Down the street from Cafe Riviera is a Polish candy store, Stodycze Wedel:
The candy store was completed decorated for Easter and had an assortment of festive Polish candies:
There were lots of specialty candies that all included plums – the storekeeper let me sample some of the chocolate covered plums – they had an interesting combination of sweet and slightly tart – I picked up half a pound to bring home since they were individually packaged and I figured my mom could give them to her friends:
Next, I headed to a bakery to pick up doughnuts!
Last weekend, I had to pick up some glasses in Greenpoint so I decided to make a day of it. My mom had visited a couple days before my visit so she gave me some suggestions for places to eat. Before Saturday, I had never visited Greenpoint before; I’ve experienced bad subway rides on the weekends in Brooklyn so I never thought of visiting on the weekend and I never have time on the weekdays to visit. The trip to Greenpoint wasn’t too bad – the G train was running on schedule during the day and it only took about 30 minutes to get there from midtown. My first stop was Cafe Riviera:
My mom went with her friend and had some coffee and pastries and really enjoyed herself, so I decided to do the same. The main street in Greenpoint has a lot of different Polish restaurants and Greenpoint has a large Polish community – this cafe had a lot of locals that didn’t even have to speak English to place their orders because everyone behind the counter spoke Polish. Here are some of their great desserts:
They also had a large variety of macarons:
They have a lot of desserts baked on one large baking sheet and sell them by the pound – I didn’t buy any desserts by the pound and didn’t see anyone order a dessert by the pound while I was there, but they all looked awesome:
I ordered a pretzel that was flaky (similar to baklava), topped with toasted almonds, honey, and powdered sugar:
A cheese danish:
And a large cup of coffee:
The almond pretzel was deliciously flaky and wasn’t overly sweet even though it had both honey and powdered sugar. The cheese danish was too bready and there wasn’t enough cheese with the danish. I purchased three more almond pretzels to bring home because I knew my mom would enjoy them, finished my coffee, and then continued on my Greenpoint adventure.
I’ve biked past The National Arts Club many times but have never thought about dining there (in fact, I wasn’t even sure the club served food). Luckily, one of my mom’s friends invited me for lunch last week:
The club overlooks Gramercy park and is a large house that was renovated into an arts club – the rooms are filled with many different types of art:
The main dining room has a formal dress code and is quite stuffy but the food is semi-casual. We started off with a bread basket with an assortment of flatbread and rolls:
Everyone ordered a different type of soup – there’s the New England clam chowder:
It was actually quite watery (nothing like Pearl’s creamy clam chowder that I had the previous night). For main courses, I ordered the duck breast with sour cherry sauce:
Here’s the miso glazed sea bass:
The veal piccata:
And the vegetable quiche with fresh fruits:
My duck breast was cooked well but had way too much cherry sauce. The food was very heavy (except the quiche, which was labeled as “healthy quiche”) and I thought it was too much for lunch. We ordered two desserts as well – blueberry crumble pie:
And a chocolate souffle, that was more like a chocolate lava cake:
Both of the desserts tasted like they were out of a box and the whipped cream didn’t taste right (is it possible for it to taste synthetic?) I enjoyed having lunch in the club but thought it was a bit stuffy and the food was too heavy. It would be great to have a cocktail reception at the club to see more of the art (I didn’t have a chance to walk around because I had to run back to work!)
Last Wednesday, the weather was absolutely terrible (rain and hail all day!) and I had a pretty miserable fall on my way to a pilates class after work. I wasn’t feeling that great but Ken called me at work and asked if I wanted to have dinner at Gilt. I asked him if it was a special occasion or if we were celebrating anything but he said he just wanted to have dinner with me. I was super excited to dine at Gilt again and got on the subway right away.
Gilt has an assortment of creative breads – I started with the apple and fig bread:
The menu was very similar to my previous visit (you can read the post here) so I wanted to try something new – I ordered the fluke tartare:
The fluke was covered with a layer of beet gelee, apple sorbet, and mixed with lots of dill – another shot:
It was refreshing and really interesting – the little balls, which the waiter referred to as dipping dots – didn’t really melt until hit our mouth (how did they do that?) and the fluke was very fresh.
Ken ordered the bacon and eggs:
The bacon and eggs came with Hackelback Caviar, Cipollini Compote, Creme Fraiche, and pork chicarrons (on the side). The dish was custard-y and a little too pork-heavy; Ken liked the dish but trying it after I ate half of my fluke, it was way too heavy to eat.
For my entree, I ordered the Chatham cod:
And Ken ordered the dry aged strip loin:
My cod was delicious – after eating the bacon and eggs, I needed something a bit lighter to cleanse the palate. Ken’s strip loin was what my mom ordered the last time I visited (although I forgot when we were ordering, otherwise I would’ve had Ken order something else) – Ken liked the strip loin but wasn’t a big fan of the cod.
Carrot sorbet to cleanse our palates:
Pear: Pecorino Parfait, Pistachio Streusel Crunch for dessert:
As well as Chocolate: Chocolate Souffle, Dulce de Leche, Vanilla Ice Cream:
The souffle was much better than my previous visit and it was Ken’s favorite part of the dessert, although neither of us were huge fans of the desserts.
Petit fours to end our meal:
Ken didn’t think it was a great meal but liked the atmosphere – I thought my dishes were good and light but Ken’s were a bit too heavy. Ken liked per se and Masa a lot more and thought Gilt was more along the lines of Corton (our first date!) We ended up having drinks in the bar with his brother in law after dinner and had a nice time catching up.
It’s no secret that my mom is an absolutely amazing cook. She’s known to singlehandedly create elaborate feasts that feed over 50 people (that’s why my favorite holidays are Thanksgiving and Christmas because we always have people over for both holidays!) My mom recently came to visit and met a new friend in Chinatown; they were both looking for walnuts and her new friend, Herta, knew where to get better quality nuts and sesame seeds. We invited Herta over for dinner and my mom prepared quite a meal for Herta, David, Laura, Ken, and me.
Our New York apartment has a small kitchen (a fraction of the size of our kitchen in North Carolina…which is also quite small) and I don’t have as many supplies and gadgets as my mom, but she somehow managed to create a great meal that wow-ed everyone. We started off with sticky rice (one of my favorites):
Sticky rice with pork and mushrooms takes a while to prepare because you have to soak both the mushrooms and the rice (and on top of that, I don’t even have a working rice maker!) Next, we had stuffed eggplant:
Pork mixed with green onions and spices stuffed between Japanese eggplant that’s pan fried and then marinated with soy sauce. Ken asked me if I could cook like my mom because he loved the eggplant and ended up having three pieces.
Next, a cold dish that is one of my favorites is marinated beef with cucumbers:
A side of sauteed asparagus with garlic:
Peking duck (I picked this up from Chinatown…and no one ended up eating any!):
And one large piece of salmon that I forgot to photograph but is in our group photo:
We had a wonderful dinner and Herta told us great stories about New York and Europe (she moved to New York many years ago and had wonderful stories about the restaurants and fun experiences she’s had). David and I love having dinner parties at our place and I’m sad that we’re not living together next year…hopefully we’ll be close to each other so we can still have dinner together!
