Breakfast at SaraBeth's: The second half of our trip to NYC for the Fancy Food Show

I've been screwing around tweeting, mostly on my twitter account, follow me (click here), and posting on my Facebook account or my Life By Chocolate Facebook page, follow us, (click here). Or you can follow Life By Chocolate on twitter (click here). Time for some strenuous blogging! Back to work fingers.

This is my third post on the Fancy Food Show. Most of my posts about food are photo driven. These posts are no exception. See, Fancy Food Show Eatathon! Our trip to Manhattan and the fun we had (click here) and then Perilla: The second half of our trip to NYC for the Fancy Food Show to catch up. Don't worry. It's mostly pictures.

As you can see, we had a wonderful breakfast at SaraBeth's. The service was terrific. I had a very nice Salmon Benedict. My only complaint was that it came out luke warm and not hot. The eggs were poached perfectly and, apart from the temperature, the food was very good.

Kim had oatmeal. She liked it but I was disappointed it wasn't steel cut. They may have had a steel cut the menu but I didn't see it and neither did Kim. So, SaraBeth, please put steel cut oatmeal on your menu. Thank you.

I read my complimentary Wall Street Journal from the Essex House and Kim people watched. (She says she was only eating her breakfast but I know better. LOL. We talked over breakfast.) The OJ was also good if a little thin but it was probably fresh squeezed. And when the server forgot to bring my bacon to the table, she made up for it by tripling the size of my order, on the house. Kim and I shared in the bounty. I can't wait to have breakfast at SaraBeth's again. (Kim says that the huge bacon bounty was a normal sized order. Now we'll have to go back to see if that's the case or if the waitress was making up for her error.)

Coming soon: Ma Pêche and Petrossian. I promise.

Perilla: The second half of our trip to NYC for the Fancy Food Show

.

I admit it. We had every intention of going to the Fancy Food Show for all three days. We even planned to leave NYC at 5:45 so we could spend all day on Tuesday at the FFS. But we didn't. After grazing and tasting and eating for 7 hours on the first night, Sunday, we had a different view of how we should spend our time.

We decided to explore new restaurants. I wanted to go to Perilla for one thing and one thing only, to try a new type of martini. I had my first Hendricks Martini there at Perilla and it was wonderful. I've been a convert ever since. So, I had a Greenhook Martini and I did not like it at all. I drank it to make sure but I was not a happy camper. It just wasn't my idea of good gin. I have drunk a lot of gin in my time and before Hendricks, I usually drank Boodles. But now nothing but Hendricks, please.

To be fair, before I say something I regret, I need to acknowledge that it was Sunday night. We had just had the cab ride from heck, through the Gay Pride Parade, which the concierge from the Essex House did not inform us was going to make getting to Perilla difficult at best. We were definitely under informed. If he had told us that we were heading into a massive parade, we might have postponed our trip downtown to the West Village. It all worked out anyway. Plus the parade, I love parades, was a blast. It reminded me of San Francisco's Exotic Erotic Ball, always a fun time.

Is Perilla slipping? I did not know if Harold was there but I have noticed that when he is not, the food isn't as good. Plus, as I said, Kim and I were stuffed. On the plus side, I asked them to make the appetizer portion soft shelled crab into a dinner portion and they did it. I love soft shelled crab and this was pretty good, even though it was batter dipped. I wish they'd just been lightly floured and panfried in butter or something like that. I had a nice white wine with it but forgot the name of the grape. Urp. Sorry.

And Kim had the stuffed artichokes. She thought they were good but that they were not outstanding.

I also got a very nice quinoa salad.

If you have not gone to Perilla, I would suggest it. It's a very solid restaurant. And the first time is magic. But please, Harold, change your menu. I can't wait to see what you come up with next. We didn't get any dessert that I remember but we were given these nice cookies.

More restaurant reviews coming up: Ma Pêche and Petrossian.

Beer, wine and sangria... What have we been doing?

The Guilded Otter

For my blog followers and my twitter followers who do not follow me on Facebook, here is a make-up post with all the pictures that are currently on my FB account and the Life By Chocolate FB account. There is even more on the Greenville Arms 1889 Inn and Hudson River Valley Art Workshops and of course our Wee Forest Folk store. So that should be most of what we have on Facebook.

Now, what have we been doing besides making chocolate and brewing beer and of course knitting and quilting? We've been dining and having great wines and beers.

Let me start from most recent. We went to The Guilded Otter in New Paltz.



We tried their sampler and then decided that the Winter Wassail was the one that we wanted to drink. The Crimson Lager was also good as was their Altbier and their Imperial Stout and the porter. Mostly all their beers are good. I bought a growler of the Winter Wassail.

They make a great sandwich. Here is my love, looking at the menu.



We've also been drinking some stellar wines. Here is a montage or rather a pictorial of the wine we've had over the last few months. These will be in reverse order of drinking them, from latest to lastest, if that's a word. Which I know it is not.

Very super yummy.

When I first opened this rosé I thought it was gone. It wasn't. It did take a few minutes, about 30 of them, to open and be delightful. I highly recommend this nice rosé.

One of the wonderful meals Kim made for us. I'm definitely going to steal the slaw. Great. Tasty and yummified.

The Hosmer was good and the Heron Hill was great though I think the Heron Hill needs a lot more time.

Ooooh La La, as my French friends would say, this wine was superb. It had honey and other complex flavors on the finish. Here's what I said about it when I was drinking it. "another stunner from the collection. Sauzet and a 1er cru. A wonderful wine that went well with the gigli we had with cheese sauce. Basically a goat cheese, mascarpone sauce."

These are the glasses we had the wine in.

I couldn't detect the honey and honeysuckle flavors I was expecting on the finish with a trace of caramel. When the wine opened, it was beautiful and delicious with all the flavors you'd expect from a 1er cru Meursault of this caliber.

We've also been making a great drink with the St. Germain and Apple Cider, local good stuff, cinnamon heated. I use almost a 1/2 and 1/2 mixture of St. Germain and Apple Cider. Very nice. Sorry, no sangria so this will have to do. It makes a very good winter cocktail of about wine strength.

A most lovely Chardonnay. This was a great drink. I've been taking out wines that I thought might be over the hill because when I opened this Chablis I thought it was already over the hill.

This was the bottle of wine that started all the problems. I thought it was bad. But I was wrong. It just took a long time to open. At least 1 hour. This wine was very gravely and very austere and had no fruit at all but after it had opened, it was a very typical Chablis with plenty of fruit though not as much as other Burgundies.

I'll leave you with two more. This is a great dessert wine and one of Kim's favorites. We had this with Roquefort and other blue cheeses.



I bought this next Sauterne back in the 80's and back when people were more concerned with Terroir than the skill in making the wine. This bottle of wine was sold to me as "contiguë à Yquem" that is the vineyard for this wine was contiguous with Yquem, the greatest Sauterne.

All of Burgundy is an example of this belief that Terroir isn't everything but the only thing and how wrong that can be. Clos de Tart is a particularly great example of how a change in the technique produces a much better wine. My last bottle of Clos de Tart was a 1990, which was superb.

And another great dessert wine. We drank this one with Roquefort and other great cheeses, mostly blue. All of these dessert wines had that characteristic honey and bottle sunlight greatness to them. No Yquem but still worth the drink. I am leaving out the great Champagnes we had over New Years, DVX, Krug etc. But you can see them on my Facebook site.

I hope this post satisfies not only the beer people following me but also the wine people and the cocktail or mixed drink crowd. And I hope it also makes for interesting reading for all you chocoholics out there. Enjoy.

Some thoughts, whether I like it or not.

Just got back from Boston. We stayed at a nice in in Brookline. Some pictures to follow. Though, on my Facebook page, the pictures are already there. We went to 10 Tables. Sorry no great pictures. Not even on Facebook. It's gluten free and they work hard with you. I left a gigantic tip after having too many, 2, of their special sidecars. Not bad at all. I still say the pork chops were dry but maybe that's just me and pork chops. The hanger steak was terrific. Too bad I left the leftovers in the refrigerator at the inn. The inn didn't have in room refrigerators like we do. Just one on the second floor. It was pretty full. So was this little restaurant. It was pretty good. Medium to expensive. The desserts were simple but good as well.

We went to Newbury street in Boston and went to Johnny Cupcakes. They sell $40 tee-shirts. The next place that said they baked cupcakes actually sold cupcakes though I was expecting maybe shoes. Stephanie's on Newbury was very good. They had a terrific, I mean genius, sangria. It was delicate and just super yummy. I wish I lived in Boston just for that wonderful sangria.

Also finished Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain. Not a bad collection of stories. Did I say collection? It's more of a rambling pile of thoughts that he probably forgot to incorporate into one of his books and is now slamming together to pay for his kid's braces. At least he makes it perfectly clear that it is definitely no longer due to anything but alcohol. It's entertaining and he does apologize through half the book, how sorry he was for half of the things he says in Kitchen Confidential, and how right he was for the other half of that book. He does spend a lot of time saying how unworthy he is. This is aged Bourdain. This is Bourdain post Travel Channel. This is Bourdain a little tired and maybe even deflated.

This is mind blowing. Tony Bourdain has chefs come up to him and tell him he's a sell out because now he writes books, which they read, and doesn't cook anymore. "You are no longer one of us," they wail at him, weeping, angry and he takes it. Bourdain even gets a little morose and feels guilty.

Software engineers don't come up to me on the street and yell at me, "You used to be one of us but you no longer code. You are not one of us any more." They just get a faraway look in their eyes and say, "Cool." I can tell they too want to become an innkeeper.


I also just finished making some terrific Cafe Americano. Go and buy some now.

A Day at the Coffee House with Tom

Continuing the saga of our Vermont and New Hampshire trip, a friend of mine who I went to culinary school with for chocolate owns Dirt Cowboy Cafe. It's a lovely place in Hanover, NH. And the pastry. Tom makes the best vol-au-vent, croissants, you name it. Well worth the eating. He roasts his own coffee and make great confections and chocolates. What more could you ask for?

The Cafe is the first stop when you come out of Dartmouth. It has a great atmosphere, great coffee, great pastry, savory and sweet and a fantastic staff, Tom included.

One of the things I love about visiting Tom is the approach to the town. This bridge is beautiful and majestic.

See? Beautiful.

I highly recommend stopping off at the cafe, buying some chocolates and getting some coffee and a vol-au-vent with raspberry filling. They are light and they are a good size. Where did all my pictures of Kim go? She's the person Tom is looking at.

This is a nice shop a little down aways from his.

Well, Tom, it was great visiting. Come by the Arms when you get the chance.

Vermont Trip With Kim: Newport and New Hampshire

It snowed all the way to Vermont. We were on a mission. We were dropping off a sewing machine to one of our students in Vermont and then going on to Newport VT to have a nice vacation at one of our favorite inns: Cliff Haven Farm.

It's a beautiful inn. This is the entrance way. We were pretty hungry so the first thing we did after settling in to our room was to go out to Lago Trattoria, though they serve food that's more like a fine restaurant than a family restaurant. Probably the best restaurant in town.

Of course I forgot about taking pictures until I was half way done eating my seafood cake.



And Kim was well into eating her Romaine Salad. This whole leaf romaine salad reminding me of eating, for the first time on a business trip, in a nice bistro in southern California and getting served a 1/4 wedge of iceberg lettuce with dressing on top. One of my colleagues went ballistic, and working for LMSC (Lockheed Missiles and Space) that could be dangerous.

Kim had the gorgonzola and prosciutto ravioli which looks great. She liked it.

I had the quail and duck with some butternut squash ravioli. Very nice.

Here is a picture of me looking like the Cowboy Don crossed with Edward G. Robinson. "M'Yeah. See. You have this cow in my pasture, see? And I don't like that. See? Try the fish. M'yeah."

And the biscotti. I can't tell you how good they are. These are great paired with some Vin Santo. Yum.

And the espresso drink are great. Let me translate that for you New Yorkers, "The expresso drinks were good. M'yeah. See?"

The next day we went to another great restaurant called the Thai Tanic. I ain't making this up, folks. The Thai food was pretty good. I got the Tamerind Duck and Kim got the Honey Duck. I would have loved the Tamerind Honey Duck, personally but that wasn't on the menu.

The food was very good. We ate the dumplings too and ordered three orders to take home for dinner. That night we feasted on fried and remicrowaved dumpling and popcorn while reading and watching movies. Kim knitted her heart out. It doesn't get any better than this, people.



Look at all the pretty colors.

Of course we didn't mind staying in the room the whole day, only coming out to eat, or shop at the local yarn store or the local book store. I bought 5 books and Kim bought enough yarn to make me another tuque (toque) and some socks. It's great being married to a knitter. It's great being married to Kim.




All that was left was to get out of town. And we did heading for New Hampshire and our friend Tom.