For the benefit of Mr. K’s.

On Tuesday last week, for our third and final Restaurant Week experience (Chris had one more on Friday for lunch),  we headed up to Mr.K’s. As anticipated, this was no No. 1 Chinese, but as RW experiences go, it was not a standout, either.

photo by Gayot.com

The restaurant was about as comfy and grand as they get, with high-backed sofa booths upholstered in pink with delicate gold brocade patterns, carefully arranged so as to provide each group as much privacy as possible.

The standout, though, was the service. With the exception of having to ask for water, we were positively doted on all evening: warm towels to wipe our hands, a beautiful flower on a pin for me to wear, silverware and plates promptly removed and replaced as necessary, napkins unfolded and spread out for us by our server (as if to say our energy was better spent on appreciating our food and each other’s company than on something as silly as unfolding our own napkins). There was even a palate cleanser of tart lemon sorbet between our first two courses:

We had the Shanghai Spring Rolls, which were fascinating, filled with scrambled egg, and the Crispy Beef, which was, indeed crispy. We added an extra appetizer, the Lover’s Dumplings (how could we not?). These were our favorite part of the meal:

Chris had the Firecracker Fish, and I had a pork dish that was special for the RW menu. Both were fine dishes, Chris’ in particular, and several steps up from the hole-in-the-wall Chinese we’re used to in Brooklyn. The flavors were similar, though, as were the concepts of the dishes, and overall, it was a far cry from Shanghai Pavilion, where by brother Nathan and sister-in-law, Elizabeth, had their “rehearsal dinner.”

On second thought, my favorite part of the meal was dessert. Mr. K’s served a choice: fresh fruit or ice cream. We had the fruit, I believe (it was less than memorable) and pistachio ice cream, because I’ve recently discovered that I love pistachios after having refused to eat them my entire life. I just loved that the restaurant didn’t even try to create an actual dessert. They simply don’t do dessert!

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Shelf life.

I am getting far enough along in my apartment-settling process that I might be willing to post a few pictures soon. In the past two days, I’ve made huge progress in the living room. Last night I moved the bookshelves (which I acquired in my last apartment from the people moving out) that were flanking the TV to the adjoining wall. They now flank the window, but I might surrender one to Chris, who has been talking about getting another bookshelf since I met him. I think sometimes symmetry can be overrated. Also, and this is pretty amazing, I seem not to have enough stuff to fill my shelves.

Or my drawers. I finally have enough drawers! Chris has suggested perhaps I need to get another dresser to house all of the drawers I’m not using.

Tonight I organized my NYU papers. I need to buy new file folders and then file them away until I decide I’m ready to revise (I thought today, I’m getting close!). And Chris was a real trouper and helped me move a table. He was exhausted, but I asked nicely, and technically it was his idea that I get a table in the first place. It makes a big difference in the living room, since there was just too much empty wall space before. And this table is smallish, but it expands to twice its size. You know what that means. Dinner parties!

This weekend, I finish putting everything away, and then I begin to decorate. Oh, and I watch the Game.

I’m talking about the Puppy Bowl, of course. Piper the Parrot’s singing the national anthem this year!

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We must keep clean.

photo by PLBG Design

I am having an ongoing battle with the shower curtain at the gym.  I for some reason have chosen a favorite shower stall.  I do not like to shower in any other stall, though for the sake of cleanliness, I will, if my stall is occupied.  Perhaps it’s because it’s the first stall I used at that gym.  Perhaps it’s because it’s at the end of the row and so does not share its hook with another stall.  Who can tell, really?

The shower curtain in this stall, though, will not stay put!  It keeps blowing inside my stall and touching my legs, and this drives me insane.  I found myself this morning kicking it repeatedly–and violently!–and growing increasingly frustrated as it insisted on blowing right back into the stall at me after every kick.  I started growling at it!  I swore at it, even.  You could not have convinced me at that moment that this shower curtain was not on purpose blowing into my stall just to irritate me.   The shower room at my gym is no wind tunnel!   There’s no open window to create a draft!  How else would this curtain be blowing into me if not of its own volition?

Tomorrow I will not choose this shower stall.  I will try another one, in the opposite row.  Perhaps this mysterious breeze will not work in the reverse direction.

This battle, however, did not compare to my battle this evening when, upon arriving home from my tutoring job (grad school loans to pay!) I happened upon a cockroach in my kitchen–my first cockroach in the new place. This was not one of the baby cockroaches I had at my old third-floor apartment, which really didn’t bother me much.  No, this visitor to my new first-floor digs was a full-sized pest, and I screamed into the phone and did my customary hopping-on-tiptoes dance that I do when faced with roach or mouse or cricket.  My poor mother saw me through the slaying of the roach.  She suggested I use a shoe, but that brought me too close to the thing, so I used the broom instead.  As I had earlier with the curtain, I hit that roach over and over again, and I’ll be darned–unlike the curtain, it eventually stayed put!

New York, I have mixed feelings about you.  You bring me pizza unlike any other city’s.  You bring me Restaurant Week.  You bring me Chris.  But you also bring me cockroaches. Have I angered you by venturing, as I so rarely do, above 23rd Street today? Have I upset you that I only try your finest dining establishments when I can get an affordable prix fixe (and on my anniversary, of course)? What can I do to ensure you don’t show me your more vile side again? Please, my dear city, keep them roaches away from me!

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And a cherry on top.

So there was no ice-skating, but we did have a marvelous meal today at Bobby D’s Tribecca Grill for Restaurant Week.

I had pumpkin soup, spinach ravioli and chocolate cheesecake. Chris had veal terrine, short ribs and pecan tart. It was all so delicious, and the bread basket was the best bread basket I’d ever had. Muffins, cornbread, regular bread and scones. We were full before our first course even arrived.

Earlier this week, we had dinner at Devi. Here is my fried quail:

And here are Chris’s chops:

Here is the delicious meal described in a previous post that we made last night:

With my dessert, which is sugar-free cheesecake pudding and “fresh” raspberries (out-of-season fruit is always so seductive and usually so disappointing):

I am sated.  We couldn’t even finish our dessert because of that blasted bread basket today!

Good night, dear blogosphere.

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We’ve had a good day.

The day began with, for once, Chris wanting to sleep and stay in bed longer than I did! That was incredible, and I certainly wanted to encourage the behavior, so I indulged him by watching some Howard On Demand. We had bagels (but no egg and bacon because, of course, we’re watching what we eat, though that didn’t stop me from adding an apple turnover to my order at the last minute) and then hopped in a car (because my ears were cold) to my place.

After an episode of “The L Word” (more on that later) and the latest “Real World: Brooklyn” (the most unrealistic aspect of this season is that for some ridiculous reason the roommates go to a gym in upper Manhattan even though they live in Red Hook), Chris was sufficiently antsy and headed off to the Brooklyn Museum (which I’ve never visited, in spite of its being two blocks from my new apartment and eight from my old), leaving me to clean my kitchen (it smelled a little), tidy the living room, prepare my laundry (I couldn’t find enough quarters to actually do it) and strip my bed (still need to put the new sheets on).

Now we’re making dinner. Chris is working on pork chops, and I made broccoli with garlic, red pepper flakes, onion and green pepper (cleaning out the fridge) and orzo with my first homemade pesto (note to self: don’t double the cheese in the recipe no matter how good an idea it seems like at the time). We’re watching bootlegged copies of “Doubt” and “Revolutionary Road” tonight in preparation for our Annual Oscar Battle.

I’m going to cream him this year. My best advantage, aside from my typical reliance on “Entertainment Weekly”‘s picks, is that I’m trying to read the based-on books as well as watch all the movies this year.

This blog post is a bit too much like a diary entry, I suppose. My many readers are lucky that my life is so interesting.

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