My fantasy meal from 2007

The food blog which has inspired me the most is chuckeats.com. Its pursuit of the finest cuisine, its knowledgeable descriptions and its superb photography are delicious. At CountryEpicure we tend to be less exacting, more wide-ranging and more personal. Chuck has finished up this year on his blog with his Perfect Meal for 2007, fantasizing a sublime menu composed of dishes he ate in 2007. He is encouraging other bloggers to do the same and send them on to him.

Esca, NY

Esca is a focused restaurant. If you do not want fish or seafood cooked in an Italian style, go somewhere else. Even the wine list is all Italian. Linda and I went for lunch on Saturday, December 22, 2007, as Esca’s location at 43^rd Street and Ninth Avenue is convenient to the theater district.

Rosanjin, NY 2

Our Kaiseki meal at Rosanjin last March was memorable in several ways:
1. The quality of the ingredients, many of them unfamiliar to us, and their excellent preparation;
2. The artistic presentation and the lovely serving dishes;
3. The gracious welcome from Mr. Park and the time he spent explaining things to us;
4. The interesting blogpost I was able to do afterwards, my first really good one.

When Linda and I returned to Rosanjin on December 20, 2007, Mr. Park greeted us warmly and thanked us for the blog posting. 

Oceana, NY

Margaret invited Marilee, Linda and me to Town Hall on West 43^rd  Street for the live broadcast of The Prairie Home Companion on Saturday evening, December 16, 2007.

Menu for Hope

Menu for Hope is an annual fundraising event inititated by the excellent Chez Pim food blog, five years ago, in the wake of the devastating tsunami in Southeast Asia, in order to help support the UN World Food Program. It is now supported by many food and restaurant bloggers. This year, the funds raised will be earmarked for the school lunch program in Lesotho.

Telepan, NY

Bill Telepan, a chef with an established New York reputation, created a lot of interest when he opened this restaurant two years ago near Lincoln Center. The critics have been nice to Telepan, but have been optimistic about its potential more than its reality. Linda and I went for the first time on December 12, 2007.

Café Boulud, NY 2

John and Françoise asked us to dinner at Café Boulud December 11, 2007. Since our last visit, there have been two new chefs, a favorable review in The New York Times, a renewal of its Michelin star and inclusion in the top 25 in NY for food in Zagat’s.

Hibiscus

29 Maddox Street, 020 7629 2999; www.hibiscusrestaurant.co.uk

(November 20, 2007) On a recent trip to the London Apple Store on Regent Street, we had noticed this restaurant and then read a rave review of it in “Time Out” so we knew our instincts were right. It is a small, calm oasis in a street busy with restaurants.

The Forge

14 Garrick Street, 020 7379 1432;
www.theforgerestaurant.co.uk

(November 21, 2007) We were wandering near the West End with no restaurant in mind, but definitely hungry. One restaurant after another that we passed seemed either too touristy or not interesting enough.

Patara

3-7 Maddox Street, 020 7499 6008
(November 10, 2007)

This is one of four upscale Thai restaurants by the same name in London.

Le Caprice

Arlington Street, 020 7629 2239

(November 25, 2007) On this rather dreary Sunday, we planned to have a very late lunch near our Quintess apartment at 5 St. James’s  St. There are lots of nice restaurants in the neighborhood, but seemingly none of them open on Sunday.

Shun Lee West

Good Chinese food is hard to find in New York outside of Chinatown. Every now and then a fancy restaurant opens claiming that they are going to get it right, but they never do.

JoJo

Jean-Georges Vongerichten was one of the first big celebrity chefs. He now has fifteen restaurants scattered about. The most ambitious is Jean-Georges in New York, which gets the top rating in both Zagats and Michelin, although we didn’t like it the one time we went a few years ago. His original restaurant is JoJo on East 64^th Street in a converted brownstone townhouse. It has a Michelin star and a good Zagats rating.  Linda and I went for dinner with George and Julie on November 27, 2007.

 

Picholine 2 and 3

On November 24, 2007, George, Julie, Linda and I dined at Picholine before a concert of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

The wine fair in Cagnes-sur-Mer

This fair used to be called the Salon des Vignerons. Twice a year small winemakers from all over France would set up their tasting stands at the horseracing track of Cagnes-sur-Mer, west of Nice. Now in its sixteenth year they have been joined by so many producers of other good things to eat that the name has been changed to the Salon du Palais Gourmand.

Le Diamant Noir 5

As the nights on the Côte d’Azur get colder, we start to think of black truffles and, therefore, of Le Diamant Noir where Benjamin Bruno uses them liberally and well. So on November 6, 2007, we went for dinner with Bob and Peggy.

Flipot, Torre Pellice

I always consult the Michelin Red Guide for Italy while planning a trip there, although I know that their preference for Frenchified cuisine makes the restaurant ratings very unreliable. When planning this trip to the Piemonte, I noticed again that there was a two-star restaurant a bit southwest of Turin, while the other two-star and the three-star restaurant in the region are in the far northeast, almost in Lombardy. Our itinerary ran nearby, so it seemed like a good stop.

Eataly, Turin

On October 24, 2007, The New York Times reported that Eataly will soon be opening at 18 West 48^th Street in New York. So on October 31, Linda and I went to check out the original, which claims to be the “world’s biggest food and wine market.”

Ristorante Belvedere, La Morra

Mae West said: “Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.”  The Menù del tartufo bianco di Alba at the Ristorante Belvedere in La Morra, at the heart of the Piedmont’s wine and truffle country, is truly wonderful and unforgettable.

Ristorante Enoclub, Alba

Our favorite shopping street anywhere is the via Vittorio Emanuele II which cuts through the center of old Alba. Its history and charming relaxed ambience combined with outstanding merchandise, particularly in food and wine, are unique. Linda and I went back to it again on Tuesday, October 30, 2007.

La Coccinella, Serravalle Langhe

Our friends Nick and Stephanie love to drive their beautiful old cars through the hills of The Langhe, either in a rally or just on the way somewhere. They know many of the little inns and restaurants, so when they heard we would be there, they said that we must not miss La Coccinella, a restaurant they know well and love.

Florence, Italy

(October 13-20) Our destination club, Quintess, had recently added some “villas” in Florence and in Tuscany to our choices so we decided to try one of their Florentine places and invited Gary’s sister’s two children to join us.

Jouni, Atelier du Goût, à La Réserve de Nice

In March of 2006 Jouni, Atelier du Goût, a tiny restaurant near the Old Port in Nice, received a Michelin star. This was a big success for its Finnish chef, Jouni Tormanen, and his Piemontese partner, Giuseppe Serena, as the restaurant was very small and informal. We enjoyed going there for its delicious straightforward local cuisine, friendly and efficient service, relaxed ambience and reasonable prices. But the Michelin star was taken away a year later pending Jouni’s move

Verona, Mantua, Padua

(October 1-4)  Leaving Ferrara, we had decided that we wanted to spend one night on the Po Delta and therefore booked a nice B&B called

Villa Il Poggiale near Florence

(October 12, 2007) For our second night en route to Florence, we chose to stay in Tuscany and enjoy our time there before picking up our niece at the airport in the early afternoon.