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I was recently in New York with some (extraordinarily lovely) colleagues and am always struck by how it's nearly impossible not have a great time there. I was there promoting the release of a book which I contributed to in a small way. I go to the city usually a few times per year and given my proclivity for ruts, I usually go to the same places. It's a slightly larger list than my normal Seattle haunts but nevertheless I continue to be blown away by these establishments. Despite the relative hype and general racket associated with celebrity chefs some of the establishments owned and operated by the likes of Mr. Batali and Mr. Flay are exceptional.
This marked my fifth visit to a Batali/Bastianich temple of Spanish food and wine called Casa Mono. The food is pretty authentic drawing on Basque, Catalan, and regional influences. What's really fun is the 600 bottle winelist which has won the team numerous awards including a Wine Spectator Grand Award in 2008. If you have the sheckels, they have the Pingus. A trip to New York would also not be complete without a stop at Balthazar where the tartare and moulles frites can make me weep openly. Or maybe that was the gin...can't be certain.
I didn't make it to the meat packing district this trip which was sad because of the proximity of Batali's Del Posto and Masaharu Morimoto's eponomous place across the street. While mixing Italian and Japanese may not seem like a good plan, trust me it works. Start with the toro or yellowtail tartare and then head across the street for the Tris, three tastes of pasta for the table. Del Posto's winelist is epic and exclusively Italian which the only exception being a carefully crafted sparkling list. To find a bottle of anything under $100 takes some skill.
Though I've never really formally met Batali, I've had the opportunity to spend some time with Morimoto in the kitchen and at the Aspen Food and Wine Festival and he's unbelieveably cool and funny as hell. If you watch him on Iron Chef it's almost laughable how serious and stern he is. It's definitely a persona made for TV. As you can see from the picture above he's a randy bastard.
