il Buco! Italian food is always a treat, but getting glasses of champagne (secretly ordered by my awesome boyfriend before the meal) when we sat down made it that much more fun. Il Buco's culinary philosophy is heavily based on the Italian tradition of seasonality and their menu changes every couple months to reflect the new ingredients in season. We got an order of the crocchette as an appetizer which is basically fried cauliflower in Gorgonzola sauce. Definitely not what I was expecting to taste when I ordered it, but it was actually quite delicious. After finishing the crocchette we decided to talk to the sommelier before ordering wine. Mostly just because we could. I always kinda thought those guys were just glorified wino's who tried to sale you expensive bottles of wine, but this one really knew what he was talking about. He ended up recommending a bottle of white wine from France that was very light with hints of almond and fruit. He also had to add that he had just returned from meeting the wine maker in France so was just oh-so-sure of it's perfection. But, I can't make fun of him too much because it was absolutely amazing. Best wine we had in NYC, hands down. For dinner I ordered an asparagus mushroom risotto, which normally isn't my favorite dish, but since most of the other pastas were pretty meat centered I figured this was my best option. The mushrooms were a bit numerous for the proportion, but other than that I was very satisfied with the selection. To top off the birthday celebration I got surprised with some sort of concoction that basically tasted like a giant heap of whip creme. Strange, but yummy. A bit small on the proportion size but the cute interior and delicious food definitely make up for it. I also love that the restaurant offers olive oil flight tastings. Might have to come back just to try one of those out.
One of our last lunches in New York was at a tiny Venezuelan restaurant located on 7th Street and 1st Ave in the East Village, called Caracas. And when I say tiny, I mean extremely small. I think the waiter ran into our table a good 4 or 5 times. The specialty here are Arepas which we actually discovered at Off the Grid a few weeks ago (so if you aren't planning a NY trip anytime soon you can still indulge at Fort Mason). I ordered the Apera La Del Gato which was filled with guayanes cheese, fried sweet plantains and avocado slices! I was a bit hesitant about combining cheese with banana but it turned out absolutely delicious. (I think I may need to find a not so good restaurant to review next because I'm running out of positive adjectives to use!) We also got some empanadas, mine was filled with black beans and white cheese. I went with the alternating bite methods and after careful consideration, eventually decided on finishing off with the Empanada. They also served some delicious passion fruit mimosas!
So many more superb meals, snacks and desserts, but these were my favorites! Anyone headed to NY should definitely consider hitting up one of these eateries!
