Brooklyn, NY: Meal 1

OK, my long weekend in Brooklyn was awesome. My boyfriend and I were there visiting an old friend who moved there several years ago. She's moving back to Canada, soon. So, not only was it appealing to see her cute little face in person again, it was also a bonus to get some cheap New York hook-ups while I still had the opportunity.

A weekend with my friend is always just obscenely fun, no matter what city we're in. She's in food, too (went to Cordon Bleu in Ottawa and has worked at some swank places in NY, mostly in pastry), so if there's anyone who I can nerd-out with, as far as food goes, then she's in my top two, for sure.*

Throw a little New York and a little August into the mix and you get one sweaty, fatty, fun-filled, wine-soaked food frenzy. My poor boyfriend. He just sort of rode out the weekend in a state of stunned silence. I think, based on his body language, that he enjoyed himself, but you can never really be sure with men. Whatever.

We arrived in the late afternoon on Friday and after cramming a deeeelicious Penn Station Auntie Anne soft pretzel into my maw – during which time I spilled yellow mustard all over my suitcase – we took the subway to my friend's apartment.

Once we got there and realized the intensity of the heat that we were about to be living in over the next 3 days, we decided to crack open a couple of bottles of pear cider and spend some time relaxing and talking about what we were going to do for basically every meal of the weekend. I can't remember what brand the pear cider was, but yum. We also ate these things, which were completely awesome:

I also feel like they were healthy because of the seaweed. Yes, let's go with healthy. I need to figure out where I can buy these things. My friend ordered a bunch from Fresh Direct and I rammed my suitcase full of them before we left.

We finally decided to go to a local resto called Marlow and Sons for dinner that night. A quirky little restaurant featuring a tiny menu with lots of words like "local", "heirloom" on it.

Our server told us about the specials and after a brief misunderstanding that I'm pretty sure was caused by a mixture of her American accent, our Canadian ears and a loud, under-lit restaurant where reading lips was nearly impossible, we decided not to order the thing that sounded like "macanudo".

Instead, we got a few different apps and a few different mains.

As is the case with so many restaurants, these days, they completely blew their wad with the apps. The main courses were nice, but nothing outstanding. The dessert was a little disappointing. I think if I ever go there again, I'll just get appetizers.

These shells once contained delicious oysters, but we ate them before I remembered to take a photo. You get the idea.

Amaaaazing salad of mixed beans, crusty croutons, heirloom tomatoes, basil and an anchovy vinaigrette. Could have licked the plate.

This may look like chocolate ice cream, but it was actually chicken liver paté. Fantastic, although their bread to paté ratio was a bit off. Thankfully Macanudo Lady brought us more bread so we didn't have to eat the rest of the paté with a spoon.

 Fried corn. It was swimming in this incredible butter sauce. Again, came dangerously close to licking the plate. I decided on swiping everything else at the table through the sauce before eating it, which was a really good idea. Terrible photo. Like I said, it was dimly lit in there and my friend was really on me about my obnoxious flash photography. Understandably. I hate those people, too.

I think this might have been sea bass. I can't exactly remember because I was pretty drunk on a combination of wine and butter at this point in the evening. It was lovely, but nothing extraordinary.

Berry shortcake with lemon verbena ice cream. Meh. I mean it was OK, but, again, the ratios were all off. Do you see enough berries there? Because I don't. For something called "berry shortcake" with local berries, I was expecting some serious hot berry-on-berry action. Something that really showcases the local seasonal fruit, rather than a big dry biscuit. The ice cream was nice, but there was waaaaay too much of it. But it tasted better than I expected. The lemon verbena was very subtle and not at all citronella candle-ey. 

There's more to come from my fun weekend, so sit tight. Next up: No. 7's brunch!

*Strangely, the other friend in my top two also went to Cordon Bleu. I have a couple of theories about why Cordon Bleu produces fun food companions, the main reason being this: there's something about going to a fancy French chef school that eradicates any hesitation about eating copious amounts of delicious fatty food. Neither of these chicks is a sissy about fat or food. There is no "dressing on the side." There is no "hold the mayo." In fact, we usually end up eating everything on our plates and then start looking at the menu again to see if there's anything we missed. They're hardcore. They love it as much as I do. And I love them.