Another great week AND weekend (except the blast of snow we got on Thursday night that has made the city a wet mess). Every week, Chris and I try to go to one nice restaurant during the week (usually Wednesday or Thursday) and then try some places on the weekends (during the week, it’s hard to enjoy a nice meal with the thought of work in the morning). This past Wednesday, we headed over to Buddakan:

We ordered the sizzling short rib, tea smoked chicken, and vegetable rice. Overall, I thought the food was delicious, although, it tasted very similar to stuff my mom’s made (or stuff you can get in chinatown). The vegetable rice was actually very interesting - there was a coconut curry foam on the side of the rice that mixed very well with the taste of the vegetables. Afterwards, we had our usual dessert of pinkberry (mochi, mangoes, and strawberries) and then walked around in the west village since it was such a nice night (everyone was out with their dogs!). We even saw Ralph Lauren walking around with his son!

On Friday night, we met up for dinner at Lupa, an Italian restaurant owned by Mario Batali (you know, the guy that wears the hideous orange crocs on the food network?):

We went in without a reservation (it only took around 45 minutes, which isn’t bad for a Friday night) and hung out at CVS while we waited to be seated (I needed to buy new socks since mine were soaked through from the snow/sleet/whatever was on the ground). One funny/odd thing about Lupa was their menu - most Italian restaurants will write their menu in Italian (how authentic!) and then write the English translation underneath. At Lupa, however, they wrote everything in Italian on the two front pages and then had a GLOSSARY on the back page. Chris and I ended up flipping the menu back and forth trying to read as much as we could without looking like idiots. I ended up ordering the veal saltimbocca (veal with proscuitto and vegetables) and Chris ordered the bucatoni with a spicy marinara. The veal was a little *too salty* because of the proscuitto, but the bucatoni was really good (spaghetti that’s hollow on the inside).

On Saturday, we had a late lunch before a long day of shopping (actually, we ended up shopping for only like two hours or so since everything closes so early in midtown!). We headed to The Spotted Pig:

I ordered the Chargrilled Burger with Roquefort Cheese & Shoestrings and Chris got the cubano sandwich with arugula salad. The burger was absolutely AWESOME with the roquefort (I thought the cheese was good, but Chris thought it was a tad too strong). The shoestring fries tasted very similar to the marcona almonds with rosemary that you can find at Trader Joe’s (maybe because the shoestring fries were fried WITH rosemary). The cubano sandwich…was the best sandwich I’ve had since Potbelly’s! (Actually, I take that back since Mary’s Fish Camp AND the Pearl Oyster bar have awesome lobster rolls/sandwiches). Anyway, the cubano sandwich had pulled pork, pickles, grilled cheese, all put on a crusty piece of french bread. It was AMAZING! The arugula salad was lightly dressed with a lemony dressing (also great). While waiting for our table, we actually headed to Marc Jacobs to take pictures with a chick! The store dressed up the front with flowers and grass and hired a chick to take pictures with kids (and big kids like us!). It was really cute and cheesy - we just HAD to do it!

After eating at The Spotted Pig, we headed to Barney’s and found a new pair of jeans for Chris. We also walked around the area and couldn’t find any freaking store that was open past 7PM! Since we had a late breakfast/early lunch, we didn’t have anything in between and ended up being starving around 8PM. Initially, we were going to try to get some Indian food, but since we didn’t know any restaurants that were good (even after a phone call to my friend, Maulin), we decided to get pizza instead:

We went to John’s last weekend, but I liked it so much that I HAD to have it again We had a small picnic in Chris’ room (on his new rug!), watched Arrested Development (including the funniest episode, EVER - Mr. F), and ate a mango that Chris bought from the corner bodega the night before (and we put it in a dark bag in his closet so it could ripen a little more).

On Sunday, we headed to Balthazar for brunch:

On the way there, we saw Gisele Bundchen and Tom Brady at Extra Virgin (another brunch spot in the West Village). Since we didn’t make a reservation for brunch, we had to wait an hour (but it wasn’t bad since Balthazar is off Broadway, which has lots of shops). While waiting, we headed to Bloomingdales, Pottery Barn, and some random shoe stores. We were STARVING by the time we got a table, but we ordered right away (and there was really good bread while we waited). I ordered the corned beef hash with eggs over easy and Chris ordered the chestnut waffles with sour cream and berries. Chris REALLY liked his waffles:

He didn’t even want to waste his time by cutting the waffles! Good thing we traded halfway through - the waffles were AMAZING (the sour cream really added the extra kick) and we both loved the fruit. The corned beef hash wasn’t what we expected (we were thinking diner food with the little pieces of potatoes - Libby’s, from the can), but instead we had big chunks of potatoes and fresh corned beef hash (if that exists). Overall, brunch was GREAT…AND…we sat next to Lisa Ling! When I first glanced over, I thought it was some random Asian girl, but then I looked again and I knew it was her! She was also with her fiance - after we got home, we looked it up online and she’s engaged to some oncologist from Chicago. And guess what! She drinks tap water, just like the rest of us! (she’s not high maintenance! … or she can’t afford bottled water! …JUST kidding) After telling Angie that I saw Lisa Ling, she told me that her cousin lives in the oncologist’s building and sees Lisa all the time! Small world, huh?

After brunch, we headed to Pinkberry (we WALKED there) to get our usual fro-yo (raspberries, mangoes, and strawberries) and then headed back to Chris’ apartment to pack up and head back to my place. We’ve been taking a bunch of pictures recently (just for fun) and here is my favorite:

We’re headed to The Waverly Inn on Wednesday night, staying in this weekend to catch up on reading, and then I’m headed to Chicago on Tuesday, March 27th!

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2007 at 9:54 pm and is filed under Chelsea, Dinner, Lunch, Soho, West Village. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.