tasting menu – TLB Entries https://archive.tiffanyb.net Musings on cooking, travel, social media, higher ed & web technology by Tiffany Broadbent Beker Tue, 28 Jun 2016 20:58:14 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.7 July 4th holiday in CT and NYC – day 3 https://archive.tiffanyb.net/2011/07/05/july-4th-holiday-in-ct-and-nyc-day-3/ Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:12:45 +0000 http://blog.tiffanybroadbent.com/?p=283 For our last day in NYC we decided to take advantage of our hotel’s close proximity to the New York Public Library and tour the famous building with all of its gorgeous architecture. They are celebrating their 100th anniversary so there was an exhibition of cool items from their collection, including a Guttenberg Bible, a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and a first edition copy of the music for the Star Spangled Banner. We went through and took photos of the famous reading room (and amusingly found Emily Post’s book on wedding etiquette which we perused for a few minutes). We went down to the children’s room and saw the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals (my favorite is Tigger) and then went next door to Bryant Park to sit outside for a few minutes and relax for a few minutes before heading down to Greenwich Village for our food tour.

So this tour I found out about kind of randomly. I had posted on Twitter that I was going to be in NYC for a few days and was looking for non-standard-tourist things to do. I got a reply from @ohmygola (a new travel recommendation website) asking for a bit more detail about the trip. Before I replied I checked out their website to make sure things we legit and not spam and looked around their existing New York City recommendations, it was there I came upon the Foods of NYC Tours Greenwich Village Food and Culture Walking Tour. I explored their site, checked out a few competitors, but this tour seemed by far the most interesting so I booked tickets for Jeremy and I for the afternoon tour. @ohmygola also formatted my reply tweet to them on their site and I got a response as well, so that was pretty cool.

Ok so we met in front of Murray’s Cheese Shop on Bleecker Street (although we did not taste stuff from them until later) and met our tour guide Bert who handed out water bottles and some coupons for the businesses we’d be visiting on the tour, here’s where we went via photos

Joe's Pizza, for a slice of "true and authentic" New York-style pizza (meaning, crushed tomato sauce, cheese, foldable crust made with NYC tap water)

O&CO for an olive oil tasting and a nutella-like spread made from olive oil and cocoa, yum!

 

Our tour guide Bert heading to get our next batch of food samples

Arancini from Faicco's Italian Specialties

We then went down into the Cornelia Street Cafe basement where many a famous performer (and performance) have gotten there start

Stuffed mushroom, truffle deviled egg, and bacon-wrapped, gorgonzola stuffed date from Centro Vinoteca. Jeremy and I also enjoyed a quartino of wine gifted to us by two ladies in the group who heard about our recent engagement.

Sweet and spicy salami from Faicco's

*amazing* chocolate chip cookies from Milk & Cookies Bakery, wonderful texture plus it was warm and fresh from their oven

The entertaining staff at Murray's Cheese Shop, where we got an olive, cheese, and cheese pastry sampling.

We ended with a light ricotta dessert specially made for the tour from Scali Caffé

Overall this was a fantastic tour, as we went between the different food places we stopped at cool buildings in Greenwich village, had a bunch of amazing sounding restaurants pointed out to us (essentially anywhere on Bleecker Street is a fantastic place to eat). After the tour we asked Bert for a recommendation for a place to kill an hour or so before we had to head back to the hotel and pick up our stuff to go to the airport, he recommended the Olive Tree Cafe where we enjoyed a great pitcher of sangria and tried not to plan wedding stuff 😉

The trip back to Norfolk was (thankfully) uneventful and we got back to Williamsburg around midnight, concluding a fantastic and (unexpectedly) memorable trip 🙂

Photos: NYPL and Food Tour Flickr Set

]]> July 4th holiday in CT and NYC – day 2, part 2 https://archive.tiffanyb.net/2011/07/04/july-4th-holiday-in-ct-and-nyc-day-2-part-2/ Mon, 04 Jul 2011 23:55:48 +0000 http://blog.tiffanybroadbent.com/?p=273 So fireworks in NYC on the Fourth are quite impressive 😉 We hopped on the subway and heded towards dinner at Spice Market around 7pm. We were a bit off on our estimation of how long the subway ride would take so we were a few minutes late for our 7:30 reservation time but we had to wait for our table a bit anyway so it wasn’t an issue. Rather than trying to choose from their menu Jeremy and I both opted for their nine-dish/four-course tasting menu and a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc (decided to not be touristy and take photos this time around but here’s the breakdown per course):

Course 1

  • Shaved tuna with coconut milk, chili tapioca, pear and lime
  • Lobster summer roll with citrus-dill gelee and sriracha emulsion (was very different with the dill, a new flavor combo, but tasty)
  • Poppadum with spicy/smoky tomato salsa

Course 2

  • Pork sausage satay with lime and Thai basil dip (my favorite dish of the night)
  • Spiced chicken samosas with cilantro yogurt

Course 3

  • Ginger fried rice with a panko-crusted fried egg
  • Cod with Malaysian chile sauce, Thai basil and celery
  • Chargrilled chicken with kumquat lemongrass dressing

Course 4

  • Thai jewels (little flavored gelatin balls) with crushed coconut ice
  • Ovaltine kulfi (like an ice cream) with caramelized banana, spiced milk chocolate sauce and whipped cream

Fireworks from 12th street

Everything was served “family style” and overall things were very good (and reasonably priced for a tasting menu at $48 per person). Once we were done with dinner it was about 9:30, the fireworks had started at 9:20 but we had chosen the restaurant for it’s proximity to the fireworks (and ability to make a reservation on OpenTable) so we walked towards the water to be met with a probably 50-75 person-deep crowd at 13th street. We opted to go down a street for a better view upriver and enjoyed the rest of the fireworks from there with 1000s of others 🙂 We were able to see all 6 displays, just not the water below them, nevertheless they were quite impressive.

The fireworks concluded a bit before 10pm and we joined the masses heading to the subway stations and made our way back to the hotel after a lovely evening.

Photos: MoMA and NYC Fireworks Flickr Set

]]>