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.