Lisa asked for more details about our dinner at Gramercy Tavern. It had been a long day – starting at 3:30 in the morning so that we could get to the Birmingham airport and make our connecting flight through Charlotte to get to New York. It was three days after Christmas and two days since two feet of snow had been dropped on New York, paralyzing travel. It was purely providential that we had made our plans to travel on Tuesday. Lots of folks we know who had made plans to travel on the Sunday and Monday had to deal with cancelled flights and couldn’t make it to NYC until late Thursday or Friday, which didn’t work well if you were headed to the ballgame. Anyhoo, long story short, we made it. We were very grateful. Also found our way to our nice hotel with a fabulous view of the Empire State Building with minimal difficulty. And it was barely noon.
So we set off to look at New York with the goal of visiting the Sheraton Towers, where the team was staying. We grabbed lunch at Pret a Manger, which is rather ironic as this is a London-based chain. Still, we chowed and moved on through the slush to Times Square, the official Pinstripe Bowl press conference, where we met our new BFF John Currie and finally to the lobby of the Sheraton where all we had to do was walk into the bar and find our good friends Cookie and Audrey waiting for us. It was a pleasant way to pass the cocktail hour, but then we were curious to explore the city some more.
So, I coaxed my beloved onto the subway and we got off the train at Union Square. I was in search of Gramercy Tavern, which I knew to be on 20th Street. Of course, we initially went in the wrong direction. The area around Union Square was for some reason even messier than most that evening. I managed to lose a shoe at one point, but we recovered and yet trod ever onward. Joe was willing to stop at one point to turn around and settle for a TGIFriday’s. However, I pled for one more block and…there we were. We found Gramercy Tavern. It was after 8:00, we looked like total tourists wearing our head to toe (literally, this includes even my shoes) purple. There is a dining room, which I assume gets booked weeks in advance, and the tavern area, which has bar seating and a handful of several small tables. It was quite full when we got there and the estimated wait was 45 minutes. We gave them Joe’s name and headed for the bar.
Did I mention that we had been awake since 3:30 am? And had been doing more than our daily practice of walking. So it was a nice bar to see. We each ordered a local beer. Mine was a Stoudt’s Pilsner and Joe got a Captain Lawrence Extra Gold. While Joe’s was more bitter than I like, they were both good. We stood at the bar for a while, then retreated to the seating area by the door for the duration. Even waiting there, we met friendly folks, including one South Carolina fan who sounded like he was from Brooklyn, but still welcomed us and wished the Cats luck.
Then we got our table. It was a humble little thing, but located well away from the door, and with a good view of everything. The next question was about ordering. They have a three-course tasting menu, but it was late enough for us that dessert seemed kind of remote. We decided to split an appetizer and each have an entrée, with marital tasting privileges in place.
Hence, the appetizer: Merquez sausage with carrots, parsnips and black lentils. We each had three 2-inch links of spicy lamb sausage on a bed of lentils. There were carrots and parsnips, trimmed to match the sausage pieces in size and nicely carmelized/browned. Also, a part of the dish was a vegetable that I can only describe as a baby cauliflower that was also cooked and browed. It was lovely.
Our nice waiter then offered us a special treat of bacon cheddar biscuits. They were meltingish and heavenly. Oh, and they butter that they served with them was really good, too.
We got another round of beers while enjoying our biscuits and waiting for the entrees to arrive. Yes, I know that I should have switched to wine, but I was seriously exhausted by this point and didn’t want complications from my alcohol. I was pretty sure I could get us home but did not want to push things. So, another beer, please.
My entrée was a fillet of sea bass with on Swiss chard with pine nuts and an onion sauce. It was fabulous. Every bite was relevant and the portion size was perfect. I want to be able to describe it in more detail, but I cannot. It was discrete and lovely. The texture of the fish was complemented at every turn by green, pignoli and oniony sweetness.
Joe ordered smoked pork shoulder with sweet potato, salsify, and bacon broth. Seriously, I saw his eyes roll back into his skull when he took the first bite. Salsify? Yes, he ate salsify, and enjoyed it. Pork, bacon and sweet potatoes are fairly quick sells with the boy, but salsify? Yep. And he loved it. All.
We looked at the dessert menu. We may have drooled a bit, but we were just plain tired. One of these days I’ll go back in search of that Butterscotch Bread Pudding with Quince Sorbet, but that was just not the night.
We walked back to our hotel. It was 8 short NY blocks and about three of the long ones. Not a bad walk at all. And we slept well.
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