Friday Lark.

C. and I head down to Lark for dinner. It has been a long week, so we order wine along with our dinner. I order for us, no meat because it is Friday and C. is observing Lent. (Which also, alas, means no dessert). We drink our wine - mine is a Côte du Rhone, selected at random - and eat bread-and-butter, and a salad of golden beets tossed with slices of Cara Cara (the name is like a song) oranges and lumps of blue cheese. I am curious as to who first thought of pairing cheese with beets, and how it spread from restaurant to restaurant like a red-and-white rash. The turbot is wonderful, heaped with shavings of fennel and just lightly touched with the heady, oily weight of white truffle oil. C. has the Spanish mackerel over pasta with chorizo and escarole; it being Friday she picks out all the chorizo, and I wonder what the kitchen makes of it. I give into a craving for steak tartare, which comes with onion crackers and a little tangle of something curly, like baby frisée. Like my glass of wine, it is exactly what I needed tonight.

The foie gras protesters are late, and have not gathered outside by the time we leave. Perhaps next time.