Friends! Happy Monday!
I am back from my traditional end of summer ritual with my kids – Family Camp at Club Getaway which was amazing as usual – full of ridiculous games (watermelon eating contests, toilet paper wrapped kids, musical chairs with a pie in your face), karaoke, bonfires, zip lines I refuse to try, climbing, kayaking, water skiing and more. It’s the best; and Bluto is insane and awesome. (IYKYK).
This year we had a bit more excitement than years past. On the Morning Mountain Hike, I stepped on what must have been a very large family of bees having a get-together in a pile of leaves and was attacked by an angry swarm. I have a slight allergy to bees that causes localized swelling, but I guess with multiple bee stings it got a lot worse very fast and the swelling went from my legs to my hands to my face and then it was time to get to the ER.
I decided Craig could just drive us to the ER, rather than deal with an ambulance and, as luck would have it, about five minutes into the drive we got a flat tire, so that was not good. Seriously. We turned around, got back to camp, could not get in past the gates, also not good. Anyway, after a few frantic calls, the camp director David whisked us to the New Milford ER in his truck and the wonderful nurses there got me right as rain pretty fast with some IV steroids.
The nurse, who was extremely kind and did thoughtful things like shut off the glaring fluorescent lights and the door to my little triage bunk to keep my room quiet, told me that the steroids had a strange side effect.
“Oh, will it make me look 20 years younger?” I asked, attempting to add some levity to my swollen situation. She laughed, and replied that it would not but said I looked really good for 56 despite my stay-puff marshmallow man state.
“The steroid gives you this feeling in your crotch,” she said, smiling. “Oh? Like an orgasm?” I asked, hopeful something good would come of this ordeal. She laughed and said, “Well, no, more like itching and burning.”
“Oh so like a sexually transmitted disease?”
“Yes, just like that.”
“It happens to both men and women,” she offered, as a consolation. Well at least there’s that. And she was right. As she (very slowly) pushed the steroid through my IV, it did feel like I had some horrible case of crotch burning. Definitely not orgasm territory. More like Help who did I sleep with?!!!
Anyway, after the crotch burning subsided, so did the swelling. My hands returned to normal size and my face too. The kids went to get some lunch with Craig while I rested for observation. And I was released and now just dealing with localized itching which is fairly awful but at least not life threatening. It was an adventure.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. For EaterNY this week, I contemplated how it feels at the end of summer – how I still have that back to school dread even though I am firmly in middle-age. In my story, I shared a roster of restaurants to make sure to visit before summer’s end – places to “catch a blazing sunset with a tower of shellfish, drink slushy daiquiris and play dice, dine on open-hearth campfire cooking, and hang out at an outdoor pizza patio during a hot night lit with fireflies.” The list is a good one (if I do say so myself), but I had to pick and choose carefully because I can only file so many words. So, I thought I’d share a few of the places that didn’t make it into the Eater story here, and for the full list – see my piece in Eater!
For a Fancy Dinner Out: Chateau Royale
Cody Pruit’s follow-up to Libertine is an ode to old school French glamour: smooth white linen tablecloths, classic red banquettes, Martini Carts, and a Duck L’orange you’ve ever had. There’s nostalgia in the air, brought to life by PhD-level research that included the 1930s World’s Fair French Pavillion, fine dining stalwarts like Chanterelle and Lutece and icons like Odeon, Raoul’s and Balthazar.
Chef Brian Young (most recently CDC of Le Bernardin who also cooked at the Quilted Giraffe back in the day), serves serious French plates like sable with caviar beurre blanc, beggar’s purse, a nod to the ones served at Barry Wine’s Quilted Giraffe, as well lobster thermidor, chicken cordon bleu, which is having a moment – it’s also over at Fedora. But he’s also having fun with a hot dog – a Chien Chaud – in honor of Harry’s crowned with summer truffles and celeriac and sunchoke relist, and crispy artichokes, and a big fat burger that’s blanketed in Forme D’Ambert.
The restaurant on Thompson street has beautiful bones – it’s set in an old carriage house with two floors. The bar downstairs, serves all manner of martinis and kirs, as well as a fun rum drink called Between the Sheets that may land you there. Up in the restaurant, drinks are served in bar carts and pre-batched freezer-cold cocktails are pulled from hidden nooks in the walls. The wine list is as deep and impressive as you would imagine since Cody is in charge and he’s collected a list of natural wines and many Burgundies. It’s not cheap – but this is the place to have a splurge as these glorious last days of summer give way to crisp fall days. Cheers!
For a Fun Night With Friends and Family: Disco Birdies
I absolutely love this new spot from Matt Diaz, who has built something of an under-the-radar restaurant empire on that stretch of Franklin Avenue in Bed-Stuy. You may recall he opened Bar Birba, a natural wine bar and pizzeria located in the space that was Nice Pizzeria, and has now taken two more spaces on Franklin opening Disco Bottles (350 Franklin Avenue), a wine shop, and now Disco Birdies at 355 Franklin, a few doors down from his original masa cafe.
The menu at Disco Birdies is built around the restaurant’s drink of choice: $15 glasses of champagne, and leans American with a French twist; so expect bistro burger flavors for the double smashburger (made from wagyu and chuck with a bistro burger sauce), a falafel smash (a nod to the North African influences found in Paris), and Matt’s signature fried chicken that’s got a champagne-adjacent flavor profile from milk powder, nutritional yeast and lemon zest to add that bright and yeasty tang.
The restaurant’s namesake Disco Fries are all grown up and topped with creme fraiche and caviar, an ideal snack after a night of the disco or Doechi as the case may be. Even the ice cream is flavored with brioche, to mirror champagne notes.
Before opening For all Things Good, Matt lived and worked in Buenos Aires, and had a career in wine, both selling it and making it. So he’s got some amazing wines on his rotating selection by the glass at Birdies, and off beat bottles at his wine shop Disco Bottles, but his hope is that when you come to Disco Birdies you’ll drink Champagne! He’s serving Chavost Brut Assemblage at $15 a glass, “because you should treat yourself more,” he said. The fifteen buck pours of champagne go all night, every night, along with the champagne of beers, Miller High Life. Check it out and be sure to tell Matt I say Hi!
Ice Cream You Scream We All Scream for Ice Cream: Malai
Finally, we cannot end summer without ice cream. To be sure, this city has no shortage of exceptional ice cream but for me there’s only Malai in Carroll Gardens where the flavors of South Asia are channeled and churned into flavors like Coffee Cardamom, Masala Chai, and Rose with Cinnamon Roasted Almonds, and Cardamom Pistachio Crumble, like vanilla swept through a field of cardamom and got rained on with clusters of pistachio shortbread crumbles. The epic Saffron soft serve, stained ochre from saffron threads, sweetened with cream and sugar, is like a surprising love affair. Can’t decide what to try? At their new summertime pop-up (9 Christopher Street), you can have it all with the Four Flavor Flight.
Enjoy these last weeks my friends! More soon.
xx
Andrea