The Weblog of Jake Simonds-Malamud

Cool, so I’m actually bloggin about the end of my trip!

New York rocks my socks off. First thing I remember Friday was lunch at Carnegie. Once Hell freezes over and I put the NYC pix on Flickr, you guys can see em, but until then, just imagine a sandwich-esque object the size of one of those antique telephones with the rotary pad. It was pretty huge. Like, you can’t fit it all in your mouth at one time. It’s heavan between two pieces of bread. As awesome as Artisinal was, there’s nothing like eating at Carnegie Deli. They have making corned beef down to a science, I tell you. It’s the perfect texture; not too dry, but not too tender. It pulls apart when you want it to, but holds together so that every bite you take, you think, “wow.” There is no better sandwich on our greenish planet.
After Carnegie, we headed down to the Apple store, where Nina tried, and expressed her complaints for, the iPhone. I want one more than a cat wants catnip. If that makes sense. Problem is, I suck at saving money, but I’m getting an iPhone. Then a guitar. Then a vespa. It’ll work. Trust me. Anyways, Nina says that if they put in a real keyboard and made it so that you could change the battery on your own that she would buy one. She knows it’s awesome, but she just doesn’t want to admit it. The new iMacs look great, and I’d rant about iLife and iWork, but I already have them. I spent most of the time loading this blog on the iPhone. And still only 4 hits! Come on, people!!! Anyhoo, that went pretty well.
Then we went and sat in Central Park and didn’t read the books I had carried around for people all day. We just sat and watched people walk, which in my opinion is much more enticing than 1984. After doing nothing for an hour and a half, we went to Nina’s relative’s house, played with the baby, had some Chai and Samosas, and went down to see our play.
We saw I love you, You’re perfect, Now change. It was relatively funny, but I don’t think it taught anyone anything. Unless they’ve led a very sheltered life. Then they might have learnt something. Anyways, it was very cute, and I would definitely reccomend it if you’re looking for an off-brodaway play, which in my opinion are often better than on-broadway productions. I’m into smaller things (think Blue Man Group). More audience interactivity.
After that, we got an OK dinner at a restaurant down the street at some diner. I got a cajun chicken sandwich, which was quite good, but insanely salty in some places, which doesn’t make for a great sandwich. We would have had a bigger dinner if it wasn’t for Carnegie, but I feel that, foodwise, it was a quite excellent day.
First major thing on Saturday was the street fair. They have everything
you could imagine, from iPod cases to lamb kabobs. Grandma judie refers
to all the merchandise as the “S.O.S:” Same Old Shit. While it did seem
to get repetative, there was some truely cool schtuff there. Anyways, then we met some of my dad’s old friends for lunch at Grand Central, where I finally got my Indian fix. Unless you count Chai and Samosas. But I had some pretty awesome chicken tikkah masala and chana masalah. A pretty good lunch for a train station. After that, we went home, caught a cab to the airport, and hopped on the plain back to ATLANTA!!!! WOO HOO!!!!!

Tags: Travel

OK, so in my last post I only gave Artisinal one sentence, and after having had diner there, I realized that it probably deserved a whole post. So, we went to the most awesome resteraunt, with the possible exceptions of Fogo de Chao or Panahar.
My first course was the best fondue I have ever had. It was Foundue d’Artisinal. That’s their fondue that has 100 (30-40) cheeses. I find it interesting that when we make fondue, we use 3 or 4 cheeses, and I would never, in my right mind, even think that 10 could go well together. However, Artisinal proved me wrong with the most delicous fondue I have had, as far as I can remember (no offense, dad).
Then came the onion soup. Probably some of the best I’ve had, except for in Belgium. It was salty, but not too salty, which is always a complaint with onion soup. It was served in a clay pot, with the cheese dripping down the sides. The cheese had a perfect brown on it, and you kept getting cheese as you progressed throughout the soup.
However, about 5 minutes into my Hors D’Oevre, out comes my dinner. I was confused, thinking that by no means in a french resteraunt would they bring you one dish before you were finished with the previous course, bbut as I pushed my soup aside and started on my steak, I realized that by the time I was done, the soup was the perfect temperature. Anyways, the steak was served in a delicious sauce, and cooked perfectly medium rare. I often find that when I order a steak medium rare it comes way to dry and tough, so I normally order them medium, and find that they’re well cooked. However, I had faith in these french peoples, and ordered up a medium rare steak frites. It came perfectly done, with perfect color throughout. The sauce in which it was served was also perfect, with the perfect compromise of sweet and salty. I think that’s also the one time I’ve eaten in a fancy resteraunt without feeling strange that my meal came with fries.
Before I get to dessert, I must tell you of a mishap that occured. My brother and I have what’s called G6PD Blood Enzyme Deficiency, which basically means that we can’t have fava beans. Ben is also vegitarian, and while everyone else ordered steak frites, he got Gniocci. Guess what was in the gniocci, besides tasty puffs of potatoey goodness? Fava beans. Danny, the scientist that he is, called over the Mâitre D’, and told him of this strange “disease.” (It’s like a cross between a disease and an allergy…I think) He was very nice, and even gave ben and I a tour of the kitchen, due entirely to the fact that danny “casually” mentioned the fact that ben and I watch “those chef shows.” The kitchen was amazing. It made Iron chef look organized, because when you think about it, Bobby Flay, or Masaharu Morimoto, or whoever’s up, has a whole hour to creat 20 meals. Within an hour in the Artisinal kitchen, they must have about an hour to prepare 100 dishes, or more. Granted, the Iron Chefs make their dishes from start to finish, and ingredients like sauce and broths are made ahead of time, but still. It’s insane. The head chef, a large man yelling out stuff into a microphone, explained to us in a stong (french?) accent where everything happened. Over all, I’m glad they didn’t put favas on the menu.
And finally, dessert. I got the best cheesecake that I have ever had. It was perfectly smooth, the crust was not too crunchy nor too soft, and…well, there wasn’t much else to it. Perfect cheesecake. If any of you are around the New York area and have $40 to get one of the best meals you’ve ever had (the Prix Fixe is $34), I would reccomend heading to Artisinal.