craft

For my birthday, several of my dear friends got together and gave me a giftcard to Craft.  Craft is a restaurant I have wanted to go to since I moved to the city 2 1/2 years ago.  Tom Collichio is the Chef and I've always watched Top Chef and wondered, "yeah, but what does your food taste like, Tom?!"  Well, I can now say that Tom has the right to critique anyone!  The food was absolutely divine! My very dear friend Angela went with me and we had the most amazing evening!  We started out with a complimentary amous bouche- salmon tar-tar on a potatoe chip.  Well, if you know me you know I don't eat seafood and I definitely don't eat RAW seafood. But, Angela and I had decided that we were going to be adventurous- so, I had to follow through.  Angela loved it.  I wasn't particularly fond of the texture, but that had nothing to do with the Chef.  I just don't like the texture of seafood.  I ate it- and to me, that was a victory!  Our first course was a trio of pork ravioli.  Wow. It was amazing.  It was also sprinkled with bits of bacon- um, hello!- everything tastes better with bacon.  Moving on to our main course- here's the star of the show.  We ordered the 28 day dry-aged Sirloin.  It was heavenly! I don't want to bore you with details, but it was still on the bone, giving it extra juiciness and flavor.  Plus, it melted in your mouth. Yum.  Angela and I had both never had gnocchi, so we ordered that as part of our "adventure" plan.  It was sooo good!  Possibly a new favorite of mine.  We also ordered the garlic rissotto and it was fabulous.  Finally, we made it to dessert.  First, we were given two small chocolate and cream tartlettes compliments of the chef (thanks, Tom!).  They were a perfect bite of chocolately goodness.  We knew we had to have the Sugar & Spice Doughnuts, as they come highly recommended.  We were not dissappointed.  They were wonderful.  They came with dipping sauces that enhanced their flavor even more. We also ordered an ice cream and sorbet sampler.  We got pear sorbet, cream cheese ice cream, and crunchy peanut ice cream.  All three were a home run!  They even wrote "Happy Birthday" on the plate!  To say that we had a great time would be an understatement.  We definitely felt like rockstars.  I would highly recommend this James Beard Award Winning restuarant!  What a great Monday- I can only hope the rest of my week is this amazing!