The Red Cat (New York), 9/10

After four lovely days in Toronto, it was time to move on to New York. It was funny being in New York. The whole place is like a movie set or like being in every TV show you ever watched - Seinfeld, Friends, Sex in the City, Ugly Betty, Law and Order, 30 Rock . . . they all happen here and it is like every thing and every person has been staged to be part of the New York set. It was absolutely brilliant!

By the time we arrived and checked into our hotel, we had enough time to make it to the 4.30pm cruise around Manhattan Island. I really enjoyed seeing the whole city from this perspective and the accompanying commentary was really interesting and informative. Somehow, the time disappeared and it was time to choose a dinner destination. We have a bad reputation for being able to walk around for ages trying to decide where to eat. In New York, that city full of more places to eat than you could ever imagine, this could be really dangerous! As it was getting late, we decided to choose a restaurant out of our guide book - The Red Cat in Chelsea.

We arrived at 10pm for dinner on a Monday night. The restaurant was mostly full, but no problem for us to get a table for dinner and we weren't the last to arrive either. I know I've been living in London for two years, but being from Brisbane, I still find this kind of thing exciting. I mean, arriving at a restaurant at 10pm on Monday night? Except for the casino, can you even do that Brisbane???

The Red Cat was a really cool restaurant - dark red walls contrasted beautifully with the crisp white tableclothes and the lanterns used for lights completed the funky image. Our waiter was also pretty funky with those trendy black-framed glasses and goatee. Luckily, he was also enormously helpful. The list of wines by the glass contained pretty much all wines that were new to me, so I asked for a recommendation of a dry white and he suggested the Airen "mas Que Vinos" 2008, Bodegas Ercavio (La Mancha) and offered us a taste before we committed. The wine was cool and crisp - exactly what I was looking for.

To start, I chose the proscuitto and parmesan croquettes with pea sprouts and olive oil aioli. The croquettes were beautifully crispy on the outside with a flavoursome and soft cheesy middle - delicious.

Kyle's appetiser was potato pierogies (a type of dumpling) with snow peas, bacon, shitake mushrooms and white wine butter.

Having tried skate wing recently at The Chancery with only limited success, I was keen to give it another go. This version was served with sauteed greens, hazelnuts and lemon brown butter. Most importantly, it was served off the bone, which was so much more enjoyable and infinitely easier to eat. The fish was soft and delicate and the lemon-butter sauce complemented it perfectly. The hazelnuts provided crunch, but in my opinion, there were too many and they started to overwhelm the fish.

Kyle opted for the calves liver served with swiss chard pie. I found the liver relatively mild tasting and pleasantly soft in texture, nicely offset by the crumbly shortcrust pasty of the vegetable pie. Kyle also just mentioned that a real highlight of this dish was the base of melted tomato it came on.

As we were coming to expect, the meals were really quite large serving sizes (although the excellent piece of sourdough bread I ate probably didn't help!), so we had no room for dessert. It didn't matter really, as this was already a fantastic first NY meal. Did I mention how good the service was? Halfway through our meal, funky waiter's shift finished, but rather than just disappear, he told us he was leaving, introduced us to our new waiter and wished us a pleasant evening. That sort of service helps to limit the pain of leaving that 18% tip!

Food: 9/10
Drinks: 9/10
Service: 9.5/10
Ambience: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

The Red Cat
227 Tenth Avenue
New York City 10011