Posts Tagged ‘French’
Viva La Crepe! in Union Square
Whenever I’m in the Union Square vicinity craving something sweet, I feel like my choices are either Max Brenner or…Max Brenner. A few days ago after dinner in the area, my friends and I were trying to figure our game plan for dessert and we just as easily gave up and began heading for some chocolate by the bald man. We stopped in our tracks though when we caught a glimpse of Viva La Crêpe!
Viva la Crepe
The original outpost of Viva actually did start in Paris and grew to work its way stateside. They have a full savory and sweet menu, but the savory one might as well have not existed for us at that moment. We were busy trying to decide between dark chocolate, nutella, white chocolate, vanilla or chocolate ice cream, berries or almonds, etc. etc. We settled on a nutella/banana/almond/walnut/vanilla ice cream combo and a heavenly dark chocolate/berries/banana/vanilla ice cream one.
Dark chocolate ice cream crepe
The crepes are served in a little pocket you can hold while you munch. Just a word of advise if you’re getting it with ice cream, ask for it on the side 
. It makes devouring it a LOT easier.
Nutella crepe with ice cream on the side
Dinner at The Forge in Miami
So yeah, as I’ve mentioned, we’ve been eating a LOT in sunny, beautiful, gorgeous Miami. The fancier of the places we’ve been to is restaurateur Shareef Malnik’s The Forge.
The Forge
Yeah, I know, it looks like you’re walking into a palace. It kinda feels like that too. The grandiose exterior matches the opulent interior.
Fig & Olive in Meatpacking
The Meatpacking District may be best known for its night life, but that culture totally spills into their restaurants. There are doormen, lines, people dressed to the nines and menu prices that lets you know you’re paying probably as much to eat as you are to be seen eating there. Needless to say, God forbid you lose your reservation because now you’re all dressed up and stuck with a minimum two-hour wait at all the restaurants in the vicinity. That’s kind of what happened to us — only our saving grace was Fig & Olive.
After losing our 8pm reservation at Ajna Bar (formerly Buddha Bar…I had no idea they had changed their name either), we were stuck with waiting til midnight for the next slot. Across the street at STK, same story. After wandering a bit, we found Fig & Olive. The maître d’ was so nice and accommodating even though the five of us had just shown up without a reservation on a Saturday night. He said we could wait 15 minutes for an “unorthodox” table inside or a table outside. We opted to sit outside since it was a nice night. While we were waiting, the manager offered us drinks on the house. The service for the rest of the night fit the same standard — it was totally refreshing.
Crostinis Part One
Cafe Gitane in Nolita
The original plan was to visit Pulino’s, an inviting pizza/Italian restaurant I spotted on the corner of Bowery and Houston one night (more on that in a near-future post). But when Sarah and I got there after trekking 30 minutes in the pouring rain only to be told it was a 40-minute wait, we decided to wander around instead. Several round-about blocks later, we ran into another friend and a “local” who directed us to Cafe Gitane.
It’s a small, buzzy Northern Moroccan/French restaurant with a pretty fashionable crowd (couldn’t expect less in Nolita). By this time, we’re so hungry and everything looked great on the menu so we started off our 3-course meal with their baked feta with thyme, tomatoes and capers.
Baked Feta with capers, thyme, olives and tomatoes
It was pretty good, but I think I may have OD’d on the feta/thyme combo with my own cooking at home. Sarah went for a chicken baguette sandwich and I ordered a baked pasta with gorgonzola and roasted tomatoes. Both ended up being a lot more bland than we had hoped for.
More reasons to go to the Creperie
I love the Creperie’s sweet crepes, but their savory ones are fantastic too. I’ve mentioned a long time ago how this one goat cheese/sun dried tomatoes combo rocked my world. So I went back to the LES for more…because that’s what I do?
Savory crepe, goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes
Savory crepe, goat cheese and sun dried tomatoes $8
European dining at Bistrouge
bistrouge.com
bistrouge.com
Found a gem of a place in the East Village tonight: Bistrouge. I just wanted to stop by somewhere for coffee, and saw their “Coffee – Wine – Bread – Odyssey” canopy outside, so thought I’d stop by. It’s a small rustic place, brick walls and dim lighting with jazzy tunes playing in the background.
