My Last Meal Of 2010

As mentioned in the previous post, I spent NYE at Lievito for dinner with friends (Stamps, Giggles, 'Cuse, Commack and friend of Commack's) after a cocktail party hosted by Stamps.  Lievito is usually a pizzeria, but there was a special menu that evening, served up by unusually hot Italian waiters (not Guido Italian from NJ, but sophisticated Italian from Italy).  The restaurant itself was modern and warm, with festive but tasteful holiday decorations.  One of the hot waiters brought out the first course, a focaccia bread with robiola cheese & truffle oil, which was seriously one of the most amazing things I have ever tasted.  Then:

Broccoli flan on a parmesan cheese basket & walnut pesto.  Been noticing a lot of savory flans on Italian menus as of late, which I'm not sure what to make of as I'm not a huge fan of gelatinous foods.  This flan tasted like what I would imagine a can of condensed cream of broccoli soup would taste like if you didn't add the water.  The parmesan basket was tasty, but a tad chewy.  Next:

Canneloni with ricotta cheese & spinach.  Oh my goodness was this fantastic.  Rich and creamy, unlike the flan, I ate the whole thing.  And then:

Mascarpone cheese pearls with crab meat & porcini mushrooms.  Also delicious, but the heaviness of the first 3 courses had me feeling VERY full.  I ate all the crab meat and then cut into one of the "pearls" which was more like a ravioli.  Only the mascarpone filling was not thick and creamy, but more runny and when I cut into the thing it proceeded to spew suddenly all over the table, narrowly missing my Blackberry.  One of my male dining companions made a grossly inappropriate, but hilariously obvious comment referencing a sexual reproductive function which made me giggle for about 10 minutes.  A palate cleansing lemon sorbet was followed by a choice of steak with foie gras or fish.  I opted for the pan seared tuna with sauteed artichokes, sweet white wine jelly, crispy parsley over a bed of champignon mushrooms:

I ate the artichokes and had one bite of the tuna as my tummy was at capacity.  As midnight approached, the waiters distributed hats and noisemakers to the patrons and turned the televisions on to the NY1 coverage of the Times Square ball drop.  We cheered and yelled and did the countdown "Happy New Year!!!" and toasted with glasses of champagne.  We continued to watch the madness in Times Square and watched all the happy couples tongue kissing on television -  classy.  For dessert (*groan*), homemade triple chocolate mousse with cherry sauce & mascarpone ice cream.  I had one bite - and it was great, but I wanted to die as I felt like I had consumed the entire counter at Murray's Cheese Shop.

While dinner was delicious, I could not help but notice that it was all very "beige" with the exception of the smear of cherry sauce on the side of dessert.  This meal could have done with one less pasta course and a salad to cut some of the richness of all the cheese.   We popped into the White Horse Tavern for a final drink, but my stomach was just not cooperating and the majority of my Amstel Light went unfinished.  We gazed out the window and watched as a girl who had obviously not paced her alcohol consumption, clutched the sides of the trash can on the corner, while her friends held her hair and rubbed her back (a sight that I saw on several street corners on my cab ride home and probably also repeated all over the city, country...world).  I was full enough to slightly envy her purge, but not in public view into a trash can in the middle of the West Village.

Despite my extreme post-dinner discomfort (all the booze did not help either), the meal was good enough to make me want to revisit Lievito and try the pizza - and ogle the waiters a bit more!