Blue Hill

Issue: The Blow All Your Money Meal.

Rule: Very, very rarely a person feels they owe it to themselves to take advantage of this great culinary world we New Yorkers live in and blow a bunch of money on one fabulous meal. In this particular instance your blogger had the assistance of a wedding gift certificate as well as four months of change collected and cashed at TD Bank in order to achieve this rare but important pleasure.

Application: Blue Hill in the West Village is one of those restaurants famous for being associated with the words: farm, local, fresh and Obama. Tucked into a brownstone half a block from Washington Park and packed with eaters on a Friday night, it is certainly destination dining.
Your blogger's reservation was made a few weeks in advance and so we were able to be seated right away. Small table near the bar are stacked so closely together that I now know what food is served in McKinsey's cafeteria and how best to celebrate a fabulous octogenarian's birthday. But I could still hear my dinner companion and waiter.
A Blow All Your Money Meal requires at least two appetizers at the table as well as at least one dessert. We ordered the fabulous, hearty corn soup. The texture was fabulous and not super creamy like some corn soups can be, instead there was a bit of a crunch and a density not usually present. The other winning appetizer was fennel served two ways- braised and roasted. Roasted fennel is something I have never thought about but it was not as licorice-y as I would have suspected and tastier than I could have imagined. We were also presented with small beet burgers served with ricotta on an almond bun as a small starter. It may have been the best part of the whole meal.
My main course was milk fed pig which I felt very silly saying aloud but it was worth it. This again appeared in two ways. One was as luscious, buttery and crispy pork belly and the other as a salty, slightly tough loin. The greens were also a bit too well salted. Whenever this happens at a good restaurant I tend to think that maybe it was supposed to be that way and maybe I just don't get it. However, the more I eat, the more I can recognize a heavy hand in the kitchen. Besides the salt issue, the pork was tasty and the two of us almost licked the plate when it was finished. The other entree was braised hake with brussels sprout leaves and grapefruit. This was a combination that I would never have picked but the acids and bases played off each other very well and everything worked.
Remember when I said the beet burger may have been the best part of the whole meal? Well, now I remember the dessert. With honeycrisp apples, maple ice cream and almond cake it is impossible to go wrong. I didn't think I could squeeze anything into my stomach after the fennel and pig, but I found room for this amazing dessert.
It is also worth mentioning a yummy, crisp bottle of Sauvignon Blanc that kept giving and giving for less than $50.

Conclusion: Our night of two appetizers, two entrees, one desert and one bottle of wine (a healthy amount of food by any standard) ended up costing a little over $200. Certainly pricey in this recession starved world, but absolutely worth it for a Blow All Your Money Meal. I will be saving my quarters for the next six months to check out Blue Hill at Stone Barns next time.

Donatella

Issue: Where to hold WoPAC.

Rule: What is WoPAC you ask? It is a secret. However, I will tell that it consists of about a dozen beautiful women. All those beautiful women like to enjoy a few glasses of wine, share meals, laugh loud and linger at the table for a while. All without spending a boatload of money. We also like to celebrate accomplished women (ourselves very much included) and so picking a place run by Donatella Arpaia made perfect sense for the occasion.

Application: Donatella is a pizza joint in a way that can only happen in Chelsea. A huge, golden pizza oven sits in the back of the restaurant, the lights are turned way up- the better to scope out fellow eaters, and the pizzas themselves range up to $28 a pie. Yet our waiter was straight out of the Midwest and almost intimidated with our group of 10 increasingly tipsy ladies.

The best way to enjoy Donatella involves sharing, sharing and more sharing. For appetizers our table split three types of bruschetta- the stand out involved lemon and mint. We then split three salads including one with arugula and zucchini that was a personal favorite.

For the main course of pizzas we decided on five pies in total. A marinara for our vegan friend (delicious tomato sauce), two margheritas (crispy, cheesy and salty), cappellaccio (mushrooms and mozzarella) and diavola (the one with a kick). On an ambitious day with a full stomach I could have probably finished an entire pie by myself, but splitting with along with the salads and bruschetta made for a lovely meal. The pizzas were gobbled up quite quickly. We ended by sharing a cannoli, chocolate cake and zeppolli.

Conclusion: Oh, and we also split about four bottles of wine. The wine list has many reasonably priced bottles and out waiter was kind enough to suggest a light red for our final bottle of the night. We all hailed cabs or entered the subway in a downpour but everyone made their way home with a smile on her face. Our awesome group of ten accomplished women celebrated in style. When is the next meeting?