Tre Dici [Click the photo above to go to Tre Dici’s website]
128 W 26th St New York, NY 10001
Where have I been may you ask? I started a new job, that has weirdly sucked the life out of me, because I’m all punctual and workin’ hard and that stuff (is someone from my office reading this?), but I’m also drinking my nights away instead of eating them away. But not this time, oh no. I more than made up for it when my dad decided to take my sister and me to dinner one night at TreDici in Chelsea.
I was pretty excited since my dad had promised he’d pick me up, so I wouldn’t have to cab it to the restaurant, and just as I was reapplying my lipgloss I get a text message from my sister, “why are we picking you up? You’re so far.”
And then my phone rings, and it’s my dad:
“We’re sitting in some traffic, so do you want to just meet us there?”
My sister has gotten to him. Damn it.
I of course beat these numskulls to the restaurant, even after forcing my cab driver to do a full circle so he could drop me off in front of the restaurant, and I slither into the booth to get the seat that I want, and I begin scanning the menu: kobe beef ravioli, something with duck ragu, mac n cheese, meatballs…this is going to be a hard decision ahead of me.
My sister and Dad arrive, and they sit down.
“You were cranky over there, not wanting to pick me up.” Like I’m not going to call my sister out.
“I’m starving.”
We’re all so mean when we’re hungry.
“You have a pimple on your face.” I got her back.
Thankfully the waiter brings over the bread basket, and we find out there are risotto balls inside the basket. I mean there are no words, fried balls of rice for a snack, done!
Full disclosure: my sister babysits for the restaurant’s owner, so I was already told that we needed to order the angry lobster appetizer, which was fine with me.
The waitress comes over and starts listing off the specials, and they were like little lullabies to my family’s ears: buffalo style calamari to start, a Mediterranean meatball, lobster ravioli, a pappardelle in a Bolognese sauce.
I could see my sister’s mouth water. I think I saw drool hit her plate.
I know right away that whatever appetizer we were discussing is getting replaced by the calamari, so we go with the calamari, the angry lobster, and meatballs stuffed with mozzarella cheese in the center.
Mains? I was committed to the kobe beef ravioli before I stepped foot in the restaurant.
My dad is having issues though, he hasn’t mastered cooking, and begins by telling us, “I haven’t had chicken in a while.”
“Yeah, because you don’t know how to cook it.”
“But I never order chicken.”
“So don’t get chicken.”
He goes with their orecchiette special served with spicy sausage and spinach, served in a oil and garlic sauce. He was never going to order chicken.
My sister, is completely overwhelmed. Lobster ravioli! Pasta! Spaghetti!
“I’ll have the lobster ravioli…I think.”
The waitress walks away.
“Why you gonna get the lobster ravioli when we already ordered the angry lobster,” my dad says as he butters the bread.
“I don’t know! It sounded so good!”
“What else did they say?”
I know which one she’s thinking about, “you want the pappardelle with Bolognese don’t you?”
“yeah,” and it is done.
Now that the ordering is out of the way:
“So tell me about your new job.”
To be brief, my new job requires me to cold call, all day, so my dad made me act out a cold call for him at the table.
“Call me.”
I give my shpeal (which I refuse to write on my blog), and he actually looks impressed.
“That’s good!”
I’m not going to lie. I was flattered. I feel like an idiot half the time on the phone jabbering to people on the other end, so to get any compliment, even from my clueless dad and sister, I will take it!
Appetizers arrive. I have never had lobster in a spicy pepper broth, and I really should have it more often.
Buffalo style calamari: I’m going to use the word innovative. Judge me.
The meatballs: for one, they’re gigantic, yep giant balls. And they were…my favorite appetizer.
I was full just from the appetizers, and then we see the waitress bring over pasta, but it’s not any of the pasta we ordered.
Surprise! “We know you wanted to try the lobster ravioli, so we brought you some to try”
And there they are! 3 personal raviolis, for all of us.
To say I was stuffed at this point would be a gross understatement: risotto balls, lobster, meatballs, lobster ravioli, oh wait…we still have another course coming.
My kobe beef ravioli was out of this world. It is not to be missed. Even if you just get an order for the table so everyone gets one ravioli, it’s one thousand percent worth it.
My dad and sister were pleased with their choices as well.
Dessert? Duh.
I know, I’m stuffed, but they have crepe cake! It’s my new favorite dessert. I discovered it at Novita, and I haven’t looked back. It’s fab.
And the biggest surprise of it all?? It was all for the price of “on the house!”
As we’re about to leave I realize we never took a picture. “Wait! We still need to take a picture!”
“I’m not letting you take a picture with this pimple on my face.”
Guess she won in the end.
Bread basket.
It’s not just an ordinary bread basket. It has risotto in it. It’s borderline magical.
Inside Out Meatballs: fried beef, pork & veal meatballs stuffed with fresh mozzarella & ricotta cheese, in homemade marinara sauce.
Um, yeah they’re as good as they sound, and as big as child’s head. “The human head weighs 8 lbs.” They normally some with just two, but they gave us three, so one for each of us.
Angry Lobster: 1lb maine lobster sautéed with lemon, roasted garlic, butter & white wine finished with red pepper flakes
I have never ever had spicy lobster before, and I don’t understand why. It makes perfect sense, and I want to have it again.
Buffalo Style Calamari
No real description necessary, it’s gourmet bar food, and it’s good! Eat some of the celery, you’ll feel better about it.
Lobster ravioli:
Oh here’s our surprise lobster ravioli! It’s delicious. The ravioli’s are plump. it tastes fresh, and the sauce has great flavor.
Orrechiette: Bowl shaped pasta, crumbled sausage, finely chopped broccoli rabe & hot cherry peppers with EVOO & roasted garlic.
I prefer pasta in more of a sauce, but if this is a dish you’re into, I highly recommend it!
Kobe Beef Ravioli: wagyu beef, caramelized onions & fontina di val’dosta in marsala, browned butter & thyme with natural reduction.
Surprise there’s truffle, and if there isn’t, it tastes like there is. I wish I could eat this all the time, but I can’t otherwise I would look like a beef ravioli. It’s an amazing combination, and no ingredients overpowers the other, they just work together!
Pappardelle with bolognese sauce. It is a meaty dish for lack of a better word, maybe hearty is a better word? Ok, yeah, hearty. It’s satisfying to say the least.
Crepe Cake
Look at this beautiful creation! There are caramelized bananas on the side, if you’re into that. I mostly went for the cake.
Joe Shanghai [Click the photo above to go to Joe Shanghai’s website]
24 W 56 Street (between 5 and 6 Avenue) New York, New York 10019
I decided to go for a nice Sunday dinner with my girls Sara and Caryn, but they live in the same building on the Upper East Side, and I live in Murray Hill, so we always try to go for middle of the road, because that’s what friends do. So I mean, we’re definitely doing Chinese, it’s Sunday, and it’s also the weekend of the Golden Globes/premiere of Girls, so let’s make it on the early side…
Final decision: Joe Shanghai in Midtown. a. I have never been b. I want to go c. that’s it.
Spoiler alert: I liked it. It’s not overrated. I’d eat it again (and again), and I liked our waiter.
So here’s how it all went down:
We were supposed to go to dinner at like 7, but I received a phone call at about 6:
“Caryn’s ready to go.”
“Ok, are you cabbing it there, or taking the subway so I know how much time I have.”
“I think I’m going to cab it.”
“If you’re going to cab it, then I’m going to cab it.”
Easy enough, except I was totally focused on Instagram, and didn’t realize that the cab driver dropped me off on 55th Street, and not 56th street.
“Oh, this is perfect. Thanks!” I say like an idiot, until I realize I’m on the wrong street, and have to walk , and guess what? Streets are longer in midtown than downtown. I just want my soup dumplings!
I walk in and tell the hostess my friends are already here, and they act like they have been waiting for the rest of the VIP party to arrive. They walk me up the stairs, through the dining area, to a private room with two empty tables, and a television set.
Fancy.
“Can you turn on the Golden Globe preshow?” we ask a waiter.
He did.
But I’m facing the wrong way to watch the television. Luckily though there’s a mirror so I watch the tv through the mirror during dinner.
What could be better? It’s like we were in someone’s living room (just with a lot of Chinese people serving us food – everyone stop acting like that was racist).
We decide on 2 orders of pork soup dumplings, and one order of crispy beef, and one order of tea for the table, oh and my friend ordered hot & sour soup.
Soup dumplings arrive, and our cutie waiter Sam, places one dump on each of our spoons, and does a bow of sort and says enjoy.
So this is what a LEGIT soup dumpling tastes like.
NOT date material, because the exterior of the dumpling is sort of sticky, so we were all licking our lips and the dumpling to make sure it didn’t stick to our face.
“You look weird.”
“What? It’s sticky.”
“Why do you have to make it look sexual?”
“I love slurping the soup. I love that part.”
“The [hot & sour] soup has shrimp in it.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”
….
Crispy beef arrives.
I’ve had a lot of crispy beef in my lifetime (does that sound sexual? I don’t mean it to be), but this was some of the best crispy beef I’ve ever had.
“What is she wearing?”
“Jessica Alba looks good.”
“Kate Hudson looks amazing.”
“She just seems like a bitch.”
….
“You guys, when I got dropped off at the wrong spot in the cab I saw the LOVE sign, wanna take a picture after we finish eating?”
“Okay, but who will take it?”
“I don’t know.”
“We’ll ask someone, and then they’ll steal my phone.”
Long story short, they didn’t, Tina and Amy killed it at the Golden Globes, and Hannah has a new boyfriend who is black, adding some super forced diversity Girls. The End.
I had a bite. I liked it. It felt like it had more layers than the average soup. I Recommend.
Oh hello dumplings. No one warns you that they’re sticky on the outside, but I guess you look paste it once you bite into a legit soup dumpling. It’s all it’s cracked up to be. The dumpling doesn’t fall apart when you bite it, and there’s soup cradled at the bottom of the dumpling. They are pretty much little bundles of love.
Crispy Beef
Just the name is delicious, crispy beef. While other people my age are getting married (it’s lovely they’re in love blah blah blah), I’m busy making love to this crispy beef, so it’s pretty much the same thing. Sometimes crispy beef can be hard and crunchy, but this was cooked just right. Love ya crispy beef xoxo.
And here is how I watched the Golden Globes, in a Royal Caribbean t-shirt I got at a vintage store in Wisconsin (that a guy once told me I wore a lot, turns out I do), and through a mirror at a Chinese Restaurant. Too Legit.
Look, my phone didn’t get stolen, and look at the fab tourist photos I got from it!
Kin Shop [Click the photo above to go to Kinshop’s website]
469 6th Avenue (between 11th and 12th Street) New York, NY 10011
It was my birthday this past weekend, and I managed to squeeze 5 meals out of it (I know what was I thinking?). I decided to not blog my meals so I could be “present” (I don’t know), but by meal # 5 I figured it was time to get back into it.
My last and final birthday meal was at Kinshop with my two girl friends who…like to eat (I am never allowed to tag them in these posts, because I write things like that).
I was just a fatty all day, and wanted to stay healthy for dinner, which I mean, we all know was pretty unlikely. My friends had also had “fat days” (I ate this at 11, then this, then this, then is…is that bad? Are we Judy from SNL?), so we were all thrilled that we were on the same page for dinner.
“Wait, you want to be healthy too?”
(I feel like we were happy, but also disappointed that there was no one to push us to get noodles)
“Your lipgloss looks great! Did you wear it for us?”
(Did I? I flash back to me putting it on, did I do it for them?? I don’t know maybe)
“Yeah.”
Back to serious business: this menu. My friend kept going, “it’s light. It’s light Thai food.”
Reading the menu I was not exactly feeling it was light when everything came w something fried or meaty.
I only participated in the vegetable input. I felt overwhelmed.
The waiter comes over to take our order, and we begin.
“Whats the fluke like?”
“It’s sort of like sushi.”
“Ok, we’ll get that.”
“The shrimp.”
“How many for each of you?”
“How many do you recommend?”
“I’d say two each.” We should have gotten 3 each, healthy my ass.
Fluke down, shrimp down, bibb salad ordered, and stir fry vegetables with water chestnuts also added to the mix. What do we get next? This clearly is not enough.
My friend decides to include our waiter in our brainstorming, “We’re all sort of on a diet, so what do you recommend.”
He starts pointing towards the noodle section, and it was like in one ear, out the other.
We opt to order 2 soups to share between the 3 of us: tomato soup, and meatball soup.
As the waiter leaves, I notice he’s sort of cute (is he gay? Probably, I tend to like gay men for some reason, I’ll just keep this to myself)
“It’s going to be so awkward when the waiter sees us attacking our food after we told him we’re dieting.” Woops.
“What’s going on with your friend and that guy?”
“It’s over.”
“As soon as they became exclusive?”
“Yep, she let her freak flag fly way too soon after getting the exclusive title.”
“Big mistake.”
“Totally, you need to wait until you know they love you before they know how nuts we are.” True that.
Fluke comes! It is served on these funky leaves that I proclaimed were “fuzzy,” and my other friend identified as “cilantro like.” It had nice flavor, but we all agreed they need to make it more lettuce wrap like.
“It needs a different leaf.”
Bibb salad is placed in front of us. Bibb lettuce is fun, because the leaves are huge and buttery, but it’s sort of hard to serve and eat. It was really yummy though, and I loved that it was served with plums and pumpkin seeds. Great combo.
“Is that a gel manicure?”
“Yes, do I need to get it redone?”
“No, it looks great. It doesn’t look like you got it yesterday, but it looks good!”
“Okay good, I don’t want to get it done again.”
“I don’t like mine.”
My other friend throws her hands in front of us and goes “Look at mine!”
She got a new greyish purple (I feel like she’s going to read this and tell me that was not the color so sorry in advance!) and she was wiggling her fingers in the hopes to get some attention on them.
Shrimp arrives. Spicy with a peanut-ish sauce on the side. I use the word ish, because if it’s not what it really is than I feel bad. It was delic, but my friend sucked the head off one and told us it was great, and my head was empty, so that was disappointing. We only ordered 6, and they only had 5 left! For G-d’s sake I wanted every bite to count.
Soup comes, I tried to avoid the meatballs (Skinny Bitch remember), and failed per usual, I’d like to say it was worth it. Tomato soup was thicker than I thought it was going to be. Good, but I thought it would be on the healthier side.
As we’re finishing up, all of our phones are on the table, and I can see one friend texting the other, I’m like “OH MY GD THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT ME.” They were, but only because they wanted to get me a candle 🙂 Sweet right?
By the end of the meal I had drank a lot of water (food was spicy!), and had to use the restroom, which was of course downstairs (stop it NY with that), and as I was strutting up the steps to get back to my table I see the waiter at the top of the staircase, and I trip. Yes, I tripped.
“Happy birthday!” he says.
“Thanks.” Definitely gay.
Kin Shop (bibb salad: plum, toasted sunflower seeds & pickled mustard seed vinagrette)
I weirdly love seeds, and mustard seeds are very strong in flavor, and plums are sweet, so I was into this.
Kin Shop (miang of fluke: lycheese, shiso leaves, chili jam & fried garlic)
Pretty right? Nice little bites, but fuzzy, so a little weird.
Kin Shop (stir fry of aquatic vegetables: water spinach, water chestnuts & watercress)
I actually forgot to take a picture of this, because I ate it VERY fast. So, don’t hate, I stole this pic. I would say this dish tasted most like classic Chinese food in a brown sauce: that’s the only way I can think of to describe it.
Kin Shop (house speciality: grilled prawns with fresh lime & phuket style” black pepper sauce.
I want to label this as clean flavors. My friend got a really spicy bite though and sorta freaked out.
Kin Shop (steamed pork meatball soup: crispy garlic, bok chyshoots & black soy sauce)
I was apprehensive about this, because I thought it would be too salty, but it wasn’t! You can also see the steam of how hot it came out. It was one of the only dishes we ordered that wasn’t spicy, so it complimented everything well.
Kin Shop (garam Masala & tomato soup: tofu, mung beans & holy basil)
You can see how creamy it is from the picture, but it taste solid, and it has a little kick.