New yoke

last night concluded our holiday in New York, where we were staying in "A rest stop for rare individuals" at the Hotel Chelsea. we celebrated by going to the famous Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto's japanese restaurant, and i have to say, the food was absolutely some of the best i have ever had.

We started with a lamb carpaccio with scallions and chive oil, and the thin slices of meat just melted in your mouth. the flavours were both subtle and absolutely delectable, and i took a good minute to savour each bite.

I then had beautiful fresh yellowtail fish, seared in the bowl at my table, sitting on a bed of rice and egg. the taste was a.m.a.z.i.n.g. Mum had a chef's selection of sashimi (so beautifully presented) and dad had chirashi.

For dessert we had yet another gastronomical delicacy of warm flourless chocolate cake with pear gelato, thinly sliced pear, and caramel popcorn (a slightly bizarre combination that tasted absolutely superb) and a sobert combination of raspberry, lemon, and apple.

Anyway, this was definitely the highlight of my new york trip, as i am so gastronomically and cooking-ly inclined. The restaurant was also beautiful in that it was designed by famous japanese architect, Tadao Ando (whom dad has apparently followed for years).

Some other highlights of the new york trip included:

A pedi-cab tour of central park by a very jovial and knowledgable young man, Amadou. The park was very gorgeous and we got to visit all the movie locations and ponder this and that.

We also went up the Empire State Building at night, you know, doing the whole touristy thing (i figure that in new york, i would rather not be anything but a tourist). It was quite amazing, just to gauge the extent of the city and how built up it is.

We visited the Chelsea Markets several times (it makes my heart melt, to see all those gourmet bakeries and the artisinal cooking and so on), wandered aimlessly through Greenwich, Noho, Soho and Chinatown. Ate bagels for brunch and drank hot-chocolate to stave off the cold. Walked under the Brooklyn bridge, past tall brick housing complexes, tiny graffiti'ed playgrounds, and forgotten alleyways.

We walked up Wall St, got our photo outside the U.S. Stock Exchange building, contemplated the affects of 9/11 at Ground Zero, and took many reckless taxi-cab rides ducking in-and-out of bumper-to-bumper traffic and streams of pedestrians.

We pretended to be from the upper echelons and wandered through Trump Tower, Madison Avenues high-end stores, and sat at the top of Columbus Circle, directly overlooking Central Park, sipping cocktails (or fruit juice, as was my case) and listening to a jazz performance by Horizon.

I got sick at Ellen's Stardust Diner from eating the "American" (i.e. 100% plastic) cheese on the top of my dish (however the atmosphere was cute - absolute 1960's diner with singing waitresses and poodle skirts). A sample of diner food below... (to be avoided at all costs?)

And we of course we stopped by times square and grand central, just for a peek.