Lavinia at Home

This Upper East Side steak and chop house is located in The Lowell New York Hotel and is more elegant than the typical steakhouse. If features beautiful art and a quite elegance with its polished bar and leather club chairs, the dining room has the look and ambiance of a private gentleman’s club. Its address is 28 E. 63rd St., New York, (between Park and Madison Aves.), phone: 212-935-2888.

I was really impressed about the massive slabs of grilled meat – especially the porterhouse and prime rib. The steaks are thick and perfectly done. We also had soft shell crabs that are in season now (May through September) and they very perfect. The service was very good and the food was delicious. This restaurant is on my top 10 NYC Steak House list.

This is my very favorite restaurant in NYC. I have been coming back for 5 + years since I discovered this place and like to take my relatives and friends whenever I have a chance.

First time I found this place it was the pizzeria. The tiny dining room was in the back of the restaurant with only few seats. I was amazed about quality of the food and very affordable prices; it was excellent for pizzeria. That was a several years ago. Few years later this place open all area for dining. Now this restaurant has an outdoor terrace in back and has moved to another location, just few doors down on the same block.

The food is excellent. I can have all my meal just from appetizers – Babaganush (smoked eggplant puree, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic), Cacik (cold yogurt mixed with cucumbers, garlic, herbs and spices), Humus (mashed chick peas blended with fresh garlic, tahini and herbs), Lebni (thick homemade yogurt with walnut garlic and dill), Tabuleh (wheat croutons with parsley, scallions and a touch of olive oil and lemon juice), Icli Kofte (wheat bulgur stuffed with seasoned ground lamb and pine nuts) and theirs homemade bread just from oven. My favorite for main course is Shish Kebab, marinated cubes of baby lamb grilled on skewers. They have also very good desserts, the baklava, kadayif and rice pudding.
This is not a fancy place, but the food alone is worth a trip! A real find for casual dining. I would suggest you make reservation before going. One more thing, this place is great for deliveries.

212 E 34th St (between 2nd & 3rd Avenue), New York, Phone: 212-683-9206

Looking for Northern Italian cuisine? I would recommend Paper Moon Milano, located in Midtown Manhattan at 39 East 58th Street, between Madison & Park Avenues (Tel.: 212-758-8600). Meal pricing is not cheap, but it’s on par with the neighborhood. Apparently reminiscent of the owner’s origins, the restaurant’s decor boasts vintage pictures of old Milan, which adds to the well-decorated room with white-clothed tables, flowers and soft music. It’s very crowded for lunch and offers a more intimate setting for dinner or drinks in the evening. While finding a restaurant with availability on Friday night is sometimes hard, my husband and I were happy to be able to walk in and get a table without receiving an “attitude” from the hostess. They served us delicious appetizers – Salmon tartar with avocado, cucumber and gazpacho sauce and the house specialty salad consisting of Arugola, hearts of palm and tomatoes with thinly sliced Parmesan cheese; for dinner, we had a Veal scaloppina piccata, Marsala wine & mushrooms and homemade pasta. The service were excellent; we were treated with care and attention and the food was good. We plan to return in the future. We gave Paper Moon Milano 3+ stars in our ranking book. If you prefer casual dining, you can checkout Paper Moon Express, which is located just around the street at 54 East 59th Street.

I’ve eaten at various Indian restaurants, but the food at Yuva was the finest Indian food I ever had. Be prepared for spice. Once seated, we received nine different spicy and non-spicy dipping sauces with flat bread and it was fun to try them all. I always order a mango lassi, a fruit yogurt drink; it’s really filling, so don’t drink all of it at the begging of your meal or you’ll be full before dinner even starts. Presentation of the appetizers was top-notch and taste was just perfect for Indian food appies – spicy and delicious. I could have had a whole meal of just appetizers, but I proceeded had a lamb chops served in generous portion. We also order chicken dish that we could not finish. We took it home and the next day it was a perfect lunch with even better flavors. While did not have any space left for dessert we received on the house rice pudding. If you want to surprise somebody for birthday then this is the place to go. There was a party and you had to see the fireworks what they serve with cake together, a sparkling candle, it felt like July 4th. It was a fun
During meal is served, you can see chef in kitchen preparing a food, there is a glass wall. The staff was friendly, the atmosphere was fun, the food was good quality and well portioned. The restaurant is romantic and on occasionally they have a live sitar, tabla and guitar. This restaurant can be booked for private parties; it’s located at 230 E 58th St, between 2nd and 3rd Ave, New York, Tel.: 212-339-0090. I would recommend this place.

May is here – a month when we all focus on planting our gardens, and tiding up the yard, looking forward to those warm summer days.

But wait, this is the month we celebrate motherhood.

While driving up from Virginia, we saw a sign by a garden center that read “Mother called, she needs bloomers”! I must say we had a chuckle.

So on the light side, you should check out our seductive lace lingerie at LaviniaLingerie.com and get mom the “bloomers”, she would enjoy. Lets head for the kitchen and make these delightful Linzer Tarts for Mothers Day.

May is looking really good.

Linzer Tarts
2 cups flour
1½ sticks of butter
½ cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup of grounded almonds(optional)

(Smuckers) red or black seedless raspberry jam
Confectionnary sugar for dusting tarts
Cookie cutters set

Mix the first six ingredients in a food processor or by hand. Let the dough rest for about one hour in the refrigerator. Roll dough 1/3 at a time, 1/8 of an inch thick (more on the thinner side). Using the cookie cutter set, choose your desired size.

For entertaining, I prefer a 2 ¼” round cutter for the base, and the 1 inch for the center cut out on top. You should get about twenty three to twenty five cookies. Bake in preheated oven at 350 F.

Let cookies cool and spread jam on bottom base cookie, placing the ring cookie on top and dusting with powder sugar. ENJOY!!!!