I am not usually one to be hip, so it comes to some surprise that I managed to go to Eataly market within weeks of opening. For everyone outside of New York City, Eataly is a brand new, much-hyped Italian gourmet food market opened by mega chefs Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich and Lidia Matticchio Bastianich in the Flatiron district. Inside this giant space (for New York standards, especially) is a pavilion dedicated to all things Italian food, including a shopping area for Italian produce, cookbooks and cookware; cheese, bread, fish and butcher counters; and mini eateries divided into specialities such as pasta and pizza, salami and cheese, vegetarian, seafood, desserts, coffee and gelato. It sounds like my kind of place, but you know how it goes. Everything that is remotely interesting and new in New York is also a madhouse, so I didn't expect to stop by anytime soon.
That is until my friend Annie recommended that we go there for dinner on Wednesday night, and of course I said yes. We met up there at 6 and by then the pizza/pasta eatery already had a 45 minute wait, so we decided to do seafood, which had zero wait plus we got to sit at the counter and watch the chefs. Thank goodness I was with Annie who is always full of great stories and laughs because watching a fish chef is kind of boring. For the entire time, this very pleasant dude with tattooed arms sprinkled salt and pepper on fish, moved fish from one oven to another and sliced potatoes into thin slivers on a mandolin, and that's about it.
The dude salted my meal quite nicely though. (By the way, there were fried sardines in this dish which were surprisingly delicious despite the gross factor of eating little fish with eyeballs. Who knew?) By the time we were done with dinner, the waiting line for the seafood restaurant was 20 people deep.
Annie and I admired the brussels sprouts on stem and wondered who would actually shop for produce in this crazy, busy place?
We stopped at the coffee bar for dessert. I got this hazelnut chocolate-y thing which looked amazing but was kind of bland. Wish I went for the gelato.
The verdict: All in all...interesting place. Food is decent but not life changing. Probably more a tourist attraction more than anything else. Unless you really feel like buying a giant $62 Italian chocolate bar. So no need to go again anytime soon.
Losing My Cool
Yesterday I got really mad. I don't want to go into details but basically someone who I was trying to help acted unfairly to me and I almost lost my cool. I rarely get this angry. But when this person was speaking to me, I could actually feel my blood getting hotter and rising, from my toes to my head, just like a cartoon character. I think I must have been bright red because I felt like my head was going to explode. I wanted to defend myself but I couldn't think straight and the only words whirling through my head were obscenities. So I just nodded and told the person what she wanted to hear, which was Okay. Sure. You're right. Whatever.
When I came home, there was a thunderstorm that complemented my mood. The storm seemed to come and go fast, but I was having a hard time shaking it off.
I later learned that there were tornado-like conditions in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island, with lots of damage to those areas, so things could always be worse. I am happy it's the weekend.
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