NYC - Saturday

July 3, 2010

On Saturday morning, we got up and headed to Tribeca for brunch at Petite Abeille, a Belgian place. They happened to be showing World Cup soccer (Germany vs. Argentina), which made it busy until it became pretty apparent that Germany was going to win.


I had the nicoise salad, it was too hot out to have anything hot.
From there, we headed to Downtown, stopping along the way at Trinity Church:


Wall St:

Battery Park:




Then off to the Lower East Side to visit the infamous Doughnut Plant, where you can get some of the best and creative doughnuts.

The best doughnut ever...the Creme Brulee:



The Tres Leches cake doughnut:
From the LES, we walked through a shopping/food fair in Seward Park, and then towards Chinatown. On our way through, Angie had the great idea to get foot massages. We found a place called New York Foot Massage, which was a great mom-and-pop place that was perfect. Best idea ever!
For dinner, we met up with Terrina's friends, Jorge and Tanya, for dinner in West Village at Annisa. Annisa is the flagship restaurant of famous award-winning and revered female chef, Anita Lo. You may have seen Chef Lo featured on Top Chef Masters.

We opted for the Chef's tasting menu, and started with an amuse bouche of roasted peppers and creme fraiche.
Tuna Hot and Cold: tartare or lightly seared:
Barbecued squid with Thai Basil and fresh peanuts:

Seared foie gras with soup dumplings and jicama:

Steak tartare with Korean chili, Yanaimo and asian pear:

Softshell crab with summer squash, lardo and sea urchin:

Veal tenderloin and sweetbread with artichokes, oyster and black truffle sauces:

Cheese plate:
Our table was treated to 5 different desserts to share, starting with the chilled Pink Grapefruit, elderflower and fennel soup with almond milk jelly:
Poppyseed bread and butter pudding with Meyer lemon curd:
A tasting of chocolate and malted desserts:
Pecan and salted butterscotch beignets with bourbon milk ice:
Millefeuille of strawberries with ricotta, pink peppercorns and aged balsamic:
And lastly, a plate of mignardises, chocolate mint, sugared ginger, pineapple popsicles:

Annisa was a fantastic meal, and I can see why Anita Lo has won so many rewards. We had a chance to meat Chef Lo at the end of the meal, as she came to our table at our request. Very nice and humble chef.

NYC - Friday

July 2, 2010

Will was sweet and booked me a plane ticket on points so I could go to NYC to hang out with my sister and Terrina (who is like my other sister) for the Independence day long weekend. I flew to JFK on Friday afternoon and met up with Angie and Terrina in Manhattan. Angie's bro-in-law, Mark, was out of town for the weekend and kindly offered his place in Hell's Kitchen to us for the long weekend (huge thanks to Mark!).

I got there in time to throw on a black dress and take the subway out to Brooklyn. On Friday night, Terrina's little sister, Korrina, was having her east coast wedding reception (she had gotten married on the west coast in June). Korinna and Benson were sweet enough to include us in their reception dinner at East Harbor Seafood Restaurant.

After the reception, we headed back to Manhattan for drinks at the W Hotel in Times Square. Angie's previous Bay Area babysitter, Bianca, and her girlfriend Manara were in town as well, so we met them for drinks.

We stayed out pretty late (for me these days, anyway!), but it was a gorgeous night and it was super fun to be with my sisters!