at the sign of The Pink Pig

Susur, Perigee in Toronto: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: October 19, 2015]

Off to Toronto because I now had to renew by visa annually while waiting for the interminable permanent residency process to work itself out. I put up at the Hilton downtown, and enjoyed two of the best restaurant meals I'd ever eaten in the city.

It's a pity New York never saw Susur Lee at his best.

Grazing At Byblos

[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 16, 2015] 

Traditional Lebanese restaurants in New York: go!  Well, what about Ilili?  Listed occasionally as Lebanese, it calls itself "Middle Eastern" and offers lobster hummus and moussaka. Or Al-Bustan: a good contender, and it seems to have been around forever.

But what about Byblos? Older than Al Bustan even (it opened in Murray Hill in 1990; re-opened at its current location in 2012)? I admit, I'd overlooked it. It was my first visit when I accepted an invitation to dine as their guests last week, my second when I returned a few days later on my own dime (unrecognized).

These Golden Years: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  October 12, 2015]

A double edition for Columbus Day 2015, as it took me a while to turn up my diary for October 2005. When I did, I opened it to be confronted by a quotation in pink (of course) ink:

"These golden years of our pleasure and only too few and too brief..."  What a wise thought.  A French author, perhaps. Montaigne, or even Guy Debord?

Meadowsweet: Not So Bucolic

[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 6, 2015]

Well, I mean, the name of the place. Meadowsweet.  A pastoral idyll. Dingly dell. Le Pré Brooklyn. A midsummer night's pigging. But I admit, the name was completely off my radar.

A Michelin-starred restaurant right across the street from Peter Luger--yes, on that distinctly unpastoral, windswept stretch of Broadway under the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge.  Just a step of two from the old bank building which is now a beguilingly rose-lit event space.