Hobohalloweekend: Part 1

by Xani

Have you recovered from the shock of the new BCD look yet?  Pick your jaw up off the ground and prepare to start drooling over lots of new content.  Yes, somewhere in the fine print of our "coming out" post, we promised daily new posts during the Mobbies voting period.  An ambitious goal, but such is our commitment to you, dear reader.  (Also, we are a little bit crazy.)  Enough with the psych diagnoses, let's get to the eats!

Last weekend we made our semi-annual pilgrimage to NYC to visit BCD faves Lauren, Ann and Steven, and to, of course, stuff our faces.  Meal #1 was lunch at Torrisi's Italian Specialties, which was featured on Food Network's Unique Eats for their turkey sandwich.  Now personally, I was skeptical.  "Turkey sandwich" isn't really a phrase that gets my heart racing or my mouth watering (like, say, "fried dough").  But, I was game.  The whole crew gathered and we ordered a selection of goodies and started chowing down...

First, I drank this delicious beer.

Eggplant Parmesan, roasted cauliflower

Brussels Sprouts

Check out the ooze factor on that parm!

The famous turkey sandwich!

Daily special- roasted pork sandwich with spicy broccoli rabe, roasted red peppers, and provolone

What a lunch!  It was a great meal, and as usual with our first meal with NYC friends, we spend more time talking to each other than analyzing the food.  But, here are our thoughts on lunch:
-Turkey sandwich: the experts agree, this is a great sandwich!  Torrisi's roasts their own turkey and serves it on fabulous, fresh rolls, with this FANTASTIC spicy dressing.  It was a bit difficult to eat, but thats the fun in it!

• Pork Sandwich: This also had the fantastic roll, and while the rabe and the roasted peppers were tasty, the pork was a little fatty for our tastes (and that's sayin' somethin').
• Cauliflower and sprouts: Two delicious little veggie sides that were so good, I wasn't even wishing for french fries (again, that's major).
• Eggplant Parm: WOW.  This was the dark horse winner of the meal.  Scroll back up and look at those layers.  Perfectly balanced, great taste, crunchy breaded eggplant, plenty of cheesy ooze.

We don't often do repeats (um, except for the one I'm about to write about in 10 seconds) but if I ever get back to Torrisi's, I'm trying their dinner.  The menu changes nightly and costs $50 for several courses of local, seasonal dishes, determined by the chef.  Their website states: "Our nightly menu is our only offering for the table; there are no menu substitutions available for vegetarians, children, or dietary restrictions. "  I like a restaurant that bosses me around! (No, really, I do.)  


After spending way too much time at Torrisi's (the staff was actually really cool about us taking up about 1/4 of their restaurant for most of the lunch rush), we strolled out into the gorgeous fall afternoon, and right into the waiting arms of Rice to Riches.  You may remember our springtime visit to R2R when we first tried this delectable treat.  This time we had Ann with us, she was a R2R virgin so we just HAD to have some.  We ordered our fave from last time: Man-Made Mascarpone with Flourish Topping (toasted buttery poundcake).  Again, it was OFF THE HOOK.  I spent the whole time wondering what the rice to fat (butter, cream, whatever else they put in there) ratio is.  I'm sure it's a closely guarded secret.

Mascarpone + cherries + toasted buttery poundcake...oh yeah, and some rice in there too

Ann attempts to introduce Steven to the joys of R2R...he's strangely unreceptive

So, what does one need immediately after consuming the richest treat known to man-- why, cupcakes and milkshakes, of course! The Cake & Shake truck just happened to be parked along our strolling route near NYU, so we decided to sample their salted caramel milkshake (great flavor and nice consistency, not TOO thick, like when you have to suck so hard you think your whole face is gonna implode?  hate that.), the Heaven Split cupcake (Banana cupcakes with chocolate hazelnut mousse and caramel frosting), and the Moon Cake cupcake (Yellow cupcake, Tahitian vanilla pastry cream, Valhrona chocolate butter creme).  Honestly, I was falling deep into a sugar coma after the first sip of milkshake, so everything is a bit of a blur (including a celebrity sighting-- Sandra Oh!  We also saw Michael Imperioli!  This was the most celebs we've ever seen, ever).

Cousins about to devour a milkshake and 2 cupcakes

Heaven Split cupcake

Moon Cake cupcake

Surprise!  There's chocolate in the middle of that cupcake!

Our cupcake truck friend who disobeyed our order to "smile and wave"

Well there you have it-- our first few hours in NYC!  Can't wait for more?  You're in luck, the next post is coming up super-soon.  And all you have to do is VOTE!


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