new york’s finest: this time in under 24 hours

We left Maine on a beautiful Tuesday morning and headed back to NYC. We didn’t arrive until after lunch (sadly) so we had only a few chances to catch our restaurant limit. We checked into the Waldorf Astoria and loaded up on a few hours of luxury (though, truly, this hotel was better before Hilton took it over, but, hey, we got it for free with Hilton points). I may not have mentioned this previously, but our boys love ‘prince for a day’ stays in four-star hotels. (see my post http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/princess-for-a-day for more details).

This brief visit was no exception. Tate lost no time sampling all the bath products and the hotel-monogrammed bathrobe (see photo). Lucky for us, because he probably hadn’t showered in days… we tend to practice what we preach, i.e., dirt is good. [Although I can’t imagine this would have held true if we’d had girls – who knows?] Anyway, the boys got nicely spiffed up for dinner because we were about to make a pilgrimage to the restaurant of one of their culinary heroes: Bobby Flay.

As luck would have it, we did not run into him at Mesa Grill that night. We really didn’t expect to given that he’s on television so many times a day but we hoped it would happen anyway. In his absence, however, the restaurant was flourishing nicely. We started with a bowl of perfectly spiced tomato soup (my pick) that came with charred corn, blue corn tortillas, avocado + queso fresco – everyone loved it. We then shared three entrees: pan roasted shrimp with creamy green chile rice + chipotle garlic butter (Dane’s pick), roasted ‘hacked’ chicken with five-chile mole, pickled red onions + roasted tomato tamale with key lime butter (Tate’s pick) and New Mexican spice rubbed pork tenderloin with bourbon-ancho chile sauce + sweet potato tamale with crushed pecan butter (Paul’s pick). We were almost too full for dessert but managed to power through a pineapple upside down cake that I really liked but the others were just ok with.

The next morning, we got up early to search for the previously elusive Wafels and Dinges truck (http://www.wafelsanddinges.com/). It took a bit of asking around before we found it in the Financial District since I could not decipher Thomas DeGeest’s heavy Belgian accent no matter how many times I listened to his recorded phone message (this from someone who has lived in Belgium!). In case you are interested, you may get up-to-the-minute info on the truck’s location by calling 1-866-429-7329. Direction difficulties aside, the Liege-style (crispy outside, tender inside) waffles were well worth the effort. Paul had his with spekuloos spread (kind of a warm, graham-crackery flavor) and it rocked! The secret of the waffles’ exterior crunchiness is pearl sugar which I am still trying to find locally (if anyone knows where to find it in the Bay Area, please let me know).

Later that day, we be-bopped up to Levain Bakery again and emerged with about 10 pounds of warm cookies to haul home to California. I just want to say “damn” about twenty-thousand times that we cannot get these in our area! It’s a compelling reason to move to New York to be sure.

We also made a very brief stop at Daisy Mae’s BBQ in order to devour another mammoth beef rib and collect a prize to bring home to our darling mutt, Scout. She cried over this bone, I kid you not. We raced from Daisy Mae’s to the hotel, picked up our bags and headed home. Overall, another great chapter in our culinary adventures.