Megan Blocker

Misguided sense of responsibility to dinner? I'm not sure, but I've never been afraid to take one for the team. Ooooh, I'm so excited for you!!!

Reason #1 to love Strasbourg: You can stumble on a fabulous bar like Les Gayots with absolutely no effort whatsoever. Reason #2 to love Strasbourg: The cathedral - get this - is pink! Pink!!! The architecture in Strasbourg is really neat - a lot of the gothic and Renaissance architecture in other parts of Northern France fell victim in WWI and WWII to German bombs, but was spared in Strasbourg, due to the city's strategic and symbolic location - the Germans considered Strasbourg German, and the Allies considered its inhabitants French. It's an incredibly international city - its name means "town of the roads," and it's been a major center of trade and travel since the Romans founded the first settlement there - called Argentoratum - in 12 B.C. The city is now home to one of the locations of the European Parliament, and is the seat of the EU Court of Human Rights. Its university has 50,000 students, which, in a city of under 300,000, gives the place a wonderfully young and intellectual flavor. For such a small city, it feels incredibly cosmopolitan and diverse - it made me think of all the great things New York is on its good days (not that any place could EVER replace New York in my heart). (As you can probably tell, I really fell in love with Strasbourg.) The city is centered on an island in the River Ill called la Grande Ile - the Cathedral is toward the southern end of the island. In addition to the river, the city is full of canals, a dam, and various locks that move you from the upper to the lower level of the Ill (something we got to experience when we did the ultra-touristy, fabulously named Batorama trip around the city). It's an incredibly walkable city - flat, small, and full of pedestrian areas. The locals favor bikes and the tram system, which is quiet and efficient, and almost all windows - it feels like riding a people mover down the center of the street. On our first morning in Strasbourg, we got up at a relatively decent hour and stopped in at the hotel's breakfast buffet, which was more than serviceable (except for the constantly empty coffee urn). We then went to check out the inside of the cathedral...like Prague, Strasbourg has an astrological clock and some great gargoyles. After the oh-so-grueling tour of the cathedral, it was time for some more caffeine. We hit Cafe Montmarte on rue du Marche-des-vieux-Poissons for a cafe au lait. You know how we've put ads on the inside of bathroom stall doors here in NY? In France, they now put ads underneath the glass tabletops at cafes! We walked out to explore Petite France, the medieval tanners' district to the west of the Grande Ile. It's an adorable area, full of half-timbered houses that have survived since the 14th century. It's also very popular with the tourists, though it was far from crowded during the weekdays. We decided to have lunch at a little vinstub (wine bar/pub type place) called Au Pont Saint Martin. It was time to sample two more Alsatian classics: baeckeoffe and choucroute garnie. To drink, we had a half-bottle of Gewurtztraminer. Baeckeoffe is a casserole of sorts, a dish of beef, potatoes, onions, carrots, broth, wine, and pig's feet. It's baked for hours and served with a green salad in a mustardy vinaigrette. Of all the traditional Alsatian things we sampled in Strasbourg, this was my favorite. Brothy, fragrant, and rich, it goes so well with the Alsatian wines and with the salad... Louisa ordered the baeckeoffe that first day, and I ordered the choucroute garnie - "garnished sauerkraut." Kraut cooked in riesling, served with sausages, smoked meat, and boiled potatoes. I really enjoyed it - some of the sausages were really good - sadly, I don't know their names - but it just didn't entrance me the way the baeckeoffe did. That afternoon, after stopping back in at the hotel to pick up pens and notebooks and drop off packages, we went down to a salon de the we'd spotted earlier in the day. It's called Christian, and on one of our later walks around the city, we noticed that there seemed to be another location. We ate outside, with this view of the cathedral... Louisa managed to resist temptation, and only ordered tea. WIMP! I went for a chocolate eclair, and it turned out to be pretty much the best eclair ever. The pastry cream was devestatingly chocolatey - how do you suppose they did that? And the glaze was just sweet enough to cut through the richness of the cream...oooh, boy. C'etait incroyable. Some of the offerings inside Christian's boutique... After Christian, we went home for a quick rest and to get dressed for dinner...

Over in the the Elsewhere in Europe forum, I've been chronicling the beginning of my recent two-week jaunt to Europe - five days in Prague! In this topic, I'll be posting about my time in France - three days in Strasbourg, three in Champagne, and four in Paris. We start with the 12-hour train ride from Prague to Strasbourg... We left Prague around 9 AM, and were first on a train from Prague to Munich. The train was relatively empty, and we managed to snag a compartment for ourselves for the majority of the trip. The food cart came by once in the Czech Republic, and once more after we crossed the border into Germany. On the first go-round, we bought a seltzer water and a hot chocolate. Even the hot chocolate made from powder is EXCELLENT in the Czech Republic. Here's a shot of Louisa in our compartment. We rather fancied ourselves as riding the Hogwarts Express, in shades of grey. By the time we got to Munich around 3 PM, we were absolutely starving. We found an ATM (had to stock up on Euros) and snagged ourselves a doner kebab sandwich, topped with tzatziki and some pepper flakes. The sandwiches were like manna from heaven to the two of us - we hadn't been hungry in four days, and we weren't pleased with the feeling. Funny story about the sandwiches - the guy who sold them to us offered Louisa his phone number along with the sandwich...she told him she was married, but this didn't deter him. "Are you Canadian?" he asked hopefully. "No, American." "Oh. Huh." And a look of disgust. It was pretty hilarious. We got back on the train, this time without compartments, just rows, found our seats, and settled in for another five hours of train time. We really enjoyed the views of Germany that we glimpsed from the window - especially a tiny town nestled in the hills that we descended toward ever so slowly, and Ulm, where we had a great view of the Ulm Munster, the tallest church in the world. (Notre Dame de Strasbourg, which you'll see in a bit, used to claim the title, but is now the fourth-tallest.) On the way, we sampled the candy we picked up in the Munich Hauptbahnhof...some of the fruitiest, loveliest sour patch kids ever, some great gummy cherries, and a few other bits and pieces, the most unusual of which we photographed... These were sour and sweet, and dissolved into nothing in the mouth. This guy tasted like caramel marzipan... And, finally - a dried apple covered in chocolate. Rubbery and kinda icky, frankly. We finally rolled into Strasbourg at 9 PM, and promptly grabbed a cab from the Gare Centrale to our hotel, Hotel Cathedrale, which was (literally) right across from the Cathedral's western facade and main entrance. The view from our room, taken at sunset... That street running off down the left of the cathedral, toward the two-spired church in the distance, is rue des Freres, which is where we had dinner our first night. Invigorated by the cool, crisp Strasbourgeois air, the gorgeous architecture, and the fact that we could speak the language, we dumped our bags in our adorable room and headed out to Flam's, a restaurant devoted to the tarte flambee, one of Alsace's specialties. It's a pizza-like tart, with a really thin crust, cooked in a wood-burning oven and topped, in its most traditional form, with creme fraiche, lardons, and onions. Flam's was crowded and really warm, full mostly of students having a cheap, late, loud dinner - it's part of a chain of restaurants, and had the requisite menus with pictures on, but the food and wine were good, and our waitress was adorable. We both started with a salad, but were mostly psyched about the main event. Well, and the wine, too. We started with a pichet of Riesling, then switched to Pinot Noir with our tarte, which was half traditionelle, half champignons fraiches (just traditional with mushrooms added). The tart was delicious - crispy, but just bendy enough in the places where the creme fraiche had soaked in. The lardons were salty and smokey, and the onions had just a little bite. We both really liked it, and left feeling very positive about the virtues of Alsatian cooking. After dinner, we headed to a bar on rue des Freres - we'd spotted it on the way over to the restaurant. It's called Les Gayots, named for the courtyard onto which its back entrance opens. Since Strasbourg is a university town, we were a little nervous that it would be overrun with students. The students make themselves known, for sure, but this bar was a little older (skewed to the 25-50 demo), and was great fun. We sat at the bar and had some muscat, and were chided by a delightful guy (French, but went to UT Austin for university) for not ordering the Gewurtztraminer, which he claimed was "the best grape you can get." He was the first person we'd spoken with since we arrived, and he gave the city a ringing endorsement - something that turned out to be quite prophetic, given the excellent time we had over the following three days.

Prague was, by far, the cheapest leg of the trip. Meals at the more traditional restaurants were very reasonable, no more than $30-35 total for two people. Pravda was on a level with New York restaurants in price, coming in at about $200 for two, including wine, tip and tax. Hot chocolate was between 30-60 koruny (about 20-25 koruny to the dollar), so not too expensive, especially given the quality and the fact that it was served in sit-down places, not at a Starbucks. One odd thing we noticed (and there was a bit of this in France, too, though not on quite the same level) was the obsession with coin. Everyone wants it, and no one has it. When we arrived, our first stop was the ATM. The ATM's dispensed 500 and 1,000 koruny bills, and most places (including our hotel) refused to change them. So we spent the first couple of days building up our stores of coin (a link to a Wikipedia entry on the koruna can be found here). For instance, at the National Museum snack bar, we tried to buy two mineral waters (for a total of 80 koruny), but the cashier refused to take our 100 koruny bill. It was hilarious. Things got better on the Monday - maybe because banks were back open and people's stores of change were replenished? For whatever reason, it continually cracked us up.

I did that once. We requested a corner when we reserved, were seated 30 minutes late, and almost led to a straight-away. We reminded them of our corner request, and were seated accordingly with smiles.

The scones at Alice's Tea Cup here in NYC are quite moist, crunchy on the outside, and delicious. One day, I found a chunk of melting butter inside of one and realized why.

Ditto - I agree.

Our second night of traditional Czech food (at the same little restaurant, same little table) was an up night for me, a down one for Louisa. I had another mixed green salad to start, and Louisa had shopsky, which, based on my extensive research, seems to be a Bulgarian specialty. It was tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers, chopped up, topped with a vinaigrette, and covered in salty cheese. (No pics of the shopsky from that night, but scroll down to check out Cafe Louvre's version.) For my main course, I chose the Czech plate. This turned out to be three kinds of meat, plus a kielbasa-like sausage, served with a gravy and the traditional Czech dumplings. Now, they may know their way around a killer potato pancake, but the dumplings in "Czech lands" (as our guide to Terezin called it) leave something to be desired. I bought a "Czech Cookery" book on our last day in Prague, and it explained that the dumplings are essentially boiled rolls; one variety made of potato flour, and one of wheat flour. (Here's a link to a recipe I found online.) However, I also got two kinds of cabbage (yay!), and Louisa was kind enough to grace me with one of her potato pancakes. From left to right on the top of the plate, you've got potato dumplings, wheat dumplings, and the potato pancake. From left to right on the bottom, sausage, ham, beef, and a pork chop hiding. Also, the cabbage! Louisa got something that was named mysteriously (so mysteriously, in fact, that I cannot recall it), which turned out to be a veal chop topped with ham, white asparagus, and cheese. One note about most of this food - it was very salty. We noticed that the traditional food tended to be either very salty, very sweet, or bland. The condiments brought to the table helped alleviate this somewhat, but it was a definite trend. The next morning, we got up early (sunrise was our goal, but we didn't quite make it) to walk across the Charles Bridge in its relatively empty early-morning state. It was a drizzly day, so our fellow walkers were equipped with umbrellas...this is a view of the bridge, looking back toward Stare Mesto. We had a destination all planned out, a cafe in Mala Strana that was highly rated by The HG2, and which opened at 8 AM. However, when we got there at 8:30, it still wasn't open. Grrrrr...so, being all European and go-with-the-flow (at least for the two weeks we were on vacation), we found a restaurant called Sqaure, right around the corner from St. Niklaus. It's owned by the Kampa Group, the sort of Steve Hanson restaurant group of Prague. Louisa had hot porridge with fruit, and I had the continental breakfast - brioche toast, ham, parmesan, jam, and butter. It was good (Illy capuccinos to drink, BTW), but way overpriced. We hopped on the tram to head up to Prague Castle, where we spent an excellent morning looking at art, churches, architecture, and learning about the defenstration that precipitated the Thirty Years' War. Excellent times. After the Castle, we took the tram back down to the funicular, and rode up to the halfway point. There's a restaurant and a cafe there, and we thought it would be a neat (if hopelessly touristy - but we were tourists, after all) place to have our last lunch in Prague. The cafe only served drinks, so we opted for Restaurant Nebozizek, which had glass walls and amazing views. To start, I had a cucumber, tomato, and avocado salad, dressed with vinegar, oil, red onion, and "pickles!" Did I MENTION how much I loved all the cucumber? Louisa had a delicious (but really not photogenic), creamy salmon soup to start, and then another version of the arugula, parm, ham and pear salad... This one had some green leaf lettuce mixed in with the arugula, but it was still pretty good. I had a duck dish...duck breast with purple cabbage, white cabbage gnocchi, roasted apples, and crispy potatoes. I really enjoyed it, and it was so pretty! We were pretty full, plus we knew we'd be having an early dinner, so we opted for coffee only after the meal, and then headed outside to take some pictures of the view. That's Prague Castle, with Mala Strana just in front of it and the funicular stop in the foreground. That's Tyn Church in Old Town Square! For our last dinner in Prague, we went back to Cafe Louvre for some more hot chocolate and some quality time with our books. Louisa got ghoulash (her husband had been begging her to do so for days - every time they talked, it was ghoulash this and ghoulash that), and I decided to go for some pasta. But first, SHOPSKY! And bread. The pasta was billed as "spaghetti with garlic, cheese, chiles, and Italian bacon." It had all those things, but also tasted mysteriously un-Italian. Very odd. Not bad, just not Italian. And so, with a final cup of hot chocolate and a tram ride back to Namesti Republicky, we ended our time in Prague...we left the next morning for Strasbourg, and my continuing chronicle can be found over here!

My vote would be for Jean Georges over Nougatine...Lady M? You'd better let me know when you're here...I want to see your face when you taste that Mille Crepes! Don't forget Pegu (very convenient for pre- or post-Babbo). You might also have fun at Degustation, which is one of my very favorite places right now...

On day three, we booked a tour to Terezin through our hotel, and were told to be downstairs and ready to go by 10 AM. Now, 10 AM was earlier than we'd been getting out and about to this point, plus we knew we couldn't face Terezin on an empty stomach, so we got up a little early and hit the breakfast buffet in our hotel. We were pleasantly surprised by the offerings...it was a big buffet, with hot food (eggs, bacon, sausage), cold savory food (meats, cheeses, cucumbers (!), tomatoes), breads and rolls, yogurt, granola, cereal, juice, fruit...I had yogurt and granola, which were both really good. I then went back and grabbed us each a slice of the Czech bacon, which we really liked. It was slightly more cured than smokey, and more akin to pancetta than to American bacon. Quite yummy. After our outing to Terezin (which was extremely affecting and absolutely worthwhile), we needed a bit of a pick-me-up. Rehovot had emailed me boatloads of recommendations for my time in Prague, one of which was Cafe Louvre on Narodni. You walk up a flight of stairs and enter a lobby between a more formal restaurant and the casual cafe area, which looks like this: Even though we knew we'd be having dinner in a few hours, we were too hungry for just a snack. Luckily for us, the menu boasted a section called "meals for small hunger." Louisa had a delicious chicken ragout, flavored with worcestershire sauce and mustard, and served with toasts - almost British-tasting, really. I had an omelet with bacon, potatoes, and onions - it looked more like a frittata than an omelet, but whatever it was, it was goooood. Totally hit the spot. Our bread basket and placemats... For dessert we had - what else - hot chocolate! We then had a nice walk home past the Powder Gate and the Municipal Building...it was definitely time for a nap.

I KNEW you would know! I was hoping you might also know about the KFC phenomenon. I'm telling you, there's a great market strategy lesson to be learned there. Your recommendations are coming into play shortly, Rehovot... Thanks! Thanks, Chufi...it's good to be back. The opera was very good. I'd never seen Turandot before, and it's such a fun opera. I'd only ever been to the opera at the Met and at City Opera before this, so the experience was really different. Smaller (we didn't even need opera glasses), more casual, and the set was creaky. (Of course, I went to La Boheme two years ago at City Opera, and the snow they dropped made NOISE.) But Turandot WASN'T a screamer, and even though the tenor wasn't fabulous, he wisely saved everything he had for Nessun Dorma. Being in that space (and in the red velvet box) made me feel like I was in a scene straight out of Amadeus, though, which was priceless.

That night, we decided to try and find some traditional Czech food. My Rough Guide suggested a spot in the basement of the Municipal Building, which was on Namesti Republicky, just a block from our hotel on Trulharska. However, when we got there, the restaurant was closed! So, we wandered around Stare Mesto until we found a little place right behind Tyn Church We started with dark beer on tap - sorry for the blurry pics, but I was using my "night" setting to avoid using the flash! We both had a "salad mix," which had nice lettuce, good tomatoes, some corn, and cucumbers (!) - the dressing was milky and not terribly tasty, but thanks to the Czech custom of putting various condiments on the table (including vinegar, oil, and a vinegary hot sauce), I was able to spice things up a bit. For my main course, I had a pork cutlet "Verona style," which seemed to mean buttery, garlicky sauce, with coleslaw and frites on the side. Odd, but not bad. Louisa ordered well - half a roast duck and these DELICIOUS potato pancakes - they had these creamy centers that were just to die for. On the side, she had two kinds of cabbage. Delicious! That night, another lovely, cool walk home to the hotel. To be continued tomorrow, folks...still to come, one more night of traditional Czech food, and even more hot chocolate!

From Kavarna Slavia, we took a cab home to soak our tired feet and get ready for dinner out that night. We had decided to go to Pravda, a place we'd seen on our walk the day before. It's a beautiful space - all white, with high ceilings, mirrors, and red and black accents. The menu is really fun - very international, and each dish is named for a different country. I started with the "Scandanavia," which was seared scallops served on green bean puree with a strawberry sauce and mint foam. The strawberry and mint were delicious - the green bean puree was a little tasteless. My main was the "New Zealand," featuring - you guessed it - lamb. The lamb was grilled with rosemary and served with eggplant stuffed with goat cheese and peppers. For dessert, Louisa and I split the tiramisu, and we shared a split of Taittinger with the meal. After dinner, we went to Bugsy's, a block or two back toward Old Town Square, for a cocktail. We had high hopes, but were rather let down. I had a pretty tasteless Ramos Gin Fizz, but my second drink was definitely better. It was a champagne cocktail with calvados, apple juice, mint, and brown sugar - I really enjoyed it, but I still can't quite forget the fizz. One of the best parts of Prague was being able to walk home at night feeling completely safe - so that's what we did. The next day we got up a leeeettle late and decided to grab coffee at Ebel (a great coffee house with a couple of locations - I had a "long black coffee" and a bagel with cherry jam) before a walk over to the funicular up Petrin Hill. The walk was long, and we were psyched to ride the funicular up the hill and see the fantastic view. On the way, we passed a pastry shop on Karmelitska, where they were selling sunflower seed cookies and marzipan pigs. We walked back down toward Nerudova, a twisty little street in Mala Strana. We were headed for Cafe Carolina in the Hotel Neruda. Of course, what could I have but more hot chocolate? Louisa was a bit warm from the walk (as was I, it just didn't stop me), so she got the cold chocolate. To eat, I had the apple streudel, and Louisa had the honey cake! The hotel did a really neat job of modernizing the old courtyard space...and Louisa did a good job of enjoying her cold chocolate!

We really enjoyed the National Museum, especially the frescoes depicting several scenes in the history of Prague. Our favorite was the ploughman receiving the crown, even though he was replacing the female ruler whose vision had identified him as her successor. By the time we came out of the museum, the rain had stopped (though the sun had not reappeared). We decided to stop in at the Grand Hotel's Cafe Europa, and discovered what is undoubtedly the ultimate achievement of Czech cuisine (aside from their liberal use of the cucumber): hot chocolate. Europa's wasn't the best we had, but even as the worst, it was pretty damn good. Amazing. Thick, rich, dark - served with sugar on the side! (Neither of us used the sugar.) Loved the mugs! The interior of the Cafe Europa was very pretty - Art Nouveau architecture only slightly faded with time and tourists. We followed Narodni down to the river from the bottom of Wenceslas square, noting with awe the HUGE number of KFC's - can someone who knows more about the Czech Republic than I do explain the popularity of KFC in Prague? It's amazing the market penetration they have. After our walk down to the river, we decided a glass of wine was in order. We visited Kavarna Slavia, which is at 1 Narodni, right across from the National Thatre. We each had a quarter litre of the Frankovka, a Czech wine. Very drinkable!

On September 29th, LouisaWhite and I headed off on American Airlines, bound for Prague, Strasbourg, Champagne, and Paris. The French leg of our journey will be recounted in the France forum, but I'll be posting here about our time in Prague. We landed around 11:30 on Saturday morning after a breakfast of yogurt and shortbread on the plane from Brussels. We wanted to save room for dinner before the opera (we had tickets to Turandot at the State Opera), but I saw these during our walk through Stare Mesto (Old Town), and just had to try one. If anyone can tell me what it's called, that would be great! It almost seemed like a grilled puff pastry, with some nuts, cinnamon, and vanilla flavoring... And, of course, coated in lots of sugar. This is how they were made: We walked all over the right bank of the Vltava on our first day, then went home, showered, and got gussied up for l'opera! I snapped this picture as we walked along the riverbank on our first afternoon: We weren't sure where we would go for dinner. We hadn't really explored the area where the opera was, and had no idea how close we were to all the cafes on Wenceslas Square. So, we were really excited to discover that there was a restaurant right next door to the opera, called The Garden in the Opera (in English, at least...I've tried to find the name in Czech, but with no luck). No pictures from that dinner, but I can report that the room was really pretty and modern - it's in the Radio Free Europe building, and there are glass walls on two sides. Indoors it's got a definite botanical theme going on, with dried grasses and live flowers weaving through bamboo screens. Louisa started with an arugula, ham, parmesan and pears, a salad which seems to be quite popular in Prague right now. I had two head-on shrimp served in a buttery sauce with an edible flower salad on the side. We both had the "tagliarini piri-piri" for our main course - a chicken breast, coated with mysteriously crispy mix of spices, served with fresh pasta and a tikka masala-like sauce. I had a mojito to drink, and then we headed off to Turandot, and our box seats! The next day was my 27th birthday. I woke up early and took a long bath, and then Louisa and I headed off to explore more of Prague. It was pretty rainy, so we decided to head down to the National (Narodni) Museum at the top of Wenceslas Square (little did we know how close it was to the opera). On the way there, we stopped for lunch at Cafe Savarin on na Prokipe, a pedestrian street full of shopping arcades. Lunch for me was a capuccino and a chicken sandwich with "garlic cream," which I think was just aioli. Louisa had a cappucino and a savory crepe. The cafe was recommended by my Rough Guide and by Louisa's Hedonist's Guide to Prague, but neither of us was bowled over by the food. The coffee, however, was pretty good. We had the same brand (Darboven) in a couple of places, and loved it every time... From Savarin, we walked up Wenceslas Square toward the National Museum...

New York Media Digest - 10/23/06 Reviews Not Your Papa's Tapas Adam Platt reviews Boqueria, the latest addition to the tapas scene - two stars, no reservations. Features Ferran Adria, Molecular Gastronomist - Who, Me? A Q&A with Ferran Adria, food's "preeminent futurist," in town to promote Spain's tourism and gastronomy. Some interesting thoughts from the man himself... Openings and Buzz Recent Openings Openings include Sheep Station, Tinto Fino, Cafe Cluny, and Bar Martignetti. Insatiable Critic Porter House New York Gael visits Porter House, which has taken over V Steakhouse's TWC real estate.

...you have more pictures of food than of anything else from your European vacation.

ditto, perhaps we'll see eachother! The spains 10 thing was the only time I've ever run into a egulleter...can you believe that? I'm going tostart going to more events it was fun.... and back on topic...would most of you like to see more desserts on the menu? I wouldn't but that's just me, perhaps.... I could happily live without dessert most nights...wine, no. ← Hmmmm...would be great to see you! As for dessert...I don't always need it, but in the absence of coffee, I do enjoy something sweet. That said, I didn't really love the first two desserts, so I'm psyched to try the banana and chocolate creation.

I think I'm going to have to make a reservation here for sometime next week. Sweetbreads? Banana and chocolate? Awesome.

Danielle, I'm so excited to see you blogging! I'm afraid I've only made one trip to Chicago in my entire life, to look at Northwestern, and that was many more years ago than I would like to think about. Can't wait to watch you explore your new home (though we're sad not to have you here in the Big Apple, of course). Your kids are so cute!

New York Media Digest - 9/25/06 Reviews Tasty Adam Platt reviews the new, NoLIta version of the Tasting Room. Seems this new incarnation is a (relative - two stars) success. Features Grub Street, the new blog, has pretty much taken over the Features section of the Restaurant page. Recent posts include: - Will Text for Food - America's Amusingest Food Videos - Prune's Cynthia Rojas on Diners Shy and Naughty Openings and Buzz Recent Openings Openings include Porter House New York and STK. Insatiable Critic Picholine Gael visits the newly-renovated Picholine, and finds it to be good, if not great.

Wow, wow, wow. Cannot wait to see this thread unfold, Klary! I'm off to Europe on Friday, but I'll be checking in hourly till then. Sounds like you had an awesome trip - I'm glad you made it home safe. ETA: And I love that shot of the cheese on the bench - beeee-yoo-tee-ful.

I think a nice Vodka and Tonic would be nice. ←

Right. Duh. As a native New Yorker I should have known that. ← Don't beat yourself up, John...as I recall, during my blog, there was quite a lengthy conversation about neighborhood names. People are OBSESSED, and no one is quite sure what's a realtor's creation and what's truly been adopted by the masses.

En is on Hudson and Leroy, which is a block or two north of Houston, so I think it falls in the WV. I am not sure what you would call the area South of Houston to Canal? Anyone? ← SoHo? ETA: Wow, the kitchen looks AWESOME.