Eating in NYC: Day One

I just returned from five days in New York City with four wonderful women, and I just had to create a blog series based on the amazing food we had while we were there.

I was in charge of dinner reservations, and we were loaded for bear! I left lunches open, to be decided based on wherever we happened to be in the city at the time.

We arrived Thursday afternoon and headed to our hotel, the Millennium Broadway, located on West 44th Street in Midtown.

The Millennium Broadway

Our hotel was located half a block from Times Square, so we walked over to check out the hustle and bustle. Realizing we needed a snack and a cocktail to tide us over until dinner, we opted for Blue Fin, which is located in the W Hotel.

We sat in the bar area, which offered an incredible view of Times Square. With floor to ceiling windows, we had the perfect location to people-watch...and it was plenty entertaining. I am borrowing a photo from their website so you can get an idea of what a great spot it was.

Photo courtesy of Blue Fin website

The restaurant is known for their sushi, so we placed a few orders of the California roll (for the sushi-scared person at our table) and the New Yorker roll, which consisted of shrimp, salmon, asparagus, and king oyster mushrooms, topped with a truffle soy aioli. What a great choice! I loved the crunch from the asparagus and the combined flavor of all of the different (and unusual) ingredients. The sauce on top was the ideal complement.

New Yorker in front, California in back

For dinner, one of the members of our group had requested Italian, so I booked us a table at Carmine's in the Theater District. While I could have chosen a restaurant in Little Italy, Carmine's is a New York institution, a legendary tradition, and where I always took out-of-town guests who visited me there. (We would make it to Little Italy later in trip). Plus, it is located about a block away from our hotel.

Photos courtesy of Carmine's website

Carmine's is a family-style restaurant, so you just order several dishes for your group to share. We knew we wanted a salad and two main dishes. While we were deciding, a man in the party next to us pushed away from the table and said, "Whew. I'm done." We asked what they had, and he said, "the best lasagna I have ever eaten." Done. We added shrimp scampi over angel hair pasta to round out our entrees.

I have no idea what happened (below), but before I could even get a picture of our food, the huge platter of lasagna was nearly gone. We were animals! I can't pinpoint exactly what made this such a standout dish, but we all agreed it was indeed the best lasagna we had ever eaten!

Stuffed to the gills already, we not only decided to order dessert...but the largest one on the menu, the Titanic. The bottom layer was a warm, rich brownie, which was then topped with chocolate and vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, hazelnuts, strawberries, bananas, pineapple, and both hot fudge and caramel sauce. It was ridiculous...and out of this world.

As the (same) man remarked upon surveying the remains of our dinner, we acted like "little piggies." We should have been more conservative on our first night, because there was much more food to come during the trip!

Stay tuned...