Italian
Bottega Louie in downtown LA
Macarons
This past trip to LA was the most I’ve spent in the area in one visit, and fortunately it was filled with some good eats. On my second night there, I visited Bottega Louie in downtown with my friends Sarah and Yasir on the suggestion of our local friends Danish and Sarah (did you keep that all straight? And PS, Yasir is just a simple guy whose belongings Jared Leto likes to blog about…nbd). If the pastry display itself doesn’t reel you in, their macarons will. I’m not generally one for macarons, but if you do dive in, make sure you get one of the espresso ones! The flavors are intense and a little more dense than other ones I’ve tried.
Macarons
Beignets
Pastry display
Clearly, we started our meal backwards (you try waiting right in front of all that sugar-ey temptations without ordering at least ONE). When the rest of our party came, we were seated in the massive dining area pretty fast. The room has space for about 800, to give you an idea…you would think it’d be no problem getting a seat fast, but considering their ‘no reservations’ policy, it’s not uncommon to be waiting on a busy night.
Exposed kitchen
Paprika in the East Village
You guys. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but the picture quality lately has been kinda eh. Truth is, my camera decided to start acting up (which I don’t blame it for…I’ve been pretty brutal in my handling and tossed it around a lot). Plus the lens was all scratched up and, yeah, I’ve basically been shopping for a new one. Until then, you might have to deal with some sad backup pics that I take with my phone. But I figured I should keep on keeping on with the posts. And so we come to Paprika in the East Village.
It’s a restaurant right across one of my favorite brunch spots, Cafe Mogador. I was meeting up with my friend Laila, and it was the first time either of us have been. Well, actually I think I vaguely remember stopping in here for dessert years ago but not significant enough to really have an opinion about the place. It definitely has a cute, rustic ambiance — dimly lit with lots of tables waiting to be occupied by mostly couples. We were greeted by a jumpy waiter who told us about the mushroom-centric prix-fixe menu options which I think included something with polenta and a main course that included veal juice, so I decided to pass. Instead, I opted for hand-rolled potato gnocchi with roasted mushroom and light cream sauce. Laila got the handmade pappardelle with braised oxtail ragu.
Gnocchi, $15
Pappardelle, $16
The dishes came out FAST. I felt like my gnocchi was a little on the bland side (even with the added parmesan and pepper from our waiter), and I only got through half. Laila was also a bit underwhelmed with her pappardelle, saying it wasn’t bad, but just nothing really special. We were hoping dessert would make up for it: Chocolate Soufflé.
Rich and moist warm chocolate cake with a creamy chocolate center, $7
[Remember my preface about the pictures? Yes.]
Eataly: A slice of Italy in NYC
Eataly
When a friend of a friend’s Oklahoma-born-and-bred boyfriend suggested that my bestie Tina and I have dinner at Eataly in Gramercy, I thought that was his Midwestern accent getting the best of him. Turns out, the place is actually called Eataly, as in “eat” meets “Italy” equals “Eataly,” which is also a really cute way of getting Americans to pruh-nunce stuff right.
.
Walking into Eataly is like turning up at the most incredible birthday party where there’s a pinata and a pony and a pool and a water slide and a high-dive and a bounce house…and everything is edible. Eataly is a seriously intense celebration of food and you can feel the pulse of grown-up excitement against the hum of noise that is laughter and conversation. The place is essentially every food lover’s dream. It’s a massive indoor market, which sells high-quality products purchased from local farmers, fishermen, buthers, bakers and cheesemakers with more than a handful of restaurants you can eat at. And the most incredible part is that all the food served in its many restaurants is made from ingredients sold in the store so you can actually try your hand at the stuff you just ate. It’s basically the original “Fashion Star” but of food, and way less frustrating than when you’re watching “Barefoot Contessa” and Ina’s all, “Now rub a little Le Saunier De Camargue Fleur de Sel into the steak,” and you have no idea what she just said so you Google “flour de salt” and find out that your steak rub is going to cost $11 plus shipping and handling because you don’t live in The Hamptons…or Bordeaux.
.
Uncle Mario’s Brick Oven Pizza & an explanation of Grandma Pizza
When my little cousins, Ammaar and Suhayb, came to the city to visit with friends, Ammaar insisted we have Grandma Pizza on 50th and 9th. “It’s sooo good,” he kept saying of the place another cousin Sana (there are a lot of us) introduced him to–so we obliged. When we got to the intersection, I began looking all around for a sign that says “Grandma Pizza,” to no avail. I looked at Ammaar quizzically. “Are you sure we’re at the right place? All I see is some Uncle Mario’s place.” “Yeah, that’s it!”
Turns out “grandma pizza,” he FINALLY explained later, isn’t a place, it’s a type of pizza. Well, don’t I feel sheepish that my lil cousin had to explain this to a “food blogger” (I use that term very loosely though so whatevs). You live, you learn. Erica Marcus from Slice explains further: “Variations abound, but the basic outlines [of grandma pizza] are as follows: a thin layer of dough is stretched into an oiled, square “Sicilian” pan, topped sparingly with shredded mozzarella, crushed uncooked canned tomatoes, chopped garlic and olive oil, and baked until the top bubbles and the bottom is crisp. [Michele] Scicolone [Manhattan resident, Italian food expert, and co-author of Pizza: Any Way You Slice It] observed that grandma pie sounded a lot like “pizza alla casalinga” (housewife-style pizza), “the kind of pizzas you’d get in Italy if you were invited to someone’s home.”
Caprese pizza
Caprese pizza
Anyway, when we walked in, a slightly jumpy waitress seated us (seemed like she was the only waitress in the whole mid-sized pizzeria). “Are these tables OK? Ok bella, I love you.” And disappears. I looked at everyone at the table…”Did she just say she loves us?” Everyone heard the same thing. I’ll take it. Turns out the older waitress would be mumbling a lot of non-decipherable things throughout our meal. But not in an annoying way, it was sorta endearing. Maybe because I was so entertained by her, it was like she was a caricature to me.
Scarlatto in Times Square
Scarlatto in Times Square
Inside Scarlatto
A good restaurant in Times Square is almost an anomaly. If I need to find something near midtown, I’ll usually resort to something down 9th Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen. When I was trying to find a place to meet my friend Sheryl, I thought I’d hunt for something that would be close to her work and my apartment. I have an ongoing list of restaurants I keep handy that I haven’t been to, but none of them fell in midtown. So I began scouring restaurants on MenuPages.com, and came across Scarlatto, and Italian restaurant on 47th, near Broadway. The prices were surprisingly decent for the area, so I was already suspicious. I went over to Yelp and checked out some pictures and decided it was worth a try.
Fried Calamari With Crispy Zucchini, $9
It has a cozy, pleasant interior that’s somewhere midway between being formal with their decked-out-in-white tables, but still casual with large framed prints of Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. We started with the fried calamari and crispy zucchini. I’ve had better calamari, and the zucchini tasted like chips but combination was still satisfying, and helped to appease our ravenous appetite right then.
Fettuccine Ai Funghi, $14
Ravioli Di Zucca, $12
The Daily Show: Jon Stewart on Trump/Palin and New York Pizza
I was going to save this for Friday’s links, but I can’t get over The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart rant on Donald Trump’s NY (underwhelming) pizza joint of choice with Sarah Palin recently…hilarious!:
