Norma's!

Ok, so as you may or may not know, restaurant week is happening NOW! If you haven't checked any restaurants out, GO! This is an amazing opportunity to visit the city's best restaurants without breaking the bank. First stop for me was Norma's. I think their restaurant week deal is fabulous, however I wasn't able to experience it due to being there before 11am. Booooo! However, me and Megan decided to go in anyway cuz what the heck? It'll be somewhat around the same price except we wouldn't get the complimentary food basket with muffins and bagels and such. As it turns out, we were pretty full when we were done and we didn't pay too much so perhaps it was better there wasn't more food! Lol. Another visit with Mona may be in the near future so lookout for another post about Norma's soon. Maybe. Anyhow, on to the food.

First off, are you lookin at the beauty? FANCY! Fyi, that tulip was real. Beautiful, I know. Anyhow, so the meal came with two complimentary smoothie "shots". I think it was a banana, mango, pineapple smoothie. We had it after our meal and it was the perfect finish! You could really taste every flavor! At first I was like mmmm this is banana-oh! mango-y- oh! pineapple-y! LOL. Most smoothies have a standout flavor but the cool thing about this one was that you could taste each distinct flavor and each one moved into the next kinda like banana then mango then pineapple. AWESOME. Alert! If you don't wanna pay $9 for OJ, don't let them pour any for you! They will come around all friendly going would you like some OJ? like it's free but it's NOT! Just a heads up. Megan did opt for some coffee though. Apparently you can't share but the waiter let us for some reason, and he was really nice so he got a nice tip :) The coffee was smooth but bitter, so I added lots of sugar and milk. It was coffee. Nuff said.

  

Megan got the Potato Pancakes. It is a James Beard Award Winning Recipe with Homemade Cranberry Apple Sauce and Sweet Carrot Payasam. Mmmmmmmm. Being as we are a fan of sharing we had this first and the Chocolate Decadence French toast as like a dessert. About these, I wanted something savory because I don't know about you but when I have something sweet like pancakes or french toast I crave something hearty like eggs and bacon or something. So we did savory then sweet. These were great. Totally satisfying. It's pretty much a really good hashbrown. It came with three so we just picked at em, kinda hard to cut but we got through it. The carrot payasm was surprisingly sweet and had a really strong carrot flavor. It was silky smooth  and really great. On the side was a cranberry apple sauce and that was sweet. The cranberries were not tart at all, it reminded me of cranberry sauce at thanksgiving. The crispy thing with the star was a garnish but that was good too, provided some good crunch. I liked having the potato pancake with either the carrot or the cranberry, not so much together. This was really great. After I had fulfilled my savory/hearty need, I was ready for dessert.

As seen on Best Thing I Ever Ate, I was relying on Alex Guarnaschelli to lead me towards something good because there were so many things on the menu that I wanted. She did not disappoint. The Chocolate Decadence French Toast is Covered in Strawberries, Pistachios and Valrhona Chocolate Sauce. The french toast itself was SUPER soft and fluffy so it wasn't so heavy. The chocolate flavor shined through but it didn't feel heavy. Although it essentially felt like eating cake for breakfast lol. But hey, you gotta live a little. It came with a whipped cream on top and pistachios. The whipped cream cut through the strong chocolate flavor and the pistachios added a nice crunch. The chocolate sauce made it extra decadent. In addition, there was a orange slice on top that was REAL GOOD. I bit off a piece of that and with the french toast it ROCKED. It was crunchy and citrus-y and went really well with the cake for some reason. All in all, this was an awesome end to the meal.

All in all, this was a really fancy pants meal that was worth it. You may wanna dress up a little bit because everyone around us was really professional. Lots of guys and gals in suits, it is 57st after all. It felt kinda awkward walking through such a fancy place in a beautiful hotel with my backpack but endure! The food is worth it. I hope to try the food again soon, but if not, Norma's is definitely on my "in the future when I'm rich place to go for food every other day" list. If you haven't been to Norma's yet, Restaurant Week or not, I suggest you go. It's really good!