Recently in Restaurants Category

Which would you start with? The TKO (Thomas Keller's "Original" take on the Oreo) or the enormous Nutter Butter?

I wish I had had a chance to sit down and have something to eat here, although I suspect the desserts are a bit too precious for my taste. I did pick up one of their award-winning chocolate cupcakes and the best reason to pop by for a quick chocolate fix: the mini miso choko cake. The size of a mini muffin, these little cakes have sunken centers and a moist, fudgy texture. At $2 it's a perfect sweet bite.

The cupcake was good, too, with a crunchy outside and a moist, tender crumb.

I wish I had had a chance to sit down and have something to eat here, although I suspect the desserts are a bit too precious for my taste. I did pick up one of their award-winning chocolate cupcakes and the best reason to pop by for a quick chocolate fix: the mini miso choko cake. The size of a mini muffin, these little cakes have sunken centers and a moist, fudgy texture. At $2 it's a perfect sweet bite.

The cupcake was good, too, with a crunchy outside and a moist, tender crumb.

I have Windsor-specific food memories from growing up there: krautburgers (baked dough pockets filled with cabbage and ground beef) during the harvest festival parade, the sharp vinegar soaking into the mild, sweet white buns of the Italian subs we always got from the local pizza place, the green chile from The Border. But it was a tiny town; there wasn't anyplace to go in Windsor on date night. We'd go over to Fort Collins for that. But now Windsor has at least two places to go for a date meal.

One's a Hawaiian restaurant, if you can imagine: Okole Maluna Hawaiian Grill. When I heard that I imagined Spam and pineapple. But this was almost like a Japanese restaurant, with spare, elegant dishes. Todd started with the black bean soup, which was actually a broth-based soup with a couple of red beans and small disks of a Portugese sausage that gave the whole bowl with a sweet, meaty flavor. I had a soba salad with shredded romaine, and Todd went for the barbecued pork. Believe it or not, this was elegant, too. Two domes of sticky rice and a pile of smokey, shredded meat. He was disappointed because he was hoping for something from his childhood, a barbecued pork he got from a Hawaiian that came in chunks in a "dry-ish sauce" (I don't know). But he loved the soup and the Haupia, a coconut cream dessert that was like a flan or panna cotta with pulverized coconut.

At the other place, Chimney Park Bistro, they go so far to serve local, seasonal ingredients that they actually had a couple of Colorado wines on the menu. I tried a Reisling from the Delta area, and it was citrusy and sweet, good for one glass but maybe a bit too sweet for more. Local also meant smoked trout on a deconstructed Waldorf with endive and buffalo instead of beef in the hamburger. The other highlight was the trio of creme brulees. The flavors change every few days and if you can guess all three, the dessert's on them. We didn't even come close: the first one tasted like eggnog, so we guessed nutmeg (the server said it was cinnamon, but I still don't believe it); the second one was chai. The third one was ethereal and familiar, kind of tart but with these crazy nuances I couldn't pin down. Lots of people had been guessing lemon, which was Todd's guess, but it was pink peppercorn. Had I ever had pink peppercorn? It was so familiar.

Thursday I made a quick trip into Manhattan just to try Lassi, the Indian snack-food shop, and I found something there worth hauling 31 pounds of stroller and infant up and down subway stairs for. DO NOT order a small lassi, unless you're planning to try one of every flavor. I had the cardamom, and I have to figure out how to make it here at home. How do they make it sweet? I think they use ground-up whole cardamom pods because there were chewy, tiny fibrous pieces at the bottom. I slurped them right up less than a block from the store.

I also had a cauliflower paratha, which was not quite what I was expecting. It was kind of chewy, doughy and moist. But spicy (not hot) and yummy. Thinking back on it I'd like another. It came with a yogurt sauce with what seemed like tiny chickpeas in it.

I went to a new place here in Forest Hills today, and it should have been a nice lunch with the in-laws. But the place was Cami's, which apparently doesn't keep the ingredients stocked for about half the stuff on their somewhat-limited lunch menu. When my father-in-law tried to order a Cuban sandwich, he was told, "We don't have Cubans." The way the waitress said it it almost sounded like he was demanding something they didn't offer on the menu.

Then my sandwich, a roasted vegetable sandwich with smoked gouda and eggplant spread, came with no cheese and drizzled with pesto. When I asked about the cheese the hostess (owner?) came over and told me that it was a spread of gouda and eggplant. Then why is it green? Thin? Oily? No sign that it is made of eggplant, which is not green, and cheese, which is also not green? I can't help but feel that I was being lied to in a very bald-faced and offensive way.

If I wasn't being lied to, though, I have to say that a smoked gouda and eggplant spread, which may be kind of a good idea in abstract, does not work at all in practice at Cami's, where it is not thick and brown and smokey but much too much like pesto.

So disappointing, because I was looking for a nice place to spend my lunchtimes.

Don't make the mistake I did. The rose flavored chocolate chip cookie sounded so enticing I had to go overboard and get the rose ice cream sandwich: rose petal ice cream from Il Laboratorio gelato between two of Ruby et Violette's rose cookies. The problem was that it had to be cold, which my companions and I decided dulled the rose taste. It certainly was more pronounced by time I reached the end of the sandwich, and what an odd and ethereal taste it was.

The cookies themselves are medium circumference, thick, soft and chewy (too soft in Todd's opinion) with big, soft chunks of chocolate. We tried three other chocolate-chip cookie flavors: Todd got Champagne and strawberries, which contained big, chewy dried strawberries, and espresso, which was flatter than all the rest and had chips of espresso bean and the most overpowering, wake-me-up aroma. The one I liked the best was dulce du leche; each bite melts into caramel in your mouth. I'd haul August in the stroller all the way over to (almost) 10th Avenue again to get another one of those.

Don't make the mistake I did. The rose flavored chocolate chip cookie sounded so enticing I had to go overboard and get the rose ice cream sandwich: rose petal ice cream from Il Laboratorio gelato between two of Ruby et Violette's rose cookies. The problem was that it had to be cold, which my companions and I decided dulled the rose taste. It certainly was more pronounced by time I reached the end of the sandwich, and what an odd and ethereal taste it was.

The cookies themselves are medium circumference, thick, soft and chewy (too soft in Todd's opinion) with big, soft chunks of chocolate. We tried three other chocolate-chip cookie flavors: Todd got Champagne and strawberries, which contained big, chewy dried strawberries, and espresso, which was flatter than all the rest and had chips of espresso bean and the most overpowering, wake-me-up aroma. The one I liked the best was dulce du leche; each bite melts into caramel in your mouth. I'd haul August in the stroller all the way over to (almost) 10th Avenue again to get another one of those.

I'd forgotten what it's like to go out on a Friday night. Thursday night was always date night for Todd and me pre-baby, so much so that while I was riding in to meet Todd for dinner last night I wondered if I we would show up and not have a reservation because I'd made it for Thursday. Anyway, we had to wait about 10 minutes for a table at The Red Cat, with frequent assurances from the hostess that it would only be a couple of minutes. So nice. And that set the tone for the whole evening. I thought the waiter would be snooty, but he was nice, too.

I took a big risk here and ordered the liver, which I had never had. I figured if I was going to like liver, it would be liver prepared at a place like this, so I went for it. The waiter told me if I didn't like it they'd bring me something else, but you know what? I'm all about appetizers, desserts and sides. Usually the main dish is the most boring part of the meal. So I wasn't too nervous. And even though the unctuous, silky-sweet liver was too much (I liked the crisp edges, though), I really enjoyed the meal.

It helped that it started with a hearty dish, their salad of bitter greens. I know it sounds light, but their salad is served on top of a pool of gruyere fondue, with wonderful wedges of salty potato, diced apples and bacon. I could've stopped there. I saw one table sharing it.

The liver came with broccoli rabe and tomatoes with olives and capers. The bitter greens actually didn't seem to go very well with the sweet liver, but it was yummy. Todd had the most boring-sounding dish, roast chicken, but they literally spice it up with some Thai chiles. I don't know how they did it, but the skin was crispy and the meat was flavorful.

They have some fancy desserts and some wonderfully homey ones. We ended with the rocky road sundae, caramel ice cream with hot fudge, candied walnuts and homemade marshmallows. I wanted the cookie plate, which is served with a mini milkshake. There was also an almond panna cotta that sounded good, but the rhubarb dessert, their special, was rhubarb-raspberry ice cream sandwich, with the bread part made of pistachio meringue. Sounded a little froofy, so we went the comfort-food route.

We ventured out with the baby in his new stroller last weekend, to the Dahesh museum near the IBM atrium in midtown. They have an exhibit of early photography right now, more sociological than artistic, although there were a couple of great photographs by unknown photographers. The permanent collection at the museum is really small and even on a Saturday afternoon there weren't a lot of people there, which made it good for a couple with a stroller child.

On the second floor overlooking Madison Avenue is Cafe Opaline, which serves an afternoon tea as well as sandwiches, pizzas and salads. Some of the dishes seem to have a Mediterranean bent, then there's basic dishes, like my crab salad, which was undressed crab meat arranged on a plate with avocado cubes, capers and mixed greens in radicchio cups. Sounded much better than it ended up being, mainly because there was no seasoning or dressing on the crab or avocado. Looking around the table at others' plates gave me the impression that's common. The banana bread pudding I had, with ice cream, was mushy but delicious, if only the baby had let me enjoy it fully (2 hours in a museum plus 2 hours at lunch was too much to ask of him).

But the setting was beautiful and the teas were fragrant and wonderful. I think I'd like to try their tea service sometime. And off hours there was plenty of space for our stroller, although the service was pretty bad in the late afternoon, too.