NY 3: Food

1st stop: Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown with Grandpa & Grandma Wood, Great Grandma Dot and Colleen. Large amount of soup dumplings consumed.

2nd stop: Cafe Mogador in East Village. Our favorite Moroccan restaurant and the site of our first date many years ago. Everyone around us wore black turtlenecks (even the cook, I hear). Large amount of tangine and pastile consumed


3rd stop: HSF dim sum in Chinatown (later, gelato in Little Italy) with Mick & Alexandra Noya. Mick impresses everyone with his Japanese custom made headphones with some rare wood and taking calls in between bites of canolis from Laurence Fishburn and Bryan Singer.


4th stop: Morimoto in Chelsea. The new digs by Iron Chef Japanese Morimoto. We had visited his flagship restaurant in Philadelphia a few years that remain a significant event in our life. The new place is very swanky and teeters on the brink between perposterous and pretentious. The food however lives up to the hype.


We take the 7 course omakase (chef's choice). Start with tuna tartar with 4 different sauces (osetra caviar, creme fraiche, dashi-soy, wasabi). Followed by kumomoto oysters served with uni and foie gras; sushi; whitefish capraccio finished with hot oil (which just barely sears the fish) and mitsuba leaf; salad with kabosu vinaigrette; dobin mushi with steamed chicken, maitake mushroom, sudachi and shrimp; whole roasted lobster with garam masala and lemon creme fraiche; and kobe beef. Dessert was bittersweet chocolate tart. For drinks we had various ''fusion'' cocktails but stayed away from the Morimoto sakes - which were handcrafted in Japan especially for Morimoto at a 800 years old sake distillery.

It's not for the faint of heart but worth every bite. Oh, and Morimoto was in the kitchen. Just like last time in Philadelphia. It's good to know a celebrity chef who actually works.


We may have done some other things in NY beside eating, but I don't remember.