By Sabrina Enayatulla

On an early Sunday afternoon the wait for brunch at The Bluebell Cafe in Gramercy is literally spilling onto the sidewalk. Of course a busy restaurant is always a good sign, but on a weekend with afternoon plans already in place, the Best Friend and I decided to reschedule. Since Bluebell serves breakfast (the meal with our most favorite food choices!) until 11 a.m. during the week, we returned to enjoy the French cuisine fused with traditional American home-style cooking the following day, Monday morning.

Bluebell can be best described as a place that’s reminiscent of a relative’s house where you might go for Thanksgiving. It’s warm and cozy and has the feel of being a favorite local small town drop-in. For breakfast we ordered to share: over-easy eggs, buttermilk biscuits, wheat toast, buttermilk pancakes and blueberry pancakes served with maple syrup and dusted with powdered sugar, and Brioche French toast served with berry compote and lemon curd.

I can be a bit indecisive at times so I almost always ask to mix up the offerings on restaurant menus because I want a little bit of everything. At Bluebell, this started as soon as I saw the pancake menu. Like that pack of butterfly-and-hearts covered cotton undies that your mom left on your bed after a Kmart run back in the ’90s, the pancakes at Bluebell come in a set of three. Problem was, I had to choose between buttermilk and the day’s special: blueberry.

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By Sabrina Enayatulla

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.

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Our family dinners are always kind of…a mess. Let me explain: try to get a group of 10 or so of the cousins to a specific place (in this case, Almond) at a specific time (7:15 PM), and the ones who do make it at the right place will do so at the wrong time (a very generous window between 7 and 9:30 PM). If you can imagine, making reservations is not the easiest of tasks. But cousin-Safia bravely took on that challenge and picked the restaurant where a couple of us have dined often enough to know that A) the food would be delicious; and B) the staff knows some of us personally to be understanding about our inability to be punctual. What ensued was exactly what was expected — everyone was late, and the food was great.

The appetizers are the easiest way to ruin your dinner here. Well, this is basically how I ruined my dinner: eating so much of them, I didn’t even end up ordering an entree. I ended up taking cousin-Heba’s recommendations which did not fail (she’s one of the said regulars here!). Take their “Brussels Sprouts Two Ways”…heaven. Grilled to perfection over a bed of light caesar salad with parmesan. I actually ordered two of these…and finished two of these. I guess that would count as my dinner?

Cheese fries. That is dangerous enough on its own until you get a choice of garlic, saffron, and ranch (I think the third one was ranch) dipping sauces:

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Sorry it’s been a little quiet here the past couple of days. I fell a bit sick last Friday and everything fell behind, but good news is I’m all better now…and better news, for all intents and purposes of this blog, is I found yet another fab salon in NYC, Medulla.

My friend Ashley had told me about this salon a year ago (“a salon in a cool, tucked away loft space” or some such), and said I had to check it out. I thought it would be a small, contained room but Medulla is actually carved out of a penthouse floor of a 8-floor building. There’s no sign outside the building, and you may very well pass right by it. But when the elevator opens up to the floor, you’ll quickly realize it’s no ordinary salon — it’s also an art space and host to charity events. I was enamored as owner, Éle, gave me a short tour of the space. I’ve had it in the back of my mind to go back for a haircut, and since I had come to a point where hair was begging me to rid it of its split ends, I decided it was time.

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If there’s one thing you do tonight, I’d suggest checking out Madison Square Eats if you haven’t yet! I realize this might be sort of a disservice to tell you all about this so late in the game, but since there IS one more day to catch it, I figure why not.

I have been passing by it for months but I FINALLY stopped by last week. They have outposts from some of the best restaurants and food carts in Manhattan and Brooklyn all in one place. The tables and canopy of lights give it such a pretty ambiance too.

I wanted a burger from Graffiti but they had run out so I walked down to the Roberta’s Pizza booth and ordered a seasonal personal size pizza with squash, mushroom, thyme, and basil. Delicious!

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One of my very dear friends, Archana, is moving out of New York to travel pretty much all over the world for the next year (jealous much?!). Sometimes with all the hustle and bustle of the city, I tend to forget how much of my experience is shaped by a few key people, and Arch is one of them. She’s been my go-to for all: dinner and recipe recs (I hope by now you’ve seen her food blog, LettuceVeg.com); everything TV (like ID’ing who the redhead walking around the office from The Real Housewives of New York is); movie-watching; concert-going; and lamenting about stupid boys over dessert (always over dessert). Of course, being as organized as she is, she had a whole Bucket List of restaurants she needed to go to before she leaves. Some for the first time, others for the last time. We decided we’d have a little farewell dinner at Jean-George’s ABC Kitchen, a restaurant I’ve been dying to visit myself.

The place couldn’t have been more perfect. The decor and tables are just stunning first of all. It’s dimly lit, and has the most beautiful antique fixtures like Scandinavian chandeliers and wood-top tables. Well, you might expect that since it is housed in the equally gorgeous ABC Carpet & Home department store. Another nice thing about it is the SPACE. You can stretch out and not knock the person next to you here (a rarity in New York).

The food matches the elegance in taste and presentation, with a focus on organic and locally-grown. We started with the strawberry salad. I think we might be so used to hormone-pumped fruits we get at the market, that these juicy, organic ones were such a treat. The lime offered a nice zest to it too, and I swear I tasted a little mint as well. It was beyond refreshing.

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