Fancy Lunch at Eleven Madison Park

Last week, my husband and I had some errands in Manhattan. Since we normally don't have a chance to go to Manhattan on the weekdays during the day, we decided to have a fancy lunch at one of the restaurant I wanted to go. The restaurant is called "Eleven Madison Park" which is right next to Madison Park.

The restaurant has lots of big windows so very bright and nice atmosphere. We really enjoyed this luxurious feeling.

Of course, the food was excellent also.

First, amuse. It was chicken soup and truffle oil crouton. This is not the regular chicken soup. It was creamy yet not too rich and tasted very delicate. Truffle crouton was great since we love truffle.

Then appetizer. I had scallop and my husband had white truffle.
The scallop dish was so colorful and beautiful. It really was like an art.

My husband white truffle dish was white truffle dish over torterillni. The chef came out from the kitchen with a glass container with white truffle in it and explained about this white truffle and shaved it right in front of us. It was super good. I love truffle.

Then we had this egg thing which is something like form inside with some green oil (sauce?) in the bottom. It was very fluffy and good. I don't know the name of this dish but the presentation was cute.

For main course, I had chicken and my husband had pork.
My chicken was very tender and good. I especially liked the crispy skin of the chicken. It also had a few black truffle slices.

My husband's pork was done in three ways (I think). I tried one of them. It was also very tender and good but I think I liked my chicken better.

Then sorbet. Look at this plate! Isn't it pretty? I had never seen a plate like this. I love it. The sorbet was bit too intense for me but I love the presentation.

For dessert, I had chocolate dessert. I was in a form of flexible chocolate ganache with some sorbet. I think it might have been persimmon sorbet. I am not sure. I also tasted some yuzu in one of the sauce.

My husband had coconut dessert. It was coconut sorbet with some tropical fruit. It was very refreshing and tasted great.

After our dessert, they also bought out some mini desserts. It was ice cream lollipop and thin almond brittle. Both of them were really good.

 In the beginning, we were worried that we might not be full from all these small portioned dishes (We were even joking that we might have to go to Shake Shack which is in the Madison Park to get hamburger after this) but by the time when we finish all the course, we were so full. It was a very satisfying lunch. We spent about two hours enjoying every single dish.

It was pretty pricey but this is something which is once a year experience. The time we spent at this restaurant was very luxurious and we thanked each other for everything we did and we got this year. Maybe we should do this every year! At the end of the year, we should pick one fancy restaurant and enjoy end of the year meal and appreciate everything for that year.

Anyway, I am very thankful for everything and my husband. We are very lucky to be able to have such a wonderful lunch in such a nice restaurant.

Christmas Cookies

Every year, when Christmas get closer, my husband and I make cookies together. I think this is a pretty common thing to do in Germany. My husband told me that he made cookie with his mom every year when he was little and it remain as a great memory for him.

So ever since we are together, we started bake cookies together before Christmas. This has been a great project for us every year.

One of the cookie we always make is almond cookie which my husband made every year with his mom. We got the recipe from his mom and we bake this every year. I love this cookie so much. It has almond powder in it and taste so good!

We make dough and roll it into sticks and keep in the fridge for about 30mins.
Then, cut them into pieces.

Put them in the oven sheet and add almond on top for each cookie.

Then, bake it for 13mins or so.

This year, we decided to make one more kind of cookie from the book I borrowed. This is the book I borrowed from library.

There are so many different kind of cookies in this book but I wanted to try cranberry shortbread cookie since I love shortbread cookie.

This is how it looked before baking.

This is after baking.

I was supposed to take this out and use heart shaped cookie cutter to make hearts but when I tried to take it out from the pan, it kind of all crumbled so I decided to eat them just like that. I kind of cut them into smaller pieces and stored in a air tight container. It is so crumbly and taste delicious!

We baked lots of cookies so we can enjoy them everyday until Christmas. Maybe even after Christmas!

This cookie baking with my husband is one of my favorite things to do every year. I am already excited about spending holiday with him and the warm nice house and delicious smell of cookies make me even happier. I think it is quite tedious work to bake cookie by yourself but when I bake it with my husband it make it much more fun and easy! We will definitely continue this tradition ever year for the many years to come! I highly recommend baking cookies with your families and friends. It bring you lots of joy and happiness.

Birthday Party at friend's apartment in Manhattan with Argentinean Dinner

The other day, a friend of my husband who lives in Manhattan had a birthday party and he and his wife invited us for the birthday party at their place.

They live in an apartment in Manhattan and this was our first time visiting their apartment. Their apartment was right by the Hudson River and the view was spectacular.

Isn't it awesome to have this view from your own apartment everyday?

His wife is from Argentine so she made some Argentinean dinner for the party.  I don't know the name of dishes she made but all of them were so good!

First, we had creamy chicken pie. It has creamy chicken with green peas in a flaky dough. It is creamy but not too rich so you can eat them a lot. It was really good.

And we also had meat and potato pie. It had some cinnamon on top and it was great combination. I loved cinnamon and ground beef together.

I was not too familiar with Argentinean dishes and when I think of Argentinean dishes, I always thought about grilled beef so it was great to get to know all these delicious new dishes! I would love to know more about Argentinean dishes. I think I will research more. Since now I have an Argentinean friend, if there is any question about Argentinean dishes, I can just ask her!

There were some other friends of theirs at the party and it was first time for us to meet them but everyone was so nice and easy to talk to so we really had a great time together.

oh, we also had dessert of course but I forgot to take photos. It was chocolate pudding cake and cheese cake. Both of them were really good. We ate so much!

And they showed us this funny cup they have. I had never seen anything like this. Isn't this wild? It is so funny!

Anyhow, we had a great evening and I hope that we will see all of them again sometime soon!