Tag: New York City

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24×7 dinner for the locals crowd locks it’s doors

Restaurant Florent, a namesake in the Meat Packing Districts, late night dinning scene – if drunken pommes frites, mac and cheese, and roulade of chicken breast qualifies as even “late night” – is closing its doors for good.

Florent was not a huge money maker, a landmark of New York, nor did Florent open his establishment looking to become a celebrity hot spot or institution; in fact quite the opposite. Florent Morellet opened 23 years ago, a reliable French bistro for all hours, welcoming all the transsexual prostitutes, nightlife kids freaking on tabs and weird sex pervs; and then the DB heaven of Meat Packing District moved in and swept the fun out of the hood. Florent continued to be that familiar afterhours joint to refill after a full on night of glory, similar to my youthful hangouts of Lyons in San Ramon, CA, Denny’s in Emeryville, or Nations in Daily City (only not nearly as good).

My few personal exploits at Florent were typically at unrespectable hours for any last drops of entertainment, character watching and imbibing I could squeeze out of the hole that is MPD. The closure of Florent is not personally lugubrious, but represents another death in the soul of a city that continues to clear established local merchants that support local art, culture and causes, by raising rents to house the cookie cutter clubs, big box pushing/high end conglomerates and stylishless touist traps. Only one more reason I don’t venture to far to the west side.

NY Times has a review of the restaurant people and history.

UPDATE: NY Times talks about the final days

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Regional Vino, great NYC restauranter food and Charity!

I sit near the window the first of many humid evenings to come, enjoying a Three Philosophers brew from the Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown, NY, which I was given by the Union Beer Distributors purveying at the Toast To The Children charity event I attended for the Children of Bellevue (CoB); held this evening at the Mandarin Oriental in Columbus Circle.

CoB is an event I’ve attended for two years now, thanks to several generous friends that have introduced me to the event and the cause that they work with. I’ve always donated since either my participation or fund to the developmental and social needs of pediatric patients at the hospital for which this event inspires. The event itself is an excellent draw of small plate samplings of some of the best restaurants in NY (Per Se, Craft, Hearth, A Voce to name a few), great international wine tastings, locally distributed brews, some jazz entertainment (noted this evening closer to live muzak) and a silent auction which offers everything from trips for the kids, a selection of Cuban cigars, jazz concert tickets, tennis lessons, art, symphony, restaurant gift certs and TV show tickets to local talk shows. It’s been rare that I win something as I’m not the guy that stays till the last minutes to ensure I get the last bid as I see some are serious enough to do so.

This evening some of my favorites were here: A voce had a great rigatoni with a lamb sauce, Craft and one of my top dishes with a pork butt lettus wrap, Tailor had a good pork belly, Perilla had great scallops served in their shell and Hearth offered a thinly shaved octopus app that was excellent as well. This year there were more wines and less beers. I sampled all the wines except the South African’s and found the Italian wines offered a better range, depth and nose (Great Montalcino); and then the French and a very nice Rhone blend Rasteau.

While at the event I bumped into Tom Colicchio, a board member for the cause and one of the purveyors of the best food offered this evening (Craft). He was chatting up Marco Canora, the head chef at Hearth. I found the exchange much friendlier than I perceived Tom from his demeanor on Top Chef (the only “reality” show I watch on cable), until I understood the history.

When Marco was sous chef at Gramercy Tavern, Tom’s first established ventures in NY, Tom pulled Marco to helm Craft in 2001 and soon grew the brand to include Craftsteak, Craftbar, ‘wichcraft and established ventures in Tokyo and Vegas.

Unfortunately I didn’t win any of the auction items this round but I did make friends with the brew masters and took home some samples (to much embarrassment of my fiancee – apparently it’s a faux pas to take home booze from a charity event – it was only getting trashed and how could I let that happen to good beer?!?). The gift bags were a little light this year, with only a few magazines, some pistachio chocolate “bark” and a Tava drink. Last year I received a $500 gift cert to H Stern and some health spa discounts.

The event was fantastic over all, the children will hopefully benefit from the money raised and donated excursions and influx of attention that’s much needed to assist these kids, and my palate and stomach are satisfied with plenty of wine and food from the evening… Looking forward to next year.

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Black Tie Wedding

I was looking for weeks for an alternative to that small print on our friend’s wedding invitation “Black Tie”. What does that really mean? Can I get away with a black suit? Do I have to buy this tux I won’t wear again? … Ultimately yes, was the answer so I went out to Syms and picked up a clean Joseph Abboud Tux and some Boss shirt and accessories for the gig.

After going through the same pain I’m going through in picking a spot, the bride picked the Union Club for their digs – the oldest and most exclusive of the leading men’s clubs of New York. Founded in 1836, it is the city’s oldest social club and its male membership has been largely drawn from the city’s most socially prominent Protestant families.

The wedding was commenced on an upper floor where we joined the party late, just a few minutes before the wedding party started walking down the isle. The ceremony was short and sweet but the highlight for me was not the actual commencement but when the priest during the ceremony asked one of the youngest of the flower girls to provide for the crowd what do kids her age worry about.

Her response was “Global Warming”.

Not the response the priest was looking for and it resulted in a spirited laugh from the crowd. Also ironic is that there a many disbelievers among the largely Republican crowd on the global warming “theory”.

The wedding started with an open bar in a nice foyer/room with a grand piano with light “jazz/lounge” music playing. We enjoyed some petite h’orderves and Chivas Regal. A cordial staff ushered us to the dining area after meeting many of the other family and friends of the wedding couple. We were all seated with our mutual friends while we had an excellent 4 course meal topped with Fillet Mignon.

The meal was excellent and when the band started up in the Greek cross shaped main hall the guests reluctantly waddled out to the marble entry way to sway to some latin, pop and jazz music. Over all the wedding went off without a hitch, all the guests had an excellent time, the food, venue and staff were all excellent.

Congratulations to Andrea and John and many happy years!

A clip from Trading Places as this was how I felt entering the Union Club: