Tag Archives: living in new york is neat

Restaurant Review: Quality Meats

Posted by plumpdumpling on January 21, 2009 – 8:15 pm
Filed under it's fun to be fat, living in new york is neat, restaurant ramblings
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It’s Restaurant Week Winter 2009! A time for all of NYC’s top executive assistants and other underpaid mongrels to make their boyfriends take them to uber-expensive celebrity-chef-staffed venues to live out their wildest foodie fantasies at a fraction of the normal cost! A time for those boyfriends to say things like, “It’s not like I couldn’t afford to go there any day I wanted to,” and to get slapped in the face! A time to consume all the carbs I’ve been depriving myself of since Restaurant Week Fall 2008!

Said boyfriend took me to Quality Meats in the fall for Restaurant Week after I saw an article about the place somewhere deep in the interwebs and thought it sounded dreamy: dark woods, exposed dim lightbulbs, and MEATS. It wasn’t the most well-known or critically-acclaimed of our Restaurant Week ventures, but it was certainly the best.

The funny thing is that afterward, we had to think pretty hard to remember much about our actual meal; all we cared about was getting our hands on more of the bread they serve while you wait. It came in a deep white dish, soaked in butter and sprinkled in salt and an undisclosed spice that Kamran the Boyfriend thinks may be rosemary. And thinking about it had me so excited this morning that I didn’t eat any of the leftover cornbread in my office’s refrigerator for fear of sullying my palate with lesser breads.

Well, the dish it was served in had changed when we went back today, but the bread was still the same. We made up our minds to ask for seconds no matter how full we got, and boy, did we. We tried it first without any butter to savor it in its purest form, but when we both put some spread on our slabs, we looked at each other at the same time with the twinkle of oh-crap-butter-is-awesome in our eyes.

Oh, yeah, and we had some real food, too. The choices were:

Appetizers
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup with Gingerbread Croutons
Seared Diver Scallops with Candied Walnuts and Grapes
Traditional Steak Tartare
Caesar Salad

Entrees
Hanger Steak with Cherry Sauce
Open-Faced Shrimp Salad Sandwich
Baby Back Ribs with Spicy Apricots
Some Sort of Salad Something-or-Other with Seared Tuna

Dessert
A dressed up scoop of:
Pomegranate Pear
Chocolate Rum Raisin
Orange Creamsicle
Double Fudge Mint
Vanilla

I would never have admitted it to Kamran at the time, but compared to the fall menu, I was a little disappointed. Where was my charcuterie plate with the fruit spreads and the array of cheeses? Where was my giant pork chop? And a scoop of some ice cream out of a cardboard box? Not interested.

I really only wanted the soup for the gingerbread croutons, so I went way out on a limb and ordered the scallops, even though I don’t do seafood. And they turned out to be great! Mostly because they were swimming in butter. But also because they weren’t the gelatinous globs I expected but were thinly sliced and browned on the edges. The walnuts were perfect and perished any lingering scared-of-fish thoughts I might have had.

Kamran, of course, ordered the tartare, which arrived plain in a bowl with an egg on top but had a sidebar of sea salt, mustard, onions, Worcestershire, and Tabasco. Here’s a pretty disgusting video of him mixing it all together with complete disregard for his taste buds:

It’s so gross and squishy that my camera couldn’t even bear to focus on it properly.

We both ordered the steak, ’cause it’s a steak restaurant. The waiter warned me that a hanger steak cooked through would be tough, but I told him, “I like it tough,” and you know I do. But no! Apparently the chef was not having it, because my steak came out totally pink. And strangely in two pieces, while Kamran’s was just one.

It was awesome, of course, charred on the edges and dripping with cherry. As was our Corn Crème Brûlée. (Awesome, I mean. Not dripping with cherry.)

That’s right–Corn Crème Brûlée. My two reasons for living, baked into the same dish.

The dessert course didn’t disappoint, and we should have known it wouldn’t. We evidently underestimated the phrase “dressed up” on the menu, because for Kamran’s scoop of pear sorbet, it meant pomegranate seeds on top and stewed cherries and pears on the bottom,

and for me, it meant a chocolate chocolate chip cookie on top and a brownie bowl on the bottom. Plus, this wasn’t one of those spoon-shaped two-bite scoops you’re seeing all over town: this was a bowl full.

It was such a great second experience, and such a super way to start off Restaurant Week. Just look how happy we are!

And fat!

Hugs, Blood, Death, and Rockstars of the String

Posted by plumpdumpling on December 10, 2008 – 11:11 am
Filed under fun times on the subway, living in new york is neat
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As I stepped out of Kamran’s apartment building yesterday morning and passed the park that lines his walk, I saw a woman coming out with a baby strapped to her front in one of those canvas harnesses. The idea of being hauled around in one of those has always appealed to me, but this one actually made me straight-up jealous: the baby was wearing a fuzzy brown fleece one-piece suit with bear ears on its hood. And his arms were wrapped around his mother’s stomach, his head pressed to her warm belly as she hugged him in the cold. It looked like the coziest, lovingest thing ever.

Then, when I got down into Grand Central, there was a scantily-clad man–I’m talking wifebeater made into a half-shirt here–playing some really sexy music on an electric violin. “Sexy music coming from an electric violin, the inherently lamest instrument ever?” you might ask. But yes, it totally was. And it was only made sexier by the fact that he had his eyes closed and his head thrown back, clearly enjoying what he was doing. Which made me smile so much that I had to turn away. Nice start to my day, right?

But THEN, I was getting off the 4 train at Bowling Green before work, and as I was waiting in the huge line that forms before the staircase leading up to the street, this Italian-looking guy in his 30s came stumbling through the crowd with BLOOD FLOWING DOWN HIS FACE. He was like, “Excuse me, please,” and politely made his way down the stairs while all of us stood and stared, and then he hopped into the train as if everything was fine.

And THEN, I was on my way to get my hair cut last night when I heard a woman telling the booth attendant at the 8th Street R stop about a man on the staircase. I assumed she was complaining about a disruptive homeless fellow, but when I got to the stairs myself, I saw nothing but a very well-dressed older guy who happened to be holding up the line to the street by taking a loooooooooooooong time on each stair and intermittently slumping toward the wall as if he was having trouble standing. Turns out he was having a HEART ATTACK right there in front of me. But naturally I continued on, selfish and vain as always.

NEW YORK!

Why is everything I do so spectacularly fascinating?

Posted by plumpdumpling on December 1, 2008 – 6:26 pm
Filed under living in new york is neat, narcissism
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Not to add to your narcissistic impression of me, but OMG, watch this amazing video of me that my Internet-turned-REAL-LIFE friend Aaron the Australian posted in his journal from the lightroom at the Top of the Rock observation deck:

Maybe I only enjoy it so much because it’s two minutes of pure, unadulterated ME, but don’t you sort of love how lost I look there toward the end? I like to think it’s just because Aaron’s not playing with me and not because that’s really how I act in my everyday life.

Sooooo Many Photos of Me and a Boy You Barely Know

Posted by plumpdumpling on November 20, 2008 – 1:28 pm
Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, living in new york is neat
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I don’t want to steal all of Aaron the Australian‘s thunder, but if he’s going to choose spending time with the boyfriend he hasn’t seen in a month over posting photos of us, then screw ‘im.


The bull on Wall Street! And us looking super-hot, right?


Me, not afraid to show the heart-wrenching pain I was experiencing at the World Trade Center site.


Aaron on the Staten Island Ferry (post spitting on that guy), sticking his tongue out at our symbol of American freedom.


I wanted to play hand-clapping games with Aaron in the subway but was DISMISSED.


Aaron at the site of the Fat Girls Only chair.


Me in the Former Slaveowners Only chair. Which was right next to the Rosa Parks Only chair.


Aaron and me looking amaaaaazingly cool smoking chocolate cigarettes at my friend Emily’s house party.
Right before we played charades and looked considerably less cool.


Aaron and I kept seeing this ad on subway platforms and wondered if this girl had killed herself out of embarrassment yet.


In case you forgot Aaron’s gay, these photos from the Toys R Us in Times Square should remind you.


Aaron made me take, like, five of these pictures, and this taxi driver got pissed off, because he thought Aaron was trying to hail a cab.


Aaron is making this face because he was trying to pee his pants for lack of being able to find a restroom,
and the stream froze his pants to his legs at this very moment.


Aaron tries his very first Magnolia Cupcake, while I pose with my banana pudding next to the store with the greatest name in history.
Seriously, it’s called PANTS AND . . . !.


Fun times in the NBC Experience store at Rockefeller Center.


Hey, guess who’s NOT ambiguously gay?


The light room at the Top of the Rock, which is probably more interesting than the view of NYC you’re paying $20 for.


Hands!


My elusive roommate, Wen, actually went out to dinner with us one night. Orgies abounded!

There was also a dinner at Serendipity with Kamran one night, which was disappointingly not awkward and which Kamran so generous paid for. And looooooong conversations about why visiting me was inexplicably SO MUCH BETTER than visiting Beth in Chicago recently. And then, with a kiss on the cheek, Aaron left me on Tuesday morning, never to be seen again. Except for when he visits again in a month. Whatever.

Please note that all of these photographs were taken on Aaron’s camera and may not express the views of this blog and its author.

Tap Dancers in Union Square Station

Posted by plumpdumpling on November 18, 2008 – 11:09 am
Filed under fun times on the subway, living in new york is neat
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For every 400 annoying guys beating on upside-down buckets with sticks, there’s one subway busking act that actually takes talent. These guys made me stop, stare, and actually shell out some cash the other day:

I also appreciate how particularly New Yorky this video is. Subway station (that someone magically got a piano into), the uplifting advertisement amidst all the grime, all of the people rudely walking right in front of my camera, the guy in the GOLD PANTS AND ASCOT . . . I can’t get enough.