Kitchen Cats: NYC Eating!

We went to NYC for the weekend (10/28 - 10/30), ate at 3 restaurants with food celebrity connections and the amazing little Austrian Cafe Sabarsky in the Neue Gallerie during our day of art and October snow storms.

We started with Mesa Grille, Bobby Flay's southwestern restaurant on 5th Ave in the Flatiron district. We arrived a half hour before lunch closing time, after plane, train and many blocks of walking. I had a salmon BLT, hubby had a green chile cheeseburger. Both had delicious grilled flavor. Just before leaving NYC we had tried an Atlanta restaurant Tierra, which is general Latin American cuisine. The food there was ok, but the tres leches cake was incredibly good. We decided to compare that amazing cake with Bobby Flay's Maple Tres Leches cake with pumpkin ice cream. I think the verdict was that both were good, but we preferred the traditional Tres Leches a little more than Bobby's pumpkin version.

Salmon BLT

Bobby's Pumpkin Tres Leches Cake

Later that night, after a day of running and exploring Central Park, we met friend Kira+Solar+Zephyr at Clinton Street Bakery in the Lower East side. No food pictures from here, just a pic of Zephyr meeting up with the people responsible for him visiting Maui at 1.5 months old.

On day 2 of the trip, an "unprecedented" October snow storm came and left about 3 inches of snow in the city, creating a cold and awful mess to walk through. We ran earlier in the morning, when we got soaked with cold rain before the snow began. After recovering from that run, we walked from west side to east side of the park to have lunch at hubby's favorite Austrian cafe: Cafe Sabarsky in the Neue Gallerie. This little place was very cozy and wonderful, coming in drenched in cold snow. We started with goulash soup (delicious!) and soft pretzel, followed with entrees of bratwurst and sauerkraut that I actually liked(!), and ended with the famous Austrian bakery cakes. From a difficult choice of 16 cakes and tortes, we chose Klimttorte (chocolate and hazelnut several-layer cake) and Erdbeer-Hollunder Mousse Torte (layered strawberry-elderflower mousse cake). I will let the pictures say it all -- these were amazing desserts.

Goulash soup with potatoes and beef plus soft pretzel

Smoked brauts with cheese

Roasted bratwurst with Riesling sauerkraut

Orange-Passion fruit tea -- my cure from the chill of 30-degree rain/snow and wet sneakers

Chocolate Hazelnut Klimttorte

Erdbeer-Hollunder (strawberry-elderflower) Mousse Torte

How thin the layers are!

The last restaurant of note was the first one that we planned when we decided to go to NYC -- Anthony Bordain's old restaurant Les Hailles on Park Ave. Fortunately the restaurant was not formal, after a day spent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and walking in the snow. Few food pictures, but the meal was great. Hubby got a Steak Bernaise, and I got roasted chicken with delicious chicken. Dessert was profiteroles, to compare them to the ones I made (once) in 2009.