Luckyrice

Last night we finally had a break and it was raining, so we stayed in, ate pizza and cookies and watched old episodes of Nikita on NetFlix.  Overall I don’t love the show as much as the first few seasons of Alias, or even the recent  Covert Affairs, but anything featuring a female spy tends to be pretty awesome.  Also, Maggie Q’s fight technique and physique are both ridiculous – her fitness is totally inspiring.  

We did go out on Tuesday night, to the opening night of the Luckyrice Festival.  Luckyrice is an annual food festival celebrating Asian foods and flavors, and many of the the top local restaurants and chefs (Anthony Bourdain, David Chang, Eric Ripert, Marcus Samuelsson, Anita Lo, Pichet Ong) are involved.  The event we hit was called the Epicurean Cocktail Feast.  It was at one of my favorite venues, the second floor of the Bowery Hotel, which is just beautiful with warm, old-timey fixtures and a gorgeous roofdeck.  Check it out:

As we walked in, we were greeted with tables of food and drink and yummy smells.  I started off with a "Silk Pajamas" from JBird which was made of toasted black sesame infused tequila, Red Bean Cream, crème de cacao, and homemade grenadine.  Complicated but tasty.  S had a "Gin Chanh Muoi" from An Choi, made of salty preserved lemons, Bombay Sapphire East gin, and soda.  I didn’t like that one as much.  We took a stroll around to scope everything out, then hung out on the terrace until it got too smoky. 

Went inside, snagged a seat on one of the lovely couches and chatted about what to nosh next.  Someone came around with sake shots served in hollowed out cucumbers, which were awesome – alcohol and snack combined!  Also, I am so in love with this room, between the beamed ceilings, exposed brick, subway tile floor, the over-the-top chandeliers…even the plants!

 
 
I’d spotted a red drink in a martini glass, so of course I had to have that one.  It was the "Ruby My Dear" from B Flat in Tribeca, which was made of  vodka, red perilla liqueur, and cassis served straight up.  S had a sakura bacon tart, also from B Flat, with a "Miso Honey"  with Bombay Sapphire, honey, miso, fresh yuzu, hops bitters, and Singha beer from The Beagle.  We shared an interesting dessert with this round, which was sakura tea liqueur jello, prosecco, and gin – cool idea but I didn’t love the texture.

We hung out and watched people walk around with different food and drink.  I kept seeing these tiny Chinese food type take-out containers so I decided this would be my next bite.

  
 
These nibbles were from Madame Geneva, a favorite of mine – and the cunning little boxes contained  coconut chicken salad, mint, snow peas, and roasted peanut. So good!  S and I each had one and then I had another one.  The guy said it paired really well with the "Tigers’ Milk" cocktail,  made of Bombay Sapphire, coconut milk, pineapple, star anise and chili tincture.  Interesting but tasty, and he was right, it did pair perfectly!  After that we had some dumplings with fresh peas (in the second picture) which were also very tasty.

After that I found my favorite cocktail of the night, which was the  "Silk Tuxedo" from JBird.  This tasted like vodka mixed with rosewater (and was garnished with a red rose petal) but was actually a pretty complicated mix of clear liquors infused with different Japanese teas.  I loved this and had two of them and loads of water before we headed home, and was surprised that we weren’t more inebriated after all those cocktails but I guess the food and water and time sitting around worked in our favor.

Hooray for water!  

Even without a hangover or staying out very late, I still slept in too late and did not work out in the morning.  I have been an incorrigible sloth lately, staying up too late, eating the wrong things, barely managing to keep the house clean.  I badly need to:

– Clean out my work inbox
– Do laundry
– Clean out my closets
– Deep clean apartment
– Work out at least once daily between now and July 
 
I can’t believe it’s May already!