Date: It’s still Friday, May 4th, 2007
The Damage: It’s still all on Amex, and I am still very glad.
The Victims: Bryan, Stacey, Matt, Feathers, Ross, Julie, a number of girls named Jen, a couple of gals named Amy, Scott, Ali, Destri, Stacey, and I know I’m forgetting a bunch of people.
The Song In My Head, Rebellion (Lies), Arcade Fire
After enjoying our red velvet cupcakes at Magnolia, Stacey and I made our way down the street for some manicures and pedicures at the very wonderful SpaBelles, where I impressed (or alarmed) the staff with my knowledge of Korean. (Lest you over-estimate my fluency, let’s just say my skills stop around "Beer, please.") The boys decided to head to the "store," which I correctly identified as the "beer store." The "beer store" turned out to be the very lovely White Horse at Hudson & 11th, where we later found the boys enjoying copious delicious White Horse drafts.
At this stage, it was getting a little late. And we had a dinner booking at Mesa Grill. Bryan and Julie have a friend from undergrad who works for Bobby Flay (he’s now over at Bar Americain) so they were very excited to try one of Bobby’s restaurants.
Mesa Grill
102 Fifth Ave
New York, NY 10011
+1-212-807-7400
Julie and Feathers’ Virgin flight from the UK was delayed by something like SEVEN hours because of mechanical difficulties. I felt so bad because we were there for Feathers, after all. So I headed over to the restaurant a tiny bit on the early side to secure the tables and make sure everything was in order. It was, and I helped myself to a Margarita in the process. A $10 margarita. And to be honest, it was just average. It was stirred, not shaken. I was disappointed.
The gang all eventually arrived–Julie and Feathers setting a world record from Newark to shower to restaurant–and we started off with the raw tuna nachos, which were excellent. Along with the barbecued pork quesadilla, which was lovely. Oh, and also the shrimp tamale, which I found to be the standout item. So we were off to a very good start.
For mains…I ordered the grouper and it was a nice piece of fish. However, my clock was either totally off (it was, after all, around 2 a.m. for me London time at this point) or the seasoning was just too over-powering, because I couldn’t finish my food. I actually couldn’t even start it. That is very weird. The entree was tasty, but it was really heavy and rich. And my jet-lagged taste buds couldn’t deal. So I left it all there. Sadness.
Service throughout was friendly and informative, and I scored points with the sommelier for finally knowing something about wine, and the wine he recommended was perfectly within our budget and my taste buds. I wish I could show you what this whole experience looked like, but most of my photos didn’t come out–I have yet to master the art of food blog photography. This one of Scott’s salmon is okay, but it’s still a bit too dark for my liking.
The Verdict: All in all, it was a very nice night out. I would go back, but minus the jetlag next time. And I’ll ask for my margarita shaken, not stirred.
