Riverpark

Tonight was our third restaurant week outing, and our chosen destination was Riverpark.  My sister and I went there during winter restaurant week and really enjoyed it, so I was excited to return.  The location is a little isolated, but luckily it is within walking distance of my apartment so it was easy to get there.  It is located right on the east river and they have some outdoor seating, which was great because the weather tonight was beautiful and breezy.  The ambiance inside was also really nice, but it is hard to pass up a table outside when the weather is as nice as it was tonight.

Just like David Burke and Telepan, they offered their whole menu for restaurant week and had just a few select dishes that required supplements.  There was a great selection of appetizers to choose from, and they had a few pasta dishes that you could choose to be either an appetizer or a main course.  I usually tend to order a regular salad as my appetizer, but I decided to be a little more adventurous and I opted for one of the pasta dishes.  There were a few that looked good, but I got the Bigoli pasta which came in a light tomato sauce with heirloom tomatoes, lemon verbena, and a light sprinkling of breadcrumbs on top.  My sister got the avocado and hamachi salad which came highly recommended by the waiter, and my mom got the baby lettuces & greens salad.

The bigoli pasta was really fresh and delicious!  The pasta itself was pretty thick and al dente, but I liked that it had a nice bite to it.  The sauce was really light and had a nice tomato flavor, but the cooked heirloom tomatoes were the best part.  They were really juicy and tasted local and fresh.  The lemon verbena also added a nice touch to the dish because it had an interesting and distinct flavor that paired well with the pasta and the sauce.  My sister really liked the avocado and himachi salad, and my mom thought that the salad was ok but nothing special so she didn't really eat much of it.

For the main course, I went with my usual dish of choice, the grilled chicken.  For people with a more adventurous palate, they offered a really diverse range of dishes including rabbit, scallops, trout, lamb, steak, and pork chop to name a few.  My sister ordered the scallops, again based on the recommendation from the waiter, and my mom got the pork chop which the waiter said was their signature dish.  

The grilled chicken was cooked perfectly, and was moist and delicious.  It came with some roasted tomatoes, which again were one of the highlights of the dish, in addition to freekeh and a delicious sauce.  Even though I loved the dish, I actually liked my mom's pork chop even better (which is weird because I NEVER order pork chop).  It came with collard greens, grilled peaches, sauteed onions, and was topped with the best part of the entire meal--candied barbecue pork belly, which tasted like deliciously sweet pulled pork.  I had never had a pork chop before, but I tried a bite and it tasted like a spare rib and was actually really good.  The sauce that it came in was also delicious and paired nicely with the pork.  The collard greens were way too spicy for my taste, but the grilled peaches were a really nice touch.  But, like I said before, the best part of the meal was the candied pork belly on top.  At first we weren't sure what it was, but after I took the bite I just knew that it tasted like the best pulled pork I had ever had.  When the waiter told us that it was candied, it sounded even better.  Since this is their signature dish, I am hopeful that it will still be on the menu for the next time that I come back and I will definitely order it.  But, to be honest, my sister and I both agreed that we would be happy to just order a bowl of the candied barbecued pork belly (which they don't offer) and be perfectly happy.  My sister also really enjoyed her scallops dish, and even though it was a slight supplement to the restaurant week menu she said it was worth it.  

When the dessert menus came, we were a little disappointed because they had an upside down banana cake listed on their online menu that is not actually offered in the restaurant.  Since this was what we had planned on getting, we were a little sad but we each easily found something else to order.  My sister opted for the cheesecake which came with cherry ice cream, brandied cherries, and crushed graham cracker, my mom got the raspberry and white peach-hibiscus sorbet, and I got the chocolate mousse which had a liquid chocolate center and came with chai ice cream (but I asked for them to leave it out because I really don't understand the pairing of chocolate desserts with tea flavored ice cream) and chocolate whipped cream.

Even though I am a chocolate lover, chocolate mousse is not generally my dessert of choice.  I usually only order it if it is a chocolate mousse cake, otherwise I always opt for a different cake option since I much prefer cake to mousse.  But, since the chocolate mousse was the only chocolate dessert on the menu, and it said it had a liquid chocolate center, I decided to order it.  I was pleasantly surprised by the dessert, and really enjoyed it.  The mousse was very light and fluffy, but it still had a strong bittersweet chocolate flavor.  The liquid chocolate center made it stand out since I have never seen that before with a chocolate mousse.  Overall, it was a good dessert but it was not my favorite that I have had.  I was satisfied with it, but I was able to only eat half and did not feel tempted to finish it(normally if I love a dessert I finish every last bite).  My sister loved the cheesecake (she cleared the plate) and the sorbets were also great and refreshing.  

This dining experience at Riverpark was great, and even better than the first time we had been there.  It was nice to be able to sit outside on the beautiful summer night and enjoy the breeze coming from the east river.  The food was delicious, the service was pretty good overall (not amazing, but not bad either), and the company was the best.  The two standout dishes in my mind were the bigoli pasta and the pork chop (mainly because of the candied pork and the grilled peaches) so I highly recommend both of those.  Even though the location is a bit off the beaten path, it is nice to temporarily escape from the bustling streets of NYC and have a great meal on the water.  

Rouge Tomate

Tonight, I went to dinner at what my sister has now dubbed her new favorite restaurant in NYC, which really says a lot.  It is always difficult to try to eat healthy when in a restaurant because the portions are at least double the size of a serving, and you never really know exactly what goes into the dishes.  So, when I was doing research on healthy restaurants in the city, I stumbled upon Rouge Tomate.  It is one of the only restaurants in the city that is SPE certified, which means that you can actually go online and see the nutritional breakdown of all of their dishes and the ingredients that goes into them, which is great.  Based on the availabilty of nutritional info and the intriguing menu, we decided to try it out.

The actual restaurant is pretty big and has a very nice ambiance inside.  It would've been a bit nicer if it wasn't torrentially raining outside, but I can't really hold that against them since they can't control the weather.  They have a pretty big drink list, which includes some homemade sodas, juices, cocktails, and an extremely long wine list.  My sister got the Pink Sangria, which was Rose, Plum Gin, Orange, Pineapple, and a Hibiscus Flavored Pineapple, and she said it was a nice, light drink.  Then, after we ordered, they brought an amuse bouche to the table, which was beet carpaccio with a horseradish foam and topped with some pumpernickel breadcrumbs.

This was so delicious, and had a perfect balance to it.  The horseradish was not too strong, and the breadcrumbs added a really nice texture to the beets.  I was super happy because normally when chefs actually make an amuse bouche, it has some sort of fish in it so I never get to eat it, but in this case it had my favorite ingredient, beets! 

Then, someone came to our table with a nice basket of bread and you could choose a slice of sourdough bread (I think thats what it was) or a peasant roll which was basically a wheat roll with a lot of seeds on it.  To have with the bread, they brought yellow lentil hummus and some ricotta cheese.  I had the peasant roll, which was really good with all of the seeds.  I tried the hummus, which was pretty good but I am not a big hummus person so I chose to ate the roll plain.  

For the appetizers, I ordered the beet salad which came with pineapple, pumpernickel breadcrumbs, and burrata cheese.  

When it first came to the table, the first thing that I noticed was the presentation.  It just looks so colorful and pretty that I didn't want to eat it!  Of course, I quickly got over that and dug in.  Every component of the dish worked so well together and the pineapple and breadcrumbs created a nice contrast with the beets.  I have had a lot of beet salads, and this one is by far one of my favorites.  My sister had the Wild Mushroom seasonal toast, which she said was really delicious.  It was two small pieces of sourdough toast topped with tofu aioli, sauerkraut, wild mushrooms and broccoli.  I tried one bite and it was delicious, and I usually don't like cooked mushrooms!

Having already had great bread, a nice amuse bouche, and amazing appetizers, we had really high expectations for the main course.  I ordered the Spring Pea Tofu with Buckwheat, Onion, Peanuts, Peas, Coconut and Rhubarb, and my sister got the Arctic Char. 

Again, the first thing I noticed when the plate came to the table was how pretty and colorful it looked!  You can tell that they really think every component of the dish through and they spend a lot of time on presentation.  The tofu was really delicious, and I usually don't order tofu.  It has a nice pea flavor to it, which set it apart for an ordinary piece of tofu.  All of the components of the dish worked really well together, and it is definitely something that I would recommend and order again.  I was only able to make it through one piece though because I was already pretty full and wanted to save room for dessert!

The dessert menu had some really great options, but my sister and I choose to stick with the small plates because we were pretty full.  Apparently the chocolate sphere is the most popular dessert, which I usually would get since I am a chocoholic, but I was too full and knew that if I ordered it, I would end up eating the whole thing and then would regret it later.  So, I choose the soy chocolate ganache with banana, olive oil powder, and cocoa nibs, and my sister got the small strawberry shortcake.  

The soy chocolate ganache was the perfect dessert!  The ganache was extremely rich and chocolatey, and you would never know that it was soy!  The bananas underneath the chocolate were really sweet and had great texture, which worked well with the ganache.  The size of the dessert made it the perfect way to end the meal without feeling overly stuffed.  And, while I did not try the strawberry shortcake, that got rave reviews as well.

Overall, I would highly recommend this restaurant!  Every single thing that my sister and I got was delicious, and you could tell that they really pay attention to detail.  While it is on the expensive side, it is a nice place to go to for special occasions or when you are looking for a little splurge.  You will leave here knowing that you had a very satisfying, delicious, and healthy meal, which is hard to come by in NYC.