Met up with 2 girlfriends to catch up. The first place we picked didn’t seem to have AC, and even though the menu was awesome, we couldn’t bear with the heat and walked away, fortunately NYC is full of great places, and a few doors down, we found Co.

Communal tables, water in clear glass milk jars, super friendly waters and a inventive menu.

Since the pies would take close to 20 minutes, we started off with the chicken liver and the roasted eggplant toast. The liver was actually very mild tasting and creamy. The eggplant was excellent, it had good flavors and the herbs brought out hints of freshness.

We also got the Insalata di Bresaola, I’ve never had Bresaola before, which is a air dried and salted beef that’s been aged for 2-3 month until it got that color and a harder texture. I wasn’t crazy about it, there was too much raw beefy flavor, I love beef, but I found this unappetizing. It’s not really a carpaccio or a totally cured meat, it was just in between, which tasted and felt odd to my palate. I enjoy cured meats, but this just didn’t do it. They called this a salad, but it seemed more like a small meat and cheese plate. I wish there was more arugula.

Our first pie was the Fennel and Sausage. I thought the fennel would be too overpowering, but it really wasn’t, it had a mild licorice taste, very light, almost felt like it blended with the sweet onions. Great addition of the chili for a spicy kick that went really well with the sausage, the sweet tangy crushed tomatoes were very appropriate, and the buffalo mozzarella melted well with the saltiness of parmesan. Awesome choice. I usually like picking my toppings or change pre-set ingredients, but they told me i could only take off ingredients, but couldn’t add anything to these concoctions, after I tasted it, I realized why, everything was there for a reason, very well thought out, my bad for even asking, how dare I attempt to mess it up.

Our second pie was the highlight of the night for me. The Flambe, I’ve had it before at The Modern, but this won. The base, a creamy Bechamel sauce, aka white sauce (traditionally made with milk, butter and flour), topped with melted stringy buffalo mozzarella, sweet caramelized onions, hint of parmesan and my favorite lardons oh yeah! thick strips of salty smokey pork (usually pork belly or fatback), they are prepared from cured cuts like bacon or pancetta, my all time favorites. This one tastes more like a pancetta, and let me tell ya’ lard just makes everything taste better, no doubt about that. Creamy, sweet, salty, smokey, I needed a moment to savor it, at some point the words of my girlfriends didn’t sink through anymore, I was having a moment with my slice, maybe I should of excused myself.

The pizza dough is salted just right and loved the texture, crispy on the outside, kissed by fire and very soft yet chewy and stretchy on the inside. A lot of times I eat the toppings and leave as much crust as possible, but this was too good to leave behind. Haven’t had such awesome pizza in a long time, it has some traditional elements with bad ass toppings, I’ll def be back for more.

All this carb and lard went down well with the freshly squeezed lemonade. And it helped keep our tummies full for our next event, the Dewar’s Scotch tasting.

Ended the meal on a sweet note, their daily special dessert, corn gelato, was as you would imagine, sweet summer corn in a creamy cool vanilla base. Fresh berries, the strawberries were like the ones you get from the farmers market, tiny, sweet and fragrant. Really light and fluffy cream, not too sweet. The bizarre topping was the nuts that were dusted with chilly powder, inventive and certainly got our attention, but after the sweetness, you get hit with a spicy punch on the back of your throat, not my idea of a good ending, just regular roasted almonds would of been perfect.

Great girlfriends, fun convos and yummy food, that’s a great way to end a hard working week, well the night actually didn’t end, we had the Dewar’s Scotch Tasting.

230 9th ave (at 24th st)

212.243.1105

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The event was very informative, gave us a history of the scotch and lets us in on the life of a master mixer, well sorta, we had to smell the different flavored scotches and mix and match our own, taste it, and then try what the professionals have made for us. Very fun. The scotch promoter, basically goes around the world to talk and drink scotch, who knew there was such a job?! He wasn’t the cutest guy in the room, but his Scottish accent sure got my attention. The male to female ratio in the room was great, I would say 11:2.

Hints of honey, floral, fruity, vanilla and smoke are all found in the Dewar’s mix. We left having a better understanding of scotch. Our first drink was mixed, my friend had the mojito, and I had the ginger ale, both pretty good, but after all the tasting, adding a little bit of water, or on the rocks is surely the way to go. Very smooth.