A few weeks ago I made my semi-annual short trip to New York City.  As usual, my agenda was primarily sharing food and wine with friends.  Although most recent trips have been by bus on the LimoLiner, this time I decided to drive down in my new car.  This new Subaru Forester is very comfortable, gets very good mileage, and has a convenient sound system which lets me play hundreds of my favorite tunes while I drive.  Furthermore, there is plenty of space for carrying my re-supplies of food and wine back home.

I was able to stay again at one of my favorite Airbnb locations, near Gramercy Park.  It is 3-4 blocks from most places I wanted to go.  Still, I ended up walking 8.5 miles over the 48 hours, because I enjoy walking in the city so much, and it was a good way to walk off the calories consumed with such gusto.

One of my first stops was the Union Square Greenmarket, source of so many visual and gustatory delights.

The night before, Jeremy and I had dinner together at dell’anima in the West Village.  It was hip, somewhat noisy, but good food.  Here are the appetizer dishes we shared, before the pasta (for me) and roast chicken (for him).

After the Greenmarket I had a late lunch nearby at Casa Mono: grilled setas (oyster mushrooms) a la plancha, and grilled baby octopus.

Having satisfied my desire for shellfish, the next day I had a marvelous lunch at abcV, a new vegan/vegetarian restaurant by Jean-Georges.  The place was bright and clean, with creative, nicely designed and well-prepared dishes.  I enjoyed the pine nut and lemon purée, and the seared baby artichokes with Sicilian olive oil and green olives.

Since I was driving home that afternoon I decided to skip the wine and drink some Root Reboot; I enjoyed the fact that it looked like a glass of my favorite Chianti, but was totally healthy and would not make me drowsy.

Root Reboot. beets, carrot, lemon, ginger and orange