Did anyone see the travel channel’s show No Reservation with Anthony Bourdain in Mexico City? Man they were eating tacos like there was no tomorrow! They were eatin eyeball tacos! But then the bullfight in Puebla. I don’t know if I’m for the bull or the matador…I’ve been to Mexico, but I’ve never been to Puebla. If anyone’s going down there and wants to sport for my ticket and put me up for a few days or something…I could be quite entertaining! We can eat mass amounts a tacos! My favorite are the tongue tacos. Unfortunately, I recently had some at a particular taco truck in the vicinity that were…disappointing, let’s say… I’m a bit of a Bourdain acolyte. It’s true. But who doesn’t love to go places? Seriously, hook a chef up with a weekend in Mexico! I got my passport and my Spanish is still pretty good…

Almost immediately upon landing I found myself in Spice Market with my uncles Gene and Roger. None of us had been there. I’d only read about it online. From Ogden, it seemed like it would be my kind of restaurant. These 2 live in NYC, but had never gone to eat at that place and it’s a kind of party scene so they really needed an excuse to go. This really isn’t where most 65 year olds go. Then again, my uncles are way beyond cool.
The menu was amazing. We ordered a prix fixe dinner, which included ‘5 courses with 10 tastes each’ in the words of our stunning waitress, who I later found out was studying to be an actress. The food was intoxicating. And there was so much food with so many spicy flavors. An abundance of decadence. I was lavished with essences, soups, salads, slaws and ingredients, components, hints, scents, suggestions, forks and knives. Lime leaves, galangal, taro,sumac, Thai basil, saffron,  lemongrass, ramps, papaya, eel, douchi, halo halo, the kitchen sink!…they had stuff coming out of all over Asia. It was amazing. Someone had told the maitre d’ I was the Executive Chef of the Sonora Grill, the Best Mexican Restaurant in Utah, USA, I think it was Gene, because the next thing you know, here comes the maitre d’, with another course of food, and followed by a young man, Felix, with more food, and then more food and more food. O this isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been here before…Felix and the maitre d’…and they were really chatting me up too. I would have said something but my mouth was full of food! They were peeling grapes and stuffing em in my mouth!As it turns out, by the time several courses had passed, I found out that those two were studying to be actors too! I half expected Chef Vongerichten himself, you know, he could be an actor. He always reminded me of Martin Scorsese anyway, but then I came to my senses. I was suffering from sensory overload. I got a hold of myself. I saved room for dessert. I got a quick cab ride down to Union Square Park and went out for late night espressos with an old friend!… Sleep?… Sleep Shmeep bleeped the sheep. I’ll sleep when I’m dead!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Lunch at Jean Georges was a blast and if you happen to be in NYC I strongly suggest it. Their accolades are many…with 3 Michelin stars, 5 Mobil diamonds, 5 AAA stars And 4 NY Times stars, Jean George has a lot of awards going on. The thing is, you have to wear a jacket, which goes against my philosophy of food…against my philosophy of life, but I really wanted to go, so I asked my uncle Roger whether he had a jacket or not. He did, of course, and hooked me up with a whole outfit. The shirt belonged to my uncle Gene. The only shoes I’d had were white new balance runners, so I looked pretty ridiculous, but he said just stick your feet under the table and no one will care, the rest of you looks great…Gene was on lunch from his office up the street. He met us outside in his perfect suit and with his old friend Jeffrey who neither had seen in a while but has his own catering biz in the city. Hugs and handshakes and then we were ready to tear it up. Huge props to Gene and Roger, these guys have been like my rock for decades. Well, somehow I made it in the place and was served several elaborate plates of food. All of which were very nicely composed. Service was perfect. The server was very knowledgeable, very good looking, and had just the right amount of personality.

We started with Fluke Tartar, and Carrot Miso soup in tiny little crystal eggshell shotglasses.
I ordered Tuna ribbons, avocado, spicy radish, ginger marinade.
Gene and Jeffrey had the Foie Gras Brulee. Roger had Peekytoe crab salad.
Everything we put in our mouths was excellent.

We sat in this modern dining room at 1 Central Park West with this amazing food and my silly white running shoes under the table. I sipped my Arnold Palmer,( half lemonade/half iced tea) and couldn’t get over the intensity of this amazing meal. Iwas waiting to be noticed  by someone, someone who I imagined would stroll out of the kitchen and have someone else throw me out onto the street.

 The other men each had different varietals of white wine…these guys knew their way around a menu.  The dishes required the server to interact with the diners by pouring the sauce on my tuna, and walking around the table putting the dressing on Roger’s salad. She even lit Gene’s 2nd course on fire…intentionally…every little plate had some element of service you just didn’t expect. And the waitress was quite good…She smiled dutifully and yet was perfectly aloof. It didn’t hurt that she was gorgeous. There was a terrified little bread boy over my left shoulder. and he scurried around the table giving us homemade bread hot from the oven. Second course was salmon for me, beef tenderloin for Gene, Jeffrey had sweetbreads and Roger had the snapper with nuts and seeds. Tiny cuts of fish and steak, bizarre unconventional combinations that succeeded and impressed.
Dessert…they have a guy with marshmallow cart. Seriously. A marshmallow guy pushing a serious wooden cart through the dining room, and on the cart is a large glass cylinder filled with house-made marshmallow that he extracts with a large tweezers. Then, he holds exaggerated silver scissors and snips the marshmallow off, snip, snip and snip. Rose cookies. Thai chili and star anise crème caramel and several very nice chocolates made in-house all appear on the table…dessert was quite good…when it was all over, we got in a cab back uptown and then I got out on about 72nd to go hit Jacques Torres chocolatier on Amsterdam…

On a recent trip to Brooklyn, I ate at a nice little neighborhood bar/restaurant called No. 7. The hype on No. 7 is that chef Tyler Kord, who used to work at Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s Perry Street, has created what Bon Appetit magazine rated as one of the Top Ten Best New Restaurants in America for 2009.
I was excited to try their fried broccoli appetizer ($8). It was an entire broccoli crown, still in the shape of a tree, just off the produce section shelf, tempura battered and deep-fried. Served atop a smear of black bean puree with arugula-shallot-orange salad on the side of the plate. It was weird, it was cute, but I wondered, is this dish inspired? or is it lazy? Is this what you get at one of the Top Ten new restaurants in the country?

 Maybe it was simply because it was late Sunday evening and the chef was off, because things were just not hitting on all cylinders. For instance, the Hamachi Sashimi on Korean pear ($13), while it was full of explosive flavor, the Mackerel still had its skin on. After I tried to chew on this raw fish skin for a minute, I relented. The friends I was eating at the table with came to same conclusion. It was almost a really good appetizer.

One of us ordered the Chicken with Rye Gnocchi and Lemonade ($18). The ‘lemonade’ was basically homemade jello, made with lemon juice and agar-agar, according to our server, and diced in tiny cubes placed on top of the chicken. That’s cool, very creative. I had sea bass and cockles in broth served in a funky iron pot ($19). I liked it a lot but it wasn’t exactly a homerun. This was not living up to our expectations. Another in our party had the swordfish ($20), which was outrageously delicious. The meal was starting to perk up a bit. Unfortunately, another of us ordered the Grilled Wagyu Bavette Steak ($24); a tiny cut of beef seared rare and sliced across the grain…perfectly prepared. However the streak of silver tendon through the center of the steak was unforgivable. I couldn’t understand why the chef served it. Possibly the lights were out in the kitchen at the time…he should have set it aside and eaten it himself, grabbed us another thin slice of the overpriced flap meat and tried again. This place was not living up to its hype.
Overall, I’d chalk it up to the kitchen having a particularly bad dinner service. It happens. I’m not saying don’t go there, in fact, my Brooklyn friends are going to give it another shot, they’re just not going on a Sunday.