Gabriela's

April 27th-

After work, Nathan and I met at the bar at Gabriela's for a drink and some dinner. We consider it our neighborhood "go to" for a casual drink, since it is so close to our place, and never feels stuffy or formal. A great place to relax. As we snack on the complimentary chips and salsa, (which, by the way, taste a lot better with a side of sour cream), we ordered our usual....classic margaritas with salt....never do they disappoint. For an appetizer, we chose the Ceviche Campenchano. It is filled with shrimp, octopus, fish, avocado, tomato, and lime juice.......so refreshingly good. Then, we moved on to one of our favorites......Pescado (fish) Tacos. The tacos are consistently good, well seasoned, and full of flavor. However, I would have preferred them with a hard taco shell. The soft shell just does not give the dish enough texture. That being said, I will keep returning over and over again.....I think the bartender already knows me.

The House / Olives

April 25th-

After seeing Eden at the Tribeca Film Festival, we went to The House in Gramercy Park at 10:00 pm for dinner. For our appetizers, we ordered Mini Lamb Burgers and Mushrooms with Polenta. I thought the highlight would be the lamb burgers. I was wrong. The lamb didn’t have much flavor, and was overcooked. However, the mushrooms with polenta was to die for! The mushrooms were cooked so perfectly. They were so rich. The polenta was made with marscapone which gave it a very smooth texture and slightly sweet taste…..amazing! Then, we ordered the Lobster Club which was disappointing. They could have just as well left the lobster out, because we couldn’t taste it anyway. Even after making the heavily toasted triangle of sandwich into an open-faced version of itself, I still could not distinguish any hint of lobster…..just toast, tomatoes and arugula. Since we only scored one out of three, we had port and scotch for dessert, which by the way, did not disappoint. Afterwards, we shot into the bar at Olives to find shelter from the rain that we were not prepared for, and warmed up by continuing with a second scotch. The vibe was lively, modern and fun…..great place for a drink and some private conversation.

Elettaria

April, 19th-

Nathan and I went to Elettaria, located in the village, at 8:30 pm. The atmosphere was dark and cozy….low wooden ceilings…..nice vibe at the bar….the kitchen in the back is entirely open and bright white. The tables, however were way too close together, and offered absolutely no privacy. In fact, it was impossible not to hear every word the two older gentlemen next to us uttered…at least some of their conversation was about the love of a dog. The service was a little slow, but they’re new, so that is par for the course. The waitresses wear these shiny forest green jester-looking uniforms that look like they came from the middle ages. Both of the cocktails, the Kentucky Firing Squad (Nathan) and the Eastern Sour (me) were very tasty…..not too watered down. For our first appetizer we had the Crabmeat Resala, which surprisingly came with quite a bit of delicious, sweet crab, but the gnocchi were strange little fried teeny weeny hush puppy like pellets…..not too tasty. We also had the Lamb Sausage with came with raita. This was absolutely the best thing I ate at the restaurant. It was just one four inch piece of sausage, and I wanted more! So delish! We shared the Halibut in coconut, with fingerlings and tapioca which we both found to be overcooked a bit. It was very mild, nothing special. We could do a better job ourselves at home. None of the plates were big portions, so we tried dessert as well…..the Chocolate Financier. It was described as having a curry peanut ganach and chocolate brittle, so I was interested. The brittle was great. The rest was not. I would come back, order the fun cocktails at the bar and nibble on the appetizers in the future.