Took Amtrak and arrived just in time to watch the Patriots game.  Randy is not really a football fan, so he had to suffer through the first couple of hours in NY, finding the right bar, which took three attempts.  The first bar Firefly, was too in your face with projection TV’s covering every wall and really lame food and a barely adequate beer selection.  We left at half time.  Across the street to what appeared as a promising Irish bar Gatsby’s, the only thing great about it was the urinal puck stench…?  We left immedietaly in search out another place.  Within a couple of blocks Randy eyed Toby’s Public House.  Toby’s was not what I think of in a Public House, it was a brick oven pizzeria with a decent beer selection 2 flat screens TV’s with the Patriots beating some Texan butt on them.   Jon and Chloe two former EVOO employees met up with us there and we talked about all the places that we, in no way will have the time or belly capacity to try while we are in NY.  It was nice to catch up with them.

At Toby’s with Chloe and Jon

We left Jon and Chloe at Toby’s and hurried off to our Dinner reservation at Blue Hill.  It was awesome.  Chloe had called in advance telling them that we were hot-shot chefs from Boston (she exaggerated).  We were surprised that they knew who we were. I made a reservation on line with no indication that we were chefs.  We were very well taken care of.  Champagne to start followed by a chefs tasting menu consisting of 12ish items.  I don’t want to call them courses as many of them were little tidbits.  I am not even going to try to describe all 12 “courses”.  I will mention some of the highlights; an espresso cup full of meaty, smoky sunchoke soup, caper and parsley studded venison tartar, a mushroom-mung bean-pistachio thing (it had the consistency of  loose risotto) and a sous vide farm egg with beautiful smoked-cured pork.  It was an awesome succession of dishes, truly a great experience. Randy got a tour of the kitchen and after dinner we spoke with the chef de cuisine.  The service was precise and very friendly.  The host was particularly gracious, she supplied us with even more ideas of places that we will never have the time to try.

Well enough of this blogging, I need to stuff my face.