Sushi in the Summer Time, with a Side of Blue Pig

It's Restaurant Week once more and once more, The HOchieS & Co. found themselves at Hatsuhana for sushi.

Fake candles were on our table.  It's almost as if they recall some sort of alleged fire to cloth napkin that may have occurred at our table last year.

It was Boohead who made the request but I was not opposed to the idea either.

Mk (sans X - much to her chagrin what with the pictures of sushi torture we kept sending to her during the meal) and new frenemy, "Active" Goat T* accompanied us for a night of fishy fun.

Adventures in Restaurant Week: The Birdsall House

Earlier in the week, a loon at The Birdsall House told me that the restaurant was not participating in Hudson Valley's Restaurant week on Saturdays.

It was utter madness and as we found out later that week, it turned out to be completely untrue.

It was a good thing we decided to eat there on Saturday too because at $20.95 for a three course meal, it was not only really good but it was also a ton of food.

After eating, I felt as though I had robbed them.

To start with, H1 had the chicken liver pate with a cherry compote type thing.

(The Almost Mis)adventures in Restaurant Week, 2012: Cipriani Dolci

Restaurant Week for the first round in February is upon us once more; and once more, we're making a conscious effort to get together with frenemies and try a place or two if we can manage.

As if not plainly obvious from our adventures last year at Brasserie and Hatsuhana, H1 and I are all for Restaurant Week.  Some may argue it's a crap thing to do that does not benefit business or is not a true representation of the food one may find at participating place.  For us, Restaurant Week offers us a chance to dine on a budget; we discover new places that may otherwise never get money from us; and if a restaurant offers a good enough meal, that encourages us to try it again sometime.

As we've said before, there are so many great places to eat at in the city that ideally we would not like to go to the same place twice but the reality is, through word of mouth we've been recommended to go to some places by friends and we've recommended some to others and may share a future meal with them if we liked a place enough.

The other thing about Restaurant Week is that it gives us a chance to spend a nice evening with frenemies.  Of course, if some of our frenemies would get back to us, we could truly enjoy ourselves...Frass  (seriously though, no worries if you can't make it.  No need to feel guilt for anything but just let us know.  We're actually concerned about you at this point since we've not heard back).

Friday night, H1 and I went out with our favourite Aims to Cipriani Dolci located in Grand Central Terminal.  As shocking as it may seem, The HOchieS have never been to Cipriani.  Italian food does not move me but that's not entirely accurate of me to say.  Have I even had true, good Italian food? Perhaps once or twice but I am not a good judge on Italian food and therefore feel I have no right to speak on the matter.