the standard grill – new york

I spent my weekend in New York, visiting my brother and attending the BlogHer conference at Hilton Midtown. Meals were included with the conference registration, but after eating hotel food for breakfast and lunch I was incredibly happy when my brother told me he made reservations at TheStandard Grill (848 Washington St, NY) for dinner.

It wasn’t just dinner for two. His good friend met us at the restaurant. This friend happened to be a model. I don’t mean a model citizen, but a model model, a six foot tall, size negative one, perfectly high cheek boned kind of model.

There is nothing like sharing a meal with someone who doesn’t eat, or worse, someone who eats plenty and remains the size of a starving toothpick.

I don’t mean to be a hater. This model friend of my brother is a down to earth, smart, fun to hang out with girl from New Jersey. See, her life isn’t so perfect.

We hit it off really well and even ordered the same glass of wine. I kind of felt bad about hating her at first glance, but those feelings of guilt came to a screeching halt when she ordered the pasta special. I think I made a fist around my fork when she buttered her second piece of bread while we waited for our entrees.

“Where, exactly, are those carbs going!?!” I thought to myself. “Are you just doing this to show the world that you are invincible?” Well played, model, well played.

I had the sesame crusted sea scallops with roasted tomatoes, my brother had pan roasted free range chicken, and there she sat innocently twirling the house made tagliatelle with pancetta, heirloom tomatoes and uni butter around her fork as if it wasn’t offensive. She might as well have flicked it at me across the table. Actually that might have been less horrible than eating it in front of me and seemingly getting skinnier with every bite.

She said that her dinner was just ok. Mine was pretty damn good. So even though she was wearing a fantastic vintage dress, perfect two-tone heels and carrying an adorable clutch, it doesn’t make the food taste better.

Truth be told, I just can’t hate her. She was unfortunately a really cool girl. She may have hit the jackpot in the looks department, but I have advantages, too. I know that uni butter is sea urchin extract blended with butter. I also know that sea urchin roe is used by fisherman to attract fish because they like the stink of it. So, she basically ordered fish bait pasta and everyone knows that doesn’t pair well with a dry rose, duh.

Photo credit. - NY Daily News