Saturday, January 24, 2009

NYC Restaurants


New York City is known for having some of the best restaurants in the world. I've eaten in several places in New York and added two decent ones this past week. The first one was Pastis in the Meat Packing District. Every restaurant in that district should be good otherwise it'll go out of business because of competition. I was expecting a good meal because this place was jam packed, it smelled of garlic and it was French. It was not good. I wouldn't say it was terrible, but it definitely didn't live up to expectations. Don't go there, go somewhere else.

The next restaurant I went to was Harry's in downtown. Harry's is an establishment for the finance community. Brokers, Hedge fund managers, traders, etc all go there for happy hour and sometimes dinner. Our waiter said they had the best steaks in town. Again, I was disappointing. Just average. But I definitely suggest going there as it is so well known. Added benefit to Harry's: You could bitch smack one of those greedy wall street bastards.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Mycket Bra Julbord


Smorgasbord is a Swedish meal served buffet style with both hot and cold dishes. In my family, we get it once per year...Christmas eve. It is customary to start with the cold fish dishes first and then move on to the hot dishes. Typical dishes for the Julbord smorgasbord (Christmas buffet) are an assortment of pickled herring, gravlax, koffbullar (Swedish meatballs), julskinka (Christmas ham), Janssons Frestelse (Jansson's temptation - frenched potatoes, cream, onion, anchovies), revbenspjall (oven baked pork ribs), stewed cabbage, assortment of breads, cheeses, pate, spinach, and a ton of other stuff that you can see in the picture. We also light as many candles as we can (which provides quite a rush as we risk burning the house down every Christmas eve). Last, but not least, we each have a glass (or two) of snaps or akvavit (firewater) which helps to coat your throat with a line of fire as to ease the swallowing of all the food. Long story short, you eat like royalty. It is a wonderful undertaking and worth every extra minute on the treadmill.