Thursday, December 29, 2005

Manhattan, Mainhattan

December 28

A quick Manhattan at Oscar's at the Waldorf-Astoria before attending a holiday party where I got to chat with nutritionist Marion Nestle, who had spent the day at an Oprah magazine shoot. She's promoting her new book: "What to Eat." It's a guide to how to shop in supermarkets.
Then it was off to dinner at Mainland, whose chef, Brian Young, is the only former Cordon Bleu classmate of mine I know of in New York. We had shrimp, chicken and pork dumplings as well as half a Peking duck and Brian's version of beef and broccoli -- dry-aged sirloin with sweet onion rings, wok-seared garlic broccoli and wasabi sauce. We had sides of crispy Szechuan bread, ginger-garlic choy sum and some baby bok choy as well.
I sampled one of their signature cocktails, the Mainhattan.
Brian sent out a bunch of desserts and came out to chat. I hadn't seen him since his brief stint as chef of Citarella, and before then I hadn't seen him since cooking school. He has a 19-year-old kid at SUNY Purchase.

No comments: