Brooklyn Sunshine

Considering that a good chunk of my childhood travels were spent in Manhatten, wobbling around the Upper West Side and chasing after pigeons in Central Park, I would like consider myself a seasoned New Yorker. However, up until a week ago I had never really ventured out into the "other boroughs", my experiences centering around hungry pissed off family members and jokes about the "Billysburg" hipsters. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity over the course of last weekend to spend three days cooking and exploring the city with two dear friends who reside in Carroll Gardens Brooklyn. We roamed all over the place in both buroughs, shopping for groceries in Union Square, wandering around the West Village and most importantly, eating.
I flew down Friday morning (skipping out on school..shhh dont tell) and we spent the first day in lower Manhatten, where we explored the epicurean wonders of Chinatown in tiny dimly lit dumpling houses, as well as the incredible smells that linger in "Curry Hill" and all of the wonderful trattorias that crowd Little Italy even amongst the sweaty New Jerseyians. There's nothing that satisfies a need to escape normality like a weekend in New York.
The highlight of my culinary life so far came that evening, in the doughnut shaped form of dinner at Telepan, an Upper West Side resteraunt c0-owned and cheffed by Bill Telepan. Now, though the "culinary wasteland" criticisms abound about the Upper West Side, this place is a real treat. The four course tasting menu (with a more then a few generous extras from the kitchen) left me so completely full and content I could not even think about eating until the next afternoon. The dessert menu is particularly creative and delicious, though most people seem enchanted by the "foi gras doughnuts", little cocoa and cinnamon dusted balls of duck liver that have a penchant for exploding all over the place and humiliating unsuspecting victims (ok, maybe that was just me). For lack of a better pun, the icing on the cake came with a visit to the kitchen, and my first glimpse into the magic that happens in the space between fine dining and completely wonderful chaos.