Day 2.4: Winner and Champion, Iron Chef Flay!

I'd have to say by this point, Bar Americain is our favorite restaurant in NYC. We're all in agreement that given a choice between that and Mesa Grill, Bar Americain wins hands-down. We just love everything about this place. The food, the service, the decor -- all excellent. The only thing that could make it better is if they played Frank Sinatra instead of the (thankfully quiet) elevator music.

As usual, both the service and food were awesome. I was thrilled that my favorite dish, fried chicken with honey and peppercorns, has made it to the regular menu. It used to be served only on Mondays, and we'd organized a couple of previous trips just to go that night. The dish has been slightly modified, probably for the better. The portion size is smaller (the previous dish left me stuffed beyond words), the breaking is lighter, and now it comes with collards, too. I would gladly trade that for more of the tiny biscuits, which have been reduced from four to two.

For Madison's birthday, Marsha arranged for the chef to come out and say hello. He was extremely nice, talked to us for a few minutes, and asked about our meal. They put a candle on her dessert (shoo fly pie, which was much better than the so-so version we'd had years ago in Lancaster, PA), which was a trick candle, so she just had to wait for it to burn out on its own.

Couldn't have asked for a better meal before heading off to our show. Little did we know, the night would only get even better still.