Monday, August 4, 2008

Stuff I've Learned: Celebrity Sightings More Likely In Restaurants

City Guy and I celebrated one year of blissful marriage today. *blush* And to celebrate he surprised me by taking me to Blue Hill, Dan Barber's celebrated Hudson Valley fresh restaurant. I started with the smoked shrimp gazpacho; City Guy with the sweet corn ravioli--both so good I closed my eyes and made moaning noises. Our main courses were the Berkshire pork and spring lamb respectively. And for dessert, chocolate bread pudding with vanilla ice cream and peach cobbler. Oh god. Now I know what the fuss is about...

But what topped off the entire experience was sitting next to Kim Cattrall of Sex and the City fame, who was having dinner with the director of some new project she's starring in (I gather from my eavesdropping). I wanted to tap her on the shoulder and say "I loved Sex and the City! It inspired me to move to New York!" but I figured I'd let her enjoy her dinner. She doesn't look or sound like Samantha in real life, btw, which is probably a good thing.

The whole experience made me recall other celebrity sightings, and more often than not, they're in restaurants: Helen Hunt at Franklin Station Cafe, Gael Garcia Bernal at Hampton Chutney Company, Willem deFoe at Kori, Christy Turlington & Ed Burns at Odeon, Rick Ocasek & Paulina Porzikova at Shabu Tatsu, Oliver Platt at Parea...I did pass Colin Firth once a crosswalk in the West Village and John Slattery of Mad Men was at J&R Music the day we bought our TV, but even famous people gots to eat! So if you want to see celebs (don't ask me about bars & clubs--I'm a married woman) hang out at a> a hot new restaurant like Blue Hill or b> go to a neighborhood favorite in a celebrity-hood like Tribeca.

Funny enough, when I lived in LA, I seemed to run into celebrities while shopping--saw Ellen Degeneres at American Rag CIE and Sarah Michelle Geller at 3rd Street Promenade, for instance. Though I did see Charlie Sheen eating at Crustacean once...and my all-time favorite sighting - Al Pacino - was at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf!

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