What to Eat When You Can't Eat Anything and You Find Yourself in NYC

Yeah, that's true. Here I am in NYC, food capital of the f-ing world and I am still working this diet. (I hate to use the word "diet", everyone says it's just a new way of eating but truth is, it's still a DIET - yuck). Yet here I am, and I'm doing my best to stick to it.

I'm here in New York to work. We have a family-owned apartment building on the Upper East Side that has too many vacancies. Not a surprise, given the real estate market in the entire country right now. So we need to set up a model apartment. Guess who's gonna do that job?

The good news is that I get to go shopping on someone else's dime (well, not really since it's family money, but still...) The bad news is that I would love to eat my way through New York, but I can't. I'm staying in a crappy Marriott Courtyard on 3rd and 53rd and I'm in the middle of UN opening. Barak Obama is here and so is Bill Clinton, along with a million other folks. Traffic is horrible and don't even think about trying to land a cab. I checked into my crappy room (with an exorbitant price tag - not fair) at about 8pm and wondered what to do for dinner.

Room service? Not so much. In this place, room service means ordering from Outback (I'm not kidding). So I ventured out onto 53rd Street and came upon the Brasserie.

Mind you, I've eaten here before. Mostly just for breakfast, though. They remodeled the place a few years ago and now it looks like the Jetson's lair. Pretty silly, if you ask me. But I sat at the bar, nobody bothered me and I had a very good (and legal) meal of Pacific oysters on the half-shell and chicken paillard with arugula. Not half-bad and of course, helped enormously by the two glasses of Zin I consumed. Hey - I'm on the road. At least it wasn't chocolate.

I'm back in my (crappy) room now. Oh well, at least it's clean and the a/c works. Up early tomorrow to start my shopping. Figuring out what to eat while still sticking to the diet will be a challenge.

I'll keep you posted.