We knew it was over the moment we made eye contact with the two Indian men standing at the top of the metal stairs. They started waving and yelling passionately at us to come into their respective restaurants the instant they realized our intentions to venture in for some Indian. The Panna II guy caught me off guard as he rushed forward to give me a hug and say, “Welcome back miss!” Was this deja vu? Had I been here before to warrant such a warm welcome from the host? I played along, smiling and being led into the restaurant like I had been there countless times in the past.
…keep reading
December 24th, 2008 | Category: Indian | Leave a comment
You know a Chinese restaurant is good when you see a lot of Chinese folk eating there. Like many other Chinese restaurants in NYC, they try to overwhelm you with the extensive menu plopped down on your table as soon as you take a seat. There must have been at least 100 dishes to choose from, but my eyes immediately zoomed in on the congee and dim sum section. I never had a craving for congee while living at home with the parents, but once I had been weaned from the Chinese food I had been brought up on to journey forth into my first summer living alone in the city, I began to miss the traditional home comforts. Congee is usually served during the cold winter days, but there’s nothing wrong with some good congee in the summertime either. …keep reading
December 18th, 2008 | Category: Chinese | Comments (2)
Hello Todai…as if the colorful, delicious images on their website weren’t enough to entice me to check out this international seafood and sushi buffet. Located around Koreatown in NYC, the restaurant offers a delicious array of self-serve food and waitresses ready to pour you another cup of tea or to clear your table. Dinner is $10 more expensive than lunch, so unfortunately I could only stuff myself silly for lunch one Wednesday summer afternoon ($18.95 for Monday to Thursday lunch). I wasn’t disappointed though by the variety of sushi and hot food options, and there were plenty of other customers there loading up their plates. (I think they just have a few more hot dishes and more seafood for the dinner menu). It’s recommended that you get there when it opens to avoid any possible lines, and get there on time we did. We were seated immediately, and after we put down our bags and placed our beverage requests, onto the buffet tables we scurried!
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December 14th, 2008 | Category: Buffet, Japanese | Comments (1)
Hmhmmh…Yogurtland. :) I was intrigued by this concept ever since I saw pictures of multi-colored bits of “fro-yo” on a friend’s Facebook page this past summer. I had been eating increasing amounts of frozen yogurt ever since discovering Pinkberry and Red Mango spring semester. But Yogurtland. It was different. I absolutely loved the self-service aspect and the freedom of choosing which handle to pull as yogurt slowly oozed into my cup. I stepped in, and I was immediately hit by a blast of bright happy light and pinkness.
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November 22nd, 2008 | Category: Dessert, Street Eats | Comments (2)
I really like pho. In fact, I’m craving it right now and hopefully I’ll be eating a big bowl of pho for dinner in Chinatown this Friday :D. It’s been one hectic month, but I am back (again) to work on this baby. And oh so many food adventures to catch up on.
When in Chinatown and not craving, well, Chinese, my next favorite comfort food to turn to is this very popular Vietnamese dish. There are several Vietnamese restaurant options on Baxter St, but I tend to frequent Nha Trang for their pho. I’ve had their spring rolls too, but no matter how often i try them, I’m just not a fan. But hello pho dac biet. The waiter is always quick to bring out the big bowl of piping hot soup filled with rice noodles, beef eye round, tendon, and thin slivers of pink beef brisket that slowly cooks and browns in the soup. (I suspect they have everything prepared already and just throw them into the big bowl of hot broth). …keep reading
November 19th, 2008 | Category: Eating Out, Vietnamese | Leave a comment
A friend of mine, who also happens to be a fellow foodie, had long ago suggested this casual Italian restaurant. It took a full year before I actually had the opportunity and (memory) to check Paprika out, and I was not disappointed for the most part. Unfortunately, we just missed the early bird special, which ended at 7pm, but the regular dinner prices were fairly reasonable. I refrained from getting an appetizer, but others at the table did. And of course I had to try some. =3
Yes, even after spending a semester abroad in Florence, my first time trying Prosciutto e Melone was at Paprika. It was an interesting blend of sweet and salty - not quite my cup of tea, but a good appetizer to try nonetheless. I cut off pieces of the cantaloupe and then wrapped the prosciutto around it before eating the combination. Haha please let me know if this is the correct way to eat this! For those unfamiliar with prosciutto, it is dry-cured spiced Italian ham that is usually sliced thin and served without cooking.
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October 18th, 2008 | Category: Eating Out, Italian | Leave a comment
Hhmmhhm yummy…this is one of my proudest cooking achievements so far, the soy sauce chicken! (see yau gei in Canto) It’s a dish my parents always made at home, and through the years they eventually moved from cooking huge perdue chickens to cooking cornish hens. These tiny little hens are faster to cook with more tender meat, and you’re also more likely to finish it in one sitting. The meat was pretty much falling off the bones when I took it out of the soy sauce concoction.
Unfortunately, Chinese cooking often doesn’t use precise measurements of ingredients - the taste is constantly adjusted as you cook, and my parents rarely use measuring cups or recipe books. I follow this general trend when I try to imitate my parents’ dishes, but often turn to online recipes for other cooking ventures. As for this soy sauce chicken, I tried coming up with precise measurements for the recipe, but please note that eyeballing is key too, especially when you’re deciding on how much sauce to make. …keep reading
October 10th, 2008 | Category: Home Cooked | Comments (1)
One of the reasons why I love NYC (yes, I have grown from feeling neutral about the city freshman year to liking it last year to pretty much loving it this year) is the variety of food options available. Not everything in the city is expensive, and there are so many delicious, cheap goodies to eat if you know where to look. ;D
The weekly street fairs between Memorial Day and Labor Day weekend are fun to walk through, and there has been more than one occasion where I have accidentally stumbled upon a street fair while walking to get somewhere else. The smells of roasting gyro meat and sizzling Italian sausages permeate the air as other vendors market their home-squeezed lemonades (I often find these are too watered down to be enjoyable), crepes, and fresh fruit smoothies. The fairs are pretty consistent as they move from street to street every Saturday or Sunday, and there are many purse, craft (finger puppets!), and $2 jewelry stands peddling their products. I do feel bad for the unfortunate cars that come across the fair and must find alternative routes to get to their destination, especially when the fairs take over busy streets like Broadway and 3rd Avenue.
…keep reading
October 5th, 2008 | Category: Street Eats | Leave a comment
I ate here on a very special night back on January 31, and while I know I’m backtracking, there were just too many good eats in the past that I have to mention in my food blog. Perilla is a “Seasonal American” restaurant owned by Top Chef season 1 winner Harold in the West Village (very close to school!), and the menu rotates around seasonal ingredients. Even now I’m looking at their website menu, and there are items on the menu I don’t remember being offered 9 months ago. Variety, all the more reason to keep going back, no? :) Alas, once I can eat out more often…
The soft lighting of the restaurant made the place seem very warm and inviting, and the flickering candles on each table heightened that feeling. My date and I shared the Crispy Berkshire Pork Belly to start - the perfect way to start. The pork skin was just the right amount of crispiness and the layer of fat under the skin absolutely melted in your mouth. The rectangular piece of meat lay on top of a bed of bok choy and mushrooms (?). I have to admit, my initial reaction when it came out though was “this is it?! it looks like a piece of meat from Chinatown.” But the display and ultimately taste trumped the roasted pigs that hang in the windows in Chinatown just waiting to be chopped up and eaten.
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October 2nd, 2008 | Category: American, Fine Dining | Comments (1)
Alas, my school/work/social life schedule has finally caught up to me, and I have abandoned this blog temporarily. =( Rest assured, my love for food can never die out, and I have been eating and cooking well these past two weeks. I hope to get a real food post up by this weekend, but for now, here is some more eye candy, featuring food from Buenos Aires. Can you say meat? And lots of it?
I thought I had landed in heaven when I arrived in Buenos Aires. Warm weather, exchange rate of 3 pesos to 1 U.S. dollar (sure beat the Euro I had to survive on Fall Semester 07), and STEAK. I’m pretty sure I ate different forms of steak at least four times that week. Our undergraduate business school sends every Junior on a one week trip to one of three locations every spring break to study a company based in that foreign country. They usually feature a city each from Asia, Europe, and South America. Buenos Aires had been top of my choices for a long time. I reasoned to myself that I could go to Asia more easily because of my ethnic background, and I had already globe-trotted Europe during my semester abroad in Florence. The week was a whirlwind of eating, partying, not getting enough sleep, and the occasional academic lectures and school-hosted events we were required to attend. One of the best spent weeks of my Junior college career.
Couldn’t resist the meats…
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September 24th, 2008 | Category: Food Porn | Leave a comment
