Hot Ass
Q: Why do stores have Valentine's Day candy on display already? Come on, let us get to 2005 first! I still refer to Valentine's Day as S.A.D., which stands for Single Awareness Day. That's really what it is, you know.
For dinner tonight, be and i had pan-fried vegetarian dumplings, hot ass ramen, soybean sprouts with sesame oil and hot ass fried tofu, purchased earlier from
Han Ah Reum, the Korean grocery store on 32nd Street. On my kimchee flavored ramen, i also added some roasted crushed chiles from Thailand that P's father made. So hot! So good!
We also bought a crate of clementines. I'm always hesitant to buy a crate since without tasting any, you must trust and believe that the 20-some odd citrus fruits are going to be tasty. It's not like buying a few oranges; you're stuck with a million clementines if they're yucky. Luckily, the $4.99 crate at Han Ah Reum is full of juicy sweet fruits that will undoubtedly be gone by the weekend. I love the smell when you peel away the skin. All those orange oils mist out and tempt you with the yummy fruit inside.
On a sad produce note, we threw out the 3 rotten kabocha squash that were sitting on the counter :( When we left they all looked fine, but tonight i noticed one of them looked wrinkly. be turned them over and of course they're moldy and starting to emit disgusting juices. The 1 lone butternut is all that's left of our squash bounty. Kabocha were the best ones too :(
After
Cristin's hilarious roast at
Urbana, be,
glo, Emily and i had a late meal at
Odessa. My veggie burger wasn't bad but i should've ordered grilled cheese. be's mozzarella sticks weren't too tasty but the fries and pickles were good. I also heard that Veg City Diner in Union Square closed! I used to frequent the VCD on 3rd Ave back in the day, which made excellent vegan milkshakes, but they closed a few months after opening. Now with the original branch closed, i'm sad once again!
A$ is safely inland in South India. I was quite worried but now i hear she's eating dosas so i'm jealous! It's a crispy crepe made from ground fermented rice and lentils, typically filled with spiced potatoes and eaten with chutney and/or lentily soup. I love to eat dosas from
Madras Cafe in the East Village. In 1998 there was this one season where L, dude and i went to Madras every weekend. The waiter, Danny, knew us pretty well and would bring out extra-hot chutneys for
L, discuss religion with me when i went for take-out lunch and call
dude, "that guy with the headphones." Madras has since gone under new management but they still make the best saag paneer (spinach and cheese), using pan-fried paneer cubes and fresh spinach. I usually end up ordering a thali platter, full of mini servings of many things, my favorite way to eat.
Ishle is planning a benefit event for the tsunami survivors at the
Workshop in January (i'm helping!). The death toll is now over 117,000. I'll keep you updated on the benefit, but meanwhile
give whatever you can.
VA Continued
We never made it to Grand Mart or dim sum, but i am able to report on a few more tidbits from our VA trip:
1) After xmas,
Godiva offers 50% off of their holiday gift boxed chocolates. I don't think Godiva is the best chocolate but some of their insides are good; overall, i think their truffles are overrated. When it comes to chocolate i'm very pro high quality dark chocolate or something with a lot of roasted nuts, both of which are not typically Godiva. My sister wanted to purchase some sale boxes when we went to the mall and in the display case i noticed they were offering new
"exotic" (ethnic) truffle flavors. Of course we had to try the horchata truffle, one of my top rated drinks of all time. We also chose a passion fruit truffle and got a cashew & honey one for my mom. In sum, the horchata truffle didn't remind us of horchata at all besides some cinnamon flavoring (3 out of 10); the passion fruit inside was quite tangy and sweet (7 out of 10); and my mom liked the cashew & honey one. They aren't worth $1.75/each, however. Save that money for some
Michel Cluizel bars!
2) The new
Todai buffet at Fair Oaks Mall ranks very low in comparison to the Las Vegas and Waikiki branches. They didn't offer as many dishes and the quality wasn't up to par. I'm thinking the White Plains branch might not be that good either, so it looks like another trip to NV or HI in 2005!
3) Surprisingly, dinner at
Macaroni Grill was not bad! I enjoyed the spicy red garlic sauce on be's penne arrabbiata a lot. My fettuccine alfredo wasn't bad either, but the pasta for both dishes was a tad overcooked. And, i did love the free bread we got with the meal just like i do at
Olive Garden! The only good things at OG are those damn breadsticks and that free salad. Anyone want to go for that unlimited breadsticks and soup lunch deal?
Tsunami/Earthquake Donations
The death toll now is over 77,000, with millions more homeless and at risk for disease. A third of those who died were children. Check
NPR's list of aid agencies to donate whatever you can (thanks,
Angry Asian Man).
bebe Potter and the Beans of Evil
We didn't wake up in time for dim sum, so my mom fried up some of those empanadas we brought down in a cooler for her. She absolutely loves them! The next time she visits, we're taking her to
Mama's to check out the other flavors. I suspect my mom is a huge fan of empanadas and tamales because of the corn. My mom loves corn in any form, so we ate a lot growing up. When we arrived on Saturday she already had some ears steamed. They were good, but not remotely like the fresh cut ears we bought off a roadside stand in Oahu. We microwaved the little ears back in our hotel suite and i cried because we only bought 1 bag of 6 ears.
Around 3PM we arrived at
MJ's parents' house, the high school sight of numerous gatherings and happenings. The Beau Lane basement is not unlike the basement on "
That 70's Show" as we always ended up there, mainly doing nothing. (Remind me to tell you the story of the 50 lbs of donuts.)
MJ's mom is a professional cook, so imagine a house smelling of mulled cider and a table full of various cookies, each cut into bite sized morsels of delicious goodness, and presented on separate plates. Cookie options included: strawberry jam crumble cookies, coffee brownie bites, almond bars, sugar cookies, gingerbread, shortbread, snowball cookies and peanut butter oaty drop cookies. be opted for hot chocolate to drink, and it was a cupful of cocoa coziness. Now add to this image 5 screaming kids and a 10 month old baby who can already walk! The kids got to decorate their own sugar cookies with white icing and various sprinkles; it was so fun to watch them!
After MJ's, the Rices, be and i drove to Rockville, MD to eat at
The Vegetable Garden. It's the originator of "double dinner:" our first attempt to eat dinner there failed (too long of a wait) / we ate somewhere else but were unsatisfied / we went back to Vegetable Garden and ate dinner and dessert again! I was surprised that the restaurant was full at 5PM but this time we had no seating problems. Amongst the table, we consumed: fried black mushrooms, scallion pancakes, squash patties, white and brown rice, plain tofu, fake orange beef, curry hot pot, Kung Pao tofu, asparagus Kung Pao tofu, carrot juice, jasmine tea and lemon water. The food is really good and i'm glad it exists in the area.
Back at the Rice House, we watched "
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," after consuming a Haagen Daaz mix of Peaches N Cream, Mocha Almond Fudge and Baily's Liquor.
Around 1AM a
Bertie Botts jelly bean tasting was an appropriate way to end the night. My sister gave me a bag of those gross Harry Potter jelly beans many years ago but i must say, within those few years they managed to make even grosser, vomit inducing flavors.
be really gagged when he had a sardine bean! He had to spit it out and rinse out his mouth! Booger wasn't too bad, as was earthworm (surprisingly, but not like anyone's actually eaten a worm) and dirt. Soap tasted like eating a piece of perfumy soap; we could feel the suds forming as we chewed. I thought earwax was yucky but the absolute worst was vomit. The guide on the back of the package really didn't make a distinction between spaghetti and vomit. We were down to 2 beans which could've gone either way, but due to various peer-pressure methods, i ended up picking 1 bean, which i shared with
dude, while the more brave
L and be had to share the other one. We cut them in half and as we were holding them in front of our mouths, ready to pop them in on the count of 3, i proclaimed, "This smells sour! Like puke!" We all deeply inhaled and sure enough, both beans were vomit-flavored. Due to a moment of insanity, we all popped them into our mouths and all i can say is: i feel like i threw up and i still have vomit breath! It was much grosser than actually throwing up though, because as be put it, it's like having someone else's vomit in your mouth.
L presented us with a container of yummy home baked cookies after the evil bean tastings. be was really excited about the gingerbread people with giant raisin eyes (one of them looked suspiciously like an alien...). Mexican wedding cakes and frosted sugar cookies were in the box too! But sadly, even delicious cookies weren't enough to cancel out vomit. I just hope they didn't use "natural flavorings" in
that flavor...
Puffalumps
Friday night be and i went to his parents' house in Douglaston for xmas festivities. Noteworthy food items consumed were mini quiche, assorted Spanish olives, cucumbers with dill in yogurt, yellow rice, Parisi bread, curtido and iced pound cake with fruit. Our two gifts from "Santa" were a box of chocolates and a fondue cheese & chocolate set. One of our gifts (from a real person, not a fake white guy) included a box of Godiva hot chocolate powder. I suspect everyone in Eastern Queens thinks i'm addicted to chocolate -- and they're not wrong!
Saturday was xmas at my parents' house. Growing up, we never did an official fancy dinner or had extended family and friends over. Xmas is really just a non-religious affair where we exchange presents and have the day off. Food-wise, my brother gave me a copy of
The Vegetarian Table: Japan and one of the
cast iron corn stick pans i requested. Later in the day, my mom made multiple dishes for dinner which included: stir-fried shrimp and pan-fried breaded Tilapia fish for be (his favorites), sauteed spinach, peas, stir-fried mushrooms and tofu and julienned assorted vegetables, plus steak for my brother (who hates seafood and mushrooms). My mom is such a great cook! She makes the best fried tofu; no matter how many times i watch her or attempt to recreate it, it's just not the same. In addition to all the food she made, we also gorged on yummy pears, mangoes, clementines, cookies and of course chocolate candies.
I'm not sure of the plan tomorrow, but i suspect my mom wants to have dim sum. I want to make a trip to
Grand Mart, which is my favorite supermarket in the world. Imagine a huge, multi-ethnic, amazing-selection-of-produce store, where you can get the rare
El Yucateco XXXtra Hot Mayan Style hot sauce (11,600 Scoville units! Compare to
Tabasco at 2,500-5,000.), 5 different kinds of eggplant, fresh tofu, 10 kinds of white cheeses, countless kinds of rice, pita and kimchee all under one roof. I haven't been to Super H Mart but i hear that's good too. This
article goes into a little background about the various supermarkets around DC.
Lemony
What a busy day! First, be and i met up with ZZ at
Vegetarian Dim Sum House. The food was yummy as always; we even got freshly squeezed juices and everyone seemed to enjoy them. (In the summertime, the watermelon juice is unbelievable!) Since there was someone else to eat fake shrimp with be, they ordered the shrimp dumplings, along with the usual suspects. ZZ gave us an award-winning cookbook called
The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen, which looks really extensive and full of new recipes to try out. I love cookbooks -- even just reading them! Thanks ZZ!
After a quick stop at work and a few errands, i headed to
City Bakery to meet up with A$. She had a lunch of udon noodles, tofu, Thai eggplant and salad while i tried the hot chocolate. We both also got peanut butter cookies. I must say that the hot chocolate is definitely amazing. For $4, you get a big cup of it with an optional marshmallow. I chose NO to the marshmallow, but it seems like they use homemade ones. The hot chocolate is very rich and thick, like it's been frothed with heavy cream. It's not bitter since the cream and sugar make it smooth and silky, but the chocolate flavor is still strong. I would definitely go back for more! I haven't tried the pastries but they looked beautiful and tasty, especially the tarts.
Meanwhile be went to the Bronx for 2 different holiday work parties. For the potluck one, he brought a bottle of Smirnoff green apple vodka and a bottle of green apple sour mix, plus 2 Granny Smith apples to make apple-tinis. Instead of a shaker, he used our hand-held frother thing to mix em up. He's such a cute nerd.
Back to work for money-related matters; i finally left around 7PM when be met up with me. We got some snacks at All About Food since we couldn't decide where to eat out for dinner and just headed home in the rain. We ended up seeing "
Lemony Snickett" with be's sister and i unsurprisingly fell asleep for the first half of the movie. Back home at 12:30AM, i wrapped gifts for the rest of the night after eating too much popcorn drenched in that greasy "butter."
Chippies
The best potato chips, without a doubt, are
Cape Cod. In terms of corn chips, try the unusual
Sesame Blues - so yummy! Whenever i get a bag, i try not the share cause i'll get it back empty. I'm so greedy! I love crunchy foods!
Bachelor Cooking
Rain's blog now includes episodes of his show, "Bachelor Cooking." Scroll down, there are 2 episodes now. They're hilarious! If this was on Food Network i would totally watch it all the time.
Sweetness
1) Tonight be made a big dinner of fake fried fish, broccoli & cheddar Rice A Roni and sauteed yellow squash with lemon pepper. I was a little skeptical of the fff but it was actually fine. I wasn't a big seafood eater growing up; to this day i won't even eat fake shrimp - eww! but what he made tonight was good.
2) On Food TV we caught the end of Iron Chef (the real one, not "America") and i was disappointed that we missed it when i found out the theme ingredient was shitake mushrooms. I wanted to see the whole episode even more when we learned that the challenger Takaya Nakazawa made all vegetarian dishes -- and won against Chen Kenichi! I was really into Iron Chef circa 1998 and although i don't watch it anymore, i still get excited when they use theme ingredients i like.
3) The NY Times has an interesting
article today about the popularity of Splenda, the new fake sugar. What i found particularly interesting is this:
According to the McNeil Web site, sucralose [Splenda] is made by adding chlorine to sugar. Aspartame [Equal, NutraSweet] is not made from sugar but from two amino acids that are isolated from bacteria. Saccharin [Sweet'N Low] is produced from a combination of the flavor chemical methyl anthranilate and ammonia.
Don't do it! Just use real sugar. Better yet, use
Sucanat, an organic, unrefined sugar made from dried cane. It has a distinctive taste; it's not just "sweet," since all the flavor and minerals from the molasses is still there. It's great for cooking and your cup of coffee, although it's flavor offsets tea. I know i'm not one to talk when it comes to sugar (i have a filling in practically every back tooth) but if you're gonna use it, it might as well be real sugar.
4) And speaking of sugar, the last noteworthy item of the night is
GuS: Grown-up Soda. Has anyone tried this? I'm not a big soda drinker (unlike be and his Coke addiction) although i do enjoy a fountain Coke or Cherry Coke occasionally. Soda made with real cane sugar as opposed to corn syrup has a crisper, lighter taste. I want to try the Star Ruby Grapefruit GuS flavor; i'll report as soon as i get my hands on a bottle.
Itwas ... Fennel! Poisoning!
For dinner tonight, i baked 2 pans of cornbread, 4 russet potatoes and 4 beets. be ate his potatoes with cheddar and broccoli while i used butter and salt & pepper.
I'm going to grate the beets and mix them with a mustardy dressing for lunch tomorrow. The recipe is from
The Vegetarian Bistro and is very refreshing in that sweet/sour beet kind of way.
The last thing i cooked was that pesky fennel.
Dude recommended braising it so i improvised and it actually came out quite good. be HATED it and thought i was trying to poison him with the licorice taste. There was a slight fennel seed aroma but it didn't really taste like licorice to me. be thinks i've "fried my tastebuds" with all the hot sauce and chiles i've eaten over the years; according to him i can't taste anything anymore, but that's just his excuse as a hot sauce wimp.
I cut the fennel stalks and leaves off, cut the bulb into 8 pieces and seared them with olive oil and garlic. When they started to caramelize on the edges, i added a cup of vegetable stock and seasonings, covered the pan and let it cook for a few minutes. I actually liked the texture and the flavor wasn't too bad.
Now we are down to: 2 bags carrots, 1 bag baby carrots, 3 yellow squash, 1 mysterious bag full of lettuce, 1 lb dandelion, 1 bag red chard stems, 3 kabocha squash, 1 butternut squash, 2 granny smith apples, 2 tangelos, 1 pear, 2 sweet potatoes and 8 russet potatoes. Also note we cancelled
the box last Friday and will cancel the one for this week as well.
DC Days
I received 2 IMs this afternoon warning me about the terribly cold temperature outside. Thanks, dudes. Like i needed any more convincing to not leave the house.
Does anyone recommend a good Ethiopian restaurant in New York? We used to frequent Abyssinia in the West Village but they sadly closed a few years back. I know there's quite a few places but i'd rather go with a recommendation.
Growing up in the DC suburbs, i had many great meals at Ethiopian restaurants in Georgetown and Adams Morgan. We went to
Zed's Ethiopian Cuisine the most; they make a cold potato dish that's amazing! The best Ethiopian food i ever had, though, was a home cooked meal in college. The injera bread was better than any other, the red lentils very hot and tasty. When i head south this weekend, i'm definitely going to have a meal in DC! I'm drooling just reading the online menu at Zed's!
Dim Sum N Diner Day
Today began with
Vegetarian Dim Sum House, where P, be and i ordered 2 different pan fried noodle dishes and 3 dim sum selections. Then, after a stop at
Tekserve, we dropped P off in Brooklyn and were headed home when
Cristin &
Shappy called from our neighborhood! We all met up at the newly opened
CUP Diner, which is across from the
American Museum of the Moving Image just a few short blocks from our apartment.
We'd been walking by it for a few weeks and even received a menu, but being our lazy selves, we only declared "We should try it out!" as opposed to actually trying it out. I'm glad we were prompted by our diner-loving friends. The inside is lofty but cozy at the same time, with numerous booths, counters and a middle counter/bar section. The CUP Diner is much bigger that i thought, which slightly reminded me of suburban eateries.
As for the food, everyone generally liked what they ordered. Hot drinks arrived in a humongous bowl-like cup and the coffee was decent. Cristin's grilled cheese was good and besides Shappy's bun falling apart with sogginess (and his frozen coleslaw) he seemed to like his meal. I loved my banana cream pie; the real whipped cream and yummy bananas were excellent. No one seemed to think the mac n cheese that be ordered was noteworthy, even though the
word on the street was otherwise. It came in it's own cute baked ramekin dish but the macaroni was overcooked and in a runny cheese sauce, sort of like watery boxed brand!* The service wasn't too great, also.
Overall, i would definitely go back to try the other dishes. It's 24/7 with free wireless internet access (according to the sign on the door) but the prices are a little higher than a "diner" should be. It's more like a restaurant serving American food with some Queens additions. It would be a fun place to go with friends at 2AM on a summer night.
*Now, if you want a decent mac n cheese, you must try the cafe in the basement of
Macy's at Herald Square. I am NOT kidding. Their mac n cheese is really quite tasty, with different kinds of cheese used to create a creamy cheesy inside with a chewy crustier top. The portion size is very generous; a "side dish" size is enough for 1-2 meals and the "meal" size is enough for 3! Try it out and let me know what you think!
Tonight we made fondue! It's been a few years since we dragged out one of the fondue pots; we inherited a yellow enameled aluminum pot from be's parents and bought a stainless steel one with a rotating tray around it. We were wondering what to make for dinner and trying to use up as much produce as possible, and fondue sounded like a fun thing after the corn nugget experiments this afternoon. (No, we didn't find a decent recipe. be's full of grease as i write this!)
We used a packet of swiss cheese and white wine fondue mixture and added black pepper and nutmeg. Dipping materials included toasted bread, fake smoked vienna sausage, steamed cauliflower and granny smith apples. These various foods all contrasted each other in a good way, but in the end we enjoyed the bread the most.
Next time, i'd like to try a cheddar-based fondue. Swiss is classic, but something sharper and saltier would be a nice change. In addition, following with a dark chocolate fondue (plus strawberries, bananas and cake) would be most excellent.
One of be's favorite shows is
Inuyasha. Tonight's show's title was just the most hilarious thing ever.
Know Your Cheesecake
Tonight i attended the holiday party at
A/P/A & Africana Studies at NYU. Besides catching up with long lost friends and community members, the food was in abundance! A/P/A served a mix of various diverse Asian dishes while Africana had soul and Caribbean ones. I liked the fresh papaya salad (although it could've been much hotter), the tofu coconut curry and the greens the most. Chicken eaters enjoyed both blackened and fried chicken and be enjoyed maki rolls as well.
be and glo left early to play DnD at the clubhouse, but made a quick stop at
Cold Stone Creamery first. After the Great Wimp Out of 04, i don't think i could even eat a "Like It" size -- it's just too much ice cream. I don't even like ice cream that much! Now
Italian ice, that's another matter.
Later on i met up with P,
Ishle, L & M at
La Lanterna in the West Village. Our table was the nice one in front of the fireplace! After gorging at the party i wasn't hungry for dinner so i only had hot chocolate. It was milky and slightly bitter; not much sugar was added at all, and layered with froth. It was good for what it was, but i prefer that serious-melted-chocolate-bar kind. I would go to La Lanterna again to try the food.
The subject of cheesecake was a recurring matter. I'm not particularly fond of cheesecake, especially that CREAM CHEESE kind where you might as well take a bite out of a Philly cream cheese packet. I will agree though, that the best cheesecake is at
Junior's on Flatbush in Brooklyn. When you drive by, there's sometimes major traffic due to all the double-parked cars, people running in for a cake, probably tempted by sudden urges while passing those flashing lights. I used to go there many years ago and have black forest cake, coffee and cigarettes. If you go for dinner you're automatically served a side of beets with your meal. Once P ordered a hamburger and i swear it was 5" tall, she could barely take a complete bite of it. But back to the cheesecake -- as a non-cheesecaker i must say that the Junior's one was very tasty. You gotta love a place that mentions Bill Clinton on the menu; i'm sure he knows his cheesecake.
My $0.99
At our supermarket last night, Mrs. Smith's frozen pies were on sale for $2.99 each. be's most favorite pie in the world is
Mrs. Smith's apple, so we grabbed two and proceeded to the checkout with our other items. Upon scanning, they came up as $2.99 but then -$1.00, PLUS we had a -$2.00/2 pies coupon! We paid $0.99 for each of our pies! Our only regret is that our freezer can't hold anymore.
For dinner be made red chard quiche to use up another green. I'm afraid to look in the lettuce bag but the other greens seem to be doing okay in giant Ziplocks. The quiche was really good, and simpler to make because we used a pre-made crust. He also found some recipes for "corn nuggets" online and we experimented with one of them in an attempt to re-create those Random House fritters. The batch was good, but in our opinion "too bready" so be added a can of creamed corn to the batter. This extra liquid made the fritters flatter and crispier, but so oily that we named them "Oilies."
I love watching the Food Network, but that "Iron Chef America" looks like the stupidest show. Why even bother? I didn't watch the Flay/Batali/Puck v Morimoto/Sakai they aired last year, but i sure do remember those
racist ads plastered all over the subway. In it, were F/B/P each brandishing weapons like a meat tenderizer, rolling pin and leg of lamb, ready, i suppose, to "do battle" against those "other" Iron Chefs. It looked like a bunch of white guys were gonna lynch mob some Asian guys. I'm sure if there were ads of M/S ready to beat the shit out of a bunch of white guys (M/S's weapons would be a giant daikon radish and chopsticks, and they'd be in martial arts poses), everyone would scream, "Reverse racism!" or at least say, "This ad campaign is unbelievable. White guys will always win because we've beat people for centuries!" OR chant, "U! S! A! U! S! A! U! S! A! U! S! A!"
The only redeeming thing looks like
Masaharu Morimoto. Has anyone ever been to Nobu when he was head chef? Or eaten at Morimoto in Philly?
Salami Skin
All About Food on 32nd St had their grand opening today and was giving away free food. There was a constant mob line of people in front of the establishment but i was in and out in less than 10 minutes. It's a hot/cold buffet, pizza, deli, coffee, sushi place not unlike the 15,000 other similar places in midtown, but bigger and nicer due to their extensive renovation. They were giving out big containers for you to fill up with buffet items, slices of pizza, sandwiches and bottles of water all for free! I must admit their pizza is the best i've had in midtown and the buffet items tasted much better than i expected. Ingredients such as pomegranate seeds, capers, orange and red bell peppers and real wild rice were used - unusual for a midtown buffet.
After another round of shopping, be and i tried to eat at City Bakery but it was closed, so i suggested
Mandler's: The Original Sausage Co. P introduced the place to me and their veggie sausage is pretty good. I like their hot sauce and the breads used to wrap the sausages in are very hearty. Tonight we both ordered combo meals; the corn fritters i had were excellent and be liked his zucchini fries too. The corn fritters still weren't as good as the cafeteria at Random House, though. It sounds weird to admit, but yes, someone in the Random House cafeteria makes a mean batch of corn fritters. I once ate lunch there with my friend ZZ and be who was temping there at the time, and would totally go back just for those fritters.
Fry Daddy
P sent me an interesting link about
hot, sizzling temptations. I am a big fan of fried foods -- be even bought me a deep fryer for xmas in 2001! The quantity of oil, greasiness of the fryer and the threat of hot oil burns keeps us from deep frying all the time, but when we go through a fry phase you better watch out!
All this talk about frying has me craving fry bread. Anyone who's spent time in the Southwest will have undoubtedly had this wonderful food. It's a piece of bread dough, rolled flat into a 5-8" circle, an optional cut in the middle and then deep fried on both sides. Driving through the Navajo nation reservation, i first had fry bread from a tiny wooden stand next to a gift shop on the side of the highway. You can either have fry bread with powdered sugar and/or honey, or have a "Navajo Taco," which is covered with beans and other toppings. I have never heard of getting fry bread outside of the Southwest; anyone who knows of a place OR is able to actually make a decent batch, let me know!
Random Bits
Today Hiroko gave me a pear from
Harry and David. I haven't eaten it yet but i know it will be excellent. My dad received a gift box of those mad expensive fruits once and they really are high quality.
After work glo, be and i went to
American Burger & Co. on 32nd St and 7th Ave. They serve a homemade veggie burger which isn't the best, but when combined with a good bun, crisp veggies and that chipotle sauce it's really good! They have good fries too, but you have to eat them quickly or they get rubbery. I do miss downtown
Sassy's Sliders. Anyone going uptown, eat a mini veggie burger for me (or four)!
We never found Polly-O (or any brand) string cheese for glomar so he went to work without
cheese wit nuthin. Meanwhile be and i headed towards madhouse Macy's for more shopping. We found a briefcase for my dad and a little red tree for ourselves. We don't really do Xmas decorations but this red tree was just so cute we couldn't pass it up. It totally matches our red couch and red chair, both of which still need new slipcovers. It's been many months and i still have just sewn 1 pillow.
On the walk to the car i stopped by
Dunkin Donuts and purchased 2 chocolate frosted for be and 1 glazed and 1 Boston creme for me. There is just something about the smell of donuts that is irresistible. We live near some warehouses now that stock those donut carts; sometimes we see mushed donuts on the sidewalk and empty carts being towed by cars. These sad donut-related sights are totally cancelled out by that wonderful donut waft we smell sometimes. I have to admit i prefer Dunkin Donuts to
Krispy Kreme. Maybe it's because i grew up with the former, or because i think "hot now" are sometimes doughy. I do not like cakey donuts from anywhere.
Last year someone gave us a box of assorted bagged teas from
Numi. I've tried a few of them and i must say that the "
dry desert lime teasan" is strange yet good. It's made of just dried lime and the tea is sour. I like to sweeten it up but it still reminds me slightly of lime pickle. I first had lime pickle at
Sania's house back in the early 90's; her father insisted i try a spoonful out of a giant glass jar. It looked like a spoonful of meat but upon my hesitant trying of it, i realized i really liked it! All the lime pickle i've had since then haven't been as good; jarred is too oily and restaurants are hit or miss. So anyone who enjoys sour drinks or is missing lime pickle, try it out.
Top 5 Beverages
Cold beverages in no particular order: Thai iced tea, horchata made with pumpkin seeds, Vitamin Water "Multi-V" old grapefruit flavor (discontinued), Gatorade "Orange Ice" flavor, homemade apple/carrot/ginger juice.
Hot beverages in no particular order: Moroccan mint tea, Harrod's organic Assam tea, strong shot of espresso, real hot chocolate, chai (spiced black tea with milk product).
Alcoholic beverages in no particular order: Midori sour, Amaretto and Coke, Kahlua and milk product, peach Schnapps and orange juice, plum wine. Note i like fruity drinks, and i'm proud of it!
Beverages i do not approve of: weak coffee, eggnog, pickle juice, diet soda, glass of milk.
Classic Crunch
I really like the Addolorata Classic Almond Biscotti from
Di Camillo Bakery. I picked up a 5 oz container at Whole Foods on a random whim and actually really like the mini biscotti with almonds. It's crunchly satisfying and sweet & nutty. It doesn't have any anise flavoring; i find some biscotti overpowered with anise. I'm not a huge licorice or fennel seeds fan either, but they're okay in small quantities. be and i just had some hot chocolate and dunked the biscotti and some vanilla wafers in it - so yummy on a cold night.
If i'm inspired tomorrow i might melt a chunk of the
Valrhona or
Ghirardelli chocolate blocks i have laying around and dip the ends of the biscotti for a fancy treat. I like giving away food as gifts so maybe this will be the holiday thing for our friends. be had some other food-gift ideas too which i won't reveal. Speaking of gifts, i came across an interesting
site that lists the corporate giving status of big companies.
Squash City
This evening be decided he needed squash soup. After the success of the kabocha squash roast we weren't so hesitant to try the acorn or butternut varieties sitting on the counter. He printed out some recipes but ended up improvising with some suggestions from me. He cooked the 1 acorn and 2 of the butternut squashes in the microwave (as opposed to the oven), made a pot of stock and blended them together with some herbs and seasonings. On his bowl he dollopped some sour cream and sprinkled toasted pine nuts and vegetarian bacon bits. On mine i wanted a swirl of homemade pesto (frozen from the summer), pine nuts and bacon bits. I thought my combination was better; i don't really like sour cream, but both were really rich and good. I think we like squash! Now we just need to work on that fennel.
Fake Meat Ranking
be and i both highly recommend the CVS brand cheese crackers instead of Cheez Its. The CVS brand has a much better cracker texture and are significantly cheaper. be just ate an entire bag, minus the handful i had!
Tonight in an attempt to reduce produce: be made stir fried eggplant and fake pork with sesame oil, i made mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy, be made (and enjoyed eating) collard greens with lemon, i made more cornbread (minus jalepenos in one pan for be) and he also ate a sunny-side up egg. We still need to juice the apples and pears and carrots.
I've been craving Boca brand fake breakfast sausages. I usually fry some up and eat them with grits on the mornings i have time, but our supermarket decided to stop stocking them. I bought the Boca sausage made with organic soy at another supermarket but the texture was pretty mushy - i do not recommend the organic ones. The regular ones however, are delicious! be and i have tried many brands of fake meat and can report our favorites as such:
1) Sausage: Boca brand breakfast links, non-organic
2) Chicken patties: Morningstar Chik Patties (breaded) and Gardenburger Chik N Grill (grilled)
3) Ground beef: Morningstar Crumbles (bigger chunks) or Quorn brand (finer texture)
4) Ham: S.W. brand at
May Wah Healthy Vegetarian Food store, big "link" vacuum sealed packaging
5) Fish: The one with the seaweed "skin" at May Wah
6) Flavored fake meat: Veggie Citrus Spareribs at May Wah or Morningstar Parmesan Ranch Chik Patties
7) Hot dogs: St. Yves The Good Dog
8) Chicken pieces: Quorn brand
9) Chicken nuggets: Morningstar Buffalo Wings and Guan-in-shiang brand at May Wah
10) Hamburger patties: Boca brand or Grillers Prime
11) Fried Chicken: Crispy Soul Chicken at VP2
Overall, we find the fake meats at May Wah to be of high quality and very tasty. The brands you can find at the supermarket all tend to make 1 or 2 items very well but are lacking excellence in their other offerings. The Quorn brand is harder to find but their fake meats tend to be so accurate it's a bit strange! When we were first pondering trying Quorn (it was on sale at Whole Foods), two different people came up to us as we were staring into the freezer and highly recommended it! It's pretty unusual for people in New York to talk to strangers at the supermarket, so we took their word for it considering the social barrier they had to overcome to approach us and speak. As for bacon, pepperoni, cold cuts and meatballs, there are decent brands out there but none we think are great. If we had to pick one item from the above list as "best of show" it would have to be Veggie Citrus Spareribs. It's so quick and delicious. One time be bought 10 bags from May Wah because he couldn't stop eating it!
Attack of the Produce
1) be's reaction to cornbread #5: "Aw be, why did you put peppers in this? You know i don't like jalepenos!" He then happily ate 3 cornsticks with vegetarian chili after picking out the offending chunks.
2) Today i ate in order: 1/2 banana (the other 1/2 was mushy), 1 kiwi, 1 pear, glass of gatorade, espresso shot, 4 cornsticks and 6.5 corn stars, 3 fresh spring rolls, french fries, coke, 1/4 jumbo bag of movie popcorn, sips of red icee, coke, 2 kiwis and 3 juiced tangelos. I'm not sure if this is a good food day, even considering how much fruit i consumed.
3a) Right now in the fridge we have: 2 heads green leaf lettuce, 1 head romaine lettuce, 1 bunch beets with tops, 1 bunch collard greens, 2 bags carrots, 1 bag baby carrots, 1 cauliflower, 1 head fennel, 1 large eggplant, 3 yellow squash, 1 bunch red chard and 1 bunch dandelion.
b) On the counter we have: 3 bananas, 3 granny smith apples, 3 red delicious apples, 3 d'anjou pears, 1 bosc pear, 1 seckle pear, 3 kiwis, 3 oranges, 2 tangelos, 3 butternut squash, 3 kabocha squash, 1 acorn squash.
c) In a bag on the floor we have: 3 garnet yams and 18 russet potatoes.
We barely ate any vegetables from last week's box and tonight we received another load! Tomorrow we HAVE to majorly cook. I'm not sure what yet, but it has to involve lettuce (we're not big salad eaters but we love croutons) and greens. The squash and potatoes will last a while and we can always juice the fruit; it's the veggies that we must cook before they rot.
4) What do we do with fennel? It looks like dill tops on celery stalks on a giant white turnip.
Cornbread #5
It's rainy, i haven't left the house and the 3rd load of laundry is being done. Tonight we have plans to meet up with multiple parties but for now, i'm sitting here in my sweatshirt happily eating cornbread batch #5. Maybe since the house is so cold i've been subconsciously wanting to use the oven. After some web surfing i found this
recipe which looked good but most importantly, i had all the ingredients for. I'm actually very happy with the results. I halved the recipe, cut the baking time short since i wasn't using a huge skillet and i left out the onions since be hates them. The outsides weren't burnt like batch #4 and the insides were light but not too light, cheesy and slightly hot. I noticed that some cornbread recipes call for lower temps (350-375 degrees) and those tend to end up better than the blazing hot 425-450 temps. Maybe since cast iron is a great heat conductor i'm burning the cornbread since those higher temps are meant for regular glass or aluminum pans. I'm also glad to report that the cute cast iron corn and stars pans are nicely blackening so things aren't really sticking anymore.
The new rankings are: #3, #5, #2, #4, #1. I suspect be's rankings will be: #5, #4, #3, #2, #1
Fresh Spring Rolls
Tomorrow Q is going to order batches and batches of food items from
Vietnam Banh Mi So #1 for a class visit at work. I am so envious i can't even think! The place is a tiny take-out shop on Broome St and although they are mainly known for the "banh mi" sandwiches (5 kinds of Vietnamese meats, seasonings, cilantro, carrots, cucumber and chiles on a toasted baguette) their Vietnamese fresh spring rolls are amazing! They have the regular ones stuffed with shrimp and rice noodles but the vegetarian version they make is so tasty that most shrimp eaters prefer the meatless ones! They are filled with a delicious mixture of mushrooms, pressed tofu, noodles, vegetables, fresh herbs and seasonings, served with a sweet peanutty sauce. Banh Mi So also makes fresh squeezed juices like the hard-to-find sugarcane squeezed with an old-school wringer contraption. Anyone in the vicinity of Chinatown/Little Italy, you must not miss these fresh spring rolls!
Corn Crunch
Tonight it was a toss up between East Village contenders,
The Dumpling Man or
Caracas Arepa Bar. P and i had been to neither but kept hearing good things about both. Arepas won, so we slowly headed out in the cold drizzle to fill up before departing our own ways.
Caracas Arepa Bar is a tiny joint on 7th St, already packed when we arrived. We ended up sitting at the "bar" which allows you a great view of the tiny kitchen. P and i both ordered the "Domino" arepa, filled with black beans and salty white cheese and she also ordered a chicken and avocado one. It took a while for us to receive the arepas but they were totally worth the rain, the crowds and the wait. The corn pattie was deliciously salty and crunchy, matching well with the hearty soft filling. A mustardy sauce was available to squeeze onto your arepa, which added a nice vinegary taste to each bite. They offer a good selection of vegetarian options and even 1 vegan option with mushrooms and tofu!
Since we had such a good view of the kitchen, we noticed that the other arepas didn't look as grilled and crunchy so we suspect we were the lucky recipients of a great batch, before the kitchen staff began rushing to fill orders. P's second arepa (the chicken and avocado one) wasn't as crunchy and grilled on the outside so she expertly declared crunchier is better. Next time, i want to bring be so he can try them. They are different than pupusas but i think he would still like them. Afterwards, maybe we can do double dinner at Dumpling Man too!
Plate Lunches
This morning i picked up a cast-away copy of "AM New York" on the subway and read a short note about Hawaii's famous
L & L chain finally opening a branch downtown. be and i ate at an L & L on the east coast of Oahu and i can sum up our experience in five words: It's A Lot Of Food. I had a veggie burger and fries (delicious, especially after snorkeling and accidentally drinking 3 cups of seawater) while be had the "plate lunch," described on the L & L website as:
The Hawaiian plate lunch is a huge, gastronomically challenging mixture of Asian and American starches (two scoops rice and one scoop macaroni salad) supplemented by a United Nation of entrees such as chicken katsu, beef curry, deep fried shrimp, mahi mahi, lemon chicken, barbecue shortribs, hamburger steak, etc.
be ordered the Fried Shrimp, Mahi Mahi & Scallops plate lunch but he could barely even finish the seafood. I tried to help him with the macaroni salad but it was just too giant of a serving. Lesson learned, go to L & L in a severe state of hunger and you'll still have leftovers.
On a side note, don't be tempted to try that little can of Starbucks "espresso and cream" drink. It wasn't good espresso and had a chemical aftertaste. Instead, try one of the Japanese coffee drinks like Boss, which are much better tasting. The shops in Koreatown where i work stock many different brands.
Satan's Proctologist
I keep looking at the remains of our New Mexico ristra hanging in the kitchen. Read be's
entry about his experience; it's freakin hilarious!
Boycott
Glomar had been hearing rumors about a major lawsuit against Pollo Campero due to sexual harassment of employees. Today be found out it was actually at the Sunset Park location we went to a few weeks ago. I also found an
article about it. It's not good to eat so much chicken/meat anyways.
Oven Fest
1) Cornbread Update, Recipe #4: I tried the instructions on the back of the Aunt Jemima cornmeal package. This time i halved the recipe since i didn't want to have to eat 15 servings before mold set in. I forgot to spray the cornsticks pan with non-stick stuff but i could easily get the goods out with fork prying. I did remember to spray the stars pan and those practically fell out. The cornbread was light and fluffy with an ultra-crisp crust and slightly overcooked. I suspect our oven may run hot so next time i have to watch things more closely. be liked the recipe a lot since it was slightly sweet but i prefer a denser cornbread. Ranking recipes, so far i like #3 (Kavita's) best, #2 next (random one online), #4 (today's) and #1 (really bad recipe, super bland and everything stuck in the pans).
2) be roasted 3 russet potatoes cut into chunks with olive oil, garlic, dried herbs, salt and pepper. They came out perfect! The outsides were crisp and nicely browned, the insides were soft and mealy. Ranking today's batch, it's a close second to the best batch ever: Russian banana potatoes procured at the Union Square Farmers' Market, oven roasted with a similar mix of ingredients, made by yours truly. For some reason, those potatoes were the absolute perfect balance of roasty goodness.
3) be roasted a bunch of small turnips. He looked online for recipes but ended up doing something on his own. He peeled and cut up the turnips into cubes and roasted them with butter, paprika and salt. We were both skeptical of roasted turnips (or turnip anything!) but i must admit they were delicious. The turnips were very fresh tasting, slightly sweet and with a soft texture on the inside. They looked like the potato chunks but tasted very different.
4) Maybe because they had nothing to do with the oven, i did not make collard greens or beet salad. We were so full from #s 1-3 and i didn't feel like cooking any more. Additionally, the avocado we were looking forward to eating was already going bad when we cut it up. We're avocado wasters! :(
Buffet Style
Happy 4th Birthday to
Sol!
Today at work Anjali and i both expressed our love for buffet style meals. As someone who likes to eat a little bit of a lot of different things, as opposed to 1 giant serving of 1 thing, it doesn't get better than a seriously good buffet.
be and i recently ate at
Minado, a Japanese seafood buffet in Midtown. It was about $21 or $22 a person and be thought it was awesome: clams, fancy sushi pieces, lobster tails, oysters, etc. but for me, there were only a few things to eat. I don't eat meat or seafood so my choices were limited to the vegetarian maki rolls and a few hot dishes. I did love the mini servings of dessert, though. I first saw mini servings offered at
Todai; i think they are much more efficient, less wasteful and allow you to try all 10 kinds of cake and 5 of mousse/pudding/ice cream without feeling extremely bloated, and all this is after gorging on an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Todai actually offers many more vegetarian options that Minado. be loves the Todai in Las Vegas; he thinks about it constantly. In Hawaii we ran across a Todai in Oahu, so we ended up eating there twice. Our new friend Kevin from LA also professed his love for Todai, and met up with us the second time. There's actually a location in White Plains upstate, so be is hankering to try it sometime. Anyone who loves seafood, let him know!
Las Vegas is
buffet capital of the US, without a doubt. There you can find cheapass ones for $5.95, all the way to gourmet buffets who get their ingredients flown in daily. The lines are sometimes hours long, so it makes sense to go for a very late lunch and be there when they change to dinner. You'll pay the cheaper price but get the dinner offerings! In Las Vegas, we always just end up eating a quick breakfast around noon, a huge late lunch from 4-6PM (yes, we do eat for 2 hours!) and a fast food snack around 10PM, so we miss all the major mealtimes anyways.
Using our trained senses, we officially
rank the buffets in this order: Aladdin, Bellagio, Todai. I don't recommend the buffet at Luxor and i think Paris is overrated. Surprisingly, the buffet at MGM is decent. I like Aladdin the best because they add special touches to already great food, plus they offer cuisines no one else does (Middle Eastern, Indian, Mexican). Bellagio had the best crab legs according to be and my mom (yes, we took my parents last time!) and the mango dessert was of note. Todai, as implied earlier, is the place for sushi and seafood lovers to gorge but they offer a lot of other options. As for Paris, we kept hearing people rave about the buffet but it really wasn't anything special. The food was very salty (a trick to make you eat less), the crepes were floppy and the dishes all seemed the same. I will say it was better than the buffet at Caesar's in Atlantic City, though. That one was pretty bad. be and Mike Yap tried to have a crab leg eating contest and they both crapped out since they were so salty. Overall i don't like Atlantic City.
I wish there was an all-vegetarian buffet somewhere. Usually at the better buffets there is plenty to eat but it would be nice to frequent one with fake meat, vegan options and top-grade produce. I've been meaning to eat again at
Vatan. It's a fancy all-you-can-eat vegetarian Indian restaurant. It's not buffet style; they set out platters of food and you ask for more of the dishes you like. The food is very, very good and worth the $23 or so a person. All the non-vegetarians who i've taken there have all loved it.
All this talk about food is making me hungry! Tonight be is roasting potatoes and turnips, i'm making grated beet salad and collard greens and we have to eat another avocado. I just spent a while throwing out moldy food from the fridge, too!
Holiday Pack
Check out this in-depth
taste test of the infamous Jones Soda Holiday Pack!
3rd Ave
Sunday night when i was frantically working on getting the program copied for an event, i passed by the
East Village Cheese Shop on 3rd Ave and 10th St in the East Village. I used to work in that neighborhood for years before i finally managed to walk by the shop while it was opened, which occured about a year ago! The first time i explored the shop i marveled at the many kinds of cheese one could buy, all at very affordable prices -- even chunks of soy cheese! I snagged 2 rounds of
Boursin at a measly $1 each (retails for about $6 at other shops) and a package of dried apricots for $2. On Sunday I hurried in and just got through the door when a clerk locked it at 5:56PM. I was eagerly scanning the shelves for my precious Boursin when i sadly noticed they were sold out. So note to all: arrive early and bring cash only, they don't accept credit cards. The lines are long but for cheapass cheese and other products, it's worth supporting the last mom & pop cheese shop in New York.
Also in the vicinity is the
Saint's Alp Tea House. I can't even start to count the number of times we've been there. It must have been 4 summers ago when we started to frequent Saint Alp's, going through quite a few phases where we went almost every day. It's tea so it's addictive because of the caffeine, but mostly it's a super refreshing beverage in summer. P always gets the #1 black tea with milk and tapioca pearls; be gets the lychee with nata de coco; glo tries different things each time; i always either get the lychee, grapefruit with jelly or a coffee drink. Most of the drinks i've tried have been pretty good, as well as the snacks. They even serve noodle soups and more substantial things now, but mostly we like to go in the evening for a sweet drink. Try the toast with coconut butter, tastes just like growing up!
The last place in the area which i love is
Lan. be loves it so much he's had 2 birthday parties there! It's a Japanese restaurant that specializes in shabu-shabu (do-it-yourself soup where you cook whatever ingredients you want in the bubbling broth) but also serves sushi, cooked meals, steak and has a full bar. I went there many years ago with some college friends. At first i was skeptical of the higher prices than i was used to, but when the food came i realized how above-par everything was. Their sushi, even the vegetarian rolls, were of such high quality that you realize the shortcomings of the average sushi joint. Even their water -- yes people, water -- was so delicious that be asked them what brand it was. They kindly brought him to the back and showed him their special filter from Japan. Unavailable for purchase here, but it sure makes a mean glass of water. (This is all coming from someone who doesn't like drinking water!) In the early evenings they have a "sunset special" where for $8.75 you can choose from 3 different dinners: 3 rolls, a sushi plate or a piece of steak over rice. Whenever i go with be, he always breaks down and gets 2 sunset specials since they are so good.
There are so many more establishments i frequent in the East Village, but for now, these are the 3 that stand out on 3rd Ave. Also of note is the Ben and Jerry's where the Vermonster Eating Fests occur!
Spock Hand
Happy Birthday to my little sister Bonesli!
My mom said all she wants for Xmas is a bag of frozen chicken
empanadas. Yes, they are that good. It's worth a trip out to Jackson Heights, plus they're open 24 on Friday and Saturday!
Speaking of
Jackson Heights, there's a great Tibetan place right under the Roosevelt station called Tibetan Yak. be and i ate there once and i loved their hot potato dish. be was searching for a bowl of hand-rolled noodle soup like he used to eat at Lhasa in the East Village before they closed. The noodle soup at Tibetan Yak was not the same, although still good. When you're seated you each receive a cup of
butter tea, which sounds strange but makes sense for a cold day. I've had butter tea at another place and this version is much better. You know a restaurant is really good and authentic when it also rents VHS tapes and sells phone cards.
Crispy Soul Chicken
This evening P, glomar, be and i had dinner at
VP2 (Vegetarian's Paradise 2) in the West Village. Even though i'm the only one who's really vegetarian, everyone else was excited about eating there because of one dish: Crispy Soul Chicken. I haven't had real chicken since late 1991 so i've forgotten what it really tastes like, but current chicken-eaters proclaim it's really tasty and that the crispy breaded outside is great. An appetizer portion is 8 pieces for $5.95 and it comes with a tangy dipping sauce. The CSC was excellent, as usual, but i have to admit i find their other dishes merely okay. Some of them are better than others but generally i am disappointed in their other offerings, for a place that makes 1 certain dish so well that it's trademarked! We all agreed that next time, we should just order multiple portions of CSC.
I was pro double-dinner (eat dinner at one establishment, then walk immediately to a second establishment and eat another dinner) VP2 and then
Kati Roll Company, but by the time we left VP2 we were all too sleepy. I've been craving the potato filled Kati Roll for a time now. The paratha bread is so crispy and oily (in a good way) and it's rolled around your choice of fillings. There is usually a wait (if not a line out the door) since your roll is made just when you order it. I always get 2 of them since they are so yummy!
Tea or Chocolate?
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 2:47 AM
To: info@teaandsympathynewyork.com
Subject: Tea Query
Dear Friends,
A friend of mine suggested i contact you in case you had any suggestions. I have been searching for a certain Assam tea ever since i purchased (and drank!) a wooden box of organic Assam tea from Harrod's in London. Every other Assam i've tried just does not compare. Would you be able to special order this specific tea, or know if it's packaged under another brand? I'm local in Queens so i'm able to stop by your shop if you sell it!
Thank you in advance.
------------
From: contact@teaandsympathynewyork.com
Hi Jeannie,
Thanks for the email. I'm afraid we cannot help - we do sell a range of teas including Assam tea but it is not organic and not Harrods. Why not stop by anyway - you may find something you like?
Best regards,
T&S
------------
Sadness! I will stop by the
Tea and Sympathy shop in the West Village some time this winter with A$ anyways. I like scones and sandwiches and want to try "Welsh Rarebit" and "Bubble and Squeak," in addition to tasting some of their teas. I also want to go back to
Teany on the LES. Their food is actually really good, in addition to being all vegetarian or vegan. Last time i was there, be and i barely escaped a rainstorm to meet up with A$ and Darian. I think i had a "peanut butter bomb" cake but wished i ordered be's goat cheese sandwich, which was the real bomb that time.
But first i must try this hot chocolate everyone keeps raving about from the
City Bakery in Union Square. Two separate people proclaimed it's "the best chocolate i've ever had," while two more insist one should be wary of addiction. I've been to City Bakery twice for lunch but didn't know about this amazing hot chocolate. For a while we were really into
Mariebelle, a shop that specializes in artistic chocolate candies as well as hot chocolate. Kavita (of cornbread fame) introduced the whole staff to the wonders of their cardamon and coconut flavored chocolate pieces. You can either order the hot chocolate "American style" which is a richer version of hot milky chocolatey beverage, OR be insane and order it "European style" (be says it's really "Aztec style") which is essentially a small shot of melted dark chocolate bar. It's thick and super dense since there is no milk to water it down. I have 2 small tins of it and it sure lasts a long time!
Kopi Luwak
I surely suspected this was a hoax, but apparently it's a real product. Thanks again to dude for grossing out the concept of coffee for me!
Kopi Luwak
is for real!
Squash Roast
In order to reduce even more produce:
i ate 2 kiwis; be grilled 2 portobello mushrooms; i made guacamole (1 avocado, salt, pepper, squeeze of lemon), that we ate with Doritos; i steamed 2 artichokes for pasta tomorrow; be roasted 2 kabocha squash according to the recipe i kind of remember from
dude:
Rice House Squash Roast
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut open squash and scoop out the seeds. Rub cut side with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place cut side down on a baking sheet and bake for about 45 minutes, or until soft. Using a spoon, scoop and eat.
When i first heard about roasting squash, it sounded good but i was hesitant to try it, in case be hated it and i ended up having to eat 7 squash until i exploded. BUT it's really good! The texture of kabocha isn't mealy or starchy. It's sweet and soft. I think roasting kabocha is a great method, whereas with butternut perhaps a soup would be best. We baked them enough so they caramelized a bit around the edges, which also makes it look nice. Thanks, Rice House!
Assorted Bits
After a patience-testing, two-hour drive from Co-Op City in the Bronx to downtown Manhattan during rush hour this evening, i am sure glad to be home! The event was good, but it was more fun to see the few Amherst students i knew, eat pastries from
Henion and stay in my very own Colonial-style
hotel room with wooden back porch and fireplace!
We didn't get a chance to have pizza at Antonio's, but Di and i agreed that the best slice is the one with avocado, black beans and cheese. I know you New Yorkers must be gasping (and yes, i do like NY style the best, deep dish sucks (except the biscuit crust at Pizzeria Uno!)) but if you give it a try, it's actually really good!
Speaking of cheese, congratulations to Di for her semester away in Paris! She's a big cheese freak so she'll fit right in. This past summer Anjali, Di, Melissa and i had lunch at
Artisanal, a French restaurant which specializes in imported cheese. The risotto i had was okay, but i loved their cheese assortment platter with fresh and dried fruits, dates and nuts (plus pate and meats). I hear the brunch and fondue are good, so if anyone wants to cheese out, let me know!
Another congrats to Marika who's spending a semester in Oahu, Hawaii! I informed her that they still serve the "fried pie" at McDonald's, banned many years ago on the Mainland, along with saimin (noodles) and pineapple with an extra value meal. The veggie burger is slathered in BBQ sauce, but at least they even serve one! Besides New York, where else can you get a decent veggie burger at McDonald's? Check out a picture of what truly defined our Hawaii trip:
Fried Pieness, Double Shot
Driving through Northampton, MA, i wished we had time to eat at the
Amanouz Cafe, this really good Moroccan restaurant we used to go to all the time in college. My most favorite item there is the Moroccan mint tea. They use real strong green tea leaves, fresh mint and honey, all served in little fancy glasses. I haven't found something similar in New York, so anyone with info, pass it on!
P sent me an interesting
link about Pichet Ong, the pastry chef of Spice Market. He's invented a drink he calls Vietnamese coffee tapioca affogato, which consists of Vietnamese coffee (espresso) poured over condensed-milk ice cream, topped with tapioca pearls (boba) and served with walnut cookies. Has anyone been to Spice Market? Does anyone else think this drink/dessert sounds awesome?
Right when i got home we headed to Jackson Heights for
Mama's Empanadas. They serve 35 kinds of empanadas, most with a delicious crunchy outside. You can get the usual suspects: cheese, chicken, beef; but also "The Elvis" with peanut butter and banana, "The Greek" with spinach, feta and mozzarella and the "Viagra" with shrimp, crab and scallops! I brought two bags of frozen ones to my mom and she ate them all in a freaky-fast amount of time. Also of note is their hot sauce. The red one is okay, but the green one, although not super hot, has a great cilantro flavor. I had 1 queso empanada and 1 vegetable + 2 little cups of green sauce, be had 2 queso ones only. Now we aren't hungry for dinner but be is still grilling mushrooms in my cast-iron grill pan; it makes the house smell juicy and smoky.
Mod Days
Tomorrow i'm off to Western MA for work-related stuff. I went to college up there at
Hampshire. My experience had extreme good sides and extreme bad ones, so going up there without knowing anyone anymore, seeing the new proliferation of Wal-Marts and Barnes & Nobles AND it being a work trip has me dreading it. I am looking forward to having a danish at
Henion Bakery, coffee at
Rao's and pizza at Antonio's. I have fond food memories from college partly because i learned how to cook then and partly because the people i lived with were all really into food. (I know a lot of Tauruses!) I recall many nights when we made great baking sheets full of nachos, just like in Stone Soup -- everyone added whatever they could, and lo and behold we had nachos with guacamole, beans, cheese, salsa etc. We used to go to
Stop n Shop at 3 in the morning, all piling into my car and buying so many things our fridge was Packed. After quite a few cooking disasters we all honed our skills and before long, people were coming over to our "mod"/apartment for grand dinner parties.
Mama G once proclaimed that "cheese makes the world go 'round," as she offered a sad mod-mate a chunk of cheddar. I don't think it's really about the cheese, but more that with food, you really create a bond with someone else. That's why such odd foods like: "hot olive cheese balls," $0.10 ramen with sesame oil, "casseroles," kimchee "soup," big bowls of salad, canned gluten and the aforementioned nacho platters will always hold a dear place in my heart.
One Trick Ponies
Check out this
article about the new
"cereal bar" that just opened in Philly. I really can't believe anyone would go to this restaurant a second time after the novelty of going there once wears off. I mean really, your 8 oz bowl of cereal + milk product only costs $0.30-$0.80! It's not like you CAN'T make the exact same bowl of cereal yourself! At least at other restaurants that specialize in one food item (
Peanut Butter & Co,
Rice to Riches), they actually make the products themselves.
Dim Sum House
I've been meaning to go to
Vegetarian Dim Sum House, my overall favorite restaurant in New York, for about a month! The last time we went we didn't order nearly enough so i've been craving the things we didn't get to eat. It was sometime between 1995 and 1997 (bad memory) that i was walking around
Chinatown and discovered the green awning proclaiming, simply, what they served. At the time, there were 3 vegetarian places in
Chinatown (sadly, VP3 closed a few months ago) and out of the bunch, they definitely were and still are the best. I would say it's one of the top 3 veg rests in New York. I like it immensely because they make food, and make it well.
When i was young my parents never really ate out. Sure, my dad loves
Popeye's and
Pizza Hut and we went to McDonald's like all the other neighborhood kids, but we never ate out at a real restaurant except when the rare family member visited. On these occasions we always had dinner at a Chinese restaurant and/or dim sum for brunch. I never really liked what the adults ordered at dim sum (doughy things, braised chicken feet) except the little egg custard. For my siblings and i, it was cool we were eating out but we usually didn't like it that much.
Dim Sum House, though, is amazingly delicious. Now that i'm old i get to order what i want, and i've tried almost everything on the dim sum menu. Everything they make is very good, the fake meat makes meat-centric dim sum a thing of the past and all the waitstaff know who we are since we're there all the time! There was this one phase where we went once during the weekend for dim sum and again (or twice more) during the week for dinner. (Once, be and i went for dim sum and went back at night on the same day for dinner since we weren't satisfied with the amount we ordered earlier!)
They have a whole regular dinner menu and i must proclaim that they make the best pan-fried noodles in all of New York, no kidding. I grew up eating this Hong Kong style dish and their version with black mushrooms, fake ham and baby bok choy is the BEST. They don't make the sauce like gross gravy, the noodles are crisp on the edges and soft in the center and the topping tastes great. (For those of you who don't know, pan-fried noodles is a platter of the thin wheat noodles crisp-fried in a pan to form a flat shape and covered with a saucy topping. The noodles are crisp and crunchy at first but as the sauce soaks in, they get soft.)
For dim sum, be's most favorite dish is the mashed taro treasure boxes. I love the sticky rice in lotus leaves, jook (rice porridge), rice flour roll with fake ham and cilantro, sesame buns (fried of course!), monk dumplings and banana rolls filled with sweet bean paste. For dinner, we love ordering the said pan-fried noodles, tofu and seaweed soup and orange beef. Sure, they don't have the carts like in bigger dim sum houses, but the food is what really counts. Even my mom, who Loves Meat, agrees that Dim Sum House is very good and makes the best pan-fried noodles. We took her to
Dim Sum Go-Go also and everyone thought it didn't compare, even with real shrimp and pork.
We are always down to have dim sum/yum cha, preferably early afternoon on a Saturday or Sunday. Let us know! We'll most likely be there this weekend if anyone wants to join us!
