Hello after a hiatus, and Manny's Uptown Kitchen

It's been way, way too long since I posted a food blog! I have a new career as a recording studio owner, and for a little while even had my own chef, but that's gone by the wayside, and I'm back to cooking myself, and actually enjoying it again. Once I get something yummy prepared, I will post it with pics.

 On another note, I have a new fav place; Manny's Uptown Kitchen. While it is a chain, the food was really, really good. The menu is a combo of baby haute cuisine and old Jewish deli favs like chopped liver, knishes and latkes. I highly reccommend the loaded potato cakes. Our first time a friend and I ordered them for an appetizer. The server brought a long rectangular plate with three perfectly brown potato cakes swimming in a sea of delish cheese sauce, sprinkled with chopped green onions, crisp bacon bits, and a dollop of sour cream on each one. Let me just say the next time, I'm getting that as my entree! The cakes were crisp and tasty on their own, and the cheese sauce was most excellent. Had I been at home, I would have licked the plate, it was so good!

 The beef and blue pasta bowl, however, not so good. I was expecting a blue cheese sauce similar to the potato cakes, and what I got was a watery drippy au jus with an overpowering bitter blue cheese taste. The beef was a slab of rare strip steak indifferently slapped on top, and I was not offered a steak knife, so had to cut it with my butter knife. The pasta itself was fresh and would have been good I think, if I could have tasted it through the horrible bitterness.

 The prices were about what you would expect, similar to Chili's or any other chain. Other things I tasted were good, so stay away from the beef and blue, and you'll probably be ok.