Month: January 2009

Restaurant Review: Le Pain Quotidien

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As mentioned, I accidentally went out to dinner last night after the movie. Whoops! Maybe I couldn’t afford it, but it was sooooo good. Gina, Kate, the Feld, and I went to Union Square’s Le Pain Quotidien, a bakery/boulangerie chain that has recently added several new locations throughout the city. The specials board pulled us in:

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Restaurants seem to be all about philosophies these days, and Le Pain Quotidien is no exception. From the menu:

“The idea behind Le Pain Quotidien is simply to make a good daily bread, a handmade bread with a good crust and a firm slice, the kind of bread that makes great tartines. Bread not only to nourish the body, but the spirits as well. A bread best shared around a table, to be savored among friends.”

Normally, I’m not so into chains, but this one was right there and we were
cold. As soon as we crossed the threshold, all chain skepticism vanished because the decor was so simple and sparse that we felt as though we were inside an authentic French country farm kitchen.

Gina ordered the Garden Quiche, and it takes the prize for the best looking quiche I’ve ever seen. I had one bite and discovered it was also the fluffiest and lightest quiche I’ve ever tasted. Usually quiches turn me off because they are dense and slimy, but not this beauty:

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The Feld and I split the Goat Cheese & Arugula Salad with parmesan, toasted pine nuts, olive oil, and lemon (530 calories, as the menu so bluntly stated):

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And the Ricotta Tartine (this is what Kate got, too) with mission figs, diced tomatoes, black pepper, and organic acacia honey (390 calories):

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Here’s my portion of salad:

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This salad had everything I love. I think it was designed just for me with these huge slivers of parmesan, mmmmm:

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Here’s my portion of the tartine:

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It was superbly delicious as well! I want to be able to balance all these exclamations of perfection with some complaints, but I can’t. Figs, ricotta, and honey can’t help but form a magical food trinity:

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Then, the Feld had a brilliant idea! She topped her tartine pieces with some of the parmesan from the salad and gave me a bite:

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The parmesan added just the right touch of saltiness to transform the tartine into a salty-sweet masterpiece. And for all of this deliciousness, I only spent $14, including tax and tip! (The price only becomes a problem when I factor in the $12.50 I had just spent on the movie and the $19 I had spent on dinner the night before. Oh well, I will make it up.) Definitely worth it.

The only downside was temperature. The restaurant was pretty drafty thanks to a side door that randoms kept using to come in from the street. I spent the last half hour fully bundled in my scarf and coat!

I took a picture of us, but again, we looked so cold and bedraggled in it (it’s just not prime photo season, is it??) so here’s one from July when we were neither cold nor bedraggled. L to R — Kate, Q (who couldn’t make it tonight but was present for this brunch), me, the Feld, and Gina:

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And you know I couldn’t leave the restaurant without a little somethin’ somethin’ to bring home so, at the urging of the others, I wrapped these in a napkin and stuffed them into my purse:

hunk of French bread, slice of "organic wheat" bread

hunk of French bread, slice of "organic wheat" bread

Perhaps there is French toast in my future???

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Before I left for the movie, I threw together a very quick and very late lunch. I heated the rest of Thursday night’s steamed cabbage in the oven and topped it with the last of my sofrito sauce:

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And of course, because every meal must end with something sweet, a toasted Chocolate Fig VitaTop with a tsp of peanut butter, a half cup of chopped strawberries and cantaloupe, and a drizzle of yogurt:

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Because I can’t help taking 10,000 close-ups:

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After the movie (Bride Wars — a little bit cute and funny … a big bit sickeningly predictable and superficial), I accidentally went out to dinner with the girls (review to come) and put myself over-budget on entertainment spending before the week has even begun. Dear Sarah: You are not allowed to engage in any social events requiring money for at least one week. Sincerely, your bank account.

After dinner, I decided to hit up the Food Emporium right by the subway station. Holy expensiveness! I used to shop at Food Emporium all the time without realizing the ridiculousness of their prices … but that was pre-grad school when I had an actual income and before I figured out how to prepare fresh food. Everything cost 2-3 times what I usually pay in Brooklyn and I was soooo tempted to abort the mission, but I kept thinking about how much I did not want to have to drag myself to the store tomorrow in the snow. I spent $16 for this paltry showing:

bananas (3), oranges (3), red pepper, red cabbage, dried chickpeas, dried lentils, gallon skim, carrots

bananas (3), oranges (3), red pepper, red cabbage, dried chickpeas, dried lentils, gallon skim, carrots

Right now, I’m preparing my yogurt for its overnight incubation, clearing the fridge of roommate-forgotten rotten produce, and enjoying this little late-night snack:

sugar cookie tea and a freezer-saved conference room cookie from work!

sugar cookie tea and a freezer-saved conference room cookie from work!

Night night night!

Lazy brunch

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All week long, thanks to this and this, I’ve had a pancake craving snowballing out of control. I was ready to take action when I woke up this morning, so I developed a single-serving recipe for Apple-Cinnamon Pancakes with Peanut Sauce.

Hot off the pan:

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All seven pancakes topped with the sauce and flanked by Nutcracker Sweet tea and a bowl of cantaloupe and strawberries:

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I dumped the bowl of fruit on top of the pancakes because I’m a mixer:

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Yum! Despite the laziness, it’s been a productive morning because I have (1) satisfied my pancake craving and (2) completed four loads of laundry. Next up: Bride Wars with the girls!

Restaurant Review: Ayurveda Cafe

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Last night, I met my friends Shaina and Sharon for dinner at The Ayurveda Cafe, a vegetarian Indian restaurant on the Upper West Side. I first met Shaina and Sharon about two years ago when we all happened to be on the same Birthright Israel trip. (Have you heard of Birthright Israel?? If you have any Jewish in you, you are eligible to go on an all-expenses-paid 10-day trip to Israel — amaaaaazing.) I asked the waitress to take a picture of us at the restaurant, but we looked cold and tired, so I thought a peek at our Israeli adventures would be better.

Shaina and me riding a camel

Shaina and me riding a camel

Sharon and me on our tour bus

Sharon and me on our tour bus

Anyway, the three of us went to this lovely restaurant last night. From the restaurant’s webpage: “Ayurveda is very clear when it comes to food. Sattvic (pure) food is needed to heal and maintain good health and must incorporate six tastes in every meal: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent and pungent. At Ayurveda Cafe we believe food cooked and served with compassion adds a powerful value to the dining experience. That power may be invisible to the human eye but it can be felt by you.”

Doesn’t it sound exciting already? Not to mention that those six tastes came all bundled together in the one dinner option, a fixed priced meal for $14 that included an appetizer, two vegetable entrees, lentils, bread, basmati or brown rice, salad, raita and dessert. Oh, and I forgot to mention that everything is unlimitied. Yes, they do free refills!

Since the menu is fixed price and changes daily, the proper names for the dishes are not listed. The only thing I can label for sure when it comes to Indian food is chicken tikka masala, so I will let the photos do the talking. Feel free to jump in if you know something official!

Our appetizer was these standard crackerish pieces:img_1608

With assorted herb-y, sweet, and onion-y chutneys:

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I had one of the crackers with lots of each dip.

Here’s my dinner plate. Look at all the tastes!

black bean samosa-ish nugget and brown rice

back: yogurt raita and salad; center: sweet root vegetable stew?, salty/spicy potato stew?, lentils; front: black bean samosa-ish nugget and brown rice

I ate half the rice (probably about 3/4 of a cup) and everything pictured (though I ate around the potatoes in the middle dish). I took advantage of the free refills to get another salad and raita.

Dessert was a sweetened mash of chickpea flour called besan halwa. It tasted a little peanutty and had the grainy kind of texture that I love. I obviously opted for seconds on this, too:

bowl one

bowl one

bowl two

bowl two

And, of course, Indian food isn’t Indian food without the tray of “birdseed”:

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I had several spoonfuls of these:

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And then made myself a tasting dish (or two) of everything:

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I brought home those cardamom pods (top center) for experimenting because I LOVE cardamom but have only used it in its ground form. I’ll have to look into what I can do with them:

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Also, a little box with a “take one” message sat on what I’ll refer to as the restaurant’s “ambience table”:

the tall thing behind the tray of birdseed is the box

the tall thing behind the tray of birdseed is the box

Inside the box were tons of paper fortune strips. Tell me mine doesn’t sound distressingly ominous: “A fear that captures our whole attention generates the repetition of negative images and affirmations. It holds within it the power to materialise itself into reality.”

Scary fortune aside, I left the restaurant feeling full of (ok, stuffed with) healthy and compassionate foods. And I stayed within my weekly entertainment budget of $20! I am officially a fan of The Ayurveda Cafe.

Brown bag Q&A

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Today, as intended, I finished the last bits of lunch that I prepared on Sunday. Pork & beans, sofrito rice, yogurt/fruit, carrots, orange, and an apple and a mini-Luna (my backup-emergency-snack and my because-it’s-Friday-snack, both of which I definitely ate):

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Total food expenditure for the week: $30 groceries, $10 specialty teas (hello Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea!), and $19 restaurant (from tonight’s dinner … review to come). I am ready to start a fresh week with new food tomorrow!

Have I mentioned before that I sit next to a candy jar at work?? I try to limit myself to 3-5 mints per day solely for “breath freshening,” but some days, like today, I just go crazy and start walking to the jar every 30 seconds for fruity tootsie rolls, dumdum lollipops, mini candy canes, etc. So it’s pretty safe to make a daily assumption that I’ve had about 3-5 hard candies (or 8-10 on a day like today) in addition to what I picture!

Also, I received a question about what kind of bag I use for carrying my lunch tupperwares to work. First, in case you can’t tell, my tupperwares are single serving-sized, as opposed to average-sized tupperwares that probably fit 3-4 servings. The two larger tupperwares in the picture above hold one cup each, and the smaller one holds 1/2 cup. I can fit everything pictured, including my 28 oz. klean kanteen water bottle, into my BuiltNY lunch bag:

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My sister-in-law and brother gave the lunch bag to me (packed with airplane snacks to keep me going for the whole trip back!) when I visited them in San Francisco about a year ago, and I’ve probably used it every weekday since to pack and carry my lunches. It’s perfectly stretchy and durable — and it never fails to fit my lunch buffet!