Else what's a heaven for?

I always sign up for whatever promo AmEx has for Restaurant Week, bc hey! maybe I'll earn a statement credit. Then it was the final week of RW(S)2012 and I still hadn't been anywhere.

One of my former cow orkers invited me to lunch in her work nabe downtown. I was hoping we'd go to Wall & Water, but she chose Les Halles Downtown. I'd been to the midtown location in June with my siblings and liked it very much. Alas, the RW menu was more French than steak. I thought it was funny ordering a chicken dish in an Anthony Bourdain restaurant. The chicken fricasee was fine, but I got bored eating. I ate half my almond cake before I decided that I didn't need any more empty calories. Ho-hum. Then I went to the Andaz for entirely too many gimlets, which is an entirely different story. I blame Julian for skipping coffee with me.

The next day, I went to Quality Meats w/my former manager. He'd been there before and was fine with it, thank goodness. I let the waiter talk me into diver scallops, which were delicious. I had the steak, which was just a steak, albeit served with a cherry sauce. My manager's shrimp sandwich looked yummy. My orange creamsicle dessert was delish and all in all, I'd go back bc I love all the food there and they don't skimp on RW, so anything they put on the RW menu is fine by me. I'd even go so far as to say it's nice not to have to choose.

Thursday I had a last minute lunch with Godkitty, who I later realized only accepted bc she wanted to see my hands. The only restaurants in our nabe that still had reservations were Ed's Chowder House and Boulud Sud. I wasn't very excited about the latter, bc I'd confused it with Epicerie Boulud *shakes a fist at Daniel B.* Turns out Boulud Sud is an extremely elegant restaurant, with service nearly as good as Le Bernardin (aka my fave restaurant in NYC). The menu was better than the one posted online. We both started with the eggplant veloute, which turned out to be a magnificent soup with layers of flavor. What is it with French restaurants that are secretly Moroccan? I don't remember what I had for entree, but the dessert was easily in my top 10 evuh: apricot strawberry entrement, with a layer of pistachio cake (tasted like pumpkin cake), apricot mousse, raspberry gelee, and a little piece of strawberry as decoration. It was the perfect combination of flavors. If I were in town for my next birthday, I'd be asking my brothers to take me there.

It may not have been lunch, but I'm glad Jon and I finally got to have one RW(S)2012 meal, bc it's how we started dating. EN Japanese Brasserie is another restaurant that doesn't skimp on their RW menu. Moreover, their set menus are the best thing about the place, bc they are curated and served with Japanese precision. I'm glad they start with the fresh, housemade tofu: even if you think you hate the stuff, you have to try theirs. They list what times each day they make it. Next were two chef-chosen appetizers: like my long-ago and sadly missed meal at Jack, they were things I wouldn't have chosen for myself and they were delish. Jon and I shared the lobster tempura and kobe steak, both of which were delish. I felt guilty for still being hungry and disturbing the order of things, but we had a trout carpaccio in a ponzu sauce. Their black cherry ice cream is what all cherries want to be when they grow up.

Not a RW meal, but I was looking for neighborhood restaurants in which to have lunch with an Internet friend. We ended up at Gina La Fornarina, which I always assumed was the pasta arm of Salumeria Rosi. Read: useless to a carnivore. Then I saw the speck & taleggio sandwich and I'm in love. Adult ham & cheese FTW!!