Pinot & Pineapple

As I mentioned in my “Dovetail NYC” post, my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary this week. To be specific, it was our 2-year wedding anniversary. The second year’s anniversary gifts are cotton (traditional) and china (modern) and as a person who loves a good theme, I ran with the idea of china. No, I didn’t buy my husband new plates and bowls. And no, I didn’t take him to China. But, I did do the next best thing… a day exploring NYC’S Chinatown!

We kicked off the day with lunch at Peking Duck House. We have always enjoyed this restaurant for its Peking duck - more specifically, its Peking duck skin! Ah yes, we do enjoy some crispy duck skin. We started our meal with the Spicy White Cabbage- crisp, sweet and sour cabbage with a delicious kick of chilies and ginger. We also had the Steamed Pork Buns- tender, flavorful bites of seasoned ground pork wrapped inside a dumpling-type dough and steamed until a heavenly pool of pork broth forms in the bottom of each bun. One must be careful when eating these buns to make sure not to lose that awesome broth. I like to put the bun inside a spoon and eat it from the spoon so that if any broth comes out, I’ve got it captured. We dress up our buns with the provided “bun sauce” which is a combination of soy sauce, vinegar and ginger. The acidity of the sauce is a nice contrast to the richly flavored pork.

And now, for the star of today’s luncheon feast… The Duck! One of the servers brings the duck to our table and presents it to us. “Your duck,” he says. Then the carving chef comes out and carves it tableside for us making sure to get every square inch of the crispy, shiny brown skin. He shingles each slice on a platter methodically and the platter is placed in the center of the table and the accompaniments- perfect batonnets of cucumber, julienne of scallion, pancakes and “special sauce”- are place around this platter. We simply dig in. There is no other way to put it. It was delicious, as always. The cool, crunchy vegetables are just perfect with the moist, tender duck meat and the fatty yet crispy skin. And the sauce? Lick-the-bowl good, if I were that kind of girl.

Once we waddled away from our table, we made our way to the Museum of the Chinese in America for a guided tour of Chinatown. This was a very informative and interesting 90-minute tour and we highly recommend it.

After the tour, we treated ourselves to a scoop of ice cream from Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. I had the Lychee ice cream and my husband had the Chocolate Oreo ice cream. Mine was perfectly creamy and fruity with lots of nice chunks of lychee. My husband said he would have preferred more chunks of Oreo, but he said it was okay.

And that concludes our tour of Chinatown. Now I have to start planning for next year’s gift…

The Peking duck feast!

The Steamed Pork Buns

My rating (out of a possible 5):

My husband took me to Dovetail this week to celebrate our wedding anniversary. This was a highly anticipated meal as this restaurant has received very good reviews in numerous publications as well as in foodie chat rooms. Here is my review:

First Impressions: The space has lovely design features and atmosphere. However, the first thing you smell upon stepping in the door is fish. Also distracting, the air temperature was much too warm. This leads us to the WINE…

Due to the very warm temperature of the restaurant, my husband and I decided to go with a cool white wine for this evening’s meal. We chose a 2005 white Burgundy as it would be the most versatile white to complement both of our yet-to-be-determined meals. The wine was perfectly refreshing: fruity/floral aroma, crisp acidity, nice fruit, not oaky at all, subdued alcohol, medium body. The wait staff kept the bottle on ice for us and refilled appropriately.

The Amuse Bouche(s) for the evening were a vodka gelee garnished with fried capers and salmon roe served in a sterling silver spoon and a patty pan squash quarter garnished with grated turnip (I think that’s what the guy said), pesto and paprika served on a bamboo stick. My husband and I agreed, we liked the squash better than the gelee.

The evening’s bread selection was a delightfully salty corn bread.

First Courses: I had the Maine sea scallops with banana-curry sauce garnished with cashews and crispy fried okra. The scallops were humongous and perfectly cooked and the sauce was deliciously flavorful yet delicate and complimented the scallops nicely. My husband had the lamb’s tongue served with muffalatta presse, olives and capers. He said it was the highlight of his meal and my bite of the tongue was melt-in-your-mouth-tender and very rich.

Main Courses: I had the poached lobster served with dilled potatoes and garlicky greens. It was really good with fresh herb flavors and buttery, perfectly cooked lobster. The only issue I had was that some of the perfectly cut dices of potato were not fully cooked. My husband had the roasted sirloin and beef cheek lasagna garnished with wild mushrooms and red and white pearl onions. He loved the beef cheek lasagna but said that the roasted sirloin was nothing special.

Desserts: I had the cheese plate. Honestly, I do not remember what cheeses they were (there were 3) but they were very good. They were served with 2 types of bread and a handful of accompaniments. My husband had the peanut butter tart served with beer ice cream and pretzels.

Service: The service was very good and everybody was friendly. There was never a lag in clearing our plates and little wait between courses. The captain was very good with the up-sell; asking if we’d like to start the evening with a glass of Champagne or if I’d like a glass of dessert wine to go with my cheese plate.

With our check, we each received a macadamia nut truffle and a to-go sample of peanut butter granola which tastes awesome in yogurt.

We left Dovetail quite pleased with our evening. We may or may not return. It’s difficult to return to the same restaurant when there are so many others to try. But, I would highly recommend Dovetail to a friend.

My Rating (out of a possible 5):

When I write a review I will use the following rating system…

- Outstanding

- Excellent

- Very Good

- Good to Fair

- Fair to Poor