I'm back from New York and from my long absence from blogging. There has been so much going on, but I'm back now. I'll use this post to tell you about my New York trip and will wait to catch you up on other things later. I don't have much on my schedule at the moment, so I can blog about all the interesting things that I've been doing, rather than the vegging out that I plan to be doing for the next few weeks.
For the past week, I've been on my first real business trip. I was sent to New York to represent my company to people who we haven't worked with before. I felt like a travelling saleswoman even though I wasn't really selling anything besides the good reputation of my company. I have decided that in every meeting I was successful in getting across that we are a great business to work with -- because we are! Hooray!
It was a real thrill to be back in New York on my own and working, but all the adrenaline and scheduling and bouncing around the city, I did get worn out. I'm not as young as I used to be. Luckily, I got to go to several interesting restaurants and cafes with my business meetings like CraftBar, a casual place with brown paper tablecoths and gorgeous healthy food, and Alice's Tea Cup a place for proper English tea with an Alice in Wonderland motif.
I also want to make a special mention of the hotel I stayed in: the Hotel Mela. It's a boutique hotel in an awesome location and is more reasonably priced that is neighbor competitors. Great rooms, great service (everyone is so happy!) and free streaming wifi. If you're ever going to New York and need a place to stay, try this hotel.
I also happened to be in New York on my birthday and my wonderful parents came up to hang out with me for the weekend. On my actual birthday, they took me to a great Mexican restaurant recommended by one of the agents that I met with called La Palapa. They had some really interesting dishes like cooked cactus and a rice dumpling smothered in a tomato salsa. Yum.
We also went to see Spamalot (which I have seen before and have a bit of fun history with) and I loved it all over again. Clay Aiken was in it (yes, I'm fan -- don't mock) and he was great. He was just as funny as the professional actors, with his fantastic voice to top it off. Interstingly, the Lady of Lake was the same Lady of the Lake that I saw in London, because the US and UK Ladies switched places for a time. She was just as awesome the second time around.
Lastly, my trip was awesome because I got to see so many friends: singing karaoke and trying to get free drinks (and embarassing myself a couple of times with my song choice), spending an evening with an old friend and it only felt like a couple of weeks since we'd seen each other, and hanging out with my family, shopping and walking around New York despite the freezing cold wind.
Showing posts with label restaurants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label restaurants. Show all posts
Monday, March 03, 2008
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Our Second Edible Adventure
The Hind's Head, though the less-hyped of Heston Blumenthal's two restaurants, is just as exciting and wonderful as fancy-schmancy The Fat Duck.
It is a regular English pub with a pub food menu cooked as best as pub food can be cooked. You may have heard of the triple-cooked chips (translation for the American readers: thick steak fries, fried three times) which are every bit as yum as you might think. We had made a reservation and sat upstairs, rather than downstairs by the bar, the first come, first served area.
Our little table was right by an open window and we could watch all the people walk right by The Fat Duck. The picture in yesterday's entry of the street was actually our view from the table. Once, we watched a taxi driver point out the restaurant to a group who still missed the door. Lots and lots of uber-posh cars were baffled by the lack of signs or obvious parking: an Aston Martin, lots of Porsche and silly SUVs. There was also a wedding happening nearby, and we saw the most amazing hats!
On top of the wonderful atmosphere and prime people watching, I had the most delicious pea and ham soup, light and sweet with chunks of slightly salty, soft meat. I'm going to try to recreate it somehow here at home. Neil loved his oxtail and kidney pie (translation for the American readers: gross and ick) and wondered aloud if this food was even better than the Fat Duck meal. For dessert, we had "Eton mess" which, as an American, I needed a translation for. It is strawberries and cream made into a mess with chunks of meringue mixed in, and it was heavenly.
If someone asked which of the two restaurants I would pick to recommend, I would struggle to decide. But I wouldn't struggle on recommending the place we stayed. It was Red Roofs at Oldfield.
It's a 25 room Victorian house right on the river with a beautiful garden and a lovely breakfast room. Each bedroom is decorated in a different style, and we stayed in the Gold Room. Everything was gold. Everything.
This was our view:
The most impressive room was the lobby.
The husband and wife team owners were friendly and welcoming, and have done a wonderful job restoring and maintaining the building. It was the perfect place to stay to compliment our gastronomic experiences.
I think I'll save the Windsor visit for tomorrow's entry. That will keep me constant on my posting!
It is a regular English pub with a pub food menu cooked as best as pub food can be cooked. You may have heard of the triple-cooked chips (translation for the American readers: thick steak fries, fried three times) which are every bit as yum as you might think. We had made a reservation and sat upstairs, rather than downstairs by the bar, the first come, first served area.
Our little table was right by an open window and we could watch all the people walk right by The Fat Duck. The picture in yesterday's entry of the street was actually our view from the table. Once, we watched a taxi driver point out the restaurant to a group who still missed the door. Lots and lots of uber-posh cars were baffled by the lack of signs or obvious parking: an Aston Martin, lots of Porsche and silly SUVs. There was also a wedding happening nearby, and we saw the most amazing hats!
On top of the wonderful atmosphere and prime people watching, I had the most delicious pea and ham soup, light and sweet with chunks of slightly salty, soft meat. I'm going to try to recreate it somehow here at home. Neil loved his oxtail and kidney pie (translation for the American readers: gross and ick) and wondered aloud if this food was even better than the Fat Duck meal. For dessert, we had "Eton mess" which, as an American, I needed a translation for. It is strawberries and cream made into a mess with chunks of meringue mixed in, and it was heavenly.
If someone asked which of the two restaurants I would pick to recommend, I would struggle to decide. But I wouldn't struggle on recommending the place we stayed. It was Red Roofs at Oldfield.
It's a 25 room Victorian house right on the river with a beautiful garden and a lovely breakfast room. Each bedroom is decorated in a different style, and we stayed in the Gold Room. Everything was gold. Everything.
This was our view:
The most impressive room was the lobby.
The husband and wife team owners were friendly and welcoming, and have done a wonderful job restoring and maintaining the building. It was the perfect place to stay to compliment our gastronomic experiences.
I think I'll save the Windsor visit for tomorrow's entry. That will keep me constant on my posting!
Saturday, June 16, 2007
An Edible Adventure
In 2005, I gave Neil an I.O.U. birthday present for a special meal at a restaurant that had long intrigued him. I busily set about trying to get a reservation at this place, but failed repeatedly. After various attempts, and perhaps a delay or two due to finances, I finally asked the polite but unyielding reservationist what I had to do to get a table. She was happy to tell me: be among the first to call on a Monday morning two months before I wanted to dine. With precision timing, two months of Mondays ago, I phoned up and secured a table at The Fat Duck. Hooray!
In any restaurant, Neil always picks the weirdest thing on the menu: spicy chicken feet, sheep testicles, anything guaranteed to repulse me. The Fat Duck is the ultimate in the unusual, and he was keen to try the tasting menu. If you don't already know, the restaurant is run by food scientist Heston Blumenthal who has established a philosophy about disrupting people's notions of food: what it's called, how it's prepared, what it looks like. The first line of the "Philosophy" section on his website is "No food is intrinsically disgusting…" Neil is a firm believer in this. I am not.
I am mocked in my family for being an extremely picky eater. I don't eat anything fishy, nothing with eyes, nothing that looks or sounds gross like blood pudding or foie gras. I don't really like meat and do tend to pick the same thing at a restaurant I've been to before. At first, I had planned to call myself a vegetarian who was allergic to fish. That would get me out of most of the disgusting things on the menu, but would also have me skipping most of the courses! Neil also didn't want to experience it all on his own, so I took a deep breath and decided that no matter what they put in front of me, I would eat.
Well, yesterday was the big day, and after a bit of a panic getting stuck in standstill traffic on the M25, we finally arrived in Bray near Maidenhead at the most innocuous looking restaurant. I didn't even spot it when we were driving by. The exterior and the interior was so understated; the focus was entirely on the food. Here's a picture. Can you guess which building is the three Michelin starred restaurant?
It's the light browny-beige one, on the left side, with the roof slightly sticking up.
The first course, of sixteen (!), was my favourite. A waitress brought over a contraption, poured in liquid nitrogen and then "cooked" a green tea and lime meringue, which we were instructed to eat in one bite. It collapsed in my mouth with a puff of refreshing and tasty gas. Yum.
My second favourite course was Neil's favourite. It was a three part experience: first I took a little strip (like those mint gel strips) that dissolved on my tongue to "begin the flavour of oak" according to the waiter. Then, he placed a wooden box on the table, filled with moss. Yup. Moss. He poured boiling water over the moss, which we guess was sitting on dry ice, and the vapour of the forest wafted up. Finally, came the actual eating of an oak moss and truffle toast, which was the most unique flavour of the evening.
Honourable mention goes to the hot and cold tea which was fascinatingly half hot and half cold. I didn't really enjoy the snails or the foie gras, but I ate them both with only the tiniest worry that they would come back up all over my Heston Blumenthal embroidered napkin.
Every new plate brought something I'd never had before. It was a once in a lifetime experience, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.
Special thanks to Dad for picking out the wine before hand. I would have failed miserably had I been presented with that huge wine list without preparation. And the first choice wasn't there, so that back up selection was needed. We had the V.D.P des Côteaux des Fénouilledes, Le Soula, G. Gauby 2002 from Languedoc – very smooth.
That was Friday night! Tomorrow, I'll tell you about our Saturday: lunch at the Hind's Head – Heston Blumenthal's take on pub food – plus a trip to Windsor Castle, and the fabulous hotel we stayed in.
In any restaurant, Neil always picks the weirdest thing on the menu: spicy chicken feet, sheep testicles, anything guaranteed to repulse me. The Fat Duck is the ultimate in the unusual, and he was keen to try the tasting menu. If you don't already know, the restaurant is run by food scientist Heston Blumenthal who has established a philosophy about disrupting people's notions of food: what it's called, how it's prepared, what it looks like. The first line of the "Philosophy" section on his website is "No food is intrinsically disgusting…" Neil is a firm believer in this. I am not.
I am mocked in my family for being an extremely picky eater. I don't eat anything fishy, nothing with eyes, nothing that looks or sounds gross like blood pudding or foie gras. I don't really like meat and do tend to pick the same thing at a restaurant I've been to before. At first, I had planned to call myself a vegetarian who was allergic to fish. That would get me out of most of the disgusting things on the menu, but would also have me skipping most of the courses! Neil also didn't want to experience it all on his own, so I took a deep breath and decided that no matter what they put in front of me, I would eat.
Well, yesterday was the big day, and after a bit of a panic getting stuck in standstill traffic on the M25, we finally arrived in Bray near Maidenhead at the most innocuous looking restaurant. I didn't even spot it when we were driving by. The exterior and the interior was so understated; the focus was entirely on the food. Here's a picture. Can you guess which building is the three Michelin starred restaurant?
It's the light browny-beige one, on the left side, with the roof slightly sticking up.
The first course, of sixteen (!), was my favourite. A waitress brought over a contraption, poured in liquid nitrogen and then "cooked" a green tea and lime meringue, which we were instructed to eat in one bite. It collapsed in my mouth with a puff of refreshing and tasty gas. Yum.
My second favourite course was Neil's favourite. It was a three part experience: first I took a little strip (like those mint gel strips) that dissolved on my tongue to "begin the flavour of oak" according to the waiter. Then, he placed a wooden box on the table, filled with moss. Yup. Moss. He poured boiling water over the moss, which we guess was sitting on dry ice, and the vapour of the forest wafted up. Finally, came the actual eating of an oak moss and truffle toast, which was the most unique flavour of the evening.
Honourable mention goes to the hot and cold tea which was fascinatingly half hot and half cold. I didn't really enjoy the snails or the foie gras, but I ate them both with only the tiniest worry that they would come back up all over my Heston Blumenthal embroidered napkin.
Every new plate brought something I'd never had before. It was a once in a lifetime experience, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.
Special thanks to Dad for picking out the wine before hand. I would have failed miserably had I been presented with that huge wine list without preparation. And the first choice wasn't there, so that back up selection was needed. We had the V.D.P des Côteaux des Fénouilledes, Le Soula, G. Gauby 2002 from Languedoc – very smooth.
That was Friday night! Tomorrow, I'll tell you about our Saturday: lunch at the Hind's Head – Heston Blumenthal's take on pub food – plus a trip to Windsor Castle, and the fabulous hotel we stayed in.
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