Justin Devillier

              We landed at LaGuardia after a nice 3.5 hour flight around 11 am on thursday the twenty-third of January. Of course the biggest thing on my mind at that point was preparing dinner the following night for 80 guests and members of the James Beard Foundation at the James Beard House (167 w 12th st.) The James Beard Foundation is an awesome organization that was founded to celebrate, preserve and nurture America’s culinary heritage and diversity in order to elevate our culinary excellence. One way they acheive these goals is by having different chefs from around the nation come up to New York and cook dinner at their venue (which is the late James Beard’s residence) periodically throughout the year and we were very honored to be invited to cook last Friday night. 

                  I was anxious to get over to the Beard House to check out the lay of the land but also, very hungry. Joel and Tarik suggested on the plane ride trying to hit lunch at Gramercy Tavern. The iconic Danny Meyer restaurant known for a casual vibe but very delicious food. Did it live up?? Yes. It was completely packed at lunch and we were sat after a short wait at the bar. To start, some in our party opted to order off the very well put together cocktail list and I decided on a large glass of ice cold pilsner. The cocktails were all really tasty and I kinda wished at that point I would of ordered one. Oh well. The lunch menu in the bar area where we were sat was prix fixe three courses for 24.00 (what a deal in NYC.) I think it was a “restaurant week” thing but at any rate it was a nice surprise. The sunchoke salad I had as a first course was great. The sunchokes were slightly pickled so they were mildly acidic and had an awesome crunchy texture still. Served with baby lettuces and super thin sliced air dried ham! Perfect lunch salad. My second course was stuffed veal meatballs with parsnips. The stuffing was Fontina I believe and the ball was HUGE, it tasted really good and was richer than Bloomberg’s bank account.       

          For dessert the thing that stood out for me among six plates was a chocolate bread pudding, and im not being a bias New Orleanian it was just a damn good dish. We left full and headed to the Beard House to make sure all of our shipped items made it ok.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 03:28 and is filed under travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.