pure food and wine

Our last day in NYC started with a trip to our favorite spot the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. We didn’t do any of the tours this trip but we browsed the store getting ideas for my “to read” list.

After spending a good 30 minutes at the Tenement Museum we headed a few blocks over to Babycakes to pick up a morning treat.  We debated over the doughnuts and the cinnamon rolls but ultimately decided to go with a biscuit with jam and cream and a spicy cheeze biscuit.  The biscuit with jam and cream was super delicious, I wish we had ordered two so we wouldn’t have had to share.  The other biscuit was okay, I bet it’s better when it’s straight out of the oven. 

 After that we walked around a bit. 

Then we headed to Eataly.

I could have spent hours in Eataly just looking over all of the products.  We debated dining at Le Verdure, the vegetable restaurant but decided there was somewhere else we’d like to dine more. So, we picked up a bunch of little items for stocking stuffers for my parents and a few treats for us before heading on our way.

We ended up walking just a few blocks and found ourselves heading into Pure Food and Wine for lunch.  This restaurant has been on my NYC Bucket list for years now and I’m so glad we finally decided to try it.

We both looked over the menu trying to decide what we would order (everything sounded amazing) but ultimately decided to go big or go home and we both went with the 3 course lunch. We were given three options to choose from for each course (salad, entree, dessert). To make the most of our experience Neil and I decided that we would each order something different and share everything so we each were able to try six different things. I’ll forewarn you now that all of Neil’s photos of the dishes he ordered were too out of focus for me to post and mine do not do the food justice. 

Salad Course: I ordered the Caesar Salad (romaine lettuce, nori, pumpkin seed macadamia parmesan, lemon)and Neil ordered the Mediterranean Salad (arugula and kale, kalamata olives, tomatoes, pumpkin seed macadamia parmesan, balsamic vinaigrette). The Mediterranean salad was good but not great, but the Caesar salad was incredible. I could have just eaten a giant bowl of Caesar Salad and been a happy girl.

Entree Course: I ordered the tortilla wraps (spicy sun-dried tomato filling, corn cilantro guacamole,tomato-lime salsa, cashew sour cream) and Neil ordered the zucchini and tomato lasagna (sun-dried tomato sauce, pistachio basil pesto pumpkin seed macadamia ricotta). Both dishes were amazing but I have to say that we both favored the tortilla wraps.

Dessert: I ordered the lemon bar (almond coconut crust, tart lemon custard) and Neil ordered the tiramisu (vanilla cream layered with coffee sake almond cake).  For this one I shared a bit of my lemon bar but didn’t have any of Neil’s dessert because of the coffee.  I have to say it was a tie though because according to Neil they were both amazing.

We ended our night with a quick trip to the Whole Foods beer store so that Neil could pick up a few homebrew items and then we caught a taxi to the airport where we hungout until our flight. We eventually arrived home at midnight to find our car wouldn’t start and ended up spending 2.5 hours at the airport waiting for a service truck to arrive.  Not a great end to an amazing weekend but oh well!