dinner and a show

And so we finally reach the end of the NY trip recap...  At the end of the last entry, Steve and I were getting ready for dinner and a show on Sunday evening.  As I previously mentioned, we had made an OpenTable reservation at DB Bistro Moderne after our Saturday night dinner at Café Boulud.  DB Bistro was already on my list, partly because the website looked so good and partly because Alyson had recommended it as one of her favorite meals ever.  But our experience at Café Boulud cemented the deal; might as well try another Boulud restaurant while we had the chance.
 
This one was obviously catering more to the pre- and post-theatre diners.  It was located a couple blocks off Times Square and was a little more casual.  The menu also had pictures of Times Square on it.
 

moderne menu

  

The decor was also more noticeably stylish compared to the understated Café Boulud.  There was a clear motif of squares, no doubt inspired by the modern font of the "db" in the name.  It appeared as a design on the napkins, some of the plates, and the upholstery.  It was also echoed in the shape of the chair backs and the square mirrors on the wall.  The natural tones of a lot of it conveyed a sense of refinement, while some red walls and votives added vibrance.

  

db bistro moderne

  

In deciding what to eat, I employed one of my favorite strategies: order a couple small plates and leave room for dessert.  I had learned from all of these fancy dinners that my favorite parts of the meal were usually the first few courses—raw stuff, soups, salads—and dessert.  The meaty entrees, while good, take up much more space with their large portions of protein.  I also tend to get tired of them more quickly, and winter braises are not my cup of tea.  Since nothing on that side of the menu was grabbing my attention anyway, I decided to go with a soup and salad.

 

But first, we were served some bread and an amuse bouche.

 

bread cup

  

make your own crostini

  

The bread was good, but the crostini were definitely more interesting.  The two spreads for the little toasts were olive tapenade and eggplant-mushroom, I believe.  Not wanting to test the theory that night that I might not be allergic to mushrooms, I stuck with the tapenade.  I don't really like olives, but I'll eat a good tapenade on bread.  And once all the little toasts were gone, we did just that.

   

 

Soup du Jour

Butternut Squash
  

soup du jour

  

My first menu selection was one of the soups du jour.  When our waitress was telling us about the specials, she mentioned the butternut squash soup and told us that all of their soups were made primarily from puree.  I remembered how good the cauliflower soup had been the night before and decided that the butternut squash soup sounded perfect.

 

It was, in fact, perfect.  Not only was the soup itself good, but the toppings were too.  There were caramelized onions, pumpkin seeds, Italian parsley, cherries, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar.  Each added something different to the soup and kept me from getting bored.  Some people would probably take a look at it and then stir it all together, but I liked being able to control which components were in each bite.  The caramelized onions were differently sweet than the butternut squash, the balsamic had some acid to cut through the creaminess, the pumpkin seeds were nutty and differed in texture from the smoothness of the soup, and the parsley added its green herbiness.  The cherries were probably the most surprising element, but the fruit flavor worked really well with the squash.

  

 
Rocket Arugula
Favas, Yellow Wax & Green Beans, Olives, Serrano Ham, Manchego, Balsamic

  

rocket arugula

  

The other half of my order was a salad with arugula and all sorts of other things.  My favorite components were the manchego cheese, the serrano ham, the cherry tomatoes, and the croutons.  I probably would have been happy with just those things on the dressed arugula salad.  The various types of beans—fava, green, and yellow wax—were interesting, but I didn't seek them out as much.  And I left most of the olives, donating a few to Steve.  Maybe not my favorite salad ever, but I still really enjoyed it.

   

Crispy Duck Confit
Wild Mushrooms, Broccoli Rabe, Sweet & Sour Duck Jus

 

crispy duck confit

  

Meanwhile, Steve was enjoying his duck confit.  He loved it; I loved that it was pretty.  I don't think I tried any, though.  I was focused on eating my own food so I could get to my favorite part of the meal: dessert.

  
  

We saw two desserts on the menu that looked especially good, and we decided to get both to share.  It was a good move.  The first dessert:

 

Crispy Caramelized Apples
Cinnamon Twist, Yogurt Apple Gateau, Mascarpone Ice Cream

  

crispy caramelized apples

  

This is the dessert that started out in front of me.  (We switched partway through.)  There was a little package of apples in the back, probably wrapped in phyllo dough, a small cake next to it with the mascarpone ice cream on top, shaved apples between the package and the cake, some good-sized dots of thick caramel on the plate, and a crispy cinnamon twist to top it all off.  In some ways I preferred this dessert to the apple tart tatin at Café Boulud.  It probably wasn't as refined, but there were more flavors here to love—cinnamon, caramel, mascarpone—in addition to the apple.

 

 

Coconut Rice Pudding
Vanilla, Sable Breton, Ginger & Rum Infused Pineapple, Mango-Banana Sorbet

  

coconut rice pudding

  

The second dessert was perhaps even more impressive.  The coconut rice pudding had been piped on top of the sable breton (somewhere between a cookie and a crust) and topped with dried pieces of pineapple, if I remember correctly.  On top of that were some raw coconut shavings.  That was actually the only part of the dish that wasn't perfect: the raw coconut was a little bland and tough.  I think it was more for decoration.  The rest of the dessert was wonderful, however.  The ginger/rum pineapple and the mango-banana sorbet gave it that light tropical flavor, adding some context to the coconut of the rice pudding.  The best part was probably the sorbet, though.  It reminded me a little of baby food, but in a good way.

  

mignardises

  

Last came this trio of mignardises, which Steve and I shared.  The madeleine was even smaller and cuter than the ones we had had the night before, and this one was plain vanilla, rather than lemon.  In the middle was an orange marshmallow, and on the right, a pate de fruit (fruit jelly).  I think it was passion fruit.  They were a good way to end the meal, even though we had already filled up on the desserts.

  

Having finished dinner, the evening was not yet over.  Next, we walked through Times Square to the Imperial Theatre to see Billy Elliot with Erica and Stu, Erica's parents, and Danielle.

  

billy elliot

  

We found our seats on the side, in the nosebleed section, and the show started not long after.  At that point, we realized that there was whole section open in the area next to us, more center, which wouldn't have an obstructed view of one side of the stage.  (Someone had probably bought group tickets and then failed to show up.)  But since the show had begun already, we didn't want to pick up and move to new seats.  As a result, I spent a lot of the first act wondering what was happening that we couldn't see on the right side of the stage and trying not to be distracted by it.  At intermission, we all moved down and in to fill some of the open seats.  The view was much better there, and I enjoyed the second half more.

  

I had seen the movie years ago, so I knew what to expect of the plot.  Billy gets into ballet classes, he loves it, his father finds out and forbids it, and there's a mining strike going on that complicates things.  The part about the strike, with the history and the politics, was a little difficult to follow.  The accents didn't help much with that either.  Luckily, the part about Billy and the ballet was really the heart of the story.  That part was easy to understand.

  

I'm often fascinated with the set design of these shows, and there were some really cool sets in this show.  Billy's house had a piece that would rise from the floor, which included the kitchen and a spiral staircase up to Billy's tiny bedroom.  The mechanics of it looked pretty complicated, since it was able to revolve while rising, and I think an inner piece (Billy's bed?) was able to rise independently from the rest.  Later in the show, there was also a mirrored drop for when they were at the Royal Ballet, which was ornate and reflected the audience in the theatre.  It made the place look both fancy and expansive, while really just using the apron of the stage.

  

On the whole, the show was a lot of fun.  I wasn't sure what to expect of the style after seeing the performance at the Tony Awards last year.  They did the Act 1 finale, which involved a dance freak-out by Billy and a lot of thrashing against police and picket lines.  I remember thinking at the time that it was all kind of spastic and emotional.  Happily, it worked in context, and I enjoyed myself throughout the show.  It wasn't my favorite work ever, but we were all very impressed with the boy who played Billy Elliot at our performance.  If he had been mediocre, the show wouldn't have been nearly as good.

 

When it was over, we all trekked to Riley's apartment to say goodbye.  It was a nice little studio apartment—small, but pretty new.  It's probably a little crowded for Riley and a parent, compared to what they were used to in the Bay Area, but it's typical for Manhattan.  As Riley told us, he spends a lot of time out and about.  If nothing else, they have a great view.

  

city view

  

We all chatted for a few minutes, and then we said goodbye to Riley and his mom.  Deciding that we didn't want to walk all the way back to the hotel in the cold, Steve and I broke from the group and took the first entrance to the subway that we passed.  We had one ride left on our MetroCards, so we used it to get from the 42nd St. station to 59th and 7th.  We still had to walk quite a ways to get to the NRW line, but at least it was all underground, out of the wind and the crowds.  And since we were no longer walking with a group, we could walk as fast as we wanted.

We left the city the next morning, via cab to Penn Station, train to the Newark Airport station, and tram to the airport terminal itself.  From there, we flew to Charlotte, NC, then home to SFO.  While we were waiting in Newark for our flight to Charlotte, we were treated to one last view of NYC in the distance.

goodbye ny

  

And with that, the New York trip was over.  Not having been to NYC for nearly five years, it was nice to visit again for a weekend.  I did a better job this time of not overbooking us, so we didn't feel as stressed out by the pace.  Three shows was a good number for four days, even if there were others I would have liked to see.  Food-wise, the trip was one of our most successful and most enjoyable.  We even managed to eat well when we hadn't planned out a meal ahead of time.

 

The one complaint that I had was the weather.  It wasn't snowing or raining, at least, but it was too cold to be outside for very long.  I would have liked to take more pictures, do more street photography, but I just couldn't keep my fingers out of their mittens for very long at a time.  Next time, we should probably not go in the dead of winter.  Lesson learned.

new york sunday

Sunday, January 10 was our last day in New York.  We left the hotel that morning with a little over an hour to kill before lunch.  We had made a reservation at Bobby Flay's Bar Americain, which was just a block away from Le Bernardin, where we ate on Friday night.  After walking by Bar Americain, Steve and I headed to Rockefeller Center so I could take some pictures before lunch.
 

rockefeller center

  

The ice skating was still in full swing, but the Christmas tree and most of the extravagant holiday store windows nearby had been taken down already.  We did, however, pass an Anthropologie store near Rockefeller Center that still had its window displays up.  The store in downtown SF is pretty impressive, but this one had much more window real estate to show off the creativity of the Anthro display people.

birdhouse in your soul

I later read that the theme was "Fifteen Inches of Snow."  The most memorable part was the window with the front half of a car, covered in "snow."  Most of the car was covered with fabric, as were parts of the road signs next to it.  The snow itself also looked like it was made from fabric.  Attached to the front of the car was a "hood ornament," which was similar to one of the Christmas ornaments I had bought from them that year.

stop

  

hood ornament

You can see a shot of the full window here.  I mostly took pictures of the details that I noticed.  My favorite detail, however, was part of a scene in one of the other windows.  (See more on Flickr.)

the customer is always right

  

Clearly, I had way too much fun taking pictures of these windows... when I wasn't freezing my fingertips off.  It was unbelievably cold and windy that day, and I was wearing my combination gloves/mittens, with the mitten part that flips over fingerless gloves.  Without the mitten part over my fingers, my fingertips were starting to go numb from the cold.  I had to hurry it up and take the pictures before I froze completely.

 

The walk back to Bar Americain was relatively short, but the wind in my face was making my eyes tear up.  I was glad when we got inside and out of the cold.  I learned that day why there are so many revolving doors in NY: a frigid gust of wind rips through if one opens a regular door to the outside at just the right moment.  It happened once while we were eating lunch, and I immediately understood.

 

bar americain

  

But back to the restaurant itself...  When we sat down, I already had a good idea of what I wanted for lunch, from looking at the online menus.  We started with a trio of seafood cocktails, which looked both pretty and delicious on the website.

   

cocktail trio

  

We tried the middle one first, which was shrimp-tomatillo.  It was my favorite.  I could have eaten a lot more of it.  As it was, we were taking turns sipping the leftover tomatillo sauce from the shot glass after we ate our shrimp.  

  

The one on the left was my second-favorite: crab-coconut.  It was kind of light and tropical, like a ceviche, but with crab and bits of mango in it.  

  

The lobster-avocado cocktail on the right was less memorable.  There wasn't enough of the lobster, I think.  Maybe it was just missing something in the flavor to make it amazing, but it didn't compare to the other two, in my opinion.

 

pot pie

Steve ordered the Smoked Chicken Pot Pie with Sweet Potato Biscuit Crust for his main dish.  (Kind of a sucky picture... natural light + artificial light in one picture = difficult.)  Steve loved his pot pie.  I didn't try any, since I wasn't in the mood for that sort of thing.

grilled pizza

  

I ordered the Grilled Pizza with Double Smoked Bacon, Caramelized Onions, and Toasted Garlic.  I enjoyed the flavors and smokiness of it, but I was already half-full from the cocktail trio.  It was too heavy for me to eat more than about a quarter of it.  I think the main problem was that there was a lot of salt from the bacon.  The cheese also seemed pretty salty, and the caramelized onions weren't sweet enough to counteract that.  It probably would have been better if it had been less loaded up with bacon so I could taste the other components more.

Overall, Bar Americain was good, but I preferred the southwestern food of Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill—we went in Vegas a few years ago—over the reinvented homestyle food of Bar Americain.  It wasn't my favorite meal, but I would definitely give the restaurant another chance, since the first two seafood cocktails were so good.

After lunch, we walked back over to Rockefeller Center.  We thought about going into Anthropologie then to check it out, but we didn't want to add Steve's newly purchased cup of coffee to the pile of abandoned cups that we saw outside the door.  Instead, we continued with my list of things to do.

The first was to find La Maison du Chocolat at Rockefeller Center for some macarons.  We looked around a little, didn't see it, and then I decided I was too full for macarons anyway.  Instead, we walked up Park Avenue to try to find the NY outpost of Pierre Marcolini, a chocolatier that Dan and Carmen discovered in Paris and Belgium.  The chocolates that they brought back for us were so good that we hoped to get some more.  Unfortunately, we got there to find them closed on Sundays.  No chocolates for us.
 
Despite the cold, we trudged on.  Central Park would be both easy to find and certain to be open on a Sunday.  I had a few landmarks in the park on my list, but I settled for a quick look around the southeast corner.
 

central park south

gapstow bridge

  

Don't be fooled by the warm colors in those photos; I adjusted them somewhat in editing.  We were, in fact, freezing.  We stopped by the bridge to see the ducks in the water, and then I went after some shots of the iconic carriage rides through Central Park—also on my list (to photograph, not to do).

 

winter carriage ride

  

With that accomplished, we decided it would be a good idea to go back to the hotel room and get out of the cold for a while.  On the way back out of the park, we passed a familiar face: Bob Tuschman, the Senior VP of Programming/Production at the Food Network.  I recognized him from being one of the judges on The Next Food Network Star.  (Kind of a stupid show, especially compared to Top Chef, but I still end up watching it for some reason.)  He looked like he was showing some friends around.  Funny how the "celebrities" that we ended up seeing in NY were all food people.

 

Once we made it back to our room, we noticed that housecleaning hadn't been by yet.  We had left a little later than usual that morning, so we had missed the initial rounds.  Normally, I would have just gone out again and done something else until I actually needed to be back to get ready for dinner.  We were feeling tired and kind of apathetic, however.  The original plan for the afternoon had been a trip to the Museum of Modern Art, which had a Tim Burton exhibit on display.  Unfortunately, the tickets for the exhibit were sold out when we checked the website that morning.  That left us with more time to do Central Park, but the cold meant that we didn't want to spend the entire afternoon outside.  I felt guilty sitting in the hotel room when I could be out doing something exciting, but we had already done most of the things I had been looking forward to.  Everything else required significant time outside or just significant time, when we had a set schedule for dinner.

So we hung out in the room for a little while until housecleaning arrived, and then we went down to the lobby to contemplate going somewhere or finding a drink.  We ended up in the hotel bar, where we each had a cocktail.  It wasn't as good a photo op as a cute little cafe would have been, but Steve and I enjoyed ourselves, and we stayed warm.  By the time we finished our drinks and went back upstairs, our room was clean, and it was time to get ready for dinner.

Since this post is long enough already, our last dinner and show will be the final post for the NY trip.  Coming soon.  And by "soon," I mean "as soon as I write it."

another fancy dinner

The Saturday night of our stay in New York, we opted to go to another restaurant for a fancy dinner.  We had just seen a matinee of Bye Bye Birdie, so dinner was a good way to spend the evening.  Steve didn't want to pack in so many shows this time, and I can't say I blame him.  After all, he prefers going to good restaurants, and I enjoy it too.

This time, we had reservations for Café Boulud.  It's one of Daniel Boulud's restaurants, although it's not his signature/flagship one.  Daniel is his most upscale restaurant and the one with three Michelin stars.  (I generally categorize Daniel Boulud with Eric Ripert and Jean Georges Vongerichten... They're all French chefs in NYC with three-star restaurants.)  Café Boulud has one star, which is still not too shabby.  It may be a step down from Daniel, but it's a pretty small step.  It's still fancier than most restaurants we've tried.

The executive chef at Café Boulud is also a familiar name: Gavin Kaysen.  We've seen him as a competitor on the first season of Next Iron Chef and as a guest judge on Top Chef last season for the Bocuse d'Or challenge.

After some fancy (ok, pretty basic) subway transfer work, we arrived on the Upper East Side in time for our 8:30pm reservation.  We checked our coats and were seated at a little corner booth.  Despite being next to a wait station and the path to the kitchen/restrooms, it was a comfortable spot.  I was already more at ease than I had been at Le Bernardin the night before.  

We looked at our menus, but we asked about the tasting menu, which I had seen mentioned on the website.  Unlike Le Bernardin, there was no preset tasting menu; instead, the chef determined what to serve for 5 courses.  They were able to work around my allergies, so we decided to order the tasting menu and eat what they wanted to serve us.

Arancini

Fontina, Risotto, Black Truffle

arancini

 

Every table received arancini as an amuse bouche.  Little fried balls of risotto, arancini are hard not to love.  (We had some at our wedding during the cocktail hour, not that I actually ate any of the hors d'oeurves that day. )  As our waiter told us, they were filled with fontina, risotto, and black truffle. They were creamy and slightly earthy from the truffle, and the outsides were perfectly crispy.
 
 

Roasted Beet Terrine
Maytag Blue Cheese Mousse, Toasted Walnuts, Endive, Citrus Gelée

New Brunswick Oyster

Arancini (same as before)
 

amuse trio

A trio of amuses were next to come out, and one of them looked familiar.  We each got another of the arancini, which we were happy to eat.  Next to that was a New Brunswick oyster.  It was small and sweet, just how I like them.  The last bite was the beet terrine with blue cheese.  It was a little like a layered jello, but savory, and with cheese on top rather than whatever opaque stuff they use in those jello desserts.  I really enjoyed it, since I've been liking beets with cheese lately.  I was just a little sad that mine didn't have the extra garnishes that Steve had.  They left the green sprig and the endive off of mine, even though the walnut was the only part that should have been a problem.

Ahi Tuna Carpaccio Niçoise

Haricots Vert, Yellow Wax Beans, Olives, Fried Quail Egg, Tonnato Sauce

 

tuna carpaccio

And then came the first of the real courses.  We soon found out that they were giving us each different dishes.  It was cool to try more things and take more pictures, although I wasn't always sure if there were elements of Steve's dishes that contained nuts.  I only tried a few bites of his whole meal, but I had plenty of food on my own plates to eat anyway.

Sashimi of Fluke
Pineapple, Cilantro, Jalapeño, Ponzu Vinaigrette
 

fluke

I got the fluke as my first course.  It was one of my favorites of the night, with the sashimi, the pineapple for fruity/sweet, the jalapeño for heat, and the ponzu vinaigrette for salt/acid.  I really like light dishes like this that pair unexpected things well.  It was also quite pretty.

Since Steve and I were being served dishes that weren't necessarily on a printed menu, I spent a minute copying down what I remembered about each course's description after they were announced for us.  Steve went back later, cross-checked those descriptions against the online menus, and pasted the official descriptions for the dishes that he found into a document to keep.  This dish was actually on the menu for Restaurant Week (a few weeks after we were in town), rather than the normal dinner menu.

Thai Coconut and Lemongrass Soup

Shiitake Mushrooms, Shrimp & Pork Wonton, Cilantro

 

lemongrass soup
  

Steve got the lemongrass soup as his soup course.  Since it had mushrooms in it, I didn't try any.  Steve was a big fan, however; he likes Thai flavors more than I do.
 
 

Cauliflower Velouté
Tempura Oyster, Roasted Cauliflower, Salmon Roe, Arugula
 

cauliflower veloute

My soup course was a lovely cauliflower velouté.  It was smooth and cauliflowery, and the roe and oyster provided some punches of salt here and there.  There were also small florets of cauliflower, which added some texture.
 

Both of the soups were brought out with just the garnishes in the bowls, and the servers poured in the liquid at the table.  Steve's garnishes stayed centered, but mine didn't do as well.  So the picture of my soup isn't quite as perfect, but that's okay. 

Incidentally, I saw that someone at the table next to ours ordered the lemongrass soup as a normal portion.  It looked enormous.  I was glad to have a smaller size of mine.  I also really liked the soup bowls and the writing on them.
 

Rabbit Agnolotti
Beets(?), Red Wine Sauce, Pecorino Foam
 

rabbit agnolotti

Here is the point in the meal when we realized that many of these dishes were probably on the menu in some form.  Instead of being so detailed in my descriptions of the dishes in my moleskine, I started just writing the names of the dishes.  As luck would have it, the rabbit agnolotti was not on any of the online menus.  I had to cobble together a description for it based on the picture and Steve's memory of the dish.  Oops.  Steve liked it, but I don't think it was his favorite.  The pecorino foam was interesting, though.
 
 
Fall Squash Risotto
Ricotta Salata, Brown Butter, Sage
 

squash risotto

I was so happy when they brought out the risotto for my pasta course.  In looking at the online menu and the printed menu in the restaurant, this was the one dish that stood out.  If we had ordered individual plates instead of the tasting menu, I would have made sure we included this.  So it couldn't have been more perfect that I got during the tasting menu.

 

It was a different take on a squash risotto than what we do at home.  There was no pancetta in this, and the cheese was a hard, salty ricotta rather than a soft triple-cream cheese.  They also used brown butter, which is likely what that foam was on top.  It was a sweeter dish than ours—also good, but different.

 

I ate most of what I was served, and I'm willing to bet that this was the beginning of the end of my appetite.  Risotto is pretty filling, and I was only able to eat a few bites of the last two savory courses.

  

 
Poached Maine Halibut
Puy Lentils, Brussels Sprouts, Gala Apples, Crispy Bacon, Sauce Diablo
  

halibut

 

Fish was next, and Steve got the halibut.  I think I may have had a bite of the fish, but I was trying to concentrate on getting through my own dishes.  The accompaniments on this dish sounded great, though: lentils, brussels sprouts, bacon, and apple.  Can you tell that I'm beginning to really like fruit in savory dishes?

 

 
Seared Diver Scallop
Kohlrabi, Artichoke Barigoule, Herb Crust, Whole Grain Mustard Jus

 

scallop

For my fish course, I got a seared diver scallop.  I haven't had many diver scallops that I've loved, so I wasn't surprised that this didn't rock my world.  The texture of the herb crust was pleasant, but the mustard flavors in the dish didn't help matters much.  (I've never really liked mustard either.)  I think my favorite part of the dish was actually the little potato pieces that were up on end.  They looked a little like the artichoke, but they tasted like french fries.

  

Roasted Venison Loin
Crispy Polenta, Sage Crust, Treviso, Sauce au Poivre
 

venison

Meat came next.  Steve got the venison, and I got the veal.  I might have preferred to get the venison, but I was full enough by this point that I couldn't eat more than about one bite of each element anyway.

 
Tasting of Pennsylvania Veal
Braised Cheek, Seared Loin, Roasted Salsify, Sweet Potato, Brussels Sprouts, Mustard Fruit Jus
  

pennsylvania veal

There was a lot going on on the veal plate.  It was like three dishes in one: seared loin with sweet potato puree and brussels sprouts, sweetbreads on roasted salsify (maybe?), and then the braised cheek on top of some polenta.  Of the preparations of veal, the sweetbreads were my least favorite.  I don't have a big problem with offal, but the texture was just a little too fatty for me.  The cheek was tender and flavorful; and I think the loin was good, but I don't really remember it.  I was actually more interested in the sweet potato puree, the tiny brussels sprouts, and the polenta.  They were all wonderful and took up less room in my already full stomach.

 

 

Molten Chocolate Cake
Tahitian Vanilla Ice Cream
 

molten chocolate cake

 

Finally, all the savory courses were finished, and our waiter asked if we would like a cheese course.  We were curious what they would serve us, but the only room we had left was reserved for dessert.
  
Steve got this relatively simple molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream (and gold leaf on top!).  I had a taste of the chocolate cake, which was very rich, but I was more interested in my own dessert.

 

Apple Tart Tatin
Diplomat Cream, Confiture de Lait, Vanilla Ice Cream
 

apple tart tatin

Both of our desserts were from the traditional French portion of the menu, but mine was just a little more interesting.  On the left, there was a stack of caramelized apples, topped with a light pastry roll that was filled with vanilla cream, and a strip of caramelized sugar.  In the middle, the confiture de lait was like caramel and cream encased in gelatin.  And on the right was the ice cream, on top of some streusel to prevent sliding on the plate.  It was originally supposed to be pecan-bourbon ice cream, but they substituted vanilla to make it edible for me.

 

This was one of those times when I wished I wasn't so full already.  I managed to find room for quite a bit of it, especially considering how full I was before dessert, but I was sorry to have to leave some behind.

 

 

Madeleines
 

madeleines

 

The final send-off mignardises were small madeleines in a folded napkin.  I ate two or three of these, and they were wonderful.  They were slightly lemony and topped with powdered sugar.  Yet again, I wished I could have eaten more.

  

I mentioned in my post about Le Bernardin that I preferred this dinner to the one we had the night before.  It's not that the food was so much better at Café Boulud; I think it was just more my style.  The mascarpone dessert at Le Bernardin was my favorite dish out of both meals; however, the first few dishes we had at Café Boulud were all fabulous.  And they served me risotto—and fried balls of risotto—of which I am a fan.  The desserts may not have been quite as impressive, but that apple tart tatin was pretty darn good.

 

I think the deciding factors, besides the hefty price tag at Le Bernardin, were the overall experience and the service.  I simply enjoyed myself more at Café Boulud.  We had French waiters at both restaurants, but the one at Café Boulud was more charming while still being professional.  The secondary server—a younger woman—was also great.  They weren't as stiff as the ones at Le Bernardin.  I'm sure the formality is part of what sets Le Bernardin apart as a three-star restaurant, but I like to feel at least a little connection with the wait staff.

  
And as an added bonus at Café Boulud, we saw Chef Kaysen.  He stopped by one of the other tables in the dining room, and I pointed him out to Steve.  (I'm better with faces than he is.)

By the time we left the restaurant, they were finishing up the last of the tables for the night.  We had been there for about 2 1/2 hours.  We got back to the hotel and decided to go ahead and make reservations for the next day on OpenTable.  For our last dinner in NY?  DB Bistro Moderne, another Daniel Boulud restaurant.  Because hey, why not?

birdie afternoon

Saturday, January 9th began much like the day before at the Park Central Hotel in New York City.  Steve got up before me, showered, and got us coffee from the Starbucks next door.  I drank it while I got ready, and we left the hotel around 10am.  The difference on this day, however, was that we had a matinee to get to after lunch.

Because we hadn't made it to the Time Warner Center on Thursday evening, Steve and I decided that we would go look around and find lunch there on Saturday.  My initial plans for lunch that day had included Lombardi's for pizza and perhaps Rice to Riches for rice pudding in Little Italy.  But since we had just eaten pizza at Grimaldi's the day before, it made more sense to check the Time Warner Center off my list.  It also kept us closer to the hotel and Midtown, which was better for our schedule.

 columbus circle

The Time Warner Center is essentially a mall with several upscale stores and restaurants, situated at Columbus Circle.  We were less interested in most of the stores there, but we did stop at the Mxyplyzyk kiosk there to look at the whimsical housewares that they had.  Since we didn't make it to Greenwich Village—where the main store is located—on this trip, the little one at the Time Warner Center had to suffice.

The main draw at the Time Warner was sadly not open while we were in town.  Per Se, Thomas Keller's New York restaurant, was closed from January 1-11, the entire duration of our vacation.  If it had been open, we probably would have tried for reservations or taken advantage of their new (as of last March) salon/lounge a la carte menu for walk-ins. We were a little disappointed that we couldn't eat at Per Se while we were in NY, but the food is similar to The French Laundry, where we have eaten before.  We settled for finding Per Se and looking longingly at its signature blue doors.

the blue doors

We were also out of luck when it came to the Bouchon Bakery.  Their sitting area was completely deserted, and the store front with the main counter was also closed.  It looked like they were repainting and otherwise improving.  Sad, but Yountville isn't too far from home when we want to visit a Bouchon Bakery.

bouchon bakery

For lunch, Steve and I decided to go somewhere that was actually open.  We perused the menus at a few of the restaurants at the Time Warner Center and chose Porter House New York.  It had steaks for Steve and things with cheese for me.  Steve opted for the bistro-style hanger steak with 4-peppercorn sauce (and fries).

hanger steak

I, as always, went straight for the goat cheese on the menu.  My ideal lunch these days, especially when traveling, is something light.  A sandwich or salad is ideal, and if it has goat cheese, I usually can't resist.  Here, it was a salad of roasted beets, goat cheese, butter lettuce, and a shallot vinaigrette.  It was lovely and fresh.

 beet salad

 

I also had to get a side order of their Four Cheese & Mac.  Steve started making the mac & cheese from the Bouchon Cookbook recently, and I was in the mood for something similar.  Porter House's version was indeed similar to Bouchon's, but the flavor was a little different because they used more varieties of cheese.
 

 mac & cheese

After lunch, we hightailed it down to Henry Miller's Theatre, just off Times Square, for the main event of the afternoon.  It was also the reason for our visit to NY: see my former student, Riley, in the ensemble of Bye Bye Birdie.
 

birdie

When we got to the theatre, we joined the others from our group.  There were several kids from YTC and their parents (not the people in the picture above), all there to see Riley.  We actually managed not to run into any of them before or after this, even though most were staying at the same hotel as we were. 
 
Once Erica and Danielle arrived, they handed out the tickets, and we went in.
 

 danielle

The theatre itself is new and pretty spacious.  I was there in 2003 when I saw Urinetown, and it was completely different then.
 

The show began with the typical overture.  There were some projections and graphics to set up the Conrad Birdie storyline, and then we were in the Almaelou office with John Stamos as Albert and Gina Gershon as Rose.  John Stamos was charming as ever, but I wasn't a fan of Gina Gershon.  Her acting was fine, but her singing was not so good—too much scooping.  She also had trouble with the low chromatic part in "English Teacher," not actually hitting the right notes.
 

Bill Irwin played the father, Harry MacAfee.  His performance was entertaining, but it was so over the top that it felt like he was in a different show than the others.
 

I agreed with one review that I read: the teenagers were really the best part of the show.  Since I knew the show well already, I found myself mostly watching Riley when he was on stage.  He was great—always in character.  My favorite moment was at the beginning of "Honestly Sincere," while everyone was trying to keep themselves from dancing.  It looked like he was eating part of his "sister's" skirt for a moment.
 

In this production, they made several little changes to the show.  One of the more noticeable ones right away was how the song "How Lovely to Be a Woman" was staged.  Instead of Kim changing her clothes during the song, which is the usual staging, it was Kim packing away her Conrad Birdie paraphernalia, occasionally singing to it before putting it in the box.  It didn't have the same humor as the typical ending of Kim in baggy clothes and a baseball hat, singing about being a woman, but I thought it worked well.
 

There were also a lot of pop culture references that were changed in the script.  They were still period, but some of the more obscure 1960s references were changed to ones that modern audiences were more likely to get.  For instance, the important reporter that Albert unknowingly told off on the phone became Walter Cronkite of CBS News, rather than Henry Luce of Time magazine.
 

One of the bigger changes in the show was the omission of the Shriner's Ballet.  It's a big dance number in the second half, in which Rosie terrorizes a meeting of the Shriners in Sweet Apple.  It doesn't really further the story at all, but it's a lot fun.  (A lot of musicals from that era have a nice long dance number in the second act.)  I was a little disappointed that they cut it, because I wanted to see what they'd do with it, but I understood why they did.  They cut it pretty seamlessly by having Rose encounter Hugo in the bar after "Talk to Me," instead of outside after "Shriner's."
 

Also helping the momentum of the second act, "A Lot of Livin'" was cut up a little.  They did most of it where it would normally occur, then they wove in some of the parent stuff, and cut back for some more fragments of the song.  It worked pretty well, especially since they didn't have "Shriner's" to help build the excitement.
 

I also have to mention how much I loved the set for the MacAfee house.  I liked the sets in general, but this was my favorite.  It used bright colors, in the '60s Mod style—super cute.  I found this article with pictures of some of the other sets, but sadly not the one for the house.  On the plus side, if you look at the last picture on the page, from "Telephone Hour," you can see Riley.  He's the one on the far right in lavender.
 

Overall, it was a good show, but it probably could have been better.  I was mostly just happy that Riley was fabulous in it.
 

Afterward, we stayed in the theatre for a talk-back with some of the teenage cast members.  They answered some questions about their experiences and the auditioning process.  (At one point, Riley asked his "mommy" if he was remembering right.)  Post-discussion, we greeted Riley and ended up traipsing backstage, through the train car set piece, to take a group picture onstage.  I set up my camera and had Steve snap a few shots with it.

the gang

We moved outside after that, taking another group picture in front of the theatre.  I also got a shot of Riley alone.  Not the best lighting, but it was getting dark by then.

riley

 

Steve and I didn't stick around much longer after that.  We said goodbye and headed back towards Times Square.  I took a few more pictures on our way through, and then we returned to the hotel to get ready for another fancy dinner.
 

times square