Mario Batali - my hero

I have two really favorite chefs Mario Batali and The Barefoot Contessa I like a lot of other people, don't get me wrong, but I really love love love these two and I cook their recipes all the time! Well, funny thing, I've never even eaten at one of Mario's restaurants and I am in nyc all the time! My friend Jess was visiting from LA, so I took this as the perfect opportunity to eat somewhere in the city at one of Mario's places. I picked otto because I've made this pizza at home (you just get the otto cookbook) and I really wanted to try the real thing, and then somehow I finagled Jess to also eat at babbo, I really wanted to try some of his pasta!

We met at Otto, it's hard to find the door to this place! It's a really nice little place, it reminded me a little bit of Italy (ps, where I want to die) and the table next to us where all older Italian men, which means I was in my glory, hahaha. I loved when I was in Italy how they lingered at lunch, and sipped their coffee for hours. We got a drink first, which was tasty and decided to order the pizza with prosciutto.

The pizza was great.  It was thin and the toppings were perfect  It was all I dreamed it would be!

Next I had really psyched up Jess to go to momofuku milk bar to try the Compost Cookie.  And I really wanted the Crack pie.

 

We entered and it had that very typical village feel to it.  I loved the display case with the different kinds of milk!

Oh they had butter in there too, which of course I bought! And I tried a cereal milk too (very very sweet!)  We got the cookie and I got my crack pie.  Listen, the cookie is good, but I wouldn't go back to this place for the cookie.  It has everything under the sun in it, chips, chocolate, coffee, butterscotch.  It sounds amazing, but I think the coffee threw me off.  I drink coffee everyday, but I don't like it in my baked goods.  The crack pie, on the other hand, I would walk from Egypt to get this little buttery filled piece of heaven.  It's literally like biting into butter turned into the most fabulous sweet creamy pie.   Oh and I loved their packaging! (I am a packaging freak)

After our dessert we found our way to Babbo for dinner.  Okay generally I am a reservation nut.  When I go on vacation I am forever booking reservations for every night and it usually drives my traveling companion mad because it never gives us a chance to be spontaneous, but if there is good food to be had I need to make sure I have it! But for some reason I didn't think to make a reservation at Babbo, so we got sat at the "clearly these people didn't make reservations table."  It was a little like being in time out.  But anyway, this is a cute little place with lots and lots of pasta to choose from! I was originally going to get Chianti stained pasta with wild boar, but the person next to me was having pasta with lobster and I had to have it.  It was literally just pasta with sauce and lobster, but let me tell you the pasta sauce is to die for.  There is something so sweet and savory about it.  It was exactly what I think Mario Batali is.

(All of these were taken with my IPhone so forgive!) All in all it was a great food filled day.  I would tell you to go to any of these places if you are traveling to NYC.