Alder in the East Village

I can't believe it's taken me this long to write about it but I was in NYC in November.  I arrived on a grey, rainy Thursday and I ran to the Ace Hotel from Penn Station to grab a sandwich from No. 7 Sub.  I wanted something that I knew would be delicious and they always are there.  I ran some errands and then jumped into a movie theater on 3rd Ave to get out of the rain and to see Dallas Buyers Club.  I love this years batch of Oscar contenders.  I don't envy choosing a winner because all of them are so very good.

Brig was sick the week I visited but thankfully he left the house to meet up with me and Lauri at Alder.  It's another restaurant that opened in the East Village after I moved which just means I would have eaten out that much more when I lived there.  Karen and I ate at wd~50, Wyle Dufresne's first restaurant, years ago and I still remember the passion fruit foie gras I ate there as being the best I've ever eaten.  We were also invited at the end of the meal to meet Wylie in the kitchen which was a pleasure but it just felt like a really awkward moment where no one really knew what to say.

We started with the pigs in a blanket - chinese sausage, japanese mustard, and sweet chili sauce.  Good but not like the foie gras we had next which was pumpkin pie with pomegranate and maple flakes.  So very delicious and unlike any foie gras I've ever tasted.  It was closer to a dessert.

It was really difficult to narrow down what we wanted to eat and I would have been happy with any of it.  But we ended up with curried goat with acorn squash, coco bread and pickled turmeric (above) and the french onion soup rings with beef gravy and gruyere.

And a dessert that goes from this 

to this is the best.  It was a peanut butter and jelly dessert and it made me happy.

After dinner, Brig and Lauri went to their homes and I jumped in a cab to see Thor 2 with Trish.  It's kind of our thing to see Chris Hemsworth films.