Yes, this is an actual example of an apartment at The W, located at 123 Washington St. in the Financial District.  This room is part of an apartment being touted as a “bachelor pad”, one of the 10 units on the 55th and 56th floors that were staged by a total of 22 different decorators.  They could have all been done by one person for all the originality they showed.  How about  that neon “PULSE” sign over the bed.  Seriously?  Fake fur throws and flokati rugs showed up all over the place.  It was as though they had slaughtered a flokati elephant and scattered its hide throughout the showrooms.

Okay, I have to admit, the views are pretty spectacular.  They have to be to make up for the tiny rooms.  The very commendable purpose of the Showhouse is to raise money for Lenox Hill Hospital, but it was also a vehicle to promote the unsold sponsor units.  There are currently 25 or so units on the market for sale (not all sponsor units) and most of these are also for rent.  I’ve been to other promotional events where they plied us with Champagne and delicious hors d’oeuvres.  At this one, the “drinks and nibbles”  were screw-top wine, various salumi and a couple of cheeses, definitely a low-budget affair. 

The view from the roof, though, was unarguably sublime, especially as the sun broke through the clouds and illuminated the Brooklyn highlands.

Anyone thinking of buying one of these needs to have a highly skilled negotiator on their side (moi, for instance).  Many of the sold units went for as much as 25% below the asking price, and the current availabilities are sitting there unsold, in a market where properties that are priced correctly go within days.

On June 5, I attended a fund-raiser for COCOON Goutte d’Or, Paris, a public space sculpture by the artist Kate Browne. Cocoon is a crowd-and locally-sourced outdoor sculpture performance project that Kate has produced in Cragsmoor, New York, Mexico City and in  Greenwood and Jackson, Mississippi.  Another has begun in the South Bronx, and the Paris Cocoon is planned for October 2014. Kate organizes local residents to build the cocoons, with the idea of promoting the interaction of people of various races, ethnicities and cultural backgrounds within a neighborhood.  The Goutte d’Or is a working-class area in the 18th Arrondissement with a large North African and Sub-Saharan presence, along with Eastern Europeans and native Parisians.  It’s not the Paris most tourists would venture into, but if you have plans to be in Paris in the Fall, you might make it a destination.

The event was held at the home of Kate and her husband, photographer Eric Etheridge, in the West Village.  For more information about the Cocoon project, view this link:

http://brownebarnes.com/

The event also featured a talk by Bob Zellner, a civil rights activist and author of Wrong Side of Murder Creek, who shared his experiences of local organizing in the 1960s South and today with Moral Mondays.  Bob has been an inspiration to Kate in her efforts to organize communities to participate in the Cocoon projects.

 There were about 40 or 50 people in attendance, and it was a very lively and engaging crowd.

Dinner at Riverpark this past Thursday was a wow! We’ve been there a number of times, and the food just seems to get better and better.  Started with a pea flan with peekytoe crab salad, which was the essence of Spring, and crispy sweetbreads.  Stanley had brisket ravioli for the main course, and it was scrumptious, but the piece de resistance was my Southern style rabbit.  This was an assortment of various rabbit parts, each prepared in a different way.  The various flavors blended harmoniously while offering an interesting contrast.  We drank Sierra Nevada Porter, which was a perfect match for the food.  For dessert we shared a banana peanut sundae.   This was heavenly.

With its out-of-the-way location on the East River at 29th St., it’s not the easiest place to get to, but it is worth the trek.  The prices are not low, but for the quality of the food and the innovative combinations, it’s well worth the tariff.

Website: http://www.riverparknyc.com/

This is a simple recipe I developed that has been a big hit every time I’ve served it.   The tartness of the grapefruit contrasts beautifully with the sweetness of  the scallops to make a refreshing and light summer dish.

For 4 people:

1 lb. scallops, each scallop sliced into 3 thin rounds

2  red grapefruit, cut in half and sectioned

1 jalapeno pepper, diced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1/4 cup olive oil

Salt and fresh-ground pepper to taste

Put the grapefruit sections in a small bowl.  Squeeze the remaining juice from the grapefruit into a larger bowl.  As the sections sit, occasionally drain juice from them into bowl.

For the vinaigrette, add the olive oil, garlic, cilantro, jalapeno, salt and pepper to the juice, and whisk the mixture together .

Spread scallop slices on plates in a single layer. Mix grapefruit pieces into vinaigrette, and spoon over scallops. Let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Note: vinaigrette can be made in advance and refrigerated, but don’t add the cilantro until shortly before serving.

Started working on hotels, and made a small change to the itinerary. We will pick up a rental car at Madrid airport and visit Leon, Burgos, Santiago de Compostela, Salamanca, Cadiz, Malaga, and Granada before returning from Madrid.  I have chosen the following hotels, based on Tripadvisor reviews, and am confident these are great choices, and great bargains (average of $67 per night):

Leon – La Posada Regia

Santiago de Compostela – Hotel Avenida

Salamanca – Condal

Cadiz – Las Cortes de Cadiz

Granada – Plaza Nueva

Madrid – Vita Ingles

We’ve been to Malaga, Granada and Madrid before, but the rest of the cities, particularly in the Northwest, will be new to us.

Now to start working on restaurant plans!

When we have a yen for Szechuan food, we go to Legend, which is in our neighborhood and is quite good.  I’ve been reading all the praise for Szechuan Gourmet for quite some time, and finally decided to give it a try.  Judging by the dishes we had, the food here beats Legend, though service and ambience are a notch below.  The decor is pretty basic.  We started with dan dan noodles and pork wontons in red sesame oil, both excellent.  The main courses really stood out.  Lamb with cumin, which was dry and overdone when we had it at Legend, was tender, moist and well-spiced here.  The Chengdu prawns, with asparagus, garlic, and pickled peppers, were plump and delicious.  Legend will still be our local fallback, but SG is our new favorite.

Revisited The Gander last night.  We had been there last month for a friends and family preview dinner and were favorably impressed.  This is the new venture of Jesse Schenker, chef-owner of Recette in the West Village, which has been a favorite of ours for several years.

The Gander is a large, comfortable space, the staff is very conscientious, and the food is quite good.  We were seated in the corner table as you enter the main dining room, seen directly above in the picture.

We started with the buffalo sweetbreads, a dish that is also served at Recette, and it was wonderful. We are great fans of sweetbreads, and this is a preparation we will definitely want to copy, even as a summer dish. We also shared the calamari salad, which was nice except the calamari spent just a bit too much time in the fryer.  Next we were given an extra dish, spaghetti with clams, and though the clams could have been just a little less cooked, this was an exceptionally tasty dish with great flavor combinations.  For mains we had the pork chop and the suckling pig.  When they arrived, however, the halibut was offered instead of the pork chop. We pointed this out, and they very quickly produced a perfectly done pork chop, but the abject apologies were such that, had Francois Vatel been in the kitchen, he certainly would not have been long for this world! Despite being very filled, we could not resist sharing a chocolate custard for dessert, and it was just right, rich-tasting but very light.

The wine list is generally pricey but I found a great 2011 Minervois for $40.  I always appreciate when the lower end of the list is well-chosen.  On our first visit, for the preview before opening, there were obviously a great many oenophiles present, which we deduced from strategic eavesdropping. The wine cellar here is a point of pride, but is wisely stocked to be accessible at different price levels.

Thursday night we had dinner with our friend Dean, who had not been to Andanada before, so we thought it would be a nice experience for him.  We’ve been a number of times, and always have a great meal.  This time was no exception.  We had a short wait for our table, and were given a round of drinks on the house.  I had a cucumber mojo, which was delicious and refreshing.  There is a huge selection of tapas, which can be appetizers or ordered in multiples in place of main courses.  They are of generous size so are suitable for sharing.  We started with scallop tartar, razor clams, and scorpion fish flan with eggplant caviar.  The flan preparation (a pate really) was different from when I’ve had it before, and unfortunately  a bit one-dimensional, good but not wonderful. For main courses, Stanley and I had paella with chicken, rabbit, pork belly and chorizo, and Dean had red snapper with saffron and fennel.  We shared a dessert of chocolate mousse with citrus ice cream that was very delicious.  A bottle of La Casilla 2008 was very good value.

There are a huge number of restaurants on the Upper West Side, but few are outstanding.  Andanada is a gem.

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We hadn’t been to Spina in several months, so decided to go last night and had a very enjoyable meal.  Started with meatballs and a beet salad, then chestnut pappardelle with duck confit and goat cheese gnocchi with wild mushrooms and a truffle-flavored cream sauce.  All pastas are made in-house, and while there is a limited selection of other main courses, pasta is really what they specialize in. They have a nice selection of beers on tap, our favorite being Breckenridge vanilla porter.  A lovely dinner, reasonably priced, in a nice setting with excellent service.

Thursday night we had dinner at Kin Shop, chef/owner Harold Dieterle’s take on Thai food, and a long-time favorite of ours.  As always, the food was delicious.  There were several interesting specials, including steamed clams with sour sausage and grilled octopus, which we had for appetizers.  They were really well spiced and perfectly cooked. For the main course, we had the goat massaman curry and a khao soi of guinea hen, along with a side of sticky rice.  The khao soi was a very welcome addition to the regular menu. It is done in the Northern Thai style, with fried noodles and a coconut curry sauce. 

They did not have Beer Lao, which is what we like best with Thai food, so we tried Monk’s Cafe Flemish Sour Ale, which was quite good.  The sourness offset the spiciness of the food very nicely.