Guacamole tasting at Rosa's

Tonight we dined at Rosa Mexicano on 1st Avenue. We have been to a couple of other Mexican restaurants around the area since moving here (Dos Caminos, Zarela), and tonight's mission was mainly to see how Rosa's tableside guacamole stacked up of Dos Caminos (we have yet to try guacamole at Zarela, but it's on the list).

Lunch at Ray Bari

For lunch today we went in for a quick pizza slice at Ray Bari's on 3rd Avenue. Nothing adventurous; I had the plain Sicilian and my wife and J enjoyed broccoli and chicken and plain cheese, respectively. We'll consider this another one to check off the list of all the pizza places in Manhattan, each of which I intend to try. Of course, we'll probably be lucky even to get to all of the places named Ray's.

Saturday Morning Granola

This morning for breakfast we walked up to Le Pain Quotidien at 67th and 2nd. We have been to the location on 57th by Central Park a number of times and always liked it, but this was our first time venturing to a different location.

We found the upper east side version more conveniently located for us, but also much less crowded and without a line to wait for a table at breakfast time. Another thing I didn't miss from the Central Park location was the strange behavior of the wait staff. At Central Park, from entering to being seated you get an appropriately French feel, usually with a sleekly dressed, attractive host with just the right dash of arrogance. Once seated, though, I was always strtuck by the odd and often unpredictable behavior of the waiters and waitresses. Perhaps they had a lot of turnover or else had a knack for picking out unusually absentminded applicants. I'm pretty sure we never had the same person twice. Whatever the reason, we had more than our share of incidents with staff forgetting things, abandoning us for long periods of time, wandering away in mid conversation when taking orders, etc. Not in a charmingly French way, either. If not for the fact that the food had always been really good, we wouldn't have gone back.

Thankfully things were different the upper east side location. It could be just that it's much less busy, but I don't think that's the only reason. There was an underlying impression of competence in the approach and behavior that is definitely missing from the Central Park place, something you don't really know you'll miss until it's gone.

My wife enjoyed her usual soft-boiled egg and bread, and I enjoyed the granola and yogurt parfait. Little J tried the coque suisse, which is like a French cinnamon roll. The only problem was that he wanted it without raisins, so I had to spend a few minutes trying to extract as many raisins as possible from it. The surface raisins were easy, but trying too hard to get those inside risked the structural integrity of the roll, threatening to leave a pile of crumbs. I managed to do a good enough job that J was content to eat it.

The only thing I don't like about the food is that hot drinks are served in cups without handles (some might call them bowls). There is actually a good reason for the handles; they tend to make it so that you don't burn your hands when holding the vessel full of near-boiling hot liquid. It's a small thing that I overlook, though, and we will certainly continue to be regular customers.

Legal's Test Kitchen at Logan

Today my job took me took me on a one-day trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts. When I got to Logan airport in the evening for the flight home and made it through security to the departure gate, I took the breaking news that our flight was delayed over an hour due to JFK gate congestion as an opportunity to visit the Legal's Test Kitchen restaurant in terminal A.

We lived near Boston for a few years in the mid-1990s, but haven't been back since we moved away ten years ago. While living there we frequented Legal Seafoods in Burlington, but hadn't been to any of their other locations since. The chance to visit even a pared-down airport terminal version was enough to bring out a strong feeling of restaurant nostalgia (the best kind), so I took advantage of the schedule change to drop in

Naturally the menu at LTK was greatly simplified from what I remembered, but as expected they offered a couple varieties of chowder including traditional Boston clam, so I started with that. I realize it's a strange choice given the seafood theme, but I decided to pair it with a Cubano sandwich (ham, pulled pork, cheese and pickles). The chowder was the star of the meal, anyway, and I had a craving for their sweet potato fries.

The chowder course arrived and was exactly as I recalled, just the right consistency. I don't always like chowder, particularly the egregiously thick variety that evokes thoughts of wallpaper paste. Legal Seafoods always had the just the right texture, and I was glad to see they were able to duplicate it even here at the airport.

Just as I finished the chowder, there was an announcement on the public address system that my flight had been undelayed, and that the scheduled passengers needed to proceed immediately to the departure gate. This seemed pretty unusual to me and I was a bit concerned about the fate of my sandwich and fries, but moments after the announcement my waiter appeared and asked if I wanted the rest of my orde packed up to go. I said yes and he returned promptly with my check and the Cubano in a bag. Of course I'm sure it's not the first time he has encountered this situation, but nevertheless I appreciated the efficient handling and I was back at the gate in plenty of time for boardng.

It turned out that they atually just preferred to have us wait on the plane in case there was a break in traffic and we could leave early, so we ended up being delayed even longer than the original estimate. At least I was able to enjoy my dinner on the plane, though, and even in a plastic take-out container my sabndwich and fries were very good.

Angelo's on 2nd

This evening was a comfort-food night, and so we enjoyed a relatively uneventful meal at Angelo's on 2nd Avenue. This place is very close to our apartment, and has developed into probably our most reliable dinner staple. Tonight we deviated from our usual selections, though, with me trying a mushroom and broccoli calzone and my wife trying pizza with sausage and onions (she usually sticks with the pasta).

This was a bit of a milestone for us, being the first time we have successfully ordered a half-plain, half-non-plain pizza to share with little J. When we have tried this in the past it has caused bitter confrontation due to the fact that no ingredient morsel is too small to ruin J's half of the pizza in the all-too-likely event one should stray over into his half. Thankfully tonight he was uncharacteristically forgiving, and was willing to overlook a couple of misplaced onions. We can only hope this trend will continue into the future.

Return to Kami Sushi Express

This evening we were looking for someplace quick to stop for dinner, and we happened by Kami Sushi Express on 2nd Avenue. I had not been back to this establishment since the infamous iced tea episode, but I had enjoyed the food and figured my family would provide some cover, since I had gone there alone the first time.

They didn't seem to recognize me when we went in, even though our assigned waitress was clearly the same one I had before. Of course this time I knew enough to stick with the hot tea rather than iced. My wife ordered the same, and also ice water for the table.

When she brought out the drinks, the waitress delivered ice water to everyone but hot tea only to my wife. She asked innocently, "you wanted hot tea as well?" I'm pretty sure she was playing some kind of sinister psychological game, but decided to be low-key about it. "Yes, please," I responded.

The rest of the meal was pretty uneventful, so I'm not sure who ended up winning the contest of wills. I had the bento box dinner with avocado salad, harumaki, and beef negimaki. It was a really good combination; even better than the unagi I had tried before. My wife and little J were happy with the tempura platter they shared.

The staff including the waitress was all smiles when we left, but I think it's still possible that they are holding a grudge. We'll see what happens next time...

On a side note, I had noticed a week or so ago that there appeared to be a new awning out front, and it seems that the name of the place changed from Kama Sushi to Kami Sushi Express. Certainly the newer awning is an improvement; the old one was a bit crooked and a dirty yellow color (that is, a yellow color with a lot of layers of age and dirt). Definitely a big improvement. There doesn't seem to be any change in the menu or approach, though. Inside the place has always looked nicer; now there is not as much of a disparity.

Brunch by Central Park

This morning we took some friends over to Sarabeth's Central Park South location. We had been there previously, but earlier in the morning when it was not at all crowded. This morning we had to wait for 20 minutes or so before being seated.

Service definitely suffered from the increased load. From the beginning, our waiter was standoffish at best. He appeared to use the minimum required number of syllables when communicating with us, and once he had taken our brunch order he disappeared, not returning until after specifically being summoned some time after the servers brought our order.

This brings me to the Bizarre Restaurant Incident^™ of the day. One of our guests had ordered a pumpkin muffin with her breakfast, but received instead an English muffin. The server did not linger when delivering the food, and was thus long gone by the time the problem was discovered. We then launched an effort to track down our waiter, which took ten minutes or so. In the intervening time, our guest started eating the top third of the pre-sliced English muffin, since it wasn't clear whether she would ever get a replacement and the level of service to that point had already led us to believe that we might not ever have a chance to exchange it.

When I was finally able to flag down the waiter, he tersely acknowledged the problem and left, only to return a few minutes later with a small side plate, onto which he then asked our guest to deposit the uneaten portion of the muffin. Although puzzled, she did as he asked, after which he whisked the two-thirds muffin away and after a couple minutes more at last returned with the correct pumpkin muffin. The whole thing probably took twenty minutes, from the initial delivery to final correction.

Now, I don't know how they run things over at Sarabeth's. I'm sure they have some sharp people in charge. Many different possibilities come to mind. Perhaps trust in the staff is low enough that a waiter is only authorized a replacement muffin after supplying the uneaten one? Or perhaps this ritual is meant as a preemptive measure so that patrons are on notice that in general complaints resulting in exchange of food items will be highly scrutinized? One can only speculate, but I would think at the very least that this was not the most efficient way to handle the situation, and certainly it left a negative impression in on the brunch experience overall.