New York, New York

This morning I had an early flight to New York. I imagined that I would have the greatest entry ever with a piece about airplane food, but I forgot that you can't have your phone turned on in the plane. It ended up not being a problem though, because all they offered me was a drink (I had ginger ale). Some people around me were offered Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, but not everyone. I was hungry and kind of upset about it, but I was too tired to do anything about it.


Café Gitane Moroccan couscous with chicken, peppers, raisins, pinenuts, humus and eggplant (Ariana's vegetarian version had dried apricots and cinnamon)

The environment, because of Ariana, was excellent. She was a vision in gray. We walked there from her apartment on the cobblestone streets of SoHo and were greeted by an array of awkward sights, including, but not limited to, mint green UGGs, fur hats, and cute foreign, canine boys. The hostess was intimidatingly cute and English, with a cute English accent to boot. We sat at the bar in order to avoid a long wait AT THREE IN THE AFTERNOON. We ordered one of the specialties, a tower of Moroccan couscous. It was a feast for the eyes and the stomach. Sitting at the bar we got to witness all the behind the scenes action of the food preparation. They stuff the couscous, vegetables and chicken into a mold to get it into the perfect tower of food that it is. Once plated, they add a large heap of fresh and delicious hummus and some pieces of bread with red pepper. It was so good and fresh and flavorful, the best Moroccan food I've ever had. And it was cute and chic and very New York. No one was into each others business, which I feel like is almost always a problem at small restaurants. The food was great, the atmosphere was better than you can even hope for in New York, and it was a really interesting experience.



Lucky Strike Fried Calamari

After a crazy evening of showing Ariana's apartment to potential residents, her landlord, a 70 year old artist from Chilé, and his girlfriend, an offensive yet jovial artist from the bronx, took us to dinner at a very SoHo restaurant down the block called Lucky Strike. I don't even know where to begin. We were meeting one of Juan's (the landlord) friends/past residents, and he turned at to be a 30-something patronizing ass hole, who said my shirt looked like pajamas and looked like he was going to have a seizure when Ariana struggled with the bread. The food! That's what I need to talk about, the food.

The calamari (on the house, because Juan is buddies with the owners) was very good, but maybe a little tough. It was accompanied with a spicy marinara sauce that really kept me guessing. I was impressed with their frying skills; I feel like people are taking for granted the value of a nicely breaded and fried piece of food these days (versus fried foods that become soggy or the breading falls off) and it's nice to see that it's making a comeback.


Lucky Strike Vegetarian Burger

Lucky Strike was kind of expensive and I had already had a big nice meal earlier in the day, and calamari, and good bread, so I decided to go for the veggie burger. The patty was pretty blah, nothing special. I'm sure it was just a garden burger. It came with lettuce and tomato and ketchup. The most interesting thing about it was the bun. It looked exactly like and had the same texture as an English muffin, but tasted just like a regular bun. The french fries were also very interesting. I doubt that there was actually any potato to them, they were just strands of fried grease. I'm not complaining. Yes I had a big food day already, but I was ready to conquer the fry. I was a little apprehensive about eating them in a fancy restaurant, so I experimented by trying to eat them with a fork. That didn't work out so well. But overall it was a wonderful meal and I heard a lot of really good stories and the camaraderie was worth the painful stupidity of the evil thirty-something male.