One thing about New York that is instantly evident in comparison to the mid-western towns we’ve been passing through is the quality of the food, although we did have one excellent example of unusually good road food in a little town called Le Claire on the Iowa side of the Mississippi. That was still effectively New York food, though, as the chef was a New Yorker who had, like us, stopped in Le Claire and seen that it was a lovely little town. He decided to stay and build a restaurant called Faithful Pilot, though, with superb duck (usually with blackberry pepper sauce but served with peach sauce for me because of the gluten issue), amazing mushroom spring rolls with soy ginger reduction, according to Doug, and delicious flourless chocolate cake.
In New York itself, we’ve had a great dinner with my cousins, Vanessa and David and David’s partner Rachel at Thai Market on Amsterdam near 107th Street, where the fish was incredible (caramelized tamarind sauce with sweet chilli), the crab fried rice was just right and the tapioca pearls with coconut milk were delicate and subtle. The conversation there was also great, catching up with my cousins I haven’t seen for more than a year, hearing about their adventures in the New York film industry — Vanessa’s been working with starlets on Japanese television commercials and is in charge of shutting down highways for helicopter shots for another one soon, David is in the process of finding satellite Internet for an entire newsroom that will be camped out in some warehouse somewhere for a special event. We gave them the presents we bought in Peru and they were well received. David and Rachel are also Burners so there was some talk about Paul Addis and various other burner things, and discussions of good vodka bars.
Then yesterday, Doug and I had breakfast at Café Mogador down the road from where we’re staying with Matt in the East Village. Moroccan poached eggs with a spicy tomato sauce and fried potatoes done perfectly. Another spiced dipping sauce for Doug’s pita bread; I just put it on my eggs. Matched perfectly with sweet Moroccan mint tea.
And for dinner, I asked Matt to find the gluten-free pizza place I’d heard about. It’s called Risotteria and it’s on Bleecker near 7th Ave. It was unbelievably good. The gluten-free breadsticks were soft and fluffy and you wouldn’t know they weren’t regular bread. The pizzas we had were roasted garlic prawns and gruyère and the second was mozzarella, portobello mushrooms and truffle oil. The crust was a little thin but held together and the toppings were superb. The lemon cheesecake and chocolate brownie were also great. We forgot to buy the packet mixes they sell so I guess we’ll just have to go back (chocolate cupcake mix!).