Goodbye (for now) to Restaurant Week

Yesterday was my last Restaurant Week lunch for the winter.  And much sadness ensues.  But, as always, I enjoyed trying new restaurants around town!  I shan't be returning to one of them, but the rest will definitely stay on my 'special occasion spot' list.

A co-worker and I went to db Bistro Moderne is midtown, another wonderful Daniel Boulud restaurant (I went to Boulud Sud a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it).  We chose it because it was close to the office and also because it was a French bistro.  I really can't enough of French food - I never cook it for myself and it's alway sooooooo tasty.

The restaurant was lovely - very cozy, but not cramped, with lots of natural light and photographs on the walls.  The bar was very striking and seemed the focal point of the room.  The servers were quite charming and the pace of the meal was just right.  We ordered iced teas, which were very good and served with a pitcher of simple syrup.  The bread service was also good, with two pieces of olive bread and two crusty rolls.  Very nice. 

Since I decided I wanted the lamb for my main course, I decided to go light with my appetizer and dessert.  For my first course, I had the arugula salad with pears, fennel, pecorino cheese and a red wine vinaigrette.  This was really delicious - the vinaigrette was so bracing and acidic, it woke up my palate for the rest of the meal.  The pears were sweet and soft, and the fennel was sweet and savory at the same time, but crunchy.  I am not really a salad person, but this was very tasty.

My main course was the braised lamb, served with creamy polenta, confit cherry tomatoes, a broccoli rabe pistou and a rosemary jus.  YUM.  The lamb was perfectly cooked, so soft and succulent.  The tomatoes were a burst of tomato deliciousness, almost like candy.  And the polenta was a nice salty base on which the lamb rested.  Loved this dish.

For dessert, I chose the brown sugar roasted pineapple with coconut mousse, pina colada sorbet and a lime sauce.  There was also some kind of sugar cookie or biscuit underneath the sorbet which was very tasty.  This dessert was SO yummy, with a lot of textures and levels of sweetness.  The mousse was more like a marshmallow and was very coconut-y.  There could maybe have been something savory on the plate, a little salt might've cut all that sweetness.  Not that all that sweetness wasn't incredible, it was, but I was craving pretzels or potato chips when I got back into the office after lunch.  :)

So goodbye until the summer, dear Restaurant Week.  I do love you so.