| Anthos: Food 10, Service 3 |
[Dec. 28th, 2009|05:32 pm] |
Last year I spent Christmas visiting Lauren's grandparents in New Orleans, seeing little kids and Christmas trees and singing 12 days of Christmas; this year she and Stefan spent it here eating ethnic food, shopping for luxury bags, rescheduling flights, and trudging through snow.
Tuesday we went to Madangsui for Korean BBQ, Wednesday while I was on call they went to the Modern Bar, and Thursday (Christmas Eve) we went to Anthos. Anthos is the fancier sister to Kefi -- same owners, both Greek food, a few overlaps on the menu.
We all chose to order the $65 4-course tasting, which actually turned out to be more than 4 courses, and Stefan chose the wine (of course). I will go through all of the courses in a moment, but first, a comment to the service. I cannot remember the last time I had food this good with service this disorganized -- they were very nice, no complaints about the attitude or feel of the staff at all, but several waiters came over asking us whether we'd been waited upon, and whether we had questions, and whether our water had come yet, etc., they just had no idea whose job was what, and it was inappropriate to the type of dining and food to have them be so chaotic. They also dropped things several times, though luckily none of our food was among the casualties. They were also unable to describe items further or answer other questions, though they were friendly and went to go find out answers, so overall this didn't detract from our experience, but I would put this in the category of totally fine when you're with friends, but I wouldn't take a date or a boss there - yet.
On to the important part.
The meal opened with a little assortment of snacks:  Meatballs in tzatziki, fried fish balls, really wonderful assorted olives in olive oil, and pita chips with fish paste. Everything was good - the olives were the best, and everything tasted really distinct which was a nice way to waken our palates. Next came a round of little pieces of fish that were an amuse, I really didn't catch what it was, but it was nice. Then we all ordered the raw meze (the other choice was a salad for this course), which was a scallop topped with pomegranate seeds, a piece of escolar, and a piece of salmon -- each was really delicious and very distinct, and they asked us to eat them in the order I wrote them in, which was very smart because the flavor really built as we ate.
Next up was the cooked fish course. Lauren had a really wonderful single scallop and Stefan and I both ordered the grilled octopus, which was good and had really excellent texture. Then for the pasta, Lauren ordered the sheeps milk dumplings which came in a veggie creamy sauce that was really yummy; Stefan and I ordered the Sweet Potato Manzi (I think it's just ravioli), which was extremely flavorful, with the sweetness of the potato and the crunchy carrots over the top and little bits of pickled radish bringing acid, it was maybe my favorite part of the meal.  Finally, the main course: Lauren had the Scottish Salmon with lentils  and Stefan and I had the lamb. The lamb itself was really delicious, cooked rare as I requested, served with very good brussels sprouts and a perfectly fine potato cake... and a completely bizarre garnish of a small fry-pan with a cooked egg and a piece of bacon... it made no sense with the dish, we literally had no idea whether we were supposed to combine the items somehow or eat them in a progression, and anyway, the egg was overcooked. I tried the items separately and together and the whole breakfast thing just made no sense. So that was our one food-related complaint.  Other than that it was a great dinner, an appropriate price, and a wonderful evening. Oh! And then there were mignardises! And it was very cute because it was visually symmetric with the first course of snacks -- 4 items, 3 in small round pieces and 1 in a bigger bowl, bookending the meal nicely. There were little pieces of cake, tiny chocolate tarts, and chewy gumdrops, plus a big bowl of delicious and unusual cinnamon cotton candy!
Overall I would definitely go back but am not in a rush to do so, but I suspect that in 6 months or so, the front of the house will catch up and this will be a really fabulous restaurant. |
|
|
| Christmas cookies! |
[Dec. 26th, 2009|01:47 am] |
So I made Christmas cookies. I made my pistachio lemon cookies and rugalech with apricot filling. Plus, spicy mexican chocolate cookies and Kelli's Pumpkin Chocolate chip cookies - below. I brought plates of cookies today to my maintenance guys, the downtown ED, and Angeliki (who shared with Andy & Joe), and tomorrow will be bringing more plates to the inpatient unit and the uptown ED... and there are still a bunch more.
Anyway, here are are recipes:
Spicy Chocolate Cookies
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 sticks unsalted butter
- 3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa
- 1/4 tsp salt
- a big pinch of finely ground black pepper
- a big pinch of cayenne
- 3/4 tsp cinnamon (optional)
INSTRUCTIONS - Preheat oven to 350
- Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl with your hands for 5 minutes
- Place the dough over a sheet of wax paper, and use the paper to roll the dough into a log
- Unroll the wax paper, and cut off 1/4” pieces of dough with a knife
- Bake on a lightly greased cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then turn them over and cook for another 5 minutes
- Cool and serve
Kelli's Pumpkin Chocolate chip Cookies
Made about 48 cookies
Mix together these ingredients (in order) in a large bowl:
1 stick of unsalted butter, creamed/softened smoothly
1 cup white granulated sugar
1 egg
1 cup pumpkin
1 tsp. vanilla
In a separate medium sized bowl, mix these dry ingredients together & then add into the wet ingredient bowl:
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg (my mom uses 1/2 tsp)
1/2 tsp. salt
Last add:
About 6-8 oz semisweet chocolate chips
(my mom also sometimes adds chopped walnuts-a good variation, but takes away from the pumpkin flavor)
Bake at 350 for 13-15 mins (until lightly browned). Dont let the appearance fool you, because they will still look moist at this time. They have that sticky look to them. Just take them out when you see a little browning.
|
|
|
| Community Food and Juice |
[Dec. 21st, 2009|07:49 pm] |
Just got in from dinner with Elissa at Community Food and Juice, which is the last of the places in my neighborhood that I hadn't tried before because they were temporarily closed. As it turns out, this is my new favorite place in the neighborhood!
Lissy and I shared:
Duck bacon and goat cheese pizza, which was very flavorful and crunchy and a good start to the meal.
Bowl of vegetables, which was actually the highlight, with carrots, string beans, mushrooms, white asparagus, and crosnes! I love crosnes now! They aren't slimy at all, more like potato-y, but with that crazy larval shape.
Pumpkin ravioli, which weren't overly sweet but had a nice, natural pumpkin sweetness to them, were served in a light creamy sauce, with pumpkin seeds and fried sage. Lovely.
I also enjoyed a cider made with maple butter which was as decadent as it sounds. $33 each, will definitely be back. |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
lukasaurelius's Friends Page