I met up with my awesome friend Denise on Saturday for the beloved Gallery Walk throughout the West 20′s Streets in Manhattan’s art district, Chelsea. We spent all day looking at amazing art, and working up an appetite which we really needed for our reservation at Vatan. But more on that later.
This was part of David Malijkovic’s exhibition “Retired Compositions” in the Metro Pictures Gallery. The entire exhibit involved films, collages and sculptures relating to the history of modernistic projects in Croatia. It had a very Star Trek feel to it.
Eric Fertman’s exhibit at the Susan Inglett Gallery. Taken directly from the press release:
“Drawing upon the Russian Suprematists and Philip Guston, film noir and the Sunday comics, the work gallops through time on Olive Oyl’s oversized shoes. Seamlessly mixing high and low culture, the artist assigns equal value to Malevich as to Raymond Chandler. Working in wood and metal, Fertman inflects these inert materials with humor and humanity, charming both object and viewer in the process.”
Martin C. Herbst: part of the “Ariodante” exhibit in the Mike Weiss Gallery
I don’t remember the name of this gallery or the artist… but it reminded me of a toy store on acid.
the EYE!
This bonze sculpture, Contemporary Terra Cotta Warriors, by Yue Minjun was featured in the lower level of the Max Protetch Gallery along with a ton of Chinese art and photography.
Now since I do share this blog with three other people, I’m not going to overload it with pictures. For more gallery pictures and a bit more detailed descriptions check out http://www.carolyndesign.net/blog.html
And now on to dinner! (and our only meal of the day by the way). We ate at Vatan, Gujarati vegetarian food, located on 3rd Ave between 28th & 29th. The deal here is, it’s a fixed-price menu AND all you can eat. They bring you about 50 tiny portions of different things, then anything you want more of, just say the word and it appears.
Above is the appetizer course. For one person. The top right cauliflower concoction was amazing, and the only thing all night that I ordered seconds of. Don’t get me wrong, I probably would have ordered more of everything if I had room. But I literally left the restaurant in pain, I was so full. The mini somosas (top and center) were interesting, I think they used phyllo instead of a puff pastry, and it worked. They were perfect little crispy bites. But honestly, if anything is bite-sized, chances are I’ll like it. The top left was some sort of dal/potato ball, under that a yogurt dish, and the bottom right was cold lentil/raw onion ordeal. The center featured a fried hot pepper, a rice cake and 2 fried potato balls. The chutneys off to the left of the table need mentioning too, they were fantastic. Included was the standard cilantro, tamarind, and a sweet pickled something chutney.
Then the main course came. Here you see (clockwise from the bottom right) a smooth and creamy lentil soup, an incredibly fragrant (I’m guessing cardamom) rice pudding, chickpeas, cauliflower, spinach and corn, and a thick potato stew of sorts. Everything was amazing. Even the puff bread and the papadams were stand-out good. We were also served two kinds of rice and an insane yogurt stew. The yogurt stew wasn’t the greatest thing I’ve ever eaten, but the yellow lentil rice was outstanding. We also received mango sorbet and a cardamom chai tea for dessert, but apparently I was too focused on eating to get a picture of that. Dinner at Vatan is one of those dining experiences that I will be (and have been) thinking about for days. If I didn’t have such a long list of “Restaurants to try in NYC” I’d be back at Vatan in a heartbeat.
-Carolyn
DO WANT!