Weekend #4

Time sure flies. Its hard to believe that my fourth weekend in the city just ended. But hopefully there will be many more!

Weekend #4 was another good one. Back to eating well. On Saturday evening I met up with my good friends Eliot and Sabrina for pre dinner drinks at my place and then dinner at Pasha. As Eliot and Sabrina both recently visited Argentina, I served an Argentinian red wine which I enjoyed very much. It was a 2003 Daniva Reserva Roble Malbec from Mendoza.

Pasha is a very good Turkish restaurant on 71st and Columbus but also quite reasonable. Thanks to Sabrina's recommendation I had a chicken dish called Tavuk Gogsu Sarmasi. It's marinated chicken breast stuffed with a rice, pistachios and currants served on a bed of sauteed spinach with a white wine tarragon sauce. Just delicious. To finish the meal I had an apple tea which is a favorite of mine.

On Saturday afternoon I had lunch with my family in New Jersey at a place called the Garlic Rose. Every dish is made with garlic and my Chicken Mascarpone was excellent.

Besides eating well, shopping and more dancing were in the mix. On Friday evening I went downtown to J&R to buy a lens for my camera and pick up some CDs. Sunday afternoon was spent at a salsa intensive (4 hour) dance lesson. I actually enjoyed the salsa dancing very much and plan on getting out and dancing as much as I can. The dance studio I took the lesson at is called Dance Manhattan and if you are looking for a place to take dance lessons I highly recommend this studio.

Check the blog during the week for my observations on east side verse west side subways and New Yorkers' fears and misconceptions about New Jersey.