IRL friend at the Sunday Greenmarket asked if I would be writing about all the amazing meals I keep raving about from all our travels this year (Phila, twice; Atlanta; CDMX; Berkshires\/Catskills; Toronto\/Buffalo), and I swore I would. One way to procrastinate, though, is to focus only on where we\u2019ve eaten in one week back home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As is usually the case, our first dinner after dropping off our bags was Motorino<\/a>, for a kale Caesar and a soppressante super picante pizza \u2014 both even better than usual, especially with a nice, affordable bottle of ros\u00e9, poured by our usual server in a particularly mellow mood. (Nina\u2019s Great Burrito, BTW, after our earlier trip to a tick wedding was a total reentry bust: half-assed margaritas, lame nachos and I can\u2019t even remember what else.) WIGB? Closer than Song e Napule<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the awesomeness that was \u201cBarbie\u201d (30 percent off for tickets to a 3 o\u2019clock Thursday matinee), we made our way to a reserved 5:30 table at Cafe Luxembourg<\/a>, where we had not eaten in literally years and where the room and the food held up astonishingly well. (When I said so over to the Twitter, many people said the streetery was a sad way to eat. Design matters \u2014 as the restaurateur we met years ago in Estonia, in a joint called Grandma\u2019s, said: \u201cRestaurants sell air.\u201d) Salmon tartare was a perfect blend of richness and acidity; my croque monsieur was Paris-worthy, as were the frites, and Bob\u2019s special of skate with asparagus and porcini sauce was so much better than our old failsafe order of fish&chips woulda been. Ros\u00e9 here was even better than Motorino\u2019s, and for only $20 or so more. WIGB? Now back in the rotation. Truly comforting to see so many staffers, especially so many multi-culti staffers. #Bidenomics\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then there was Fonda<\/a>, which I think was the first restaurant we braved during \u201clockdown,\u201d when even sitting outside far apart from other tables was quite an experience. I can\u2019t count how often we\u2019ve been back over the last three years, both to the Chelsea location and the new one in Tribeca (both Chelsea Market & Hudson Street Greenmarket). As always, we got our own A+ classic margaritas and split the awesome queso fundido with chorizo (with an extra order of freshly made corn tortillas), but rather than our usual crabcakes or duck serape braved the beef tostadas. WIGB? Absolutely, but not for the tostadas, which were good but not QF level.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" IRL friend at the Sunday Greenmarket asked if I would be writing about all the amazing meals I keep raving about from all our travels this year (Phila, twice; Atlanta; CDMX; Berkshires\/Catskills; Toronto\/Buffalo), and I swore I would. One way to procrastinate, though, is to focus only on where we\u2019ve eaten in one week back… Continue reading