Associates Lunch-In

Every few months, the Associates at work have an Associates Night-Out.  Since the summer associates are starting soon, there's a night-out scheduled for two weeks so for now we lunch-in.

I must admit that when I walked in, I was not that impressed by the spread.  The food looked pretty regular.  Mixed vegetables, rice, chicken, beef, fruit, cookies, you know, the usual in house lunch.

But once I got my plates filled, I was singing a different tune.  The vegetables were sauteed in something special.  The broccoli and carrots were still firm which was great.  Few things worse than soggy veggies.  The chicken was in some sort of light teriyaki sauce.  The rice was also delicious.  It had great flavor, included some chopped veggies.  While I didn't love the salad, I picked out the mandarin oranges because they were fabulous.

I was happy with the fruit and dessert trays, but I gotta say that was the hardest kiwi I've ever bitten into. YUCKY.  The Summer Associates arrive on Monday, I look forward to eating on someone else's dime for the next 10 weeks :)

Amel Larrieux @ Blue Note

As part of Ms. R's birthday celebration, we went to the Blue Note to hear Ms. Larrieux.  The Blue Note is an intimate setting and I enjoy attending shows there.  If you get there early enough, you can snag a good seat.  There are some bad seats in the house view wise, but the sound is pretty good so long as you don't sit next to the speaker.  While I wouldn't consider myself a die hard like the two people who sat next to us, I was definitely psyched.  She started a little late which was great for us since we arrived a little late.

We ordered some dessert since we didn't get any at Blue Water Grill.  Warm Pear Tartin with caramel sauce and ice cream.  Listening to Amel while enjoying this dessert was quite the treat.

The crust was very soft and not too sweet.  I very much enjoyed the caramel sauce and now think I may have to stock some at home so I can add to any sweet treat.

She was on point and sang about 8 - 10 songs and also spent some time chatting it up with the audience.  My favorite was a new song called Sshhh.  The lyrics were hilarious and she did an incredible job.  She also sang Try Your Wings, Get Up, You're My Thrill, and a few others.

Although she didn't sing my favorite, Weary, she did close out the show by getting off stage and dancing through the aisles singing Tell Me, the hit song she had as part of the duo Groove Theory.

Happy Birthday Ms. R!!

One of my top 5 came into town for her college reunion.  Her birthday was yesterday, but since she was away, we didn't have a chance to celebrate.  I sent her a list of restaurants last week.  She had a hard time deciding but she finally narrowed it down to Sushi Samba and one other place.  Sushi Samba lost out so tonight, we went to Blue Water Grill in Union Square.

The menu was filled with delightful seafood selections.  We started off with an appetizer of two sushi rolls.

Spicy Lobster & Tuna Roll with avocado, jalapeno & cilantro aioli and the special Soft Shell Crab roll.  The lobster & tuna was amaaazing! The cilantro aioli was especially good and really went well with the lobster & tuna.  I loooove soft shell crab season.  You can put them in anything! The soft shell crab roll was great. I don't quite remember what the green sauce was, but it was fantastic!

After the sushi, we ordered the Townhouse.  A shellfish tower for two.  The tower included main lobster, alaskan red king crab, jumbo shrimp, littleneck clams, east coast and west coast oysters, scallop ceviche and marinated price edward island mussels.  I never thought I'd see the day where I was overwhelmed by seafood.  The tower arrived and all we could really do was stare.

We started at the bottom with the oysters.  I couldn't tell the difference between east coast and west coast oysters.  All I knew was that they were INCREDIBLE.  As Timone & Pumba taught Simba, "Slimy yet satisfying." I didn't realize how much I loved oysters until tonight.

Next up clams.  They were okay.  I thought that was the scallop ceviche, but they were sitting in clam shells so that didn't make sense.  We quickly moved on to the top of the tower.

Jumbo shrimp with spicy cocktail sauce.  Shrimp was fresh and sweet and the cocktail sauce was a great complement.

The mussels were great.  I don't know what the little sauce was on top of it, but it tasted great.  I usually eat mussels  hot sitting in broth, but these tasted pretty good cold.

That lobster was quite the challenge.  To start, we were ill equipped.  Rather than the great equipment I had on Sunday night, we were supplied with a less than stellar lobster cracker.  Ms. R went to work and was able to make sure we got the succulent lobster meat out of its shell.  The lobster was actually really tasty and we didn't really use any of the sauces.  We definitely saved the best for last.  We broke into the alaskan red king crab.  It was incredibly sweet which was quite shocking because I didn't expect it to taste so good!

After we finished, we were hoping our waitress would come over and we could order some dessert.  However, she let a whole lotta time pass and by the time she came back, we had to rush to get to the Blue Note.  She mentioned that she would have given us champagne and dessert.  When she returned with the check, she apologized, did not charge us for our refreshments and gave us some cookies in a bag.

Ms. R forgot the cookies in my bag, but I can say they were fantastic.  Big chocolate chunk cookies that left a big smile on my face!

Brotherly Lunch

As we get older, it's much more difficult to see my 3 brothers at once.  We all live in separate places and it's hard to coordinate all our schedules.  On occasion, our schedules overlap.  Today, 2 out of 3 of them were in midtown around lunch time.  So we decided to meet up for a quick lunch.  Of course, that meant going to one of my go to Thai spots.  We decided to go with Q2.

The appetizer was the same as last time.  Vegetable spring roll and salad with ginger dressing.

I switched up this time and went with the Crispy Tilapia on a bed of bok choy topped with sweet chili sauce.

Of course I had the side of white rice.  It was a very tasty meal.  The tilapia was cut into strips lightly battered and fried.  It was definitely not greasy, which is always nice when food is fried.  The sweet chili was amazing.  Sweet and spicy, loved it!!  Now I'm gonna have a much harder time making a choice when I go to Q2!

Whine & Cheese

Still stressed out from my week, but I escaped a little early today so I could spend time with Ms. H and hopefully be refreshed for work tomorrow.  Ms. H had the lovely idea of buying some cheese and having an evening indoors.  I'm not a big fan of cheese, but I'm trying.

We bought some brie and something else I can't remember.  Ms. H, do you recall? I had some club house crackers at home, as well as grapes and and apples.  We also had salted almonds a great complement to the cheeses.

As for Whine? Aside from my bitchin' about work, we also enjoyed some carmenere.