When we decided to celebrate Melody’s birthday at Per Se, I did not expect one of NYC’s finest restaurant to be located in a mall. But one look at the signature blue doors from the French Laundry, and we knew we were in for a treat. Without an advanced reservation, we went with the more affordable salon menu. Yet, even the bar area where we sat was imbued with an air of elegance with a sunny view overlooking Central Park. It certainly felt more suited to their Upper West Side patrons than the two of us there. The meal opened with a number of amuses – warm gruyere gougeres, salmon cornets, and carrot veloutes. The cornet is a Thomas Keller signature dish, with a black sesame tuile shaped into a cone, filled with red onion crème fraîche, and topped with salmon tartare (he got the idea while eating an ice-cream cone at Baskin Robbins). Both the warm cheese puffs and salmon cornets were instant hits, though the soup was too heavy and foamy. My appetizer was a terrine of Hudson Valley moulard duck foie gras, meticulously assembled with poached field rhubarb, peas, sunchoke mousse, and mint leaves served with warm toasted brioche – an excellent balance of different flavors, textures, and temperatures. Melody had a hearty mascarpone-enriched yukon gold potato agnolotti with wilted dandelion greens, split peas, and parmesan cream with black winter truffle. The main courses included a Nova Scotia lobster “gratin” with black trumpet mushrooms, potatoes, wilted ramps, and fava beans with “Glaçage de Homard”, and a Calotte de Boeuf with asparagus, radishes, and caramelized spring onions with Tellicherry pepper sauce. Apparently, the “calotte” is the cap of the rib eye that butchers usually discard (say wha?). This divine slab of meat came close to our Matsusaka beef steak from Japan, and we figured out why – Snake River Farms is a supplier of domestic Wagyu cattle. To finish off, we shared a “Banoffee” (Devil’s food cake, chocolate “Marguise” and malt “Crémeux” with banana-crème fraîche sherbet), a dessert created by the British pastry chef to recreate something marketed in England by that name as a “classic” American treat. We were sent off our merry way with a mix of sweets and a bag of shortbread cookies to go. Despite our whopping bill, our experience left us wondering what the 9-course tasting menu would be like, and how we can save up the cash to eat it. And eat it we will.

Recent events revolving around my father’s ailment have resulted in several visits back home this month. The most recent trip was a late night drive along dark interstate highways and a rest stop at an eerily quiet McDonald’s with a cabal of suspicious-looking truckers. The shadow of the rain clouds followed us home on Sunday, leaving us exhausted and drenched. After the drive, we warmed up at La Morra, where notables from the Restaurant Week menu included chicken livers with a light and creamy fried polenta, an oyster mushroom risotto with an al dente texture, a meaty but delicate monkfish entree, and a refreshing maple panna cotta. A second attempt to drown my troubles with food was unsuccessful. At Beacon Hill Bistro, my vegetarian selections included an under-salted, over-sweetened butternut squash veloute and what I deemed “the $33 onion” – a red onion stuffed with carrot cumin puree over kimchee and wild rice, a dish that left me thinking WTF? My DC (“dining companion” in Chowhound lingo) was better satisfied with a cockles and mussels appetizer, roasted skate wing entree, and delicious chocolate cake with chai spice and chai-poached pear. Sadly, the current deluge has even eaten through our condo roof, as we watched the rain water seep through the cracked ceiling paint. I await the storm clouds to dissipate, and look forward to brighter days ahead.

It’s not every year we get to celebrate Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day together over Presidents’ Day weekend. On Friday, we invited my co-residents over to wrap some home-made dumplings and watch the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics. The show turned out to be a long, drawn-out hodgepodge of cultural and environmental themes which really only piqued our interest when the flame-lighting mechanism in the finale malfunctioned. Over the weekend, we returned to NYC to play with the many babies that my married friends have been popping out, and also to ring in the year of the tiger at home with the traditional tea ceremony, red envelopes, and our favorite coconut-milk nian gao. Back in Boston, the continuous coverage of the Vancouver games have kept us hooked like junkies. Somehow, the folks at NBC have managed to infuse enough drama and suspense to make even a game like luge addictive to watch, assuring our lack of productivity for the two weeks to come.

When we chose the Crescent City for vacation this year, we did not realize that it would coincide with the biggest football game of the year – especially when the Saints would win its first Super Bowl ever. Restaurants closed, parades were planned, and even the elephants got in on the excitement. On Saturday, we explored the Insectarium near our hotel, then chased it with crabmeat maison & shrimp remoulade, seafood gumbo, trout amandine, and shrimp etouffee at Galatoire’s, the classic NOLA establishment where the menu never changes and the waiters have served for decades. Chicory coffee and beignets from Café du Monde dusted our coats and wrapped up the night. On Superbowl Sunday, we awoke early for a quiet walking tour of the Garden District, and even managed a last minute reservation for the Sunday Jazz Brunch at Commander’s Palace. A detour to visit the furry inhabitants of the Audubon Zoo, however, left us stranded without a cab. We walked for nearly an hour before sharing a cab with a flock of LSU Saints fans, arriving 30 minutes late for our reservation but just in time for the last seating. The gumbo Ya Ya, turtle soup, and pecan-crusted gulf fish were yummy, but the Eggs Cochon de Lait and creole bread pudding soufflé with whiskey cream sauce stole the show. After some lightning-fast service and a restaurant tour by the waiter, we were rushed out the door for the staff to make the kickoff. At dinner, our lone waiter kept deserting us for the TV in the kitchen. The Saints won moments after we left the restaurant, and we were swept along to Bourbon Street to participate in the celebration. We spent Monday touring the Honey Island Swamp, where we spotted one round nutria but no ‘gators. A po’boy from Mother’s kept our hunger at bay as we perused this year’s floats at Mardi Gras World before dinner. At Mr. B’s Bistro, their tender Mississippi rabbit was no match for the barbequed shrimp, easily the best shrimp dish I have ever experienced. On Tuesday, we toured the French Quarter and feasted on fried chicken at Willie Mae’s Scotch House – supposedly the best in the world, but not worth the adrenaline rush of traveling through that dangerous neighborhood when we attempted to walk to Parkway Bakery for their award-winning po’boys (and we found them closed!). An afternoon visit to the Aquarium and a snack of sweet Louisiana oysters kept us busy until dinner at August, John Besh’s flagship and New Orleans’ finest restaurant. With a view of the parade from our table, we enjoyed excellent crabmeat gnocchi with black truffle and another decadent cochon de lait, despite a disappointing tasting menu. Our flight home was thwarted by snowy weather, leaving us stranded with a “distressed passenger” stay at a nearby Holiday Inn overnight. Like our trip to Montreal, our journey through Creole cuisine in New Orleans reminded us that French gastronomic influence simply opens doors to foodie heaven.

January has been a packed month. The drudgery of daily glaucoma clinic and an unhealthy overdose of ED shifts were interspersed only by moments of reprieve with the department holiday party at Hotel Marlowe and the fellow lectures and dinner at the Taj. Last weekend, we returned to Flushing for Taiwanese pulled noodles and to Brooklyn for dim sum with my parents. We even got to check out the Tim Burton exhibit at the MOMA. The small but packed gallery featured an eye-popping collection of sketches, models, and concept designs from the artist’s darkly humorous imagination. For my birthday weekend extravaganza, we had our usual seafood feast with friends in Chinatown, and also a higher-end Italian dinner at Mama Maria. The hearty meal was marred only by the lofty price tag, including a $20 cake-cutting fee and perhaps even part of our cake, as our friend pointed out that none of our 8 slices came close to a 45 degree angle. Now who ever said that high school geometry was useless?

Having the honor of being on call for Thanksgiving, Christmas, AND New Year’s Eve, we ended up ringing in the new decade at the Mass Eye & Ear ED (or as I call it “the dungeon”, since it has neither windows nor cell phone reception). Fortunately, the night was quiet, and Melody got to come in to work to join me as we raided the cafeteria for chips and ice-cream, and watched tons of people in Times Square jump for joy on Dick Clark’s Rockin Eve. Sadly, another big snow storm struck after my week of night float. We spent the weekend stranded at home – eating, sleeping, watching TV, and playing video games – what a great start to the new year!

I was back in NYC for the past several days for a family issue – an experience which opened my eyes to healthcare delivery from the patient’s point of view. Sadly, my knowledge of medicine only emphasized the myriad errors that slip through the crack, and how methodical yet callous the medical community can be, even when handling our most vulnerable population. With the big snow storm, my trip back home was equally harsh. At 5 in the morning, I had to stumble past three city blocks from the hospital before finding a cab. I arrived at Port Authority, only to find that all buses were canceled. Desperately, I trudged across town to Penn Station, battling through the crowds to secure a seat on a train that ended up being 6-fold more expensive and 2 hours delayed. Once aboard the train car, I gazed out at the blanket of snow, pondered what it means to be a doctor, then fell fast asleep. After an exhausting 9.5 hour journey, I was just glad that the ordeal was over.

Fortune smiled upon me this holiday season and kept my pager quiet throughout the weekend. This year, we spent our Thanksgiving with Melody’s boss’ family, where we dined on traditional turkey (dark meat, of course), stuffing, yams, and mashed potatoes. And despite doing a somersault with a 4-foot dive onto the hardwood floor, Melody’s pumpkin cake still made a respectable showing at the dinner table. My parents also came up to Boston to celebrate my dad’s birthday. Beside the usual seafood feast with steamed black bass and peapod stems, we also revisited H-mart, our newly-discovered Korean mega-grocery store in Burlington which offers enough sampler tables to rival its own pan-Asian food court. Back home, we embarked on the new fantasy epic Dragon Age: Origins. Like our previous role-playing adventures, our character will be another elf rogue-ranger-assassin, who will again battle the imminent onslaught of devilish creatures in yet another apocaylptic event, while also engaging in a myriad of unnecessary yet entertaining side quests, many of which will inevitably involve obtaining some key to open some chest. Yes, it is predictable – but that doesn’t mean it still can’t be loads of fun. For something more original, I strongly recommend the new film Up in the Air, which we saw at a free screening tonight. The creators of Juno once again delivers a sarcastic, thought-provoking perspective from an unlikely hero.

Today, I caught a glimpse of a mouse scuttling across the floor in clinic. This was the second I’ve seen (or was it the same one?) since starting my rotation at the VA Eye Clinic. Being away from my home institution has opened my eyes to the world of community ophthalmology. Here, patients are complex, confused, cantankarous, and cataractous. The clinic is run by a small staff, all of whom assume multiple roles. I, for example, am an ophthalmologist-general practitioner-technician-optician-secretary. In the past 2 weeks, I’ve learned tricks like using a needle driver to remove corneal sutures when there’re no jewelers forceps, or how to hit things a certain way to get them to work – the stapler, the printer cartridge, the indirect ophthalmoscope. The perk is being able to take call from home, which until last week had been a foreign concept to me. It gave me the chance to attend a Bat Mitzvah (the female version of a Bar Mitzvah) for the very first time – surprising since I grew up in Brooklyn. It would have been more interesting if we had known Hebrew, but the dinner party was pretty posh. Nevertheless, we opted for Indian food for a friend’s birthday before joining the celebration and dancing.

I’m not sure what I was thinking when I chose to cover the ED at Mass Eye & Ear on Halloween weekend. While heading home last Friday from our posh dinner for the annual Chandler Conference, I watched as hoards of drunk teenagers stumbled off the T, wearing a variety of novelty costumes with no protective eyewear. After surviving a week of flying solo on night float, dealing with dog bites and crazy glue in the eyes, I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. Luckily for me, the weekend itself stayed surprisingly quiet. We even got a chance to discover amazing bun rieu at Pho 2000 out in Dorcester. Believe it or not, the Vietnamese bakeries in this little neighborhood carry some of the best French bread in the city – freshly-toasted and perfect for the duck liver pâté we got from Budapest. Yum! Meanwhile, we’ve also become hooked on Fox’s new series Glee. Combining the music and melodrama of a young, diverse cast with the bitterness and sarcasm of Jane Lynch, the show is refreshingly entertaining. It reminds me of our SING! performances in high school, but with more pizazz and fewer Asians.