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Tonight, I ate well. Really well.

Yesterday I was sitting at work, writing my column, reading up on science news, and trying to rope V into hanging out with me this weekend. After some indecisiveness he had an idea: Great food. This may not sound brilliant, but in New York, there's good food, and then there's great food. Good food is all over the city—semi-fancy spots, cozy corners and solid burger joints dot every area, especially my very own Ninth Avenue. But there are a few restaurants that are GREAT. Leading the list are Masa, Per Se, and Le Bernardin; also up there are Daniel, Alain Ducasse, Bouley, Union Square Cafe, Jean Georges and Gramercy Tavern. We went to the last. The numbers titling the post are Gramercy Tavern's Zagat ratings. Read it and weep...with envy!

Metro North conked out on V (oh, the rain...), so at 5:30 he left Westchester in his car for our 6:00 reservation. And he made it. OK, so maybe it was 6:02 when he got there, but I was impressed, and he was clearly adrenaline-pumped from his success. I don't want to imagine the driving he had to do to get there, but he arrived in one piece, so all was well. Since the restaurant is business casual, I had an excuse to wear the cute dress Mom got me for my birthday. It's not my usual style, and it doesn't bring out the best in my sizable thighs, but it's pretty snazzy.

We were seated in the back (the real restaurant), and as we walked through the place, the whole thing smelled like burning wood. It has a delightful lodge-like atmosphere. Very not Manhattan...in a good way. All through the meal, we got little "compliments of the chef" palate cleaners and supplements. They were pretty damn delicious, every one.

We ordered drinks: I got Chianti (shocker), and V got a cobbler martini thing. Both were excellent. Then we began to pick out the components of our $76 prix fixe meal. For an appetizer, I got the oyster stew, which consisted of fried oysters, fava beans and summer truffles in some sort of consumme/chowderish broth. It was delightful, and it had the bonus feature of allowing me to say I've had "fava beans with a nice Chianti." I mentioned that to V, and he was insulted when I asked if he got the reference. Great line, great line... V got a corn chowder, which is what I had planned on, until I saw the oysters. It was frothy. Mmm.

Second course was, for me, lamb shoulder with ministrone and goat cheese ravioli. I've certainly never had lamb that good before...Even the fat was totally edible and delicious. And how can you go wrong with goat cheese ravioli? You can't, and I didn't. V got the sirloin—three perfect slices of meat—with sides that for some reason I can't remember offhand. One was bone marrow. It looked good.

After our entrees, we ordered a cheese course. I posed Brad's question to V: If you had to give up one for life, which would it be: oral sex or cheese? By the end of the night he still didn't have an answer and looked like I had stabbed his mother every time I posed the question. Really, it's a horrifying Sophie's choice. In any case, while we retain the right to all of life's great pleasures, we had 5 cheeses selected by our waitress. All were lovely, except I've never been a huge fan of bleu cheese, so I didn't love that one. We savored every bite, no less, and I left the majority of the most intense one to a very happy V.

For desert we split the chocolate cake and the chocolate/hazelnut mousse. Oh Lord, we have sinned. SO good. Even their coffee was magnificent. Especially the pre-desert treat of cinnamon creme fraiche and raspberries was magnificent. Just heavenly. And they gave us muffins for the morning, so the experience can continue until tomorrow. Yay, Gramercy Tavern. We're buds, now.

V was kind enough to drive me back to my apartment, and he came up, as I promised him some fine, full-bodied, judgment-clouding-yet-legal, 18-year-old scotch.^* We broke open the Macallan and hung out until he decided to beat the theater crowd out of midtown. Thus officially ended a pretty much perfect evening. V's always great company and good food makes anything wonderful. V's also not afraid to rave about things he likes, which makes every enjoyable experience so much better. It's so much nicer than ranking things or listing pros and cons during this sort of activity. The more you rave, the more you savor, the more you'll enjoy. And that's really the point.

As things go, the evening didn't actually end there. Adam gave me a call saying he was in the area, and he came over to work on the Saturday puzzle with me. He had already done a fair amount, but together we finished it (more or less...about 2 letters were off). Go us. We chatted for too long, and here I am, verging on two o'clock and typing away. It's time for a sure-to-be-sound night of sleep. Sweet dreams. Sweeter desserts.


^*The joke never gets old. And given V's occupation, I should probably clarify: No, the double meaning doesn't apply. He's very age appropriate. I just like the line. Carry on, now.