Meson Sevilla, *Kyotofu, and R

R is a riot. We met at my last firm and she's had me splitting my gut and basking in her fabulousness. I couldn't wait for our dinner and skipped out of work early (i.e., 6 PM) to walk over to Meson Sevilla, a Spanish tapas restaurant in the Theatre District.

2 blocks from my office is Little Brazil. I usually race by in the mornings on the way to work and nothing is open at that time. But at night, wow! There's so many yummies! Columbian, Brazilian, Mexican and wouldn't you know it, Penne Alla Vodka!

From there, I reached the tourist trap of Times Square. Hordes of people just moseying along, STOPPING FOR NO REASON IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SIDEWALK, and then taking tons of pictures. It's just lights people, move along lil' doggies!

Finally I get to Restaurant Row and I'm always amazed at all the food that's available. Why there is a line out the door at the Red Lobster a couple of blocks down is beyond me. I was early so I peeked at the menus, Cajun, Becco by Lydia, bar food, beer garden, Mexican, mmmmmm! R was early too but we just amused ourselves and met at the designated time.

Honestly, I didn't have high hopes for Meson Sevilla knowing that it was in the Theatre District. They gave us bruschetta AND a bread basket, yay! We shared the Marina Paella, Pan con tomate, clams oreganato, gambas en salsa verde. It says share charge of $10 but I think that's maybe if you share 1 dish only. The shrimp was flavorless (I packed it up to give it to my mom). I thought the paella was pretty good - certainly better than the super salty one from Boquerria. Tomato bread was lovely and we tore up the clams casino.

And then, this guy started talking about "pricing models." OMG. I couldn't believe it. He went on and on about the credit crises, Freddie and Fannie Mac, blah blah blah. His date looked rather vacuous (or bored or both) and actually said, "What's equity?" It was soooo painful to me to listen to this cocky mf. R is like, you could totally tell this guy is nothing by his hair, shirt and crappy watch. She was like, walk by the girl, hand her a fork and say, "here's a fork to gouge your eyes out." But even better, on our way out, R says loudly, "Guys that talk about their job, especially finance, on a date are either hung like an infant or give the worst head." Silence. Then the table next to him burst out laughing. OMG, I ran out of there so fast hysterically laughing.

We went to Kyotofu (www.kyotofu-nyc.com) for some amazing Japanese desserts. I was there once with the Chinese Camp girls and loved it. It reminds of ChikaLicious but not so "oh, this is a tiny expensive piece of something" way- gorgeous, exquisite, perfect. To my dismay, only a three of the desserts were non-dairy. I had four sorbets (apple basil, peach, guava, banana coconut) and R had chocolate soymilk softserve. D, there was a Japanese Mountain Peach in my little fruit cup but it wasn't as good as the one we had at Morimoto's. To top it all off, we got 2 free flower-shaped little cakes!

Note: Yes, I'm wearing a summer scarf. I know I've complained about them before but saw an article on them in A's In Style magazine and they described it as a way to add color like a necklace. I liked that explanation better than D's thought that it's used to shield one's face in sandstorm. It's also from my best friend H who brought it all the way from some Latin American country.