Last weekend I took the $25 Jet Blue special from Boston to New York with a friend. Highlights included a trip to the Met for art (Van Gogh’s Drawings) and the Met for opera (Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro). The Van Gogh exhibit deserves a separate post for tomorrow. While there we also went to an excellent place for dinner in the East Village, I Coppi, and for lunch in Soho, The Savoy.
I Coppi is a mid-priced Italian with a wonderful strong wine list with excellent super Tuscans. We had a 1996 Ornellaia that was very dark, spicy, and intense while being very smooth at the same time. There is a garden in the back with heat lamps that allow for outdoor dining in early mid-November and we were lucky to get seats there. For starters we had the mussels and clams in garlic and white wine broth over grilled Tuscan bread, a nice variation over traditional steam mussels. A wonderful chestnut and butternut squash filled ravioli in a sage butter sauce followed. The sauce made for good dipping with the Tuscan bread provided up front. The shared entrée was a rare butter-flied beef tenderloin with rosemary and roasted potatoes and chard on the side. The owner served this course. There was only room for coffee to fuel a walk through the East Village. I Coppi is located at 432 E. 9th St. (East Village) between First Ave. and Ave. A (212)-254-2263.
Savoy offers a nice lunch in Soho where we met a friend. She works in the area and had been given this pick form her colleagues. There were fireplaces on both floors. It was tough to make choices but I had the garlic roasted leg of lamb sandwich with arugula and my friend had the duck confit with braised pears. Both were perfectly done and there was plenty of meat in the sandwich which has a carrot and pistachio salad on the side. They celebrated their 15th anniversary in October. On December 2, a curator from the American Museum of Natural History will lead a dinner based on Darwin’s cooking at the Galapogos. The Savoy is located at 70 Prince Street, NYC 10012. (212) 219-8570.
While we were in NYC, we also saw The Marriage of Figaro at the Metropolitan Opera at Lincoln Center. It is the middle of a three part series of plays on Figaro of Sevilla that Mozart converted to opera. This was a great production that fully conveyed the comic aspects of the work. The scenery was striking, with its use of soft browns and greys. There were large windows typical of European places with effective back lighting casting shadows across the stage outlining the many small pane windows. Pre-opera dinner came in the form of take out from Dean and DeLucca’s large Soho store at Prince and Broadway. We took a long time making our selections as I like to just walk around the store as if it is a gallery.
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