New York Is The New Baltimore, Part Deux

The weekend before this past one I went back to New York for another round of visiting with pals. This time, however, I took the Bolt bus instead of the train and left at three thirty instead of six something...this resulted in a much earlier arrival time. This earlier arrival time was important because I had dinner plans with M. and A. Well, with M. and A. and J. and D. and T...but it was all orchestrated by M. and A. and it was in celebration of A.'s birthday so, there you have it. I recently wrote about how my meal at Zenkichi was one of my best of 2008 and I was fully prepared to spend the big bucks and be amazed again. While this meal was stupendous and the company superb, I must admit that the food and service wasn't quite as perfecto as I had expected. I chalk this up to the fact that it was restaurant week (we, though we went to take advantage of the restaurant week deal, ended up not doing that whatsoever). M. and I started out with our own respective sake flights.
Also, unlike my last visit to the restaurant, they did not provide us with menus to take home with us so my ability to tell you exactly what all of the food is, is a little compromised...and some dishes have no photographic proof because a) I think the camera has almost had enough and b) I was trying out a new mini-tripod (bought at Rite Aid for $6) that does, in many ways, help in low light situations but does not, in fact, do as it is told for every photograph. This was one of the first plates (a seaweed amuse bouche and miso soup are not pictured), and consisted of uni on top of tofu with a dab of wasabi on spoons, a kumomoto oyster and a tuna sashimi kind of thing. The tofu reminded us all that tofu has many different tastes and textures and that we may get overly accustomed to the poor quality stuff.
Another view.
This was something that may or may not have been the fried sperm of a fish with peppers. I don't care what it was, it was de-fucking-licious. Creamy, fishy, crunchy. Whatever.
Miso black cod or bass, I forget. Cod. Flaky, rich and a repeat from our last meal but still good.
M. and me laughing about something. Perhaps our love of sake, perhaps not.
J., M. and I all went to high school together. J., like so many who came before her on this blog, was not really a friend during our school years (though we were on equestrian together, go team!) and I haven't seen much of her since our respective graduations, but I am glad to have gotten to know her a bit more out of school. It was also nice to meet her boyfriend D. and M. and A.'s friend T. (neither of whom are pictured but do, I am almost completely sure, exist). And no, I have no idea what the faces are about since the meal was, on the whole, good, not stick-your-tongue-out bad.
This was the slow cooked pork. I just don't know what to say, last time I thought the pork dish was not as tender as my own dishes...this time it was quite tender but one could totally differentiate between the morsel's flesh and fat (as opposed to being unable to tell because the fat, over the long cooking time melted into the flesh like some sort of fatty super secret jackal).
Somewhere in all of this was a chicken salad that M. liked very much, while everyone else was a bit less enthusiastic (which is good since M. kept poaching bites from our plates). I forget what this was. Eel?
The many faces of J. and A.
Dessert! Quite an array and yet my favorite remained the black sesame mochi ice cream pocket of goodness.
Thanks to A. who, in a feat of timing and covert maneuvering, managed to pay the bill without any of us having realized it...though I seriously continue to protest since it was his birthday and I had the money. Whatever, I'll buy you a meal next time. Or the time after that. Or something.