New York Dining Companions

(Pictures to come when the New York photographer recovers from jet lag)

You will have to excuse the gap in posting but Rob and I had our first New York house guests staying with us for the last two weeks so we have been pretty busy.  We had a lot of fun sharing Sacramento and San Francisco with my mother and sister in-law, and I think they had a good time getting to know our new home.  Though we had lots of support in our move it was still pretty hard for our parents to embrace the fact that we were moving all the way across the country, so the first visits are really important.  We need to show them that we are doing well and that we made a good choice.  The fact that New York has been getting slammed with snowstorms these last few weeks definitely helped our cause as well. 

We did a lot of sight seeing, much of which Rob and I never got around to when we first moved here like; touring the State Capitol, checking out Sutter's Fort and the State Indian Museum.  Along with the sightseeing we ate, A LOT.  Most of our time in Sacramento has been spent being very careful with the money that we spend so we have not gone out to eat very often.  Having guests gave us the excuse we needed to finally try out some of the restaurants that we have been ogling the last few months.  Restaurants say a lot about a city, the different ethnicities represented and the importance the residence put on food.

Some of our meals included:  Kangaroo, Yak and Wild Boar burgers at the Flaming Grill Cafe(Kangaroo was my favorite), an array of Tapas in midtown at Tapa the World, a lunch focused on fresh ingredients (the meat had never seen the inside of a freezer) at Gatsby's Diner, and a very laid back meal at the Delta Bar and Grill which sits on the beautiful old Delta King riverboat floating in the Sacramento River.  There were plenty of others but those were some of the highlights, and the ones that I think we sent them back to New York talking about.

There is nothing comparable to sharing a really good meal with people that you love, especially when it has been a while since you have been able to do it.  If you have been reading this blog you have noticed the recent holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas were sans extended family, and though we had a great time we definitely missed seeing everyone.  So, it was really nice these last two weeks to be able to sit around a table with family, chatting and trading stories as we shared food from each others plates.  It is something that makes moving away hard to do, because for a while you will be without those type of experiences. 

Also, having tried so many new restaurants I can now say for certain that we definitely made the right choice in Sacramento, because there is some awesome food!

If you read food writing I am sure you have read plenty of books on the restaurant industry.  Some of my favorites include:

Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: the romantic, impractical, often eccentric, ultimately brilliant making of a food revolution by Thomas MsNamee

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bordain

Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter by Phoebe Damrosch

Spiced: a Pastry Chefs True Stories by Dalia Jurgensen