Hungry Hippo

Back last month, when Sparks was visiting, we found that we had long lists of things that we wanted to do together while she was in town. Despite the fact that we hadn't seen each other in about six years (6! Years!) we quickly discovered that all the shared interests we had since our Montreal days were still intact, and the best part about it was that we seemed to have developed new shared interests. Of course, being the food blog that this is, one of our newer interests is fine dining.

I don't ever recall eating well in back in university, though I realize this experience is probably universal. I just remember goals of trying to find ways to bulk up cheap food. For example, Sparks was the one who showed me how to melt a couple Kraft Singles into a box worth of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, for a creamier, heartier, calcium-rich meal. Much energy was also expended trying to find places (note the use of places, not restaurants) that would serve large quantities of food for ridiculously low prices. Regardless of the fact that I fearlessly ate at every cheap hole-in-the-wall (I'm talking $4 Canadian for a large pepperoni pizza, one CAD for a big, fat shish-taouk, and "Twoonie Tuesdays" at Poulet Frite Kentucky--that's right, Quebecois KFC--for two CAD you get two pieces of fried chicken, fries and a small soda), I repeatedly got violent bouts of food poisoning, and still do to this day--that whole immunity building thing never worked out for me. I suppose that was part of the whole college experience--getting a kick out of eating crap food.

Now that we've moved up a bit in the world, and are no longer lowly college students (now we're just grad-student paupers), we've taken to enjoying the finer things in life. Like getting into the MoMA for free and eating at the cafe there (the food, unfortunately, was not for free).

We actually hit up the MoMA twice; the first time directly following a visit to the Buttercup Bakeshop for a couple cupcakes (I adore the moist, fluffy cakes here, but have a real problem with the over-abundance of tooth-achingly sweet buttercream icing on each cupcake), and the second time was actually the very next day, right before a lab meeting I was required to attend.

The MoMA cafe, or technically, Cafe 2, serves "seasonal Italian food" (from the website), from paninis to pastas, with beautiful display cases showing off their vast array of grilled vegetables. All their dinnerware is fashionably modern, but charming nonetheless, from dessert goblets that teeter dangerously but never fall over to bean-shaped plates with uneven edges. Our first visit was actually out of necessity--I was so jittery from having two Buttercup cupcakes for breakfast that I could barely see straight, so I thought getting some other solids in my system would be a good idea. Sparks had a panini, and I had two vegetable sides; the braised brussels sprouts topped with pancetta and thin grated slivers of Parmigiano-Reggiano and the roasted red peppers with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic and anchovies. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of this because I was crashing from my sugar-high and could barely hold a fork, let alone a camera. But, trust me, the vegetable sides were delicious and extremely satisfying. The brussels sprouts were tender, and any natural fartiness of the sprouts was missing and replaced by salty, porky pancetta. Roasted red peppers are hard to mess up, but these went beyond that. They were sweet with the intense concentrated flavour of roasted peppers, and complemented well with the tangy, fruity balsamic vinegar and olive oil combo. The anchovies were velvety and sea-salty, and gave the dish the savouriness it needed.

Since we were not that hungry this first time, we were left to eyeball all the food that was being delivered to the other diners, and we ooohed and aaahhhed between us. All this coveting caused us to return the very next day. We ordered the salmon salad and a couple pasta dishes on our second visit--all dishes we had seen the day before. The salmon salad was not outstanding, but I thoroughly enjoyed my pasta. The pasta dish was no looker, as I ordered fregola, which basically are small, unevenly sized, chewy lumps of semolina pasta. It was topped off with a sort of carbonara sauce that had a lovely coating of cheese, a subtle egg flavour, and a topping of pan-fried, crispy pancetta (so porkalicious that it inspired this post). I loved this dish, because although it had cheese, cream, eggs, and fatty pork belly, it still managed to be light (mainly because just enough sauce was used for the pasta to be optimally coated and flavoured, and the fregola was not swimming in cream sauce). We still had room for dessert and coffee, so we ordered two cappuccinos, a tiramisu for Sparks, and the pear tart for me.

Generally, I get a little disappointed and assy when I get really sparse-looking frothed milk on my cappuccino. Poorly frothed milk looks like the result of a kid who refuses to swallow of mouthful of milk, and proceeds to froth it between his teeth. That's gross, and I know first-hand, because I was that kid once. But this did not happen at my beloved Cafe 2, where the cappuccinos come with a thick topping of microfoam. The milk froth created a creamy, satiny layer in my mouth, and when I drained my cup, it clung tenaciously to the bottom of the cup. Don't worry, I didn't leave it in the cup for the dishwasher--I scooped it up lovingly with my spoon, and a grin rivaling the Cheshire Cat's spread across my face.

And the pear tart, this amazing tart, was the best part of the meal, of the two visits. It was of the lengthy variety, and not the round variety, and came with a small, alluring scoop of ice cream that was studded with vanilla bean seeds. Five seconds into my first bite almost made Sparks choke with laughter. "oh my god, you have GOT to taste this!" Apparently, my eyes bugged out of my head as I said this. This tart was dense and rich, with an amazing almond-vanilla egg-yolkiness that boasted the pungent, ester aroma of the pears--which remained pleasant and not overpowering or artificial. The pears were ripe and supple, and definitely not mushy or mealy. This was the point at which, according to Sparks, I creamed my pants. And she's right, I did, and I jissed my adulation of Cafe 2 all over the place.

Most stories that regale you with a happy-ending would normally end here, but I still had to get to my lab meeting. I had less than 30 minutes to walk from 54th Street and 5th Ave to 67th Street and York Ave (about 20 blocks), which is no problem under normal circumstances. But this day, I was packing a huge food baby from lunch. So with one arm clutching and holding up my distended stomach, and the other one swinging violently to maintain my centre-of-balance, I hobbled past all the fancy shops back to my lab meeting, moaning slightly all the way. In the end, it took me over 35 minutes to get back, and I skulked into the meeting about 10 minutes late. In hindsight, I realize my extreme fullness was probably as much to do with the three pint-glasses of water I sucked down as the lunch I ate. But, no matter, I love Cafe 2, and I like to think that it loves me back.