Tonight, I had the honor of attending the James Beard Awards show as a guest of savorycities.com. The event is the “Oscars of the food world” and is a huge deal (Kim Cattrall and Bobby Flay were the hosts). Here are some pictures from the night:

Lots of different restaurants set up shop inside Lincoln Center and served special dishes to chefs from around the US.

There were two tables full of cheese (they were all delicious).

People were preparing pasta inside Lincoln Center!!

David Chang won Best Chef NYC, beating out stiff competition. His restaurant, Momofuku Ko, is incredibly difficult to get into (reservations are snatched up in a matter of SECONDS).

Tom Colicchio was nice enough to take a picture with me. Later on in the night, I was sitting in the backseat of a Lexus hybrid that was brought to the event (Lexus was a major sponsor). Two guys were sitting in the front seat and Tom sticks his head in the window and tells us to get the FUCK out of the car (it was HILARIOUS). The two guys were contestants on Top Chef, but I didn’t know their names (oops).

Chris and I had an amazing time and I can’t thank Chris and Jennifer from savorycities.com enough for their generosity!

If you’d like to read the liveblog from the event, check this out. You can also check out the AP writeup of the event, including quotes from Grant Achatz’s speech.

Back to reality :/

EDIT: Chris and Jennifer liveblogged the awards show here.

Today, I went to Chelsea Market (my new favorite hangout) to pick up some skate for dinner. While I was there, I was tempted to stop by Milk Bar to have some ice cream and an egg in the hole, but I remembered Milk Bar only serves their egg dishes for breakfast during the weekdays (they’re served all day on the weekends, if you’re interested). Instead of waiting until the weekend, I decided to buy the ingredients to make the dish myself. I asked the guys at the counter of Milk Bar if they knew where they got their bacon and cheese, but they told me their meat and cheese came from a store in Brooklyn that only sells wholesale.

Since I wasn’t getting very far on my egg in the hole adventure, I decided to pick up a loaf of whole wheat bread from Amy’s (they were sold out of rye bread!!) and improvise. On my way out, Adam Roberts, the host of The FN dish (and author of The Amateur Gourmet), stopped me in the street to chat with Robin Miller, host of Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller. We started talking about making eggs in the hole and Robin gave me some tips (I’ve never made one before, but it seemed like an easy task). After chatting with Robin and Adam, I stopped by Murray’s cheeses for some cheese and bacon (Grafton cheddar and applewood bacon). Here are all of the ingredients:

Any type of bread will do, but I really like the taste of rye with this dish. Since rye wasn’t available, the next option for me was whole wheat (just as tasty and it has more of a bite than white bread). I originally bought some turkey bacon, but when I was at Murray’s, I saw Niman Ranch applewood bacon without nitrates or nitrites, so I picked it up as a special treat (at $10 for 9 slices, it’s expensive!). You can use turkey bacon (or regular bacon) if you can’t find applewood. Grafton cheddar is aged for a year and I think it’s sharper than other cheddars. If you can’t find Grafton, try using a sharp cheddar instead. You’ll also need eggs (organic are the best but any egg will do) and butter.

Step 1:

After you assemble all of your materials, slice a piece of bread (about 3/4 inch thick) and use a cup to cut a hole in the center of the slice. Robin Miller uses a biscuit cutter to make the hole, but I have no biscuit cutter and have no intention of buying one anytime soon. You can use a cookie cutter to make cool designs if you have them. After I made the hole in the bread, I toasted it and spread butter on both sides.

Step 2:

Bacon on the skillet - I don’t use extra butter or oil because there’s so much fat already (but you’re welcome to do so if you’d like).

Step 3:

Place the bacon on paper towels to get rid of excess oil. There should be a little puddle of oil in the pan - don’t pour that down the kitchen sink!! Put it in a container and throw it out in the garbage (otherwise the fat will congeal and it’ll be a huge mess). It’s okay to let the bacon cool because we’ll be putting it on the egg in the hole and throwing it in the oven.

Step 4:

Crack the egg and place it in the pan with the bread. There might be some leakage of the egg white, but it’s okay!!

Step 5:

I like a runny yolk so I didn’t flip over the toast, but if you have children, it’s a good idea to cook the egg all the way through. After the egg is cooked for about 2 minutes (you’ll notice that the egg white is cooked through on the bottom), put a piece of cheddar on top and add the bacon as well.

Step 6:

Throw the skillet into the oven (I set it on broil). I let it go in for about 3 minutes, but it depends on your oven (just watch to make sure the cheese melts).

Step 7:

Out of the oven!

Step 8:

Gooey egg yolk!

Success!

If I were to make it again (and I will be making it again in the morning), I’d make sure cheese covered all of the bread (healthy, I know). Also, I’d add another piece of bacon.

I hope you enjoyed my egg in the hole tutorial - I’m going to try taping some of them for a youtube/vimeo show soon and I’ll post them here once I finish. Let me know if you try making eggs in the hole and whether or not it was a success!

Prune is one of those places you want to go to because you’ve read about in magazines, you’ve heard your friends rave about the food there, and when you actually make it there, you realize it HAS to be good because the host declares it’s going to be a two hour wait and there are at least 20 people standing around with their fingers crossed (at least the host doesn’t pick favorites; Parker Posey and her friend tried to get in but the host, Dan, said it would be close to a two hour wait…well, can you really call Parker Posey a celebrity?). My brother, Chris, and I headed to Prune, hoping to score a table in the little restaurant that only seats about 20. Luckily, we only had to wait an hour and a half (yes, we were the fortunate ones).

The menu is simple and has staple brunch items - steak and eggs, eggs prepared in any way you’d like, pancakes, and bloody Mary’s prepared in 10 different ways. Since we added my brother to our usual brunch festivities, we were able to order a third dish to try (and for me to write about - yay!).

I started off with the pancake:

More like a cake than anything, it’s one huge piece of dough that is topped with blueberries and sour cream (with syrup on the side). It was a pretty huge piece of cake - not bombarded with sweetness, but it gets its point across. The sour cream and blueberries complemented the pancake well - they probably used a lot of buttermilk because the cake was slightly tangy. I thought the pancake was excellent - but it’s no Clinton St. Bakery (which, in Prune’s defence, I don’t think they’re trying to be).

David ordered the steak and eggs:

Dry aged steak with eggs (any way you want them) and a hash brown. The steak was a worthy competitor of any steak house in New York - very juicy, very tender, and VERY delicious. The steak was topped off with a butter and scallion mixture (I usually take it off because I don’t like anything interrupting the flavors of the steak, but in this case, I made an exception). David’s steak and eggs were huge, but somehow, we managed to finish/

Chris ordered the eggs Benedict:

I had half of Chris’ order and I must say - I LOVE Hollandaise sauce! I mean, what’s not to love about the fatty sauce that you drip over EGGS, HAM, and an ENGLISH MUFFIN? The side pancake style blob is a piece of hash brown (piece - is that the right terminology?) Slightly burnt, in my opinion, but very crunchy and VERY delicious. Chris liked the dish, but he thought that his order size was a lot smaller than expected.

Prune is a solid brunch spot that I’m sure people will want to try - I don’t see myself going back anytime soon because I just don’t have two hours on a Sunday morning to spare (sleep is important!). Parker Posey, on the other hand, may have time to go back during the week, when everyone else is working.

How to get to Prune:

Prune
54 E 1st St between 1st and 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
212-677-6221

For New York’s Restaurant Week (July 16 - August 10), I headed to the 21 Club with three girlfriends to enjoy the lively atmosphere and a great meal (well, keep reading). The 21 club was once a speakeasy (which I think is pretty awesome) and now is known for their great food, award winning wine list and interesting decor:

If you look at the table in the picture, you’ll see a small picture of Steve Forbes, who dined at the table next to us. Also, it doesn’t hurt to have some of the most well-known people in New York have permanent tables at the restaurant (Donald Trump, Barbara Walters, Les Moonves, Brian Williams, George Clooney, the list goes on and on). Interestingly enough, *almost* every president since FDR has gone to the 21 club - the only exception? - George W. Bush. So, enough with the history of the club, onto the food!

The prix fix menu isn’t too bad, you can view it here. I started with the Grilled Spicy Shrimp (with apple and potato salad, micro celery, and lemon aioli):

Joyce, Charlene, Leena, and me at the table with our appetizers:

Leena ordered the Smoked Trout with fennel and cucumber salad, crème fraîche, and trout caviar dressing:

Appetizer wise, the shrimp was definitely better. It wasn’t too chewy (always a good thing) and there was a nice grilled flavor. Also, the potato salad was dressed well (not too much mayo). On the other hand, I wasn’t a fan of Leena’s smoked trout - it was way too salty, tough, and the smoky flavor was just lacking. So, if you go to the 21 club for restaurant week, don’t start with the trout :).

For our main courses, we had four options (but no one wanted chicken or fish). Leena and I both ordered the Grilled Flat Iron Steak with broccoli rabe, roasted cipollini onions, potato purée, Cabernet sauce:

The steak was cooked to a nice medium rare, but it didn’t have a fresh taste to it. I looked over at Leena and asked what she thought of it…she nicely said it was “okay,” but that’s just because Leena is too nice to say something mean. I didn’t think the steak was juicy, the cabernet sauce didn’t pair well with the steak taste, and the only two things good about the dish were the broccoli and the “potato puree,” which is a fancy way of saying MASHED POTATOES.

Joyce and Charlene both ordered the Duck Leg Confit frisée salad, wild mushrooms, toasted peanut vinaigrette:

I wish I could say something better about their dish, but it wasn’t good AT ALL. The duck was dry, there wasn’t any taste to it, and the duck SKIN wasn’t even tasty. I mean, how could something so good be ruined like that?! I was NOT a fan of the main courses at all. I’m not a fan of restaurant week in general - I mean, all of the good restaurants only offer their prix fix meal for lunch (and who has time to have a long lunch in Manhattan during the weekdays) and the restaurants that offer a prix fix dinner usually don’t offer great options. I prefer to just spend money and get a good meal out of the place, you know?

For dessert, there were four choices and all of us decided to get something different so we could switch it up:

Joyce ordered the Chocolate Marquise with chocolate shortbread and fresh raspberries:

It was rich, creamy, and delicious. No complaints from anyone at the table

Charlene ordered the Lemon Pucker Cake with summer berries and lemon cream sauce:

Out of all four of the options, this was my least favorite. The cake was sticky but not moist (possible, right?). It wasn’t BAD, just not memorable.

Leena ordered the Blueberry Tart with Passion Fruit Cream and mango coulis:

My favorite dessert of the night. Look at how many blueberries they piled onto that tart! The mango/passion fruit combination was also tart and sweet.

I ordered the Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée with orange-pecan biscotti:

Good, but not great. There was still sugar that wasn’t burnt on top (who wants to know how much sugar they’re actually consuming?!) and the actual crème brûlée wasn’t solid enough for me to fully enjoy the dessert. Shocking, I know.

Overall, the meal wasn’t memorable but the service was great and we had a great time people watching. I would like to go back to the 21 club after restaurant week and try their actual dishes because I don’t think their options did the restaurant justice. Afterwards, we took some pictures outside (since the restaurant is also known for the jockeys outside the townhouse):

If you’re going to partake in Restaurant Week, I definitely recommend going to lunch…or just save your money and splurge at the restaurant ordering off the regular menu!

How to get to The 21 Club:

The 21 Club
21 W 52nd St between 5th and 6th
New York, NY 10019
212-265-1900

Last night, Chris and I ventured into uncharted territory (Brooklyn) to have dinner at Peter Luger Steak House:

I made reservations a month ago (no joke - I called them in early May asking when their first available Wednesday was and June 6th was our lucky day) and we were definitely excited about having big juicy steaks. To give you a little background about Peter Luger’s, they started in 1887 and only select cattle that are considered PRIME by the USDA. Once they have the PRIME meat, they look at the color, fat, and conformation of bones. According to Peter Luger’s website, the color must be pink with an even conformation of fat dispersed throughout. This is referred to as marbling. If selected, the loin is brought back to the premises of the restaurant where the dry aging process begins. The loins of beef sit in a temperature controlled cooler where air circulates around them. After the meat is properly aged, it is butchered and brought up to the kitchen for broiling. Whew! That is a lot of work for a piece of meat!

We were promptly escorted to our seats for our 7:45 reservation and started munching on rolls:

They had actual pieces of onion in their bread! Another shot of our expertly arranged rolls:

I usually really dislike onion bread/bagels/onions in general, but this bread was tolerable because the onions weren’t too pungent, but still had a little flavor. The butter that came with the rolls was also really creamy and tasty. Okay, onto the food we actually paid for…

Since we had a month to prepare for our glorious night of steak, I asked for suggestions on what to order from some Peter Luger regulars. Out of all the people I spoke with (some had never even been to the steak house), everyone said that I absolutely HAD to try their bacon, so that was the first thing we ordered:

Do you see how much fat is on that bacon? I dove right in and it was incredibly juicy and fatty (making it a great piece of bacon). Chris, on the other hand, is health-conscious and picked off the pieces of meat (initially). After a while, he basically just dove into the fat. Even though he winced at the idea of the fat clogging his arteries, he agreed that it was definitely a good piece of bacon.

We also ordered the steak for two since my friend said it was a better deal than each person ordering their own steak:

The steak was definitely one of the biggest pieces of meat I’ve ever seen (a close second would be the 22 oz porterhouse I had at Shula’s in Orlando). The steak was one tasty piece-o-meat. It was juicy, tender, marbled, and had a great crust on top. A close-up of my plate:

In a previous entry, I mentioned that we purchased some Peter Luger Steak Sauce to put on our steak and that I thought it tasted like over-priced cocktail sauce that went better with shrimp than steak. I still think it tastes like cocktail sauce, but surprisingly, it paired really well with the steak from Peter Luger. One thing that surprised me about the steak was that I thought it was slightly plain on its own. I usually don’t use A-1 or anything with steak (I think it ruins the flavor) but for some reason, I couldn’t eat the steak without the steak sauce.

We ordered creamed spinach as our first side dish:

If you end up going there, I would pass on the creamed spinach. It’s a little too salty and it loses some of the spinach flavor. Plus, there’s so much steak that you don’t even need to order sides!

Our second side dish was French fried potatoes (a fancy way of saying french fries):

Another side dish I’d pass on. The fries weren’t crispy enough and they tasted slightly stale. Plus, they didn’t offer ketchup and we didn’t want to offend them by asking for it since we had so much Peter Luger sauce. A picture of me and Chris before we started on our eating adventure:

When we were almost done with our meal, I looked outside (just randomly) and saw John Turturro! He was very nicely dressed (I think he even had a scarf on?) and was having dinner with friends. Overall, I think the meal was pretty tasty, but it’s one of those places you only go to once (it’s way too fatty to become a once-a-week type place). Afterwards, Chris and I got into a little trouble with the Brooklyn PD. I’ll tell you in person if you ask.

I’ll be back next week with an update on my weekend surprise, another trip to Brooklyn (possibly), brunch, and more surprises!