If you haven’t already discovered it, Eataly is an absolutely wonderful place – founded by Oscar Farinetti and nurtured by amazing chef Mario Batali and connoisseurs Linda and Joe Bastianich. It’s a celebration of beautiful food – Italian food – in all its forms. The owners and collaborators are all in love with food, so maybe a few pictures will show you why I’m in love with Eataly.
A few works from the masters here – and yes, I bought Joe’s book and one of Mario’s cookbooks!
My poor hard-at-work husband couldn’t join me, so I saved the beautiful Birreria restaurant in the back for a time when we could eat together, and went and checked out the wine bar at Manzo. Manzo literally means beef, and they have some absolutely lovely beef offerings. I want to come back when I have a good appetite built up and can try a full meal – antipasti, primi, secondi, contorni, dolci…yum! But what I tried was delicious!
I started with the mozzarella with pine nuts and spicy pesto sauce. Clearly I hated it.
Then I tried the tortelloni with braised beef and browned beech mushrooms. Yep, hated that, too.
And I suffered {oh how I suffered!} through the bomboloni {like donut holes only better} with vanilla gelato.
Did you catch the sarcasm? Seriously. Loved it. Delicious. I’m going back.
I finished up the evening by jugging more purchases than I intended out of Eataly and hurrying my way back to Grand Central and home to go plot more great recipes to use my new finds with, but I did stop for a moment to catch this shot of the Empire State Building in all its glory.
Seriously, lousy lingering winter weather aside, I love, love, love New York. Even though we’re headed for great places, it’s going to be really hard to leave. I wish I had more time to explore it in depth, but such is the life in Army boots – those boots are always heading somewhere. Guess I’m just going to have to make sure they turn me back toward New York on occasion. 
