Lupa and Clinton Street Baking Company

This weekend, with the kid at a sleepover, we hit Lupa for dinner on Saturday night and Clinton Street Baking Company the next morning for brunch. All this food and so little time to eat it.

Lupa as usual on a Saturday night was packed. Things started off on the wrong foot right away when the host looked right past me and allowed a young blond woman to push to the front and ask for a table. Luckily, she was also told it would be 1.5 hrs. We put ourselves on the wait list for both a table and bar seats. After about an hour, we were seated at the bar, looking over our menus.

I had the octopus to start and the lamb short ribs. Maria started with the special heirloom tomato salad and had a tagliatelle with pork shoulder and porcini ragu. The octopus was solid as usual but the short ribs were too salty and too sweet at the same time. I also didn't quite expect a rack of ribs from Lupa. The winners though were the tomato salad and the tagliatelle; the salad with a perfectly seasoned vinaigrette and the flavorful but not overpowering ragu in the tagliatelle. We skipped dessert anticipating brunch the next day.

Clinton Street Baking Company had the expected wait as well. When we arrived, there were 34 people waiting outside the 32 person restaurant. Ouch. Even though it ended up taking 1.5 hrs to seat us after being told an hour, we did get a nice corner table by the window. They had some interesting muffins behind the counter: ginger pear crumb and raspberry yogurt. But it was the spinach and cheese muffin that really raised our eyebrows. I'll have to try that sometime.

I had a more than generous portion of their maine blueberry pancakes with warm maple butter. Thick fluffy pancakes with blueberries between each layer. A syrup that was a combination of maple and what tasted like butterscotch. Best pancakes I've ever had. Maria had the Spanish Scramble: eggs, chorizo, tomatoes, sauteed onions, scallions, monterey jack, and toast. What's there not to like? More chorizo would have been cool though. Too stuffed to consider dessert :), we took a nice walk through Soho instead.