Good Enough To Eat, An Afternoon at Grounded, and Luzzo's Pizza

Over this past month, Bhavneet has very quickly become my most reliable breakfast buddy. We used to work together on the same client, this one very fantastic client that provided a plethora of breakfast and lunch options. For months at a time we'd have 9am brownies for breakfast, pancakes in the afternoon, and sometimes breakfast for dinner. I've never met anyone who eats breakfast the way she does.

But over the phone two nights ago, she wondered aloud, "maybe we should eat salad...or something...light-ish"
I thought for a bit (wiping images of Prune's dutch pancake and Otto's carbonara from mind), and said, "yes, salad is a good idea." After all, it has been quite a while since I've had anything not unhealthy. As much joy as I do obtain from lardo, cured meats and duck fat, sometimes there's a need to clean out the system to save you from overkill.
"Where should we go?"
"For a salad?"
"Hmmm, I don't know."

So we decided to figure it out in the morning...and somehow, the next day, after a solid two hours of basking in her very air-conditioned apartment, and sorting over potential restaurants, we found ourselves at Good Enough to Eat - home of bacon waffles and blueberry pie.

I don't think the we were meant to eat just salads for a meal.

And so, between apple pancakes with sour cream...

...and a smoked salmon and cream cheese omelet, made complete with a duo of warm biscuits and whipped strawberry butter, we decided that while some girls need to clean out their system with salad, we could clean ours just fine with sweet butter and biscuits. Paired with cream cheese, sour cream, and an apple pancake, of course. Not exactly the "light salad" we planned on, but I assure you with great confidence, we could have done much worse ;)

Post meal, I whittled away the afternoon on a cushioned bench 70 streets south at Grounded in the West Village, finishing the book over a cup of coffee. I eventually moved to a proper table when to finish job-related work, but for the few hours prior, I had not a care in the world. Shann introduced me to Grounded earlier on in the year, and since then, I've been gravitating here rather frequently, for both the coffee and brightly lit surroundings.

Later that night, I met Doug for dinner at Luzzo's, which is conveniently enough, right around the corner from our new apartment. The last time I was at Luzzo's was in early 2006 with Adam, Allen, Robyn and a few of her friends. I recall enjoying the pizza, but the company even more. And sometimes you just need that: good food and even nicer company.

We split a simple tomato and arugula salad, with an especially light and lemony dressing that did well with plush slices of focaccia...

...followed by "Pizza Ortolana" with tomatoes, mozzarella, zucchini, mushrooms, eggplant, basil. We ordered the larger of the two size options, forgetting that the large pizza was better suited for three or four, not two. But we did well, and the few remaining slices proved to be an excellent companion for a midnight episode of Sex and the City with Shann.

Good Enough to Eat
483 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10024
212-496-0163

Grounded Coffee
28 Jane Street
New York, NY 10014
(212) 647-0943

Luzzo's Pizza
211 1st Avenue
New York, NY 10003
(212) 473-7447