Juliacentralicious

Part Two: Food

I'm not a foodie. This is perhaps why I occassionally felt quite stupid around Mike's family, because they quite definitely are. However, I ate better that week than I perhaps ever have in my life. And for that, I will commence name-dropping restaurants and gloating about how incredibly tasty it all was.
We went to Neha one night, a nice place downtown, with his family and some family friends. This is the best indication of how we ate: everyone got their own individual appetizers, plus entrees, plus desserts. Also two bottles of wine for the table. We operated on the "take two bites and pass your plate to the left" method, so that everyone could sample everything ordered. It was incredibly tasty, especially the duck that I got. Another example of how particular everyone is with food—two dishes were sent back, a steak for being too well cooked, and a fish for being too salty. Wow, that's all I can say.
Mike's mom took us to Manny's, a super old deli that's been around for ages, and has a divine pastrami on rye, as well as lots of friendly old people. Also had some of the best deep-dish pizza of my life, at a place called Lou Malnati's.
The best by far was a place called Joe's—but imagine the opposite of what a place called Joe's should be. Very upscale, very classy. Our waiter was more of a guide through dinner than simply a waiter (he recommended the corn by describing it as a "bowl of sunshine"—which is was), and joking with us (he applauded me after I managed to finish my dinner). Mike got king crab legs—which they took out of the shell for him, right at the table. I got bone-in rib-eye (over forty dollars, and this was the cheapest bone-in meat they had), which was as rare as possible and incredibly tasty. We had nice white wine. We got dessert, the much-recommended peanut butter pie, which our waiter supplemented with a complementary piece of banana cream pie. He was quite adamant that the only way to eat them was to get some of both on one fork and eat them together—and of course he was right. I don't even like banana cream pie, but this was amazing. I felt just like Elvis, but more pie, less fried sandwich. After we had left, standing out front waiting for valet to bring the car around, there were a couple homeless guys who passed by, offering to shine the shoes of Mike's dad. One was particularly insistent, pestering us more and more as we stood there. And (here is the illustration of just how fancy this place is) a bouncer for the restaurant—this big black dude—comes outside and tells him to move on, afterwards apologizing to us for the guy bothering us. Wow.

posted by Julia @ 3:11 PM