My desk is stacked high enough with restaurant receipts that The Cat Who Came to Live With a Food Writer can actually make a nest out of them to keep me company as I dick around on the internets. And all those are an accumulation of guilt for not writing about so many destinations as this joint has been gathering dust. So rather than just trying to catch up on all the good, the bad and, worse, the mediocre, here are a couple:

Saint Julivert Fisherie in Brooklyn had the most transporting food in donkey’s years: mackerel whipped into a creamy spread accented with piri piri oil; raw scallop in tacos formed of shiso leaves, with salsa macha; squid carbonara, with the tentacles cut into “noodles” and tossed with Parmigiano and spicy squid ink, with strips of Belgian endive to trick your eye and palate, and hamachi collar cooked jerk-style that almost had us sucking the bones. Service was unnervingly friendly, and the wines were all over the map, given that the theme of the place is oceanic. WIGB? I have recommended it to like 50 people, but next time we might head to the same owners’ La Vara just a couple of doors away.

And Momofuku in the dread TWC will leave you marveling “did we just eat in a mall?” It’s worth at least half an hour’s wait in line for just the Bang Bar options of extraordinary spicy pork wrapped in what Trinidad would be considered a roti and the “rip & dip” with the same flaky bread to dunk in either eggplant or chickpea dip, both phenomenal. But it’s better to snare a table inside at the Noodle Bar for both the service and the specials board behind the bar, which flips over the way the Amtrak announcements used to at Penn Station. I’ve been twice so far for the steamed buns enfolding shiitakes cooked so artfully they could pass for pork belly, the fried Japanese potato with “white sauce” (Alabamaesque BBQ), the lively cucumber salad with halved and smashed radishes in a sesame-chili dressing, the carrots roasted to intensity with scallions and pumpkinseeds and the ginger-scallion noodles, which are nothing like the homage to NY Noodletown you would expect but are amped up with pickled shiitakes. The one dish we shared that would have been better hogged was the mixed spicy noodles with herbs and fried egg. Chopsticking down to the incendiary sauce would have been more satisfying in one bowl. WIGB? Any chance I get. Not least for the soft-serve dessert made with Chang’s trademarked Hozon, based on chickpea water. It’s light but butterscotchy.

I typed this months ago but keep thinking about it, so I swung by the Union Square Greenmarket (motto this time of year: “All this useful beauty”) on a Wednesday to see if it was still boiling up. And, yes, it is, with even more events:

So we’re finishing up our rigatoni with ragu, dainty eggplant parm and awesome garlic dots on a Saturday at Pasta Flyer and I’m bloviating about why the concept is genius for a chef — he can create the menu, develop the recipes and technology, staff up and take weekends off. Then Mr. Curious, the guy I sleep with, goes back to the counter to ask how long it takes to cook the pasta (15 seconds) and how (water’s constantly boiling). One of the five staffers says, “You can ask Chef. He’s right there.” And Mark Ladler was indeed in the kitchen, dumping a big pot of ragu out and looking quite pleased with himself.

I’d been wanting to try the fast-pasta place ever since we wound up with friends (after the amazing “Faces Places” at the Quad) at a seriously mediocre Syrian place nearby. That night I didn’t argue for it because I thought it would have no atmosphere. But maybe it has too much. The design is subtly dazzling, with upholstered benches and rustic-looking tables and chairs and tulips in vases and a huge black-and-white photo of Rome with a flying saucer dominating the room (the bathroom is just as wild). Planters are filled with wheat sheaves, the main lighting fixture is Del Posto-evocative. In any other neighborhood the joint would be jammed. (I wish I could argue for the UWS, but I’m not that dumb.)

When we walked in we were given samples of fried mozzarella sticks in a fabulously spicy tomato sauce, a special of two for $1? Our whole meal came to about $13, and it was enough for both of us. Servers delivered the dishes and cleared the table, and one came around afterward with a little pill cup with three chocolate-covered espresso beans (“to help the digestion”). Both the denteness of the rigatoni and the restraint of the ragu were Italy-worthy. I read about the garlic knots while waiting in the deliberately slow line at Di Palo so had new appreciation for what were essentially Italian gougere.

So it was fascinating to come home and read up on “real” critics’ reactions. The same people who slaver over McD’s/Dunkin’/Taco Bell are so harsh when top chefs try to reinvent the genre.

The $7-a-glass wine looked good & there was a loyalty card on offer. WIGB? Absolutely. Even after a movie. 

There is no travel luxury like time. When you have 18 days in one place, a Mollica can happen.

One afternoon in Torino I was wandering back from an hour studying the alimentary canal (and femurs and brains) at the anatomy museum and swung past a new restaurant a food photographer had recommended. It looked a bit too intimidating for a sweaty traveler at lunch, but a couple of doors up on the piazza I spotted an enticing little sandwich shop with the most alluring concept: panini made to order with bread, cheese, salumi and salse from small producers in and around the city. It had a line and looked tricky to navigate for someone still sleepwalking through jet lag, but I took a couple of snapshots. On a quick trip that would have been the end of it.

A few nights later three of us who can speak about three phrases of Italian among us braved the intimidating restaurant for a two-bottle dinner (more about that later, of course) and then wandered past the shop again. This time a small group of youngs was clustered outside, so we stumbled in to gawk at the design and were followed by the owner, who explained the concept. In English, because this generation of food-changing Torinese always seem to speak it, usually well.

On a quick trip, that would have been the end of it. But my consort and I had the luxury of time the following Monday to make a foray. And it was so worth the journey. The counter was manned by two stylish women (daughter-mother?) who summoned an older man from the courtyard to translate even though it turned out daughter? spoke excellent English. We could choose from three breads (I learned morbidoso is not stale but soft), half a dozen each cheeses and meats, grilled eggplant or zucchini or sun-dried tomatoes and four salse, from verde to oliva. Even with gentle explaining, it was all a bit overwhelming, so Bob went with one from the list of suggestions for the undecided (coppa, cheese, grilled zucchini) and I stupidly chose mortadella as the base for mine, meaning there were limits to what could be added without overwhelming the main ingredient (robiola, though? great). Of course the sandwiches themselves were nothing like what you get in train stations and stand-up caffes, just layers of perfection, but the mother? also plied us with tastes of cheese and lardo. Wine was E3 for a little plastic cup of serve-yourself local white or red. And the bill came to all of E15. Because we drank wine, water was free. WIGB? I hoped to, but there are so many choices and now so little time. It says everything, though, that when I touted it on FB the owner responded with a grazie.

So where does $60+ go on a Friday night? Not to either Mermaid Inn or Tangled Vine, both swamped when I hooked up with my consort after a friend bailed on us. We wound up at Barley & Grain for dramatic hummus with warm, puffy pita, a nice deal at $6 even though they charged for the necessary extra bread. But we passed on the $6 happy-hour wine deal in favor of a $42 bottle of Provencal rosé. Pinot grigio is just one step up from Flint water.

Twitter might have done me a favor for once. A digital pal just asked what my favorite dining/drinking spots, $ to $$$$, might be. And of course the answers would take more than 140 characters. And of course I couldn’t just send her here because my site is a bit dusty, which is an ass-saving way of saying downright neglected. Now I’m motivated, even though I have to quote my consort’s response whenever he was asked, back when he was on the road nine months of the year for National Geographic et al: Favorite city? The next one.

So. I haven’t gotten around to writing why RedFarm was my choice in early November for what could have been my last meal. The cooking and service are unsettlingly close to perfect every time we go. Pro tip: Stick to the dim sum and appetizers and you will eat extremely well for just $$ and not $$$$. We also find ourselves at the Mermaid Inn almost too often since it expanded and added soundproofing. Happy hour is even more of a deal for surprisingly creative cooking. (I can make a meal of the crab cake appetizer.)

We are also devotees of $ Jin Ramen, although I always get the rice bowl with beef rather than the namesake bellybuster. We like $$ Saravanaas in Curry Hill for the thali and the dosa and the atmosphere (uptown? not so much). Great New York Noodletown in Chinatown ($) never lets us down, either, but Hunan House in Flushing is vaut le $$ voyage for atmosphere as well as a great menu.

I always like Baker & Co. in the West Village after a movie because it’s good and quiet and $$. We usually get a good meal (prosciutto-arugula pizza for me, inevitably) with very cheap wine at Fairway’s upstairs cafe. We like the Smith, too, even though it’s loud and it’s not at all cheap — it delivers in a restaurant what nearby New York Look promises in clothing. Because of the peeps behind it, I like Toloache in any of its locations although, again, the appetizers deliver more than the mains for a lower tab. I could happily eat at least once at week at Momofuku Noodle Bar, the best duck dealer going.

But this all makes me realize how big this city is and how small the world is.

I think the birthday night we cabbed home from Le Bernardin and reflected that we (or one of us) could have flown to Paris for the same amount I’d just paid for dinner was sobering, because we almost never go out for fancy anymore. We’re much more interested in places like the awesome Fung Tu, or the Musket Room, where we’ve had perfectly splendiferous meals for less than a month’s maintenance.

Because Twitter is not the room for an altercation, I didn’t ask why my pal was asking about restos. But she has made me confirm something. The $$$$ is no longer about the food. It’s the experience. I went to a media event the other night at one of New York’s Finest and was kinda stunned by how bustling the place was, how mixed the crowd was, how lively the whole mood was. But the food just struck me as safe. And I wasn’t even paying.

Wow. Did I really eat out nowhere this week? I know I had endless Champagne at Mireille Guiliano’s book party at her home. And I ate some great short ribs braised in Austrian vinegar at a press party, plus a great fava bean salad with pumpkinseeds and pumpkinseed oil, all tucked into a crunchy cornet. But I also realized, yet again, why chefs should be wary of those kinds of promos: What I tasted from a restaurant I’d been wanting to try was rated NG. For all a certain chef’s alleged fear of cooking for 200 in a kitchen set up for that, the awful truth is that way too much turns to rubber chicken when you have to transport it and serve it to a crowd.

The good as always: The New French, for post-market cheeseburger and steak salad done right. Kitty bag was kinda sloppy (leftovers all tossed into one tin, which leaked) but otherwise it was as it inevitably is: perfect.

Otherwise, I only broke away from our kitchen for dinner at our friends Debbie & Jim’s place down CPW, and as always it was great food and consummate hospitality: excellent guacamole, trailer park dip (equal parts mayonnaise, Cheddar and Vidalia onion, baked till gooey), salad with watermelon surprise, seafood-chicken-sausage paella, raspberry-sauced almost-flourless chocolate cake baked by Emily the star of stage and small screen and many, many bottles of wine to fuel lively conversation. Much as I like to cook (and control), having someone else do it is beyond luxury these days.