If you are an avid reader of my blog :), you’ll remember my post on Sarabeth’s being less than favorable. If you are a new reader (or you don’t remember it), you can read it here. We wanted to give Sarabeth’s another chance (and to go to Sarabeth’s West, not just the bakery) so we headed up to the UPPER WEST SIDE (uncharted territory!) for brunch. There are a lot more menu options at the UWS location (thank goodness!) and I ended up ordering the lemon ricotta pancakes with fresh berries:

Yum! They were DEFINITELY better than anything from the Sarabeth’s in Chelsea (although they still don’t beat the pancakes from Clinton St. Baking Company!). The lemon ricotta pancakes were fluffy, moist, and had the extra zest that made them delicious. I added a little butter, but they definitely didn’t need syrup since there was so much flavor from the lemon and the ricotta.

Chris ordered the potato waffles with apple sausage and apple preserves:

The potato waffles were a little tough on the outside, but smooth on the inside (probably because the potato toughened up a little when they put the batter into the waffle maker). They reminded me of potato latke’s I used to eat - add a little apple preserve and a little sour cream and it’s a party in your mouth! The sausage, on the other hand, was NOT good at all.

Maybe it was just what we ordered but we weren’t that impressed but we were glad to have finally gotten the chance to experience the Sarabeth’s everyone talks about.

How to get to Sarabeth’s West:

Sarabeth’s West
423 Amsterdam Avenue between 80th and 81st
New York, NY 10024
212-496-6280

On Wednesday night, my friend from college, Nick, invited me out to dinner at Jean Georges’ Nougatine Room, located in the Trump Tower and Hotel by Columbus Circle. We both decided on the tasting menu ($68/person for dinner), which allowed us to sample a little bit of everything. We started out with a treat from the chef, which was a piece of shrimp with a mint pesto on top paired with a mango soup:

And a close up of the mint and shrimp:

The shrimp was cooked JUST right - like it had just been dipped in hot water and then taken out so it wasn’t overcooked. It went really nicely with the mint pesto, which felt like you were cleaning your mouth AND eating food at the same time! The mango soup was tasty, but tasted kind of like juice…a small portion of juice. I’m not quite sure why Jean Georges thought the shrimp and the mango juice paired well together.

Next, we had a champagne mango and goat cheese salad with black olive and micro basil:

This was actually my favorite course of the night. The mangoes were sweet but not too sweet (good thinking of soaking the mangoes in champagne) and the goat cheese was so incredibly creamy it melted in your mouth. The basil was a fresh twist (I swear, I LOVE basil and I’m still working on a lemon basil sorbet) and the olives added the salt that the goat cheese was missing. It was great and also paired really well with the Riesling the waiter recommended.

After our wonderful mango and goat cheese salad, we had a foie gras brulee with muscat grape, tarragon, and ruby grapefruit salad:

One of Nick’s favorite dishes of the night. I, on the other hand, didn’t find the dish to be that special. It was too salty (especially with the burnt crust) and the grapefruit couldn’t balance out the heaviness of the foie gras. Also, the foie gras was placed on a small piece of bread, but the proportion of foie gras to bread was 2:1, which added even more salt to the dish.

The fish we had was a skate fish (it’s closely related to the stingray) with a spinach ravioli and bacon bits on top:

The fish had a nice crust on the outside and was very flaky and had a very similar texture to scallops. The ravioli was a little too plain for my taste (it didn’t need salt or anything, but the actual pasta was either overcooked or just too big compared to the filling inside).

Our final dish (before dessert) was short ribs marinated in various vinaigrettes with lima beans and a hint of lime:

The short ribs, another favorite of Nick’s, was a little too salty for me. I didn’t think the lime added a good flavor to the short ribs (the waiter said that the chef recommended we use it) and I think they marinated the short ribs in the vinaigrettes too long. There wasn’t the natural flavor from the short ribs, only a salty taste (in my opinion). Nick really enjoyed it, though.

For dessert, we had another sampling: jean-georges chocolate cake (a chocolate molten cake), vanilla ice cream with cookie crumbs, a strawberry rhubarb soup with vanilla chantilly, and a spongecake with coconut vanilla mousse with a side of passion fruit:

Jean-georges chocolate cake tasted exactly like a lava cake:

The cake was REALLY sweet (lava cakes usually are) and the vanilla ice cream with chocolate crumbs didn’t help. Nick really liked the chocolate cake (he’s a fan of all kinds of chocolate) and he also like the cookie crumbs with the vanilla ice cream (they were very similar to oreo cookies, so it was like cookies and cream ice cream!).

The spongecake with coconut vanilla mousse and passion fruit was slightly less sweet, which I preferred (even though I’m not a huge fan of coconut):

The passion fruit was just the right amount of tang that the mousse needed. I would’ve preferred a lighter spongecake (this cake was similar to spongecake but was actually cheese based). Overall, I think the tasting menu was heavier than the menu from Babbo (the original tasting menu, at least), but not better. The tasting menu was a great way to try out the restaurant’s menu, especially since the regular menu had a lot of choices that were interesting. It was great seeing Nick (I haven’t seen him in over a year!) and catching up with all the changes in Champaign and Chicago - thanks for the wonderful evening!

On Saturday, I went to check out Momofuku Ssam Bar in the East Village, one of David Chang’s restaurants serving delicious Asian-inspired burritos. Chris and I went to Momofuku (the original) on our first date and I wasn’t IMPRESSED, but I thought their grits and BBQ buns were good (although extremely expensive for the BBQ buns - $8 for two -especially because Fei Dai Bakery in Chinatown delivers the same thing for 85 cents). I heard a lot of good things about the Ssam Bar, so we decided to check it out.

The day was really beautiful (a little breezy but very sunny) and we walked into an empty restaurant, which was great since we were both starving (although strange, considering it was around 1PM and the last time we went to Momofuku, it was completely packed to the gills). Anyway, Momofuku Ssam Bar reminded me of an asian Chipotle - you can pick what kind of protein you want (berkshire pork, DUH), the starch (burrito, just rice, nothing at all), and the toppings you want:

I ordered the original ssam, which includes berkshire pork, rice, kimchee sauce, edamame, and shiitake mushrooms all wrapped in a nice burrito:

The burrito (or ssam) was definitely delicious and I felt like it was more healthy than eating at Chipotle (maybe because of the edamame and the shiitake mushrooms?). One downside - berkshire pork is REALLY unhealthy and I picked my burrito out of the reynolds wrap. I was halfway through my burrito when I noticed that a bunch of grease was dripping out of my burrito…mixed with the kimchee sauce. It was not a pretty site, especially because Chris didn’t undo his reynolds wrap and realized he was eating all the grease that wasn’t able to drip out of his burrito. I’d go there again, but I’d definitely watch my intake of the grease and maybe air it out or something before eating it.

After our Momofuku Ssam trip, I headed to the dentist to get my crown (it’s so pretty!) and then we headed to Grom, the new gelato store on the Upper West Side (straight from Italy!). When we walked up from 72nd street, we saw the line out the door and we were prepared for the long wait. It didn’t take that long (only 15 minutes, which isn’t bad for gelato, especially since I read so many great reviews about it). We decided on the luna rossa (the flavor of the month - raspberry with cream) and chocolate. A large was freaking $9 AND it was barely the size of my fist (something I was warned about…but I was also told that good things come in small packages, so I wasn’t too worried). A shot of the gelato:

The luna rossa was okay and the chocolate wasn’t that great. Actually, I thought the chocolate tasted exactly like the hot chocolate from City Bakery - good at first but then you feel like your mouth gets really dry from the chocolatey taste. Another con of Grom - they don’t accept credit cards yet (their machine was broken) and the guy working the cash register didn’t know how to count change (I swear, it took him a good minute to figure out how to give me my change back). Chris said maybe he was straight from Italy (where the gelato is from) and couldn’t figure out the change. Possible, but don’t you think if it’s extremely packed, they would put someone from the US at the register? I don’t think I’m going to go back anytime soon (especially since it’s so out of the way for me). I’ll stick to my Pinkberry and sample at Whole Foods Il Labatorio Gelato

After Grom, we headed to K-town for sol lung tang and Pinkberry (twice in one weekend!). I’m still deciding on the ice cream maker (wouldn’t it be SO much easier if I could make my own ice cream?!)

On a side note, congrats to Ariel, Josh, Elizabeth, Pam, and everyone else that graduated from school over the weekend!