recent gluttony.

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Duck lunch at Momofuku Ssam Bar: rotisserie duck over rice and fried duck dumplings. It’s only available at lunchtime, and the duck over rice is only available for weekday lunch so uh … call in sick.  Or take a personal day.  Well worth it.  You’ll need the whole day since you’ll spend the afternoon in a mild food coma.
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Brunch at Maialino.   Order the eggs amatriciana and the scrambled eggs cacio e pepe.  Get a random starter (they’re all good) — this time around we got the crispy potato skins with pecorino & pepper; last time it was the suppli al’telefono.  Also not pictured, but ordered and consumed with aplomb: two toffee glazed brioches.  Like Cinnabon, only infinitely better.
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Dinner at Txikito.  Nothing at Txikito is bad, but very little of it is extraordinary, which is a shame, since we all need more Basque food in our lives.  That said, if you go, get the octopus carpaccio (at left in the photo), the kroketas (in the center), and the squid ribbons (not pictured).  I also hear their lunchtime cheeseburger is amazing, but I’ll have to um, find myself very very sick one weekday and unable to go to work to find out for myself.  (Note: this is where I uncharacteristically ran out of film.)
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This says less about Txikito than about the quality of the food and dining experience at Co. Pizza but: halfway through our meal at Txikito, Mark and I decided that it would more enjoyable if we finished our meal at Co., a few doors down.  So we paid our bill, walked up to the bar at Co., and ordered their boscaiola pie, full of mushrooms and sausage and chili flakes.  Later, the barkeep gave us a slice of banofee pie, just for the heck of it.  See what I mean?  I love this place.  (More on that very shortly.)
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The following night: a belated birthday meal at The Breslin.  Pictured: the terrine plate.  At the center bottom of the photo is the guinea fowl terrine; it is amazing.  Also good but not pictured: the scotch egg (yes!) and the blood sausage with fried quail egg.  This place is over the top, but if you don’t make a habit of it, I think it’s worth the occasional insanity (food- and crowd-wise).
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Remember that thing I said about how I much I loved Co.?  Here is proof: two days after that last (half) meal there, I was back on Saturday afternoon for a post-gallery lunch.  Chilled by that morning’s snowfall, we warmed ourselves on squash soup, veal meatballs (oh my goodness, so very very good), and a margherita pie.  There may have also been some wine consumed.  A very lazy, very languorous, very lovely meal.
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Sunday brunch at Char No.4 with Mike.  There was whiskey.  There was wine.  There were A LOT of poached eggs and cheesy grits.  We also quite happily discovered that Char’s breakfast ham is quite possibly the best ham ever.  This will no doubt require further research.  (“research”)
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Last night’s proceedings at Kunjip.  So. Much. Food.  Hot soups to invigorate on a chilly night, with bonus steamed egg dish (I love you, Kunjip) that was at once restorative, delicious, and quite Proustian in its comforts.

Yeah, I ate a lot recently.  And weirdly didn’t have any 35mm camera on me to record the second half of the week’s meals (not so easy to take food photos with a Hasselblad, as an upcoming post will demonstrate).  But no matter — the company and the food more than easily made up for the absence of proper photographic equipment.  I’m also pretty sure that said company was pleased to not have a slow-focusing Leica interrupt the proceedings.

I’m going to attempt to have a much more austere week, mealwise.  We’ll see how that goes.

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