October 14, 2016 Lunch - Guggenheim Museum’s The Wright Restaurant. Dinner – Metropolitan Breuer Museum’s Flora Restauran
We started the day going to a coffee bar to meet Luke for coffee on Bleeker near Second Ave on the East Village. I saw no redeeming benefit from the coffee shop, except we got the chance to walk by McSorley’s Ale House on Bleeker to get to it. Oddly, Luke did not know the history of McSorley’s. He was kind enough to guide us to the Uptown station for the Green Line metro. We took it to 86th and Lexington and then walked to the Guggenheim Museum to see the Agnes Martin Retrospective. As soon as we obtained our tickets we walked down the hallway to the Wright Restaurant. The Wright is my favorite museums my restaurant because it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright with the most exciting architecture of any restaurant I have ever seen. We like to eat at museum restaurants and The Wright is right at the top. Check out Miss Suzette in its architectural space.
The Wright has a rather limited menu without a huge amount of creativity but with good execution and top ingredients and today was no exception. We both agreed that the best dish on the menu was the pasta special of the day, a wide pasta tossed with fresh English Peas and Fava beans, chunks of butternut squash, pea sprouts, and arugula pesto. I chose the salmon on a raclette wafer on a puddle of mustard cream sauce with sautéed lobster mushrooms and sprouts. We shared both dishes and ordered glasses of rose wine.
After lunch Luke joined us and we viewed the Agnes Martin Retrospective. Her work radiates the empty hermetic feel of New Mexico to me, while the surface of pencil and a paint wash moves and shimmers to the eye.
After the Guggenheim we took the 5th Ave. bus down to 64th and walked to the Club Macunado Near Madison.
The cigar case at Club Macundo
I was tired and bought a coke and pretzel for $5.00, which I shared with Suzette. A little after 4:00 Melissa arrived and we toured the Met for about two hours. The Met is stuffed full of art treasures. I wanted to see the Flemish Renaissance and soon we found ourselves in a gallery filled with five Vermeers. Here is the one I liked the best. It is hard to believe I was looking into the eyes of a 450 year old face.
Then we saw a good Gaugin. Here it is.
Then we visited the Boulangue exhibit who was claimed to have been the best painter for the 150 years preceding Courbet.
We then walked to the Met Breuer on 71st and Madison around 6:00 and saw the 90 Paul Klees given to Met by the Berggruen family and the Diane Arbus photograph collection.
Although Suzette had been unsuccessful in securing a reservation we went to the basement to Flora and were offered a table.
We cancelled our reservation Café Boulod and looked at the menu. The offerings were interesting. I decided upon a lobster crudo appetizer that turned out to be small for $21.00 but very delicious. The raw lobster meat was combined with salmon egg caviar and salmon flavored oil that gave it a deliciously oily flavor.
The best dish we had was a salad of fresh red endive leaves with an artisanal blue cheese and toasted pecans with a sorrel juice vinaigrette.
The other really good dish was a small omelet with a mound of Hackensack caviar, a mound of salmon caviar and a mound of creme fraiche. We spread the three mounds, folded the omelet in half, and cut the omelet into thirds. We ate the omelet and other small dishes with slices of sourdough bread. Our final choice was lamb riblets with a jalapeño sauce and yogurt that was greasy and heavily rubbed with spices.
Ordering the wine was the best experience of the meal. We looked at the wine list and tried a taste of a gamay rose that had a slightly bitter aftertaste. Then a really tart white. When we could not decide on a wine the waitress who was a pretty young woman and was friendly said, “Let me send over the sommelier.” Soon a tall thin young man who was well dressed arrived at our table and we told him the issues we had had with the two former wines and I asked him, “Do you have a full bodied white with a long finish?” He said something I did not understand but soon brought a well chilled bottle of white Lugano. I thanked him for thinking of this wine. I it was lovely and immediately made me recall our trip across the lake country of Northern Italy with Debbie and Greg about 15 years ago. When we arrived at Lake Garda, we stopped at a wine cooperative that offered sampling so far the wines of the region, which included Lugano. I remember that the assistant was so friendly that he encouraged us to go to the supermarket down the road and buy salami, ham, cheese and bread to enjoy with the wines and Greg and I drove to the supermarket and we had a feast on a table in the wine cooperative tasting room.
We enjoyed telling Melissa this experience since she and Suzette are both friends with Debbie.
Anyway the wine tasted like my favorite whites, chenin blancs from Savvennieres in the Loire Valley because it had the same fruitiness plus minerality in perfect balance for me.
We sipped the last of our wine instead of eating dessert and said good night around 9:30. We caught the Green line to Union Square and the changed to the yellow R line to DeKalb street and took a taxi firm that station the last ten blocks to Like’s apartment.
A lovely day of art, wine, and food in NYC.
Bon Appetit
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