Saturday, April 26, 2008

New Kitchen!

My new kitchen. As you can see, I don't have much space to work with.

Broadway East

Whoah i haven't written a post in 4 months! Life got really busy and for about two months i was eating really crappy food like bland whole wheat pasta with semi-cold pasta sauce dumped on top. But I'm going to start posting more regularly now. So, last night I went to Broadway East with Ursula and Nikki after checking out the Cai Guo Qiang exhibit at the Guggenheim. Which, by the way, was really great. I'm really glad I got to see it before the show closes later this month. My favorite piece was the snake in the bag, aptly called "Snake Bag". Broadway East is situated at the far end of East Broadway, past all of the Chinese bakeries and shops and basement restaurants. The restaurant has a very simple, almost sparse decor - polished wooden floors, dark wooden tables and velvety red banquettes lining the sides of the main dining room. The restaurant is very dimly lit, with the only light coming from small round globes that appear to float down from the ceiling.

I was a little skeptical at first, $21 for a plate of vegetables? Seemed a little outrageous to me. But, the food turned out to be delicious. I ordered a dish that came with grilled polenta, bread crumb encrusted and fried portobello mushrooms, a ragout made of porcini mushrooms and sauteed leafy greens (said kale on the menu, but i'm pretty sure what i ate wasn't kale.) The polenta was the perfect consistency, the ragout had a rich and salty, but not completely overpowering flavor. The light sauteed greens balanced out the hearty ragout perfectly. Our pear crostata dessert was a little disappointing - there was too much crust and too little pear. The presentation of the dish was also unappealing, the caramel sauce was hastily drizzled around the plate, the crostata looked like it hadn't been formed perfectly before it was baked. That said, the other dishes on the dessert menu sounded really good, there was a spiced chai bread pudding and a fig and hazelnut tart.

Overall a very good experience. This is a good choice if you're in the mood for vegan/vegetarian food, but don't want to eat at some hippy crunchy restaurant. Broadway East presents haute hippie food in an upscale setting without a hint of patchouli scent.