New Lists & Mario Batali!

Happy Monday everyone! How is everything today? Well first off, I think I need to post a retraction. Last night while watching Sixteen Candles I began to think about how I love John Hughes movies. Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Some Kind of Wonderful, Ferris Bu….WAIT! For the Love of God! I left Ferris off the top 50 movies! Bad, Bad KT! I also left off Val Kilmer’s best movie ever…Real Genius! So yeah, I guess one day soon I’ll have to do a new & improved KT Top 50 movie list because really, how can you forget about Ferris?

That brings me to another list. Just the other day Cindy asked me if I was planning on working on a new 50 Most Beautiful People list (People magazine’s list came out last week). Originally I told Cindy no, because I do the list every other year. But then I realized that 1) I still haven’t made the collage for 2004 and that 2) Michael and I will be trapped together for 19 days and it might be fun to have something to discuss. So yes, I’m going to do a new list for 2005. Since I’m leaving in 10 days (yippee) we’ll have to move through the preliminary rounds rather quickly. So send me your top 3 females & top 3 males. Get this into me by Wednesday. Because on Wednesday I’m going to send out the excel sheet where you have to pick your faves. Now the only requirement for inclusion in this list is that whoever you nominate must have been active in the past year.

Wowie. 10 days until the adventure begins. I’ve begun the preparing & packing process and part of that includes making some fun mix cds. I know I’ve owed a few of you specific mixes for quite a while (Jess & Cin) so you are first on the list. But I just wanted to share the mixes I am making so if anyone wants a copy I can burn you one! Here is what I am currently working on:
Britney The Essential Collection
Nsync Revisited
Madonna The Grooves
Get off you’re ass (selections to move your booty to)
What it feels like to be me (a collection of female artists)
The soundtrack of my life (the songs that have had an impact on me)

If you would like a track listing for any of these cds just give me a shout.

So, I like the Food Network. I like Rachel Ray, I like Alton Brown and I like Iron Chef America. Well, Rachel & Alton don’t have restaurants so when I was deciding on a place to take Jay for his birthday it came down to Mario Batali vs. Bobby Flay. Originally I was leaning towards Flay until I consulted the kind folks at chowhound.com and found that Flay’s restaurants get less than stellar reviews. Batali’s restaurant, Babbo, received glowing reviews. Decision made…Babbo it is. Babbo is a happening place. I’m sure the restaurant’s reputation is partly responsible, but again, this man is on the foodnetwork a lot, plus you gotta like a guy who likes to cook in a chef coat and shorts. You have to call exactly one month in advance of the date you want. The reservation line opens at 10 am. I got through at 11 and was presented with the choice of a 5:30 or a 10 pm reservation. Yikes! Alright, we’ll go 5:30.

Jay & I arrived at 5 so that we could have a drink and look around before sitting to eat…apparently a lot of other people had this idea as well. We secured a spot at the bar and I asked for a wine list. Ehhhh…Italian wine. I have no idea what to try! So I ask the very friendly and knowledgeable bartender what he suggests. Couldn’t tell you what we had but it was lovely. I requested a table upstairs because I had heard that downstairs could get loud and crowded. Indeed upstairs was a lot less hectic and as it became darker outside it became more and more romantic. Now, let’s talk about the food.

My time at Soho taught me a great deal about food. So it takes a lot for me to be intimidated by a menu. First of all, a lot Babbo's menu is in Italian. Secondly, the menu descriptions aren’t too er, descriptive. But this isn’t a big deal at Babbo because our server walked us through each course, offered recommendations, described each item and even defined a few terms for us.

Jay is a pretty mainstream eater, but I have to give him credit for surprising me every now and then. When we sat down we were offered a plate of chicpeas in oil & vinegar atop 2 garlic toasts. Jay would not touch it. Even after I tried one, even after I removed every chic pea from the garlic toast he wouldn’t touch it. But then, 10 minutes later, he wants to try oxtail. Too funny.

So after hearing our servers recommendations we decide on our 3 courses. I start off with goat cheese truffles (for a moment I considered getting the octopus because I liked it when I had it in Philly, but hmmm cheese, I haven’t had goat cheese in months!) and Jay tried some meat ( I think it was Italian ham & salami) from Batali’s father’s Seattle lunch restaurant Salumi (wow, let’s take a moment to be impressed with my wonderful research skills. I know Salumi! It is on the itinerary for the West Coast Adventure! Highly recommended! I didn’t even know it was Batali’s father’s place).

My goat cheese was tasty. 3 little balls of cheese, one covered in poppy seeds, one in paprika and one in a mix of herbs. I wasn’t a big fan of the paprika, but the other two definitely hit my goat cheese craving. Jay’s meat was really delicious as well. The salami was a bit spicy but the ham was, hmmm delicious!

Second course was a pasta course that we shared. After hearing all the pasta descriptions and finding out that oxtail is in fact what it sounds like, jay decides to be adventurous and orders us the gnocchi with braised oxtail. If you don’t know, gnocchi is pasta dumplings filled with potato. This particular course had a very “home made” feel, kinda like beef stew. I’m not a huge beef stew fan (as ella can attest) but the meat was tender and the gnocchi was tasty. Not my favorite course, but that has more to do with personal taste than a fault of the food. Jay enjoyed it very much.

Third course was difficult to decide. We both like duck and thus, usually one of us orders it. But jay had never tried rabbit and I was eyeing the squab and the guinea hen. Unfortunately, our server didn’t mention the rabbit when talking about his favorite dishes and so Jay was afraid to order the rabbit. He decided to play it safe with the duck (although he was a bit nervous at the thought of a white bean sauce) and I went with the hen.

The duck was absolutely wonderful. Crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside. It came with huge cippolini onions and what do you know, the white bean sauce wasn’t scary at all! My hen was delectable. Again, crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside. The hen came with mushrooms & ramps. HMMM tasty!

We finished off our meal with Pistachio and Chocolate Semifreddo. The pistachio was the consistency of ice cream, with a thin chocolate shell on top. Absolutely wonderful.

To sum up, probably the second best meal I’ve ever had (I don’t think Upperline in New Orleans will ever lose the #1 spot). The staff was extremely pleasant and always willing to make suggestions. We were never rushed and our plates were always removed promptly. All of the food was presented beautifully and tasted wonderful, plus bonus points for getting us to try something new! The look and feel of the restaurant was cozy & elegant, but never snobby.
Check out babbo: http://babbonyc.com/home.html