New York - the food - part 1

New York is going to take more than one entry in this blog as if its one thing that is good here. Its the food.

Most people seem to either love or hate New York. Me being me and being difficult, I don't think I really fell into either categories - though at times I explored the extremes of both emotions. It is certainly a remarkable place, but perhaps a little less remarkable than I had been led to believe. There are some amazing things to see and do there, but for a claustrophobic girl who likes here green trees and space, and hates lifts, its a bit of a nightmare (except for the absolutely beautiful central park). 40 degree heat certainly didn't help either. But I did love the different character of the many parts of New York (when I was starting to feel like US cities were built a bit like franchises - Ionic Columns plus liberty). I loved East Village and Greenwich Village, the Flatiron building, the Empire State Building, and had some amazing experiences. And then of course there was the food.... 

First, one must record that below is a picture of lemonade, brilliant fresh raspberry lemonade at the MoMA to be exact. If Jay had a jug of this waiting for me after work, I really could give up wine (well perhaps...). Sprite is not lemonade in North America.

Below is an artistic salmon sandwich that Jay had for lunch near the Rockerfeller centre...and my fresh and very delicate heirloom tomato salad.

Second lesson - this one for the Americans. Plastic food should be used to tempt the customer into the restaurant, not make them run away...

Third lesson - Canberra needs to stop opening more cocktail bars than there are public servants, and open a proper wine and cheese bar (and not burn it down). The photos below are from Casellula in New York. They made up a platter of cheese for us to taste, and it was just scrumptious. And I must work out to make those caramlised pine nuts. Wow.

Fourth lesson -  even crappy take away in NY is amazing.

Fifth lesson - vegan food can be elegant, tasty and beautiful. Not that I needed to be convinced of this, but you meat eaters should try Candle 79 in New York. As you see below, the food is amazing (all GF too!), remarkably they also seem to have hired some of the old Lithium DJs to pick their songs for the evening...and yes the dessert was orgasmic.

Sixth lesson - don't eat a knish from a street vendor. Yuk.

Seventh lesson - art galleries have good food, museums bad food (yes I mean you the MET cafe). We had a fabulous indulgent lunch at the Guggenheim. The restaurant felt like part of the artwork.

Eighth NY lesson, before I give up until later - you don't need to go to snooty Michelin starred restaurants to get great food in NY. A friend of a friend had given me a list of her favourites, but I decided that I would rather go to restaurants which are harder to find in Australia and reflected the multicultural heritage of new york. Yes I know fancy modern Australian restaurants are not the same thing as a michelin starred restaruant in new york - but really when you a GF vegetarian, often you get a much better meal elsewhere. So anyway, one of my first choices was a Swedish restaurant given Jay's scanidnavian obsession. So we went to Smorgas in West Village, and it was just gorgeous. As it was restaurant week, they also had a brilliant 3 course set meal with matching wines. The food was also so fresh...they have their own farm in New York state and grow all their own vegetables. Yum. I also had one of only two panna cotta's for this whole trip so far (I know what is wrong with me!).