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French Lunch / Bar Crawl

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Monday, 14 April, 2014 – USA Food and Wine Tour

We start at The Terrace again for Breakfast.

Drinks
Fruit and Cereals. Note my favourite from the 50s – Cheerios on the right

The plan for the afternoon was to go to Balzhazar French Bistrot. I was going to take the subway but as I got downstairs, Jeremy and Chris were about to jump in a taxi so I hopped in too. We get there a bit early so go to the bar for Marys – Bloody in my case, Virgin in theirs as they are a bit under the weather.

It is a big barn of a place with lots of people waiting for tables. They tell us it will be a 15 minute wait. Eventually the rest of the group shows up and the wait continues, for well over an hour.

Inside Balzhazar French Bistrot. Our table is to be just over that partition but one group refuses to leave for ages.
The Seafood Bar

We finally get our table with the waiters having to shift tables around so we are all on a contiguous table.

Settling into our Table

Eventually the wine starts coming. The Sommelier is very nice and cleverly leaves the red at our small table for Chris, Julie and myself as we are the only red drinkers at that stage.

The Red – Beaujolais Villages
Tony suggests I take a photo of the Seafood tower at a nearby table

It took a long time for our orders to be taken and then quite a while before the food started coming.

First course for Julie was salad
For me Soup du Jour – a meal in itself there are so many lentils etc in it.
WARM GOAT CHEESE AND
CARAMELIZED ONION TART for Chris
Duck Confit for Chris and myself for Main
A number of others have Steak Frites
Salmon for Julie

Desserts then come out.

Pavlova
baked meringue with warm seasonal berries
Profiteroles
with vani l la ice cream and chocolate sauce for Jullie
Crème Brûlée
Warm Vanilla Bread Pudding
with butterscotch sauce and maple walnut ice cream
As usual I don’t do dessert but the Waiter insisted that I have some mixed Berries
Chocolate sauce pouring on the Profiterroles
The Waiters with Emily

It was a pretty good meal with good wine. Forgetting the long wait for the table, it was quite enjoyable.

Bar Crawl

The plan now after lunch is to start our Pub crawl at the oldest pubs, the first being the Ear Inn.

The Entrance to the Ear Inn
As the door says, founded in 1817

We start inside and I am given a several page history of the Ear. It seems that it got its name after Prohibition ended. Something like, if you gave the bar a new name you would have to pay a lot of money in tax. So they just took the “BAR” sign and chopped off the loops on the B to get EAR.

We sit outside in the sun for a while, which is very nice. We then go to the next Pub.

The Whitehorse Inn

We again sat outside which was waitress service only. By then, everybody had drifted away leaving only Colin, John and myself. So, we get a Taxi to the next place:

McSorleys Ale House
Inside McSorley’s. The old guy with the cap at thend of the bar is the owner. He had been there 40+ years.
Two kinds of Ale is all that they serve

We talk to a couple of younger guys who joined our table. They recommended a Bar called Pete’s Tavern which was also recommended by an Australian friend, thanks Rosie.

Pete’s – just across the park from our Hotel
Outside at Pete’s

There are many photos on the wall of celebrities that have been to Pete’s. We are joined by Anne, since the Hotel is so close. After a few more drinks, I go back to the Hotel room, around 7:30. Julie even gets back before I do. She is not good from the health point of view and goes to bed early. I follow not too far behind.

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