Three reasons to celebrate

It's been an exciting few weeks for this blogger. First, my sister moved home from London after two years and two months of living five time zones and a seven hour airplane ride away. In fact, I can't believe I didn't mention that sooner! (Apparently, she was all ready to read a whole blog entry about her return to town after reading the title of last week's post, but instead found herself reading about my recent joyful reunion with my favorite bartender and wine bar chef.) Second, "She's Still Hungry" turned one last Thursday! Can you believe that it's been a full year and 73 posts since I decided to electronically share my love of cooking and eating with the world - okay, that's probably a stretch - with my family and friends who already hear all about my love of cooking and eating? No one from Food & Wine or the Dining & Wine section of the New York Times has called yet, but I'm not giving up hope. And finally, New York City's annual Summer Restaurant Week started on July 12th - one of my favorite times of year to eat out.

What better way to celebrate these three happy occasions than a special restaurant week lunch with my repatriated sister at the very elegant River Café in Brooklyn Heights last Friday.

The River Café is definitely a special occasion kind of place. The west-facing wall of the main dining room is lined with enormous windows showing off the restaurant's absolutely incredible view of the Brooklyn Bridge, lower Manhattan, and New York harbor. (I found that photo online -- the view is also very pretty at lunch time.) Actually, the dining room, filled with stunning floral arrangements, sits on top of a floating barge right in the East River. Be warned: if you are at all prone to seasickness, (and I am), the sensation of eating on a gently moving barge is not entirely pleasant, even a pretty gently moving barge that otherwise doesn't look like a barge. So restaurant week was an excellent time to stop by for a visit since $24.07 would not even cover the cost of most entrées on the non-restaurant week lunch menu, and their three-course fixed price dinner goes for a hefty $98.

To start, I had a pretty standard baby green salad with sliced cantaloupe, a goat cheese crouton, and white balsamic vinegar. A little prosciutto wouldn't have hurt. Kristy started with three tender lamb meatballs au poivre with a cognac and green peppercorn sauce nestled in super smooth and buttery whipped potatoes. They were really delicious. For my main course, I selected a delightfully summery whole wheat spaghetti with asparagus, grape tomatoes, roasted mushrooms, wilted spinach, toasted garlic, and olive oil. All of the vegetables tasted fresh and bright and delicious. My sister chose grilled swordfish paillard with a lemon vinaigrette. I don't love swordfish and had never previously heard of a fish fillet paillard, but it was actually pretty good. I am not sure how they managed to grill such a thin and delicate piece of fish without having it all break apart, but it seemed like a real feat.

Besides the view and the flowers, dessert was the real highlight of our special lunch: a red, white and blue tasting trio featuring a classic vanilla bean crême brulée, a tiny warm blueberry and almond tart, and a perfect scoop strawberry ice cream from the neighboring Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. Three reasons to celebrate indeed.