Wilfrid

So for breakfast I fried bacon to be piled into a (low carb) biscuit. Tonight I heated the bacon grease and fried slices of (low carb) bread to be topped with slices of delicious mild souse. There was some dabbing of wasabi on the souse because lunch was excellent scallop sashimi from HMart on Broadway near 79th. All carefully planned of course.

Also absolutely no Phil Collins. Ever.

Below Deck Med season 8 is done and we have to wait until Feb 5 for the first episode of the next season of Below Deck OG. Happy I have only this reality TV addiction.

Pre-dinner drinks at City Vineyard right on the river. It was almost empty but what a lovely space, although not remotely like a New York space. I would go again.

No, I didn’t expect this. I remember eating there almost 30 years ago when the surrounding streets were just empty. Okay, I’ve been back since, often to take visitors who want a New York experience with good food. Same tonight, I guess. Friends from the non-food part of my life, one from the UK. Neither knew the place or the De Niro connection. We needed, I was told, to eat in Tribeca. The room and the art, all still lovely. And, again something I haven’t done in years, we ate the Restaurant Week menu ($45). Beet salad, then short ribs where I was struck by the attention paid to every little vegetable; little onions sweetly caramelised, tiny carrots perfectly turned. I don’t eat dessert but I tried a spoonful of the cheesecake and it was the best I can imagine. The guys eating it were ecstatic. Okay, it was the RW menu, but cocktails, a bottle of red and three courses in that setting, $120 each including tax and tip, very cool. Okay, they still have a coat check so I stuffed some bills in a jar. Where did I last see a coat check?

I told my daughter when she was very young, I love you unconditionally but no Beatles records and no supporting the Red Sox. She has lived up to my hopes, obsessed with Elvis and Johnny Cash and at least respectful of the Yankees.

T.Rex, Electric Warrior.

I don’t usually buy smoked cheeses but they also work.

A proposition that would be interesting to test. I have a dollar says a lot of animals would eat her.

I could kick myself for forgetting about Ends Meats last time I went to Formaggio.

Sixteen hours later, the smell is getting annoying. Not a day for opening windows either.

But you're ignoring the context which is the reference to Carly Rae, a reference that can be challenged without straying outside the Anglo-American or indeed just American space. To put it another way, if you started to list American pop songs that would be generally accepted as superior to "Call Me Maybe," you'd die before you finished.

Yes, that's it. Good to know.

I think one only has to know a bit about Anglo-American pop since 1956 to be able to say that "Call Me Maybe," while appealing, is not "one of the greatest pop songs of all time."

My favorite version of Paolo Conte's best known song.

There used to be a shop on First Avenue, underneath that second floor Sri Lankan restaurant, that not only had beers from all over the world but was also like a mini Kalustyan's. Is it still open?

Nope, greatest pop songs of all time. Anglo-American was an oratorical afterthought.

If you’re out Bushwick way, Foster’s Sundry is a wild over-achiever. A real butcher shop in the back, breaking the critters down, often to rarely seen cuts, a very good cheese selection, cold meats, Rancho Gordo (whoever he is) products, fancy beers and always unexpected things like tubs of rillettes in the fridge. Can’t think of anywhere else that covers all those bases.

And I echo the mention of Ends’ Meats which sold me a quail on the meaty scale of the last quail I ate at Foxface. I need to try their other stuff.

Lazy, but… chicken livers burrito. Livers sautéed in loads of spices, grated cheese folded in at the end. Layered over a well sauced, large low carb burrito, itself lying on aluminum foil, all wrapped up tight. I know I am missing part of the food pyramid there but the kitchen still smells great.

Me too. Should I feel bad that I can’t think of any other songs by her? Nothing wrong with having a long career out of three minutes of fun.

Oh how could I forget Bayard Meat Market on Bayard Street? Not only fine birds, partridges and quail and the black chicken (for soup and stews only), but really good and inexpensive seafood and, pardon me, pig’s bung. Similar to chitterlings and amazing roasted to crisp or stuffed and baked.

Formaggio is now the best cheese shop in the city. Saxelby’s is not what it was following Anne’s tragic death. Murray’s has loads of cheese in an impersonal kind of way. Bedford Ave can’t be trusted any more. NY Bread Inc near Coney Island, despite the name, has one of the best selections of European charcuterie. Headcheese HQ. Schaller & Weber is still high quality for wursts, smoked meats, head cheeses and a small but fine selection of German beers. Downstairs at Chelsea Markets, Buon’ Italia is a great boutique Italian store for truffles, foie gras, fancy oils, a big range of pasta. In Arthur Avenue’s market building, look for Peter’s butcher store and then look to the right for the sometimes untended counters that are part of the same business. That’s where the good stuff is; tripe and lungs and sweetbreads and so on. Best Chinese supermarket, Hong Kong on the corner of Elizabeth and Hesther. Ducks, quail, rabbits, every pork part, huge tubs of shucked oysters, fresh fish, every kind of dumpling and noodle in the world, and, yes, bulls’ penises. And everything else. Be prepared to shop assertively, but you can have some fun conversations in line for check out about what on earth you have bought.

ABBA?

We are considering Tribeca Grill. Have not been in years.