Syd from the Bear reminds me of the best pasta I've ever eaten in my life

So I'm watching the Bear s2 ep3 and Syd is out on the town eating for inspiration, and she wanders into a restaurant with these beautiful wood walls and stools, and I immediately recognize this place, but is it possible that they haven't changed the interior or the f'ing stools in 15 years?? Can't be.

But it is. It is Avec.

(This photo is from the NY Times and it is not the pasta that I had there, but it's close - in appearance anyway.

The version I had did not have mushrooms, though they would be at home in this sauce.)

It was at Avec that I had pappardelle with chicken livers and cream sauce. My shoddy memory stored it as tagliatelle until I re-read my old post - but otherwise I recall a lot of details from this night, from this dish. I remember sitting at that bar, in that beautiful room, and eating what I believe is the best pasta I've ever eaten in my life. I remember less about the beet salad or the affogato that bookended the pasta. But I remember the hell out of that pasta, and more specifically the joy, comfort and luxury I experienced while eating it.

There are certain indelible imprint vehicles - and maybe yours are different than mine. But for me music, a certain song in a certain circumstance; smell; and of course food - those three things can grab a lot of surrounding details from a moment, some important and some not as, and grip them and then burrow forever into my brain, to be stored there like a mosquito in amber.

And then all it takes is Sydney wandering into that same place on a TV screen 15 years later to bump the thread and release the t-rex of pasta.

(Not that I haven't thought of that dish since I ate it. Honestly, it would not be inaccurate to say I think about that dish between one and four times a year.)

One final note on this: I look at what I ate there and am struck by how little my ordering style has changed in 15 years. Fifteen years later there's a high chance that I would order the exact same meal! That's sort of ... disturbing. Like, I'd like to think that with today's menu I'd order a hummus or maybe the tabbouleh - but I know damn well that, I'd contemplate everything and then order the brussels sprouts fattoush with beets aka beet salad. And the coconut sorbet affogato with biscuits I mean biscotti. So in conclusion, I have grown none.

And final final by the way, there is absolutely no way they have the same stools from 2008. But did they just buy extremely similar ones as replacements? Two or three times over?? I dunno. Maybe it's okay that neither I nor the restaurant have changed that much in 15 years. I mean, okay sure we've grown, we've aged, hopefully become more mature, but some things, like stools and tastes, are eternal.