New York!

We went to New York last weekend to celebrate Mr. D's birthday. After seeing Brooklyn band Oneida at the Mercury Lounge, we headed over to Katz's Delicatessen (205 E. Houston Street). Usually, our late-night Jewish deli cravings in New York are satisfied by Veselka (on 2nd ave., which is open 24 hours a day), but Katz's was just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Mercury Lounge so we gave it a try. Upon entering the deli, we were each handed a ticket and told to hold on to it or else. Several signs around the deli told us that we'd have to pay $50 if we lost our tickets. The reason was soon apparent, as our tickets were marked as we ordered our food; D. got a kosher hot dog and a vanilla egg cream, and I got a potato knish with sour cream.

Katz's has a bit of a cheap greasy spoon feel to it, with the floors covered in worn vinyl and walls in fake wood paneling. The wall across from the food counters are covered with celebrity photographs. In addition to prepared food, you can buy pounds of meat from the meat counter, where big salamis hang in rows behind the counter. Looking around, I saw a sign that said "where Harry Met Sally!" (where the orgasm scene took place in the film, apparently) and also the one below:





We liked Katz's enough to return the next day after seeing some live music at Tonic. This time I had some potato pancakes with sour cream and apple sauce, which again were tasty. The food is probably on par with our other favorite, Veselka, but on the other hand it's not as nice looking or clean while being similarly priced (e.g. the potato pancakes were about $7-8 for three, the sandwiches were about $12). It's worth going there if you're pretty close by and get the munchies, though. Just don't lose that ticket before you're ready to pay!

The other restaurant we went to was Trattoria Dell'Arte, a fancy Italian restaurant close to Carnegie Hall. (D's mom was paying, so we were allowed to splurge a little bit.) You can easily recognize the restaurant from the street because there's a giant sculpture of a nose hanging on the front. Inside, there are also giant sculptures and large drawings of other body parts such as an eye and a giant breast. (I was looking around for the giant penis, to no avail.) D. and I shared Insalata di Bietole, an appetizer with beets, endive, asparagus, and gorgonzola cheese, an interesting combination of foodstuffs, particularly with the nice contrast between the sweet beets and the mildly bitter endive. For the main course, D.'s mom had some food from the antipasto bar, I had the Rigatoni alla Melazane (with eggplant, mushrooms, capers, pomodoro and ricotta salata), and D. had Vermicelli di Mare (seafood pasta with lobster, shrimp, clams, and mussels in a white wine sauce). My dish was pretty good, a little salty, but D.'s mom got the best thing since she wisely ordered a combination platter of different pastas and salads, which included some nicely cooked octopus which I was allowed to sample from her plate. (I attempted to cook this octopus recipe once without having eaten octopus before; it was a little too chewy as you're supposed to cook it for quite a while to get the right texture, and I got impatient towards the end.) The best part of the meal was dessert; we split a big piece of panettone covered in fudge sauce and served with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. The panettone was a light sweet bread with bits of dried fruit baked in; I think there was also banana in this one (?), or at least parts of this panettone had a soft, moist texture. The fudge sauce was mildly bitter good-quality chocolate, sufficiently rich and not too sweet. Lovely stuff.

And then I went to use the ladies'. Now, this generally wouldn't merit a mention at all, but the restroom was totally nuts. Okay, there was a restroom attendant, which I've come to expect, but when I went to wash my hands, the counters were covered with various toiletries like hand moisturizer, hairspray, floss, mouthwash, breathmints, etc. I guess the restaurant provides this stuff for image-conscious New Yorkers heading to Carnegie Hall after dinner, which is reasonable. I was about to use the mouthwash, but the restroom attendant was hanging out, probably expecting a tip (there was a little basket with a couple of dollar bills already in it), so I ran out quickly.

So those were our exciting New York dining experiences. We're hoping to try a dim sum restaurant next time we visit -- any suggestions?