The Dish

One thing I’m really enjoying about being back in the Big Apple is getting back to dining out. My appetite for it has changed thanks to my time living off the land, and I no longer want to eat in restaurants seven nights a week. Instead I want to make my own meals, dishes that are much more simple than what you get when going out, most of the time. But I haven’t lost the urge to have other people cook for me completely. So I’m heading out to restaurants two or three times a week and loving it.

Slowly I’ve been making my way around all of my favourite haunts. I’ve had meatballs at The Meatball Shop, and fish steamed with ginger at Szechuan Chalet. I’ve stood outside my long-standing favourite Japanese joint in the East Village and stared miserably at the sign that says it’s shut down. I’m yet to get to udon noodles or to the Upper West Side for Mexican. Or to the depths of Queens for Thai. And I’m compiling a list of new places I want to try once I get through the old faithfuls.

But I’m not sure anything will beat this dish:

Food fit for a queen.

I had it at Recette in the West Village – one of the best casual bistros serving fine-dining quality food – last week. It might not look like much, but it was sensational: a summer corn and crab soup that was thick and sweet and delicious, topped with a stuffed zucchini blossom and garnished with a shaving of black truffles that had come all the way from Australia. It was the best thing I’ve eaten in the past year.

It’s gone on my Death Row Dinner plan. If I were facing the gallows (and while we’re on the subject, no one should ever be facing the gallows; that the death penalty is legal here is one of my biggest problems with the USA, but I digress) I would like this as my appetizer. Then one of Mum’s roast dinners. And then some sort of pavlova.

What’s your Death Row dish?