at the sign of The Pink Pig

Welcoming Café Gray: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  October 13, 2014]

A curious case study this week.

Every obsessive eater in New York City was agog for the return of Gray Kunz, who at Lespinasse had served cuisine of breathtaking creativity and brilliance. He was coming to a casual restaurant in a large space in the newly opened Time Warner Center, with view over the park.

Quick Bites: La Caye

[Pigging by Wilfrid:  October 8, 2o14]

What a delightful place. La Caye, a spick little bistro just across the road from BAM, looking at a glance like a little outpost of France.  Only in the sense, I suppose, that Haiti was once a little outpost of France.

 

Until Toussaint L'Ouverture and the triumphant black Jacobin revolution. Which may seem like some irrelevant history, but history hangs heavy over Haiti.

Rapida! Rapida! Rustichella's 90 Second Pasta

[Free stuff by Wilfrid:  October 6, 2014]

So you get these emails--you really do--promising amazing, revolutionary breakthroughs in everything from breakfast to ice cream. And you shrug, and usually you move on, and sometimes you take up an invitation. This was one I was right not to miss.

Shrouded in secrecy until last Thursday, the old pasta house of Rustichella d'Abruzzo is celebrating its 90th anniversary with the release of a dried pasta which cooks in 90 seconds flat--90" Rapida--with no loss of quality.  And they proved it to us.

Birds & Bubbles: Shabby Chic And Good

[Pigging  by Wilfrid:  October 6, 2014]

This is about the easiest review I've ever had to write.  They serve fried chicken, they serve bubbly wine; the chicken is exceptionally good, the grower champagnes affordable; thank you and goodnight.

 

Okay, so the restroom is in an impossibly awkward spot between the bar and the dining room, right next to the service station, and the bar was a bit sticky, and there were too many noisy movie people, neither drinking champagne nor eating chicken, but really...

 

Rainy Days: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: October 6, 2014]

Back from the banqueting in London reviewed in last week's diary, I found myself splashing around a rainy New York as September 2004 gave way to October.

But I did have some nice meals and saw a blockbuster, nostalgic rock show.