butter (not "the stick of")...

restaurant week.
alas, slipped most of my mind despite the numerous reminders/solicitations. anyhoodle, made it out to Butter on Lafayette b/w Astor Place & W. 4th. Really wanted to try out Anthos and Fig & Oil this wk but I dunno...the hotel rooms of my mind are totally vacant. As u can see I've got a fevah for Greek food lately--minus Butter but i mean COME ON like Paula Deen says: you know it's gotta be good if you start the recipe with a stick of buttaaaaaah. oy.
I was feeling a little self conscious lugging around my new nikon to the restaurant and with the crazy flash that comes standard, so I tried to eke in shots quickly so I only got a couple good shots in, that and I was hesitant to bust that ish out after every course :P Moi? Self conscious?? mais oui. On the rare occasion.

Appetizers: I had the Sauteed Shrimp and Salted Crispy Cod on a bed of arugula with a Mandarin orange dressing. Lots of people had the Cavatappi pasta with Lamb sausages and yellow tomato sauce which apparently was good enough to be an entree! Check the menu for more options b/c I'm too lazy to write about them.
Entree:Pork, Fish, Duck. and some vegetarian choice. I was torn b/w the braised Pork Osso Bucco with adzuki beans, charred onions and mustard and the Blackened Florida grouper with crushed Yukon potatoes, capers, and parsley. Needless to say, the capers won out (esp the bigger ones--caper berries--are awesomeness profound. not really. just wanted to be a little nonsensical. and tangential. yoinks!)

Dessert: Had the Blood Orange upside down cake--nothing else sounded too tempting (mango sorbet blahblahblah chocolate tart blahblahblah). Did not enjoy it--but the sauce was a sharp contrast cake. that, melikes. here's a blurry shot b/c I like to not keep still. and sans flash. (still trying to figure out the buttons--such a switch from the manual SLR's =/ i knew the functions intutively w/ my hands...le sigh* but yay for new camera! ^_^)
I liked Butter. I didn't love it. Just like FR.OG (France Origine) in SoHo. The subpar dessert @ butter really killed it for me. I dunno--everything up until then had been good, pleasing, not extroardinary, but that dessert just really pooped one out. Perhaps a post on FR.OG later when I feel like talking about quartered figs and a crazy soup pouring/show. :)

Vietnamese food = LOVE...

I broke my canon. Again. But I got these in before I broke it. again. :)

This is a soup-y thing that's not really soup. It's not stew either. It's called "canh cua rau day vuoi muop". This, apparently, when translated into English is soup with crab, jute/salyot leaves, and luffa squash. *shrug*. Alls I know is, it's kind of like spinach and zucchini--except in the broth, it ends up being a little viscous when cooked. The crab is just lump meat more or less nothing exciting. Either way, delicious--and apparently Jute leaves/saluyot is also eaten in Egypt/West Africa. *Shrug*.

Beats me. Either way, the nice thing about "canh" is you can eat it alone, or depending on which region of Vietnam, u can also eat it with your rice and rest of the meal allllllll mixed in together. I was eating it with my all time fave--ca phao mam tom. Ca = eggplant--but in this case it's usually pickled baby eggplanst, hence them being so round and poifect! It's occasionally picked in regular ol' brine type stuffs, or in this case, with a little shrimp paste and chili. Shrimp paste: if only you bastards knew how freakin' AWESOME it is--just never mind the initial...aroma. *shakes fist!* :) This is a "northern" vietnam kinda meal...YAAAAAY. Comfort food like u don't even KNOOOOW. [for me it's also canh chua ca thi la-- sweet & sour soup with steamed tilapia and thyme/dill, trung duc (which is a little like a frittata), and I dunno. banh cuon (crepes type thing)].

and then there are the fruits: this one is a rambutan--kinda like a lychee, and kinda not.

It comes completely covered in that red/tentacled little casing-- my mom tends to do this whole cut it in half make it look pretty on a plate kinda thing. *ah* l'amour. This was dinner for Xmas eve. Shame no place in NYC or a lot of vietnamese ventures don't get down home like this and dilutes the menu, or rather, cater to the masses by doing solely pho or whatever french influenced (cubed beef) crap that overshadows the fantastic freshness and flavors that is Vietnamese food. One day...wocka wocka wocka!