Adventures in Restaurant Week: Centro Vinoteca

Miel, Cherry Cupcake and I, along with their friend C who is visiting from L.A. (she chose a perfect snowy weekend to come see NYC!), decided to celebrate the extension of restaurant week by making reservations at David Burke Townhouse.   To our dismay, we found that after we'd make our reservation, the restaurant week menu had been pulled, and the restaurant was no longer participating in restaurant week (it seems many other frugal foodies encountered this problem as well, based on my research on Yelp*).  So, we went out on a limb and made reservations at Centro Vinoteca, though we hadn't heard much about it, and boy were we glad we did!

Restaurant Week: Crema Restaurante

I had the opportunity to visit Crema during the extended Restaurant Week for my high school friend's 25th birthday. In general, I'm a lover of all things Mexican so I figured I'd enjoy a higher-end Mexican restaurant even more. Crema did not disappoint (me, at least).

Pictures and more after the jump!

Restaurant Week Date: 10 Downing

Friday night took me to 10 Downing for a second date and restaurant week meal...and while I did not bust out the camera (the second date is a bit early to reveal my over-the-top love of food, right?), i just hadddd to blog about this dinner. There were a few misses...but when they were on, they were on.

labor of love

Ohhh how I love Valentine's Day! Always have, always will...as a little kid I loved the chocolate-filled hearts and arts and crafts projects that came with making your own Valentines, and as a single twentysomething I love having an excuse to eat sweets, drink wine, and cook our annual Valentine's Day Dinner with Miel and Cherry Cupcake.

Recipes and more after the jump!

pinisi bakery

Pinisi Bakery has two locations, about three blocks away from one another. Cannelle and I had heard that their red velvet cupcakes were to die for, and it being Valentine's Day, we couldn't pass them up. I called ahead, worried that since it was V-Day they might be sold out, but I was assured that they had plenty of red velvets to go around. I went to the E. 4th St. location and found this cute storefront beckoning me in:

happy valentine's day!

A very happy Valentine's day to you and yours! 

Cannelle, Cherry Cupcake and I will be cooking up a storm soon enough, but I just stopped by Pinisi Bakery for our desserts and just had to post this photo:

 

Check back soon for a full review of Pinisi Bakery's red velvet cupcakes and chocolate cupcake with rosewater frosting (I HAD to try it...), as well as our Valentine's Day menu!

cookieeeeeees

as miel mentioned, we had big plans this week to escape our respective offices and meet at dorie greenspan's cookie bar, but alas, an escape was not in the cards for me on friday afternoon.  so!  miel (angel that she is) went ahead and grabbed some extra cookies for me, which we shared at home.

and dorie did not disappoint!  we each had our favorite chocolate chip cookie, and shared a peanut butter, and a molassas spice cookie.  these cookies were perfect - they had that homemade taste that is so often lost at a bakery...and they were the perfect size, so we could eat more than one.

friday with dorie

Have you heard of Tuesdays with Dorie? If you're a FoodGawker stalker or a Tastespotting fanatic (which Cannelle and I most certainly are), you've doubtless seen the "TWD" in some captions... Basically, every week a member of the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll selects a recipe from Dorie Greenspan's "Baking: From My Home to Yours", and every Tuesday members of the group post photos of the goods on their blogs. It's sort of an homage to Dorie and her incredible recipes.

The most recent recipe for the TWD clan is Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies, and guess what? Since I visited her Cookie Bar pop-up shop today, I currently have TWO of them in my possession, baked by Dorie. One is for me, and one is for Cannelle. We don't share cookies.

I had heard all about this pop-up shop (which opened Monday and closes tomorrow) since Cannelle mentioned it a week ago when she saw it on Serious Eats. I had been dying to go but had been too busy at work to even step outside my office. Today I finally carved some time out of my lunch break to walk up to 59th and Park and see what Dorie had on hand.

 

My first surprise came when I realized that Dorie Greenspan herself was doling out cookies; with a glove on her right hand and a baggie (or box) in her left, she was hard at work filling the boxes with delicious treats. I heard her say that every night since this began on Monday they've been baking more and more cookies - her son Josh said that last night they made over 1200. It looks like there aren't that many cookies out on display (and there aren't), but looks can be deceiving - behind the bar Dorie had stacks of cookies in plastic containers, waiting to be eaten. Though they appeared to have plenty of chocolate chip cookies on hand, there were no World Peace cookies remaining when I got there at 12:15 (it opened at 11). I think I'll have to bake those myself.

 

I was lucky enough to be helped by Dorie and so had a little chat with her - I told her how much I'd heard about the pop-up shop ("Oh, good! Yes, we've had a lot of visitors!"), how excited I was for her permanent shop to open ("Trust me, I am too!" - the girl behind me asked where it would be and Dorie replied, "We're working on that..."), and how I'd been following TWD for quite some time ("You know, a girl from NYU came in here yesterday and told me how she wrote a paper for her food and society class on Tuesdays with Dorie!"). Honestly, she could not have been sweeter. And her cookies are absolutely incredible. I had a chocolate chunker as my afternoon snack:

Yum. Seriously, YUMMM...!!! This is one dense cookie, in the best possible way. It is a brownie-like cookie. It is a little bit chewy. When I had it, it was cold, which was perfect. This cookie is chocolaty beyond belief - Dorie packs three kinds of chocolate in there (milk, semisweet, bitter), and they go together beautifully. There are salted cashews and cherries dotted throughout. Every bite is a little bit of an adventure: Will I get a mouthful of chocolate? Maybe a salted cashew and a chocolate chunk? Will I hit the jackpot and score a chocolate-cherry-cashew bite? The possibilities were endless and I savored every single bite. For $3.50, the price was a little steep, but goodness, that cookie was...delicious.

I think her permanent outpost, whenever/wherever that opens, will be a frequent stop for me.

Tonight, Cannelle and I have some important research to do on Dorie's peanut butter cookie, chocolate chip cookie, and molasses spice cookie and will report back on our findings.

xx

Miel

oh, the weather outside is frightful...

...but my eggplant-tomato-chickpea casserole is soooo delightful! When it's cold outside, all you want is comfort food, whether it's homemade mac and cheese, a gooey chocolate chip cookie, or your mom's chicken noodle soup; something warm and tasty to make you feel happy!

The problem with some of these comfort foods (OK, so there's never a problem with chocolate chip cookies, but...) is that they're usually pretty heavy and fatty, but super delicious so you just keep eating more. If you're looking for an easy comfort food that's also healthy, give this eggplant tomato chickpea casserole a try.

 

So it's not the most photogenic dish, but trust me, it's super tasty and warms you right up! We got 6" of snow here in NYC - needless to say, I could not leave the office today to get lunch but I had luckily left (or...forgotten) my leftovers from the day before in the office fridge. It was just what I needed to forget about the snow outside.

Eggplant, Tomato and Chickpea Casserole

by Martha Rose Shulman

Ingredients:
1 large eggplant or 2 medium (1 pound), peeled if desired, cut in half lengthwise, then sliced about 1/2 inch thick
Salt to taste
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, sliced thin across the grain - I used a yellow onion
2 to 4 garlic cloves (to taste), minced
1 (28-ounce) can chopped tomatoes - I used a 15 oz can of no-salt-added diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Pinch of sugar
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1 sprig basil - I did not use this
1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained
3 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, and brush the foil with olive oil. Place the eggplant slices on the foil, sprinkle with salt and brush each slice lightly with oil. Place in the oven for 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from the heat, and carefully fold the foil in half over the eggplant. Crimp the edges together, so that the eggplant is sealed inside the foil and will continue to steam and soften. Leave for at least 15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the onion. Cook, stirring often, until tender, about five minutes, and add the garlic and a generous pinch of salt. Cook, stirring, until the garlic is fragrant, about a minute. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, cinnamon, basil and salt to taste. Bring to a simmer, and simmer uncovered, stirring often, for 20 to 25 minutes, until the sauce is thick and fragrant. Add freshly ground pepper, then taste and adjust salt. Remove the basil sprig, and stir in the drained chickpeas.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Oil a 2-quart baking dish or gratin. Cover the bottom with thin layer of tomato sauce, and make a layer of half the eggplant. Spoon half the remaining sauce over the eggplant, and repeat the layers.
4. Bake 30 minutes, until bubbling. Remove from the heat, and allow to cool for at least 10 to 15 minutes. Sprinkle on the parsley before serving.

Enjoy!

xx
Miel

get involved

in restaurant week!  Miel, Cherry Cupcake and I set out for our restaurant week dinner and, like good little piggies, followed our tummies and the rave reviews of nyc dining experts Blondie and Brownie right to Convivio, nestled in Tudor city.  our culinary oracles did not disappoint.

small wonders...

Ahhh how I love Bite.  Quick, cheap, and delicious!, this unassuming little spot seems to make the best soy lattes, panini's, sammies, and one killer mediterannean salad...

I'm told that the sangria is pretty rough, but I am more than willing to overlook this small trangression as I set out to try every sandwich  and snack on the menu.