It’s been a long time since I have fantasized about traveling to New York and when I finally got the chance, I did not know where to go eat.. There were just TOO many places that I’ve bookmarked and talked about. It was impossible to decide. There was just too much. So the first night of New York was left up to a New Jersey friend to decide. “You know better than me; you show me. I can’t decide.” And I’m glad I did! Not only that, but the night turned out really well, and better yet because half of it was left up to the spur of the moment. In just a few hours, I managed to eat at two types of places: a local favorite and a famous, famous place.

After hopping around fresh puddles and soft snow in New Jersey and New York City, it was time to warm up at a local bar before dinner reservations. (We just flew in right after a big snow storm so we were lucky enough to see New Jersey and New York covered in a fresh blanket of soft, untouched, pure white snow. It was majestic and beautiful.

Our first stop was at a local bar located next to the restaurant we had dinner reservations at. The bar was called Anfora. From here, we had two warm alcoholic drinks that tasted sweet and hot, but not alcoholic at all. (I think they screwed up and heated up too much because all of the alcohol evaporated; all was left was a very warm and sweet cider-like drink).

   

In the first picture, we have the two warm drinks: (left) Cold Day Rose’ – rose’, gin, nashi, beach plum, damson gin, bitters and (right) A Warm Hug – white wine, madeira rainwater, ginger, pear brandy.

In the second picture, we have the Anfora 75 made up of gin, cocchi americano, lemon verbena, lemon and sparkling wine. This drink tasted like a very sweet and light champagne; kind of carbonated.

After chilling on our drinks for about an hour, we had worked up our appetite for dinner! (Just in time for our reservations)! We walked right over to next door to the restaurant called dell’anima. Even though this restaurant doesn’t open until 1730, it was already packed at opening hour! Luckily for me, we were seated right next to open kitchen so I got a cooking show of my very own to enjoy! I got to watch them make all their dishes and observe the interactions of all the chefs working together. It was a very interesting dynamic to study; they are constantly shouting out orders, cooking, cleaning, cutting, etc.

I don’t know why we took a picture with the menu; we must have been famished and excited to order and eat! Behold, the menu of dell’anima. Hahaha..

dell’anima is known for their variety of homemade spreads in the appetizer rounds. They bake delicious, fresh bread for you to enjoy whatever spread you want with them. The brilliance of this is that there is a constant supply of fresh, warm bread until you finish your spreads!

Here we have 3 spreads: roasted red pepper (with smoked marcona almonds and pecorino romano), lily confit (with shallots and garlic), and cannelloni (with preserved lemon and aleppo). Each spread was delicious. The roasted red pepper and cannelloni was very creamy and easy to spread. The lily confit had that strong garlic taste and aftertaste that only garlic lovers can handle. Bread had crispy, toasty edges and a soft center.

In the antipasti round, we have the bone marrow served with testa, charred cippolini and pickled red onions. This picture does not portray how big the bone marrow was. It was enough for 3 of us! The bone marrow was so soft, tender, and fatty. You can see the savory fats as you scoop from the bone marrow and plated it onto the crispy little bread toasts.

Here we have the braised short ribs with crispy potatoes, malt vinegar, and chocolate sour sugo. The texture of the short ribs were cooked perfectly; very tender and flaky. It was so easy to slice apart pieces of the “hair-y” strings of the meat. The taste of the short ribs were more mild than expected (given the sauce it was topped off); however, I really liked the taste of the braised short ribs too! It is hard for me to describe what it tasted like, but it brought memories of my childhood when my mother used to boil braised short ribs to produce this mild and lightly savory stew soup with carrots and potatoes. We also ate this with toasted bread too!

Have you ever had fried pasta? I’ve never even heard of this concept until here! Please behold our fried gnocchi served with rabbit, pancetta, mushrooms, and pecorino romano. Let me tell you already that this is my favorite pasta dish here. It is delicious! The gnocchi was stuffed with soft potatoes, and given that it is fried, was slightly crispy and crunchy to chew on. It was very fun to eat! They were generous with the rabbit meat!

From the egg, I think it is obvious that this is a carbonara pasta dish. I love that they did not overwhelm this pasta with too much sauce. You just need flavor in the dish. This is Tajarin alla carbonara served with speck, egg, black pepper, scallions, and pecorino romano. The egg was cooked at.. I forgot what degrees of temperature, but when I broke the egg yolk, it was kind of hard to break!! The yolk would not give! Yet it was very soft at the same time!

We felt more healthy when we also ordered a side of brussel sprouts served with honey agrodolce, dried cranberries and smoked pepitas.

After dinner, we wanted dessert. Or I wanted dessert! No matter how full I am, I always have room for dessert. Now this was an easy one and kind of fortunate too. What was conveniently nearby? What is renowned and something I have always wanted to try when I finally get to New York? Momofuku Milk Bar! It was dark so I am sure that Momofuku Milk Bar wouldn’t look so small and dingy in the day as it did at night. There wasn’t a long line, but there was a constant stream of people going in and out. Even so, we waited about 10-15 minutes.

Now I know that Momofuku Milk Bar is known for their cereal milk soft serve, but we were going to keep walking and it didn’t seem smart to try to spoon ice cream into my mouth while wearing thick gloves in the freezing, snowing cold. So I got the next best thing, which is the exactly same thing but in DRINKABLE form.

Behold: the famous cereal milk shake. Now, I know this doesn’t look like much.. In fact, it looks really plain. But believe me, it tasted so good. Not only are there obvious cereal crumbs sprinkled on top, but it is existent throughout my milk shake! I was trying to drink this fast, but no matter how slow I drank, all of the cereal crumbs are still crispy as ever! And this milk shake never melted! I could not stop drinking it. I could not stop chewing on it. It was just so simple and good and delicious at the same time. Now not too sweet, but perfect. This is pretty much like drinking cereal and milk in the morning. This brings back to my childhood memories of eating crispy, fresh Captain Crunch cereal with milk. But here I have crispy cereal and milky milkshake form. YAY! Cookie is happy and satisfied 🙂

I cannot wait to come back and try their crack pie.. I heard that is the next best thing! 😉