Food Porn: New York City Restaurant Week

As I mentioned last week, I took a few days off work to travel up to New York and Connecticut to visit friends and family. My trip happened to coincide with NYC's Restaurant Week, which is so popular that it actually lasts 2 1/2 weeks. Nevertheless, being the foodie that I am, I was pretty pumped I would be there for it. I received a recommendation from a coworker who knew of a recent James Beard award winning pastry chef (she's classy like that) and that his restaurant may be a good place to go. I was lucky to score a reservation for said restaurant: Bar Boulud.

But before that meal, I went a bit carb crazy. I hit up a great pizza place (though to clarify, NOT NYC-style) in my friend's Gramercy Park neighborhood and will admit, some bagels were consumed. Can I just say that NYC truly has the best Everything Bagels I've ever eaten. They put the good stuff...the salt, garlic, onion, you name it, ALL OVER the bagel. So it's like having a top of a bagel on the bottom as well. I don't have any evidence of those because seriously, I ate them pretty quickly.

So here are play-by-play photos of my meal at Bar Boulud.

First course was Braised Pork Rillette, Tomato Confit, Roasted Garlic, Zucchini and Crostini. The pork was pretty tasty and my best guess was that the zucchini was hiding out in the pork patty. This wasn't exactly what I was expecting when I read the description, but I cleaned by plate.

Second course was Cavatelli Pasta, Hudson Valley Duck Confit, Roasted Tomato, Fennel and Breadcrumbs. This was my least favorite dish of the three. While the housemade pasta was the perfect amount of al dente, the duck was a bit tough. In the restaurant's defense, I'm hit or miss when it comes to enjoying duck so perhaps I should have gone with the fish.

The third course was to die for. This was the James Beard award-winning dish I had heard about from my coworker and it failed to disappoint. This was a chocolate mousse, with hazenut cream and coffee ice cream. Yep, those our crushed oreos under the ice cream. Yes that is a caramel or butterscotch swirl around the plate. And my best guess was the little nuggets on top were candied hazelnuts. This. Was. Awesome. And I'm not a dessert person, so you know I'm not exaggerating. 

And my most delectable morsel during my trip is one that is so sweet I could eat him with a spoon, my nephew Brayden.

While he's still trying to learn to appreciate the whole "solid foods" thing, I think we have a foodie in training. Here, he is dining on a fine soda bread at Apricots restaurant near Farmington, Connecticut. He preferred this to the crunchier french loaf, which he admittedly dropped on the floor in disgust. Repeatedly. But this Irish soad bread? Nom Nom Nom. (and some other indecipherable grunts of appreciation)