Raw Meat.

so last night i went into the city to have dinner with my best bud sam. we have the same routine every time i go into the city, namely, we cannot ever decide where to eat. we sit in his apartment for a good half hour to forty-five minutes while he looks online picking out various places and then ruling them out. last night i said no rice and no italian. other than that, anything could go. so we decide on one place finally, the name escapes me, and when we get to the door of the restaurant we notice that its pretty much empty. even on a tuesday, in the city, that is never a good sign. we read over the menu again, tapas mostly, and i see one too many references to suckling pig. now i eat ham, and i get that ham is pig, but when you put the suckling in front of it, i'm done! can't help it. so anyhow, we leave. now we are on the street and back to square one. even a shaking of sam's iphone couldn't give us an idea. so we decided to go to an old staple, Les Halles.
Les Halles is a Parisian Brasserie that has locations not only in NYC but also in D.C. Its also the "home base" of Anthony Bourdain, author of Kitchen Confidential and host of The Travel Channel’s No Reservations. They make a great steak and frites. with bernaise sauce. delicious. i always get this. always except for last night. no last night i made the bizarre choice of ordering their steak tartar. yes, raw meat. i used to eat raw meat a lot with my ex-boyfriend's family, he's Syrian and his mom makes a version of it thats just so good. served with radishes and raw onion and you roll it up in some pita, mmmmmm. i digress. i guess i was missing that? so i ordered it. first of all it was like this huge mound of meat in a bowl. the waiter made it tableside which i thought was going to be cool, but i didn't actually end up paying attention when he came over. (he was a jerk by the way, total jerk.) bottom line: it wasn't like my ex-boyfriend's mom's. i looked longingly at sam's steak the whole dinner and ended up stealing some of his bernaise sauce for my french fries. they, at least, were good. we split a bottle of wine, a pinot noir, and had great conversation. thanks sam! (he didn't even mind me taking pictures of all the food. but none of them came out well, and the batteries died. i am asking for a new camera for christmas.)