Late Lunch Lowdown

It's been a while since I've updated my restaurant visits. Here's the scoop from last week:

On Monday, we went to Tamarind, an absolutely beautiful Indian restaurant tucked away in Gramercy. Lunch here was delicious! I had an apricot-stuffed lamb, which was pretty good. I filled up on the breads and appetizers beforehand, though. *hides* As an aside, it is getting REALLY starring annoying having to listen to Dieting Summer discuss the ins, outs, and betweens of her strict "I don't eat carbs and I am thus a psycho mean person because of it" diet. Ugh. Anyway, I once again ordered rasmalai for dessert. Yum.

On Tuesday, the bristly-mustached Italian waiters welcomed us with open arms to Nanni's. It was pretty dern fabulous (except for having to eat with Dieting Summer once again -- how can Italian be your favorite type of food when you refuse to eat pasta???). I had the Nanni pasta (on Who Woulda Thunk It Summer's recommendation) and the veal marsala, which were both excellent. For dessert, we all had strawberries with cream.

Le Colonial was our Wednesday destination. It's a French-inspired Vietnamese restaurant. The decor was on the extreme side (think Disneyland's Tiki Room), but the food was very good. I had an entree of lemongrass beef. Dessert was absolutely amazing. I had a banana beignet, which I devoured unabashedly.

Friday found us at Felidia, which was pretty dang good. I do, however, regret not ordering the pasta. Italian is for pasta!! :) I had the Maine diver scallops (which were pretty good, but not nearly as amazing as the pear and pecorino-filled ravioli) for my first course. For my second course, I ordered the grilled salmon, which was also good, but I'm STILL fixating on the ravioli!! Dessert was interesting. It was tiramisu, but it wasn't the traditional tiramisu we were expecting. The tiramisu was citrus-inspired, so there was a lemony flavor to it (which was an interesting twist) and candied kumquats as a garnish (which was kinda weird).

Yesterday, we went to 21 Club, which I was really excited about. Alas, I was sorely disappointed. The inside of the restaurant was dark -- VERY dark. (I told another summer, "I feel like we should be making out here." Yes, that was very red light.) Overall, I was not that enthused about the place or meal at all. The salad I had was very fresh and yummy, but I would much rather have appreciated being able to see what I was eating. I had a freaking $27 burger which ended up being not all that great. The warm cinnamon and vanilla rice pudding dessert was really good, though.

Lunch today was supposed to be a "quick lunch." I wanted a "quick lunch," which I thought meant a Subway run or something. Oh no. No no no. How naive! Apparently, a quick lunch instead means a really excellent lunch at a good restaurant but with no dilly dallying. That is A-okay with me! We went to Dock's Oyster Bar & Seafood Grill, which was actually surprisingly good. The chowder was a little tangy, but still plenty chunky for my tastes. The sesame encrusted yellowfin tuna was really crazy good. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the rice (I'm not much of a rice person). It had a delicious ginger and roasted nutty flavor. We didn't dawdle over dessert because this was a "quick lunch." *winks* Instead, I took a veritable vat of chocolate pudding to go for dessert. YUM.

More on lunches and my (must be) expanding waistline to come.