[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: June 1, 2015]
A jam-packed end to May ten years ago, eating here and there and packing in some cultural events too. Wise to kick things off, perhaps, with blood sausage and duck eggs for breakfast.
That was the morning after a late night at Forbidden City, the Japanese tavern on Avenue A where the food perhaps never got the love it deserved.
A noisy bar scene, occasional live music, and weird movies on a big screen at the back all too easily distracted attention from the excellent pork belly, the flank steak skewers, the crab croquettes.
Ready for some vegertables for the following evening, not unreasonably, and I took a dose at Gobo, one of the better vegetarian options I enjoyed back in those days (certainly better than anything beginning with Zen). Some New England "rolls," scallion pancakes, crispy won tons; the unfortunately named "protein nuggets"--like chicken nuggets, but made from seitan--with noodles, and the yucca and yam fries which would not have been out of place on a good omnivorous menu.
I did some home cooking--chicken-fried rabbit with asaparagus and sweetcorn--and some home catering too, bringing much plunder from Russ & Daughters: Gaspa Nova salmon, sturgeon, German matjes herring, potato salad; not to mention a bottle of Riesling.
I couldn't miss the new movie version of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, based on a book by Douglas Adams who'd attended the same school as me, two or three years my senior. The saga of Arthur Dent is now known worldwide, but how many people realize that the books are much more about Essex in the 1970s than about intergalactic travel?
There was a tremendous MoMA show of drawings from the collection, a Stanley Kunitz exhibit at Poet's House, and a flurry of casual meals:
Blue Smoke: Soft shell crab sandwich, rib sampler, ice cream sundae.
Cantoon Garden: Lo mein, steamed ribs with ginger and black beans, schrimp with scrambled eggs.
Lorelei: Leberwurst platter.
Redeye Grill: Vegetable maki roll, Hollywood cobb salad, Riesling.
Xunta: Pa amb tomaquet, chourizo a la plancha, empanadas de bacalao y atรบn, pulpo, queso.
And finally, and less casually, a dinner for wine geeks at WD-50. I only wish my diary recorded the bottles that were opened, but it does mention some old Pomerol. I know I bought the table a bottle of Commandaria, the rich, dried-fruit and spices dessert wine from Cyprus to finish.
Food? A WD-50 tasting menu. You know the drill.
Comments