A few weeks ago I decided it was time for me to have dinner out with the girls. It had been six weeks since I’d actually ventured out into the city from my baby-cocoon in Brooklyn and I missed my girlfriends. Quite frankly, I missed the life I led before I became a mom. I don’t know if moms are supposed to admit this or not, but I’m going to be straight with you. Adjusting to full time motherhood from full time me-hood has been a challenge. While Emily has been learning to live outside the comforts of the womb, I too have learning how to live outside the comforts of a self-driven life, trying to navigate the overwhelming new mom tsunami of sleep deprivation, hormones, anxiety, and insecurity, in addition to the deprivation of my old life. It’s not like I didn’t know what to expect, but I guess somehow, I didn’t know the extent or gravity of what to expect. And I’ve been having a rougher time than I’d expected, and I longed for a night off. I wanted to be selfish again. I dreamed of dressing up (read: wearing anything not covered in spit up), of lounging over cocktails, lingering over dinner, and just plain old relaxing in the company of some of my closest girlfriends. And so I made a date with Jamie, Susie and Adrienne for dinner at Aldea, a new place from chef George Mendes that I’d been hearing good things about. And at dinner, part of my dream came true, and part of it didn’t.

I did end up having a great meal. Not only is the food good (more on that later), but the space, a duplex which is slim and rectangular with more height than width, is lovely. Designed by Stephanie Goto (Morimoto, Corton), it is modern and spare, and quite elegant, dressed in a luxurious swath of cool airy ocean tones—white, blue, aqua, and sky. Prisms of light reflect off bamboo shaped tubes of glass that descend from the ceiling like a waterfall. The effect is serene and calming, not cold and stark. The compact L-shaped bar, seen through the glass façade, welcomes you with white stools pressed against smooth slab of marble. Pass through a narrow lane behind the bar stools and you’ll find a collection of roomy banquettes facing a sparkling new open kitchen with a comfortable food bar that resembles one you might find at a sushi restaurant.
On the counter lining the pass through to the kitchen were bowls of brown farm eggs looking so fresh I thought they must have been warm and just fetched from the roost.

It’s a touch that speaks to Mendes’ affection for the Greenmarket, a passion he developed for many years as sous chef under Marco Moreira at Tocqueville. While the cuisine of his restaurant, named for the Portuguese word village, is described as Mediterranean/Portuguese, it’s (natch) rooted in the farm-to-table movement. The restaurant is a stone’s throw from the Union Square farmer’s market, after all. It would be sacreligious given its proximity not to exploit its bounty (ramps are on the menu now, with crisped pig ears, apple and cumin yogurt, $6).

Susie and I arrived first, settling in on the banquette facing the kitchen, perused the menu and caught up. I sounded like a typical new mom, rattling off exciting facts like the number of hours of sleep Emily had slept the night before, changes in Emily’s weight, concerns about her recent fever, concerns about my level of anxiety and stress. Really exciting stuff. Meanwhile, Susie had just returned from several weeks in India and London for work and travel. Jamie and Adrienne showed up shortly after and soon it was the four of us again. And while one of us was an overtired new mom, once the meal got going, and the stories started flowing, I began to find a little bit of me still there underneath it all. It felt good. And the meal was terrific, too, which didn’t hurt matters.

Mendes makes sardines the way you imagine they make them on the coast in Portugal—meaty and oily, but fresh not fishy, bedded on a creamy almond milk puree with fat raisins zested up with lemon ($10). A cool spring consommé of young peas is dotted with diced chorizo for some smoky heat and crowned with a few morels ($11).  It’s a light, waif-like soup at first slurp, but the chorizo gives it some hearty weight. I also liked the juicy shrimp alhinho with pimenton and coriander ($15). They were richly flavored with saffron and pimenton, like they were intended for a paella but were removed just before making it into the rice.

Funny enough, one of the most impressive appetizers was the house salad—a gorgeous tumble of fresh spring greens tossed with blanched baby vegetables (that looked like they were plucked from a garden grown in a Harry Winston window), with hunks of aged country cheese, figs and edible flowers dressed in a port vinaigrette ($15). It’s one of the most delicious (and beautiful) composed salads I’ve ever had. It’s so easy to just have a throw away salad on the menu that when a chef takes this much time with it, I am impressed.

Like his mentor at Tocqueville, Mendes likes to cook with eggs. You’ll find a Dr. Seuss-like sunny side up egg topping a fantastic Creekstone Farms hanger steak with a bone marrow marmalade and oxtail-potato terrine that would taste great even if it were paired with a dusty two-by-four. A Knoll Crest farm eggs also shows up on Mendes’ small bite menu, partnered with bacalao, black olives and potatoes ($6). And then there’s the appetizer to end all hopes of heart health: Paffenroth snap peas and slabs of thick and smoky Tennessee bacon—a fantastic pairing on its own that also involves a soft poached egg and spring truffles ($15). How can you go wrong?

While egg-free, one of my favorite main courses was the diver scallops with farro risotto, cucumber and orange ($27). The scallops were plump and sweet, and the farro has a wonderful warm nuttiness that was brightened up by the orange citrus. It was the perfect summer entrée. The only mediocre dish was the monkfish with tomato and chistorra sausage ($25), a take on a Portuguese fish stew that was fine, but to my taste, a bit bland.

To pair with our dinner, we had a bottle of Portuguese white that was green and young, bright and acidic. I had a glass, but passed on the second, knowing that I needed to feed Emily when I got home. And then the old me got lost again. My respite from reality was over.

While the meal was great, I was not. Sure, I dressed up, and I loved catching up with the girls. I missed them. But I had changed. I was different. As much as I wanted to erase the person I had become over the past six weeks and return to my old self, even for just a few hours, I couldn’t. I was changed. Permanently altered. I had become a mom and there was no going back. I could not let go and just relax. I could not get my mind off Emily. I kept thinking about her and wondering what was happening at home and what the rest of the night would hold for me. Would she sleep a few hours straight or would we be up all until all hours of the morning trying to calm her? How had Craig been doing with her while I was away? Was I missing her already? How could that be? I had only been away two hours. Did she take the bottle? Was she mad that I wasn’t there to nurse her? All of these thoughts raced around my brain, and then I was angry at myself for not being able to let go and enjoy my night out. Here was I was sitting with my friends, listening to them, trying to be present and have a fun carefree evening, and my mind was not there. I was a mental mess.

On the subway home, I came to a conclusion. (Who knew the F train could be a source of therapeutic thought?) Here’s what I came up with. I think the hardest part of this all—aside from the sleep deprivation which is tantamount at times to torture—has been to accept that I am not who I was two months ago. I can’t roll back time and somehow peel off motherhood and return to who I was. And at 40 years old, that’s hard to deal with. Really hard. But I think the only way to embrace this new chapter is to stop trying to keep things the same.

While I haven’t quite mastered the acceptance of my new self, I’ve been feeling better since that dinner, feeling like I will come out feeling the abundant joys of motherhood minus the sadness of losing my old life. I know that there will be a way to have a new life that incorporates parts of the old life. I know that this new life will hold just as many joys (if not more) as my old one if I let it happen. And it will happen. Emily will grow and so will I. So for now, I am here, taking it day by day, saying goodbye to an old friend but finding a precious new one in the eyes of my daughter. 

Aldea is located at 31 West 17th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues, 212.675.7223.

Andrea Strong