The Wandering Eater

On Friday, I managed to get myself out of bed and my house in this dreadfully cold, white, and snowy morning. When I heard that it’s going to snow for the past several days, I was thinking it’s just an inch or two, no biggie. Except when I stepped out of my door it looked like this…

LOTS OF SNOW!

As I trudged myself through the now slushy sidewalks of Manhattan to work, I almost felt inclined to cancel my dinner with Ariel at Merkato 55. Except I didn’t just because I don’t want to suffer another uneventful weekend at home, so I called him around lunchtime and confirmed our dinner and other activities that I will explain later. (more…)

I know I haven’t written in ages, but it’s just the fact that I haven’t really found anything tasty around the Upper East Side that is new to me. Sure, there’s Alice’s Tea Cup and a few Le Pain Quotidiens around my area but seriously, why should I write repeats of myself? Yeah, I do admit I went overboard with Bouchon Bakery for a while, back in the days that I was at college in the Upper West Side, but now I learned my lesson from sounding so redundant (and obsessive).

Anyways, last Thursday I managed to get my butt out of bed early for the sake of getting myself a decent or good cup of cappuccino. I do have my standby at Sicaffe but I want a change so I’m willing to schlep my half-sleepy self over to Gimme! Coffee in Nolita.

Finally, a tasty capp.

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I apologize for two reasons on this post: 1. I’m preposterously late posting this up. (It’s been nearly two weeks. TWO WEEKS?!) and 2. Some of my photos suck that I’m borrowing a few of Robyn’s photos for the sake of saving you some of my dreadfully blurry photos. This post is continuing on the evening after the “amuse-bouche” at P*Ong (as Ariel called it) and moving on to the real dinner at Alta. So, here we go…

I’ve coordinated this dinner just because Jessica’s back in town for the weekend and Robyn told to me that she never tried tapas before. Since I’ve been to Alta last June and had a fairly good experience and that it’s a great for groups, I started rounding up people who can come and reserved a table for 9 people. But as the evening rolled in, it went down to 7 due to last minute happenings. Robyn, Jessica, Ariel, Doug, Patrick, and Helen were the lucky ones who were able to join in on the tapas feast.

Typical Alta scene and an odd decor

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Friday night was arguably the most gluttonous night of I ever had - a pre-dinner tasting at P*Ong, a full blown tapas feast at Alta and post-dinner desserts at the Dessert Truck. I don’t know how I actually survived but it was pretty darn awesome, especially with a group of good friends to enjoy it with me.

As a fair warning, some of my photos will be blurry due to a variety of reasons that cause camera shake, mainly the poor lighting, so just bear with me on several blips and hopefully your vision is still intact from figuring out the images before you…

P*Ong

I planned the pre-dinner outing at P*Ong with Ariel and Jessica for being curious about pastry chef Pichet Ong’s food and the location since it’s so close to Alta. My intention really was to get a small tasting flight and move on to the actual dinner. (more…)

I know I’m supposed to owe you guys my belated post about last Friday’s fooding…that’s if you saw my Flickr photos ever since the weekend. I apologize since I’m technically waiting for Robyn’s photos of that evening since a few of mine suck (as in blurry) and I actually forgot to take a photo of a dish we had. Gasp! :O So, I need to borrow a few of her photos. Just give me another day or two and I’ll post it up. Hopefully.

Moving on… In case I haven’t told you, I’m recently employed to Sloan-Kettering in the Upper East Side obviously not doing anything related to food but I’m trying to find something tasty around the area since it’s practically a food wasteland, unless someone can tell me what’s tasty around there or I need to discover them.

Sicaffe

Anyways, this afternoon I had a strange craving for coffee, namely an espresso-based drink. Since I’m not far from Sicaffe, I walked over and ordered my usual drink whenever I’m there, the cappuccino triestino. Except the interaction between me and the barista went differently than normal, so here how it went:

“Hi. I like to have the cappuccino triestino.”
“Sure. How many shots do want in it? One, two, or three?”
[five seconds of thinking to self] “Uh…I’ll have three.”
“Three?” [Mutters under his breath, "Oh shit...!"] [Returns to normal voice.] “For here or to go?”
A slight smile crosses my face, “For here.”
A minute later, I got my beautiful triple shot cappuccino…

Mid-day energy boost

After I drank this up, I returned the glass to the counter and the same barista asked me, “Is it strong enough?”
I replied with a grin, “Yes.” He thanked me. I left the shop and walked back to work, quicker than usual for two reasons: I’m caffeinated and it’s starting to snow and I’m under dressed for that (e.g. no hat or snowboots on).

On Thursday, I had my last Restaurant Week meal at Anthos with Ariel. This pretty much sums up my international food trek of sorts since I started with Indian, French, and now Greek (all nouveau style). I did have hopes of being captivated by Chef Psilakis’ food since Ariel went to Kefi, Psilakis’ other Greek restaurant, numerous times and been blown away by his food. Did Anthos make me happy or just left me feeling disgusted? If you want to find out, just read on…

Lots of people…

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