Memo to Bobby Flay

To: Bobby Flay, Chef-partner Bar Americain, Midtown West, NYC
From: Blushing (and might I add, Disgusted) Hostess
Re: Sommelier and hand washing procedures

Chef, this is not the sort of thing I would expect or excuse more from an employee of a burger joint in a truck stop off 95. In fact, I like to think, having a bit of experience in this area, that the one thing all food purveyors have in common at the end of the day is their commitment to a sanitary environment.

I said I like to think that, but the New York City Board of Health is forever setting me straight: Why, as recently as a few months ago Mario Batali's Del Posto was temporarily shuttered for pest violations: They could minimize their carbon footprint but apparently could not force their bug collection to do the same. So, I don't go there anymore: Marked once and for all in my mind as filthy, no matter what the BOH assures in the papers.

I suppose it was lucky then, that on this past Wednesday night when my Husband and I ducked into Bar Americain, that soaring luxe jewel in your crown, that it was after dinner when I went to the ladies room and there encountered the sommelier leaving the loo. She stood right next to me as I scrubbed at my hands with soap. She rubbed at her eye makeup with her fingers, adjusted her hair, and left never having washed her hands.

I was disgusted but not altogether surprised. She had been at our table and offered to help with the wine but, as BH readers will remember, I had a baby only ten days before and was finally able to have a cocktail (Champagne) and an after dinner drink (Brandy Alexander - which, Chef, I prefer creamy). My husband is a single malt drinker. Consequently, we declined her offer choosing instead to pick a by the glass selection of red wine for the main course: I had the Malbec which was very nice and a suggestion of our waiters, and Josh had the Cab which was, for our taste, weapons-grade swill.

The food was great but there was very little of it: About a tablespoon of food arrived for my Crispy Squash Blossoms, granted they are out of season in New York so the flight costs must be staggering! But we enjoyed the tuna tartare and green tomato and fava beam salad; the steak was just okay which is disappointing when one considers the cost. But the real charmer turned out to be the horseradish steak sauce which was rich and piquant. It will linger in my memory.

For years I worked in this neighborhood, one block away. If I were still toiling away at 53rd and Seventh, I would have enjoyed bringing vendors and colleagues there. And since it is so well located for the theaters, which I have long complained had strictly pedestrian quality restaurants, it would be a great destination before a show as it was for us on our way to see Will Ferrell.

But for naught. I cannot, will not abide by unsanitary conditions, especially when returning home to a two week old child who is just building a store of immunities great enough to fight off the inexcuseably poor hygenics of irresponsible restaurant employees.

And a note to the sommelier: You never know who is at the sink next to you, could be the health inspector...

Another Haunting of Bobby Flay's Dazzling Bat Cave (aka Mesa NYC)

Before Bobby Flay was a Food Network icon he was a New York restaurateur. A good one at that. A lot of people from all over go to his places now and I doubt many leave disappointed no matter how far aloft his cooking star has become.

My good friends and I begin each holiday season with a drink and some nibbles in the bar at Mesa Grill in New York City. There are a million places in our fair city this ritual could be held with satisfaction but we like Mesa because the place never lost the appeal of a place that does everything well but is completely over itself and having enough of a good time to allow the guests to have one as well.

And then they have the cocktail. The one we have at times travelled and traversed to get to: The Cactus Pear Margarita.

I love this photo because it has the dazzling, gauzy, glamorous glow of evenings in New York in this glittering holiday season.

I took this photo to my right at the end of the long bar where Dori and Becca sat. Had I turned to my left, had I not been someone who goes to Mesa now and then, had I not been a native New Yorker, had I been a person willing to be star struck over a guy you'll see around in New York... I would have leaned over to where Booby Flay stood next to me and said: Can I take a photo of you? But I am none of those things and he was tied up with a constant stream of people approaching him to get their Mesa Grill cookbooks signed and get a picture taken with Bobby Flay. Surely they had come a long way to New York in this fine season and were thrilled to find Chef working the floor in his own place. If it becomes pressing, I will ask next time. In the meantime Linda from Ohio's trip would not be complete without memorializing the moment she stood shoulder to shoulder with a legend.

So many flashes went off next to us for this holiday gathering that we were certain to be the most photographed bystanders in New York last Friday night. I will laugh if in future years tourist photos surface of Bobby Flay, that awkward girl who desperately tried to get his attention and a photo, and our shoulders in the background. Could that have been our fifteen minutes?

Because of the flashes we really had to work to sneak in a picture or two of our bar nosh addiction, the Mesa Grill Pretzel:


We had some delicious snacks which I highly recommend when you get to Mesa, which you should at least once in this life: Blue Corn Pancake with BBQ Duck and Habenero Sauce, Blue Corn Crusted Squid, BBQ'd Country Ribs with Mango Habanero Glaze, and BBQ's Pork and Oaxaca Cheese Quesdilla with with Hot + Sweet Cabbage Relish. For dessert we had some delicious strong dark coffee to go with our chocolate souffle pudding with pecan flatbread accompanied by a bowl of sweetened whipped cream and then and finally the Cookie Plate.

Delicious. Glamorous. Glittering. And star lit. Get there if you can.