Chung Food

Death Valley Day #3 (January 4, 2012)

2012-01-22T14:23:00.000-05:00

Brutally cold. breakfast sandwiches.

Exciting drive to Ashton Canyon trailhead - dirt road that we almost couldn't find, very bumpy, fun!

Went through "more exciting alternative" entrance to Ashton Canyon with narrows and falls. Tried for 1 h to scale fall at end, Dave almost made it but was foiled by smooth slide along side at top (fall with big boulder/chockstone at top).

Found alternate route to top, Dave almost killed me by inadvertantly knocking over large stone down below. Dave tried to pull up bags, unsuccessful, almost lost thumb.

I climbed up, Dave climbed down, Dave almost killed by getting distracted and falling backward, orange pack broke fall, I tried to pull up one bag, unsuccessful, finally, he carried both bags up.

Broke Rocc's spool of cord in the process.

Hiked up and found Ashton Mine Camp - very cool - amazingly preserved buildings, refrigerator, beds, oven.

Ran into two other hikers - let them take picture of our map, they gave us tips. We found mine - Dave very happy.

Lunch - steak sandwiches.

Disappointed we couldn't explore more around mining area.

Headed back, saw coyotes on drive back!

Dinner - kung pao chicken, hot toddies, extremely hot fire, very warming.

Canyons are melancholy.

Inspired to learn to climb.

Death Valley Day #2

2012-01-16T20:45:00.000-05:00

Got up at 4:30 am. woke up to coyotes howling in distance. Had a breakfast scramble with 6 eggs.

Hike up Fall Canyon. Loved the narrows.

Was like a cathedral and Richard Serra sculpture although those are probably trying to approproximate the canyons.

Mabel made it up a tough bypass around a dry waterfall.

Was a real climb by itself.

Had enough daylight to see the Mesquite dunes on the way back.

Paid for showers ($5 per person) at Death Valley Ranch in Furnace creek.
Pasta for dinner. Fire was especially warm.

60 degrees around dinner. Daytime was high 70s but was in the shade in the canyon for most of day. O/n 40s.

Death Valley Day #1

2012-01-16T20:37:00.000-05:00

Dave and I spent 1 week camping and hiking in Death Valley. These are our notes and pictures.

Drive in, our car alone for a lot of the drive, otherwise, uneventful

Got in to campground around 11:30 am, the ranger was out to lunch. Saw roadrunner!

Set up camp quickly.
Headed to Badwater, saw the salt flats. Lowest point in the US.

Stopped by Devil's golf course. Salts but not quite flat.

Artist's Drive and palette. Nice to see, fancy road.

Checked out Visitor center and general store. Got the lowdown on Indian Pass, secret picture ranger books.

Had our custumary first night steak dinner. Very chilly. Cold beers not a great idea.

No one around!

Aquagrill

2011-11-16T10:28:00.000-05:00

I'd been craving seafood for a while so we headed to Aquagrill for one of those bi-level seafood platters.

They had sea urchin on the menu. It was the freshest-tasting sea urchin we'd ever eaten.

Aquagrill
210 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012
212.274.0505

A Post-vacation Visit to Bucks County

2011-08-27T13:29:00.011-04:00

We headed down to Pennsylvania to drop off the car at Dave's parent's place. On the way we stopped by Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound to pick up a few lobsters. They offered a larger variety of lobster than at Thurstons and they were also used to shipping lobsters to all sorts of places - so it was good that we stopped here for our edible souvenirs.

On our way home we stopped by the L.L. Bean flagship store in Freeport, Maine. It is a very impressive store.

You can buy equipment for any outdoor activity including camping, hunting, and fishing, and they have events and teaching sessions throughout the week. There was even an archery corner of the store where you could try out bows and arrows. We didn't stay long enough to find the famed "brook" area where you can try out fly fishing rods. However, we did pick up an egg carrying case.

We had to throw away a few broken eggs because the carton disintegrated in the cooler. Somebody came up with this simple but brilliant solution!

When we got home we checked on the lobsters to make sure they were still alive. They were.

Here they are packed up in seaweed.

We rustled up three large containers to boil the lobsters although we only ended up needing two. We needed to boil the lobsters for 30 minutes but it took nearly that same amount of time to even bring the water up to boil. We added a lot of salt since we didn't have seawater with us. We ended up fitting three lobsters in one container and one in a container over a gas stove.

They turned out great!

We did a little al fresco dining out on the deck.

I didn't expect our vacation to involve so much lobster, but it was totally worth it!

Car Camping in Maine - Day #9

2011-08-27T13:19:00.007-04:00

This was our last full day in Maine. We went hiking up Penobscot and Sargent Mountains (Sargent Mountain being the second highest peak in Acadia National Park; we never did make it up Cadillac Mountain).

David liked this random boulder.

We hung out awhile on the peaks of the two mountains. It was another beautiful day.

After the hike we got another lobster fix at Thurstons. David was very happy.

At home we fried up a mackerel and several pollack.

Dave stuffed them with lemon and fresh oregano, and we had rice-in-a-bag and canned green beans drizzled with Frantoia. The pollack was pretty good but moderately annoying to eat because of the bones. The mackerel was not only easier to eat but very delicious fried. It was really fun eating fish that we knew had been swimming in the ocean just 24 hours ago!

Car Camping in Maine - Day #8

2011-08-26T14:37:00.020-04:00

We embarked on a deep sea fishing adventure on the Vagabond!

Dave took a prophylactic dramamine, I packed a lunch of baguette, peach/apricot jam and sharp cheddar (taking inspiration from a popular Saxelby Cheesemonger sandwich), and we were off!

The weather was very misty. My shell didn't do so well at keeping me dry. We stopped by an island with lounging seals.

After about an hour and a half of travel we finally settled down to the business of fishing. Dave and I caught several fish! I had never really caught a fish before in my life. Nor had I ever taken one off the hook by myself. Apparently you have to hold it by the gills and it will open its mouth making the process easier. I'm not doing that at the moment.

The fish keeps flapping its tail as you hold it.

We threw our catches into buckets filled with water. At the end of the trip the captain motored around the sea and brought up multiple lobster traps.

They took out the lobsters, banded their claws, and tossed them into orange baskets; they also returned juveniles and breeding females with eggs back to the ocean, threw out the old bait, attached the new bait, and returned the traps to the ocean.

Dave and I don't really understand how the traps work. I found these two diagrams:

The lobsters climb into the trap to eat the bait but then have to walk through this conical shaped connector to the "parlour" portion of the trap. Why can't the lobsters just back out of the trap and escape after they get the food? Why continue on into the parlour where they will get stuck?

As we pondered these questions, we found out that every person was entitled to one lobster and every family would get a bag of fish! We were lucky enough to get 2 stone crab claws, as well. The crewmembers gutted and scaled all the fish; we asked for ours to be left whole rather than made into fillets. We didn't catch any mackerel but were lucky enough to have a couple in our bag. They were very beautiful.

They made great sashimi and went exceedingly well with sips of Ikkomon soju.

We drove back to Hot Showers and Lobster Pound where they obligingly boiled our lobsters for us in seawater for $2.

It is pretty fun eating lobsters that you've personally seen come out of the ocean. And they were more delicious for it. We learned that a rock (that we borrowed from the firepit) is way more effective than a lobster cracker at breaking through the shell. Overall, it was an amazing day!

Car Camping in Maine - Day #7

2011-08-26T14:17:00.005-04:00

Today we went biking around Acadia National Park. There are these nice carriage roads closed to traffic that go around the various mountains of the park. We had lunch at Hadlock Brook waterfall - a baguette with prosciutto, leftover arugula, and a light dousing of Frantoia (Thanks, Mark Bittman!).

We were doing pretty well at finding beautiful lunch spots.

I really learned how to make use of the different gears on the bike. I learned that the lowest gear, the "granny gear", is essential for climbing up hills. There were a lot of nice downhills to balance things out.

Someone almost rode through one of our pictures.

We took a rest by Bubble Pond in the shade of some trees. It was peaceful and idyllic.

We mostly stayed away from Bar Harbor the town, but we couldn't help but stop by a hill overlooking the harbor itself. It was very picturesque. We would have gotten ice cream if we weren't feeling so lazy and nice sitting on the grass.

We stopped by Thurston's for another lobster fix. The lobster salad, which I envisioned as the yummy interior of a lobster roll but perhaps a little more, was a sore disappointment.

I ate all the lobster bits, though.

Dinner was a simple penne dish with tomato, basil, garlic, olive oil, and parmesan cheese.

Car Camping in Maine - Day #6

2011-08-26T13:57:00.006-04:00

We took it easy again today. We went up to Wonderland, a tidepool area. Then we had lunch (baguettes with canned tuna, capers, and tomatoes in a pan bagna-esque style) at the Seawall picnic area. This was yet another amazing place to have lunch - it was sunny, the water sparkled, and the overlying mist was slowly burned off by the sun before rolling in again.

After lunch we drove by this funny outpost:

It is a campstore/lobster pound/shower facility all in one! Apparently the nearby Seawall Campsite does not have hot showers so people drive a few minutes to pay $1/3 minutes for hot showers. After visiting Echo Lake we swung back to do the Ship Harbor nature trail. It was an unexpectedly beautiful walk. Dave really loved the junction where the incoming sea met the outgoing harbor water.

That night we had orzo with corn, ham, and green beans mixed with dijon mustard and red wine vinegar. I can't believe a pound of orzo fit in our modest Jetboil pan. A little parmesan, a swirl of olive oil, some freshly ground pepper (freshly ground as of Friday) and voila!

Dave found these ridiculously enormous campfire marshmallows.

We had smores that night. I was particularly happy because it never occurred to me that we could do smores with dark chocolate. David likes to burn his marshmallows and eat them plain. He calls it the poor man's creme brulee.

Car Camping in Maine - Day #5

2011-08-26T13:30:00.007-04:00

We hiked up Mt. Acadia today. It was a gorgeous day, and we had a beautiful view of Somes Sound.

We hiked down and found the junction of a freshwater brook with the ocean. It was a beautiful, secret feeling place with trees and a cool breeze. Our guidebook said that pirates used to sail into Somes Sound and use the brook as their freshwater source. It was the perfect place to have lunch - baguettes with pesto and tomatoes.

Here we barely made it in front of the camera before the timer went off. We ascended again up St. Sauveur mountain, pausing at some ledges that gave impressive views of the Sound again but from a different vantage point.

On the way home, we stopped by Thurston's for lobster roll snacks.

It was quesadilla night tonight. The skillet was good at making the tortilla crispy and melting the cheese but by the time I made the entire batch, the first couple had become a little gummy and not as crisp as before.

No matter - refried beans, sour cream, freshly made guacamole, and an ice cold beer (Thunderhole Ale!) made the meal delicious anyways.

Car Camping in Maine - Day #4

2011-08-24T19:21:00.005-04:00

Rain! We woke up and found that our tent had leaked. We temporized by making little crevices along the sides to trap the water. Later during the day we ended up getting some plastic sheeting to cover the sides. That ended up working nicely the next time it rained.

We saw a group of chickens walking around the campground.

They were walking around freely scratching for grubs. They looked so plump and healthy and soft that I just wanted to grab one and give it a big squeeze.

We were still pretty tuckered out from our first hike so we decided to take it easy. For lunch we had another Mark Bittman winner - crab meat mixed with mayo, chives, tarragon, and salt. Instead of making them into sandwiches, we piled them on top of Wasa crackers. We visited Thunderhole and then walked along a beautiful (and mercifully flat) trail that followed the coastline all the way to Otter Point. We visited the "Wild Flowers of Acadia" outdoor garden to satisfy David's botanical curiosity. I got really excited about my first purchase in Acadia National Park - a National Park Passport! You can get stamps at most national parks. I got mine stamped right away.

So we found out that wet logs literally put a damper on making a campfire. We were able to start it but we had to keep blowing on the logs to keep the flame going. Dinner took forever to make. The corn on the cob in foil and baked potato worked, but the skillet just couldn't stay hot enough. We punted and put our chicken thighs (with balsamic vinegar and mustard) on the Jetboil burner.

Success!

Car Camping in Maine - Day #3

2011-08-24T18:06:00.015-04:00

Josh and Eve had recommended several hikes so we started off with the Beehive, which ended up being somewhat of a terrifying hike/climb with open ledges and iron rungs.

But it was a short trail, and the views at the top were amazing.

We had lunch near the summit of Mt. Champlain overlooking a small lake. I figured out several different sandwich combos for this trip, one of which was a humus sandwich with sprouts, cucumber, red pepper, and boiled egg (from the Healthy College Cookbook, which, for any Ephs out there, was published by a few Williams students as a Winter Study project). We supplemented with...

Ants on a log!

We wended our way past pink granite, random boulders, and funny rock formations. We hiked all day past up stony brooks, past wetlands high in the mountains, and lakes made by melted glaciers. At the end of the day we were famished. Dave and I inhaled a pound of spaghetti tossed with prosciutto (already diced), garlic (bought already peeled, then chopped), and parsley and olive oil.

We had it with some nice red wine that we drank out of our camp mugs.

Car Camping in Maine - Day #2

2011-08-24T17:44:00.012-04:00

By some totally random coincidence, Josh and Eve were in the Bar Harbor region at the same time we were. So we decided to meet up for lunch. Eve's favorite lobster pound is Thurston's - a cute place with a bright yellow exterior.

You pick your lobster

and after it is boiled in these giant vats,

you get to eat it while looking at nice views of the harbor. Eve gave me some key advice on eating lobsters, the most important of which was that there are hidden knuckles of flesh in the junction between the legs and the body. I had no idea - I must have been eating all prior lobsters somewhat carelessly - and thanks to her, I have learned to be ruthlessly systematic in ferreting out every tasty morsel from a lobster.

It was great meeting up.

Another tip from Eve - to try the Maine blueberries. They are smaller but much more flavorful than regular blueberries.

They were really tasty - I wish I could get them in New York City.

Dinner was Green Curry with Tofu. You can make anything in a cast iron skillet over a fire!

Car Camping in Maine - Day #1

2011-08-24T17:06:00.014-04:00

David and I went car camping in Maine for about 10 days; I can't believe I didn't really know what car camping was before this trip. You get to camp (and be outdoors and have a campfire) but you also get to have a car (allowing you to bring a large cooler, a nice tent, cast iron skillet, olive oil, and so on). Driving to Maine took more than 8 hours, but it was so much more cheaper than flying and it was so convenient having the car during the trip that it was totally worth it. I heart car camping.

Dave and I got off to somewhat of a late start and so we ended up getting into Mount Desert Island and to Quietside Campground right at sunset. It was dark as we pitched the tent and unloaded the car. Luckily, I had dinner stuff ready to go - steak, arugula salad, and rice. It was an amazing meal for several reasons:

The rice - has anyone suffered through making rice pilaf on a camp stove? It is painful because it always takes a lot longer than you think it will. So I found this stuff in the supermarket: rice in a bag!

The bag has holes in it - large enough for water to get in but small enough to prevent the rice from getting out. Genius!! We just boiled the bags in water for 8 minutes or so and it was done. Super easy. Amazing.

The arugula salad - baby arugula from Satur Farms. I was originally going to mix my own salad dressing but Paul Newman's Olive oil vinaigrette ended up being just fine. Much less mess, no whisk needed, and everything is already in a bottle.

The steak - so I was zipping around Food Emporium making last minute purchases when this double thick bone-in rib-eye steak caught my eye. I found out that this monstrosity is called a cowboy cut. When I saw it I knew I had to buy it.

So we started the fire, cooked the steak on our cast iron skillet,

and had a wonderful meal.

Takahashi

2011-08-13T01:01:00.002-04:00

Fleurise was in town for the weekend so we got together with Rufino and Yuki to have dinner at Takahashi. It is so useful having someone in the know help you navigate through a restaurant. Yuki asked the waitress about what was fresh that day and the results were amazing - there was an asparagus dish that had this really nice bitterness to it; a tuna tartar with little bits of avocado buried within and a dish with these insanely large and tasty oysters came to our table, as well.

We got some really fresh sashimi and a number of tasty rolls as well as a nice soup. We were all really happy at the end of the night!

Mark Bittman Winners

2011-08-13T00:58:00.003-04:00

Mark Bittman likes to publish long lists of easy to put together dinners. His most recent one was 101 Easy Summer Dinners, or something to that effect. I had a good feeling about two suggestions and they both turned out really well. One was white bean cooked in a pan with chopped shrimp, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper. Extremely delicious when piled over bread.

I also made gazpacho for the first time - tomatoes, bread, cucumber, garlic, olive oil. I overblended it so it was more like a gazpacho milkshake than the more textured soup I envisioned.

But it still tasted good.

Boozy Fruit!

2011-08-13T00:38:00.005-04:00

The New York Times recently published an article about preserving fruit with alcohol. I was really excited about putting it together - I could put in a few hours up front, let the whole thing work on its own, and have fun anticipating the prize at the end of a few months - boozy fruit!

So post-call I embarked on my project: I bought a couple of glass jars from Zabar’s Upstairs, bought some good dark rum and brandy from Beacon Spirits, and then went to the Farmer’s Market near Lincoln Center and bought some sugarplums, yellow and purple plums, peaches and nectarines, blackberries, and raspberries. There were two recipies I was going to try - plums in brandy and something called rumtopf.

I have high hopes for the sugarplums in brandy. I washed them, pricked them all over with a needle, and placed them in jars.

I added sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla bean.

And then topped off the jars with good brandy.

The rumtopf I am a little less confident about because the fruit is cut and I am a little more worried that the fruit will go bad for some reason. I piled raspberries and blackberries into the jar with sugar.

And topped them with nectarines and peaches and then plums. The whole thing is floating in dark rum.

Stay tuned - I hope to provide some updates before the fruit is ready in November!

Grandaisy Bakery

2011-08-13T00:34:00.002-04:00

Diana recommended Grandaisy Bakery to us a long time ago. It is a nice little bakery incongruously located next to a Gray’s Papaya near 72nd and Broadway. We finally stopped by on our way to a picnic in Central Park to pick up some sandwiches. Dave got the panini barbabietole with beets and arugula and I got the Greco with chickpeas and pickled onions. We also got a loaf of bread. We were a little suspicious about the paninis because they weren’t made to order or pressed down with a grill - the counter person just brought them out from somewhere.

But they ended up being one of the most delicious paninis we had ever eaten; Dave and I normally try each other’s dishes when we’re eating something new but we were so busy eating our own paninis that we didn’t bother offering our sandwiches to each other. We were also really happy with the loaf and were trying to figure out how it fell in our list of best breads (me: So is this the best loaf of bread you have ever had? him: I still like Sullivan St. Bakery pugilese. But you can’t really compare the two because they are different things. Sullivan St. Bakery’s bread is more charred and authentic feeling. But Grandaisy bread is easier to eat. me: Is it better than the baguettes from Gourmet Garage? him: I actually think the baguettes from Bouchon are better. But again, it is a different category. I would say that Grandaisy makes the best pugilese in the Upper West Side. Well - there you have it.) So bottom line - we’re pretty happy to have a source of remarkably tasty sandwiches and really good bread. We can’t wait to try out their pastries.

El Presidente

2011-08-13T00:25:00.004-04:00

El Presidente is an old neighborhood restaurant in the heart of Washington Heights. Dave and I met up here for dinner once before I started a night float shift and after he had finished clinic. Dave ordered chicken and rice and I ordered squid and rice. We were getting pretty impatient because it was taking a while, but then the waitress came out with these cool aluminum pots filled with our rice dishes.

We gobbled it up.

If you come here, they make a pretty mean café con leche, too.

Tenzan

2011-08-10T19:44:00.002-04:00

Tenzan is a decent Japanese restaurant on Columbus Avenue about 5 blocks from our apartment. It is not worth making a special trip to eat there, but we like it for their ridiculously strong air-conditioning system and the awesome frosted mugs they bring out when you order beer.

Fleurise's last day in New York

2011-07-02T11:45:00.006-04:00

It was Fleurise's last day in New York. Our game plan was to have breakfast, study, and then have dinner with a few people before she drove off into the sunset. So we started off with breakfast at Clinton St. Bakery. (Shopsins, our first choice, was perversely contrarian to our plans and was closed on Tuesdays. It was almost as if they knew). Breakfast at Clinton St. is not too shabby, though. There is an honest feel to the food and it is extremely tasty. The first time I had been there I got the Southern Breakfast (2 eggs, cheese grits, fried green tomatoes, and sugar-cured bacon = *amazing*). Today I got the huevos rancheros with a crisp tortilla that made the whole meal a treat. Fleurise got the country breakfast. After breakfast we had such a nice feeling of playing hooky that we decided we couldn't waste the day on studying; we proceeded to the Kips Bay AMC where we saw a matinee - Kung Fu Panda II in 3D. There is nothing like waltzing into a 10:30 am show, having the theater to yourself and then walking out with the rest of the day ahead of you!

Fleurise took care of some paperwork. I managed to squeeze in an eye appointment. We decided to go shopping for sunglasses at H&M since they were going to dilate my eyes and it was a sunny day. I found a pair of hot-orange glasses for $6.95. Not bad.

Afterward we went to First Republic and sat in their backyard section with cold drinks while we waited for Rufino, Caroline and Alex. We then had burgers at Whitman's. I though I knew were all the good burger places were, but Whitman's surprised me. I got their Juicy Lucy, which was very juicy and cheesy. They also had crispy kale that had been deep fried in oil. Everything was extremely delicious. A great end to an awesome day!

A post-lecture celebration dinner

2011-06-30T09:00:00.001-04:00

I recently had to give a 45 min lecture in front of the entire department of anesthesiology. It took me 6 weeks to prepare and in the days leading up to the talk, I found myself getting pretty nervous. So it was a big relief when I finally gave the talk. I was in the mood to celebrate in a big way, so I bought some ingredients for a celebratory dinner, invited my brother over, and then spent a few hours cooking up a few things I had a major craving for.

Artichokes were at the top of the list. I found a recipe for stuffed artichokes that seemed promising and watched an instructional video by Melissa Clark that made the task of cleaning artichokes seem really easy. Alas, for whatever reason, I found it extremely difficult to clean out the inner leaves. I felt like the artichoke was beating up my little paring knife. So I abandoned the endeavor and went ahead and just steamed the artichokes - 4 whole artichokes so that no one would feel deprived - and decided to make some fresh aioli for dipping. Heavenly - there is nothing better than having a whole artichoke to yourself, leaves and heart, as an excuse to eat loads of garlicky aioli.

I was also craving crab, so I bought a pound of jumbo lump crab from Citarella (the recipe called for a 1/2 pound for 4 people and I had 1 lb for 3 - did I mention that I didn't want anyone to feel deprived?). I found a simple recipe online for spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, cherry tomatoes, basil, and crab.

We drizzled it with our favorite olive oil, Frantoia, and rounded out the meal with a baby arugula salad, a crispy baguette, and a nice white.

We finished off the night with some mouth-watering watermelon juice that Dave whipped up in the blender.

Cooking at Malouf's Mountain

2011-06-29T13:33:00.000-04:00

For our sixth anniversary, we went camping at Malouf's Mountain near Beacon, NY. Mabel likes to refer to it as camping-lite. But we'd had to hike in for 30 minutes to reach the campsite (although they carried our bags on an ATV for us).

We got to do some campfire cooking. Unfortunately, we left the cooler on the train. It contained a large ribeye steak from Florence, lox, and quinoa. But they had some steaks on hand at Malouf's.

Mabel made Rice-A-Roni on our new portable stove. And we had a crisis averted.

We were happy campers.

For breakfast we made bacon, fried egg, and cheese sandwiches on our stove and set out for a day long hike. We didn't bring nearly enough water but we made it through.

We ordered salmon for dinner and cooked it over our campfire. I was out of olive oil so we cooked our spinach with some leftover bacon.

Mabel was really excited about the baked potatoes, which were cooked through!

We had smores for dessert.

Before heading out we made another batch of breakfast sandwiches. Mabel suggested poaching the eggs which was a brilliant idea. Much easier than frying eggs, at least with our stove.

We made a stop by Dia Beacon before heading back to the city.

And had dinner at Penang. It was nice to have someone else do the cooking and cleaning.

We caught them during Malaysian restaurant week and got a nice deal on our meal.

Malouf's Mountain
Beacon, NY 12508

Penang
127 W 72nd St (btn Columbus and Broadway)
New York, NY 10023

DeGustibus with Gabe Thompson

2011-06-07T20:59:00.021-04:00

I was lucky enough to score another set of tickets from Larry and Ellen R. This time the featured chef was Gabe Thompson, chef of dell'anima and L'Artusi - both restaurants in NYC. At this session I realized that Salvatore, the host of these events, has to find chefs who are amiable, articulate and brave enough to cook while bantering with a critical New York City crowd (though the crowd today was pretty tame). I suppose that for the sake of their business, chefs have to get good at promoting their restaurant; Chef Gabe had done DeGustibus events before and therefore was at ease and able to volunteer funny vignettes and observations while demo-ing his cooking (and Salvatore would jump in at the right time with questions and would have him explain what he meant by a particular term or have him talk about his favorite source or ingredient or would help extract tips for the home cook).

But no matter how at ease the chef is, I always get the sense that they would still rather be hanging out in their own restaurants than doing these sorts of events. But I guess that's what happens when you become chef - you have to deal with the public. And for Chef Gabe, I think the endeavor was worth it - I definitely think he won a few new fans for his trouble.

We started off with crudo - fluke with bits of chopped pineapple - a tribute to his old days at Le Bernadin and a refreshing way to start the meal.

Then we had this delicious roasted cherry tomato soup with caramelized onion pecorino crostini. The fact that this was made of not just tomatoes, but cherry tomatoes, and not just any cherry tomaotes, but roasted cherry tomatoes, lended a whole new dimension to the dish. It reminded me of the roasted cherry tomatoes that Dave makes in a sheet pan and that we pile onto baguette slices - one of those dishes that we count as a little luxury; it was those cherry tomatoes transmogrified to soup form - a little tangier and sweeter than the average tomato soup. The crostini, being a generous size, was fun to eat.

Although the soup was a close second, my favorite dish of the night was the roasted asparagus with parmesan sformato and preserved lemon. Okay, so the parmesan sformato was basically a parmesan *cloud* made from milk boiled with parmesan and parmesan rinds for the flavor and then combined with eggs. It was this magically light concoction that went insanely well with the asparagus.

We then had ricotta crespelle with lamb ragu, which ties for second with the soup. They make their own ricotta (sounds pretty easy - good quality milk, add lemon juice, gather the solids and let them drain - voila, ricotta!) and it provides the filling to a folded-over crepe, which is then topped with the lamb ragu - extremely delicious. Oh yes - I don't have a picture because I forgot to take one before I gobbled up the dish.

We finished with a porcini-dust-rubbed chicken with roasted mushrooms and scallions. For dessert, we had a nice rustic strawberry tiramisu, demonstrated by the chef's wife.

And finally, the wines - I really enjoyed the wines - both called centine (the sommelier's jingle was, "Centine, rhymes with 'everyday', because it is wine for everyday"). To my chagrin, the white, which I thought was very clean and crisp, is partially fermented in oak barrels. So much for my theory that I don't like oak. Although going back to the drawing board just means I should go to more tastings!

3 Flights into Campania

2011-06-06T17:02:00.012-04:00

Larry and Ellen R. had extra tickets to a DeGustibus event, so Dave, Caroline, Stuart, and I spent an afternoon tasting wines from the Campania region of Italy. It was pretty darn amazing.

First, Anthony Giglio, our tour guide for the afternoon, turned out to be an energetic, knowledgeable and extremely entertaining sommelier; he taught us to "see, swirl, sniff, and savor" our wines. He happened to choose whites that were completely devoid of oak, which was good not only because I think I prefer non-oaky whites, but also because it took out one extra variable in the tasting experience.

Second, the sheer variety of wines to be experienced was mind-boggling. We had three "flights" - a term that I rapidly came to appreciate meant three stages of wine tastings with multiple wines per stage. There is nothing like learning to taste when you have 17 different wines to compare to one another. We had 6 whites, then another 5 whites, then 6 reds to finish off.

Here is Stuart in action.

Dave and I really liked the 2009 Vinosia Malvasia Salento and the 2009 Terredora Falanghina whites. The reds? By the time we got to them, they all tasted great. Yes, it was an option to "see, swirl, sniff, and spit," but what would the fun be in that?

The food was good - very simple; the chef, Barbara Lynch, was a fun and accomplished character herself (she heads a number of restaurants including No. 9 Park in Boston) although she seemed to be having a bad day (she lost her cell phone that morning; the intended dessert fell, which was broadcast to the entire crowd by the moderator and for which she had to scramble to make another dish; and she didn't like that fact that she had to do a pasta making demo in front of Giglio's family, who were all in attendance). We had a grilled caciocavallo cheese (sturdy enough to stand up to grilling) with spiced eggplant and pesto:

We also had some hand-cut pasta with slow roasted cherry tomatoes and olive. Simple and delicious.

There was some extra bread on hand to soak up the wine and then we headed out for Korean barbecue afterwards. I would say that an excellent time was had by all.

Pictures courtesy of Caroline!

Hung Ry hand-pulled noodles

2011-04-21T10:22:00.001-04:00

We ate at Hung Ry last night with Ben D.

Mabel and I had been wanting to try the noodles there since seeing this Times piece earlier in the year. She was also obsessed with Chinese handpulled noodles a couple years ago, and this seemed like a good way to renew the obsession.

The noodles were fantastic. They were perfectly satisfying on their own. Nice and chewy. The chicken and bitter greens broth was the best of the ones we tried. The lamb broth was strangely flat, and the pork belly broth had a bit too much liquid smoke.

Their appetizers sounded really interesting. We tried the monkfish liver, rabbit rillettes, and lamb belly. The monkfish liver was pressed into a pate which had a nice mussel flavor to it. Mabel didn't like the texture. The rabbit rillettes was tasty, but they didn't give us any bread or bread-like substitute for it. Mabel pointed out, correctly, that we were eating at a noodle place, and I shouldn't be so critical.

I was super excited about their lamb belly. The only other time I'd seen lamb belly on a menu was at Momofuku Ssam Bar 4 years ago. Hung Ry's version was respectable, but I think there's a reason why you're not seeing lamb belly on menus everywhere. But the dish came with a crisp, roasted dandelion green garnish that was fun to eat.

Service felt strangely uncoordinated, like everything was always half a beat off. Dishes being called the wrong thing, servers and the hostess running into diners. It's only worth mentioning because the restaurant seems to be aiming for a higher level of service. But in the end it's a noodle place. I'll be coming back for the noodles.

Hung Ry
55 Bond St (btn Lafayette & Bowery)
New York, NY 10012
(212) 677-4864

Miami 2010

2011-03-12T19:52:00.001-05:00

This post originally took place in November 2010.

Mabel and I both had the weekend before Thanksgiving free. It was the first weekend since June that we had a free weekend together.

We went to Miami.

We flew Spirit airlines to Fort Lauderdale and drove down to Miami Beach. That airline is cheap, but they make you pay for your carry-on ($30 each). And they charge extra for you to choose a seat, any seat, when you check in from home. It felt like a joke. Not a very good way to manage expectations.

Aside from that it was a great trip. We stayed at the Gansevoort and hung out by the pool a lot.

I like Miami. People are more laid back. It's easy to chill out.

This article from the Times was our food guide. We ended up eating two meals in the design district. Dinner was at a tapas place called Sra. Martinez. The interior felt like a theatrical Spanish patio. We ate at Michael's Genuine Food for brunch the next day. They make homemade pop tarts and this awesome pig ear salad. It was all good.

We couldn't get an ocean view room, but I enjoyed our view of Miami.

Smoky Apartment Roast Beef

2011-03-05T17:14:00.000-05:00

I got a chance to cook a 6 lbs. roast last weekend. I got it at no other than Florence Prime Meats, and I cooked it according to an intriguing recipe revival printed in the Times.

The instructions call for heating at 500 degrees for 30 min (according to their weight-time table). I've never heard a recipe call for 500 degrees. But it was only for 30 minutes. How smoky could it get?

We set off the building fire alarms on multiple levels. It turned out perfect, though.

The thermometer read 130 degrees by the end. A miracle!

Valentine's Day 2011

2011-02-15T18:26:00.000-05:00

I picked up lobster and oysters at Citarella for Valentine's Day.

Got the lobster pre-cooked and chilled. Sliced it straight down the middle.

Mabel struggled a bit with the claws but says that it was the best lobster meal she's ever had. We'll invest in some lobster crackers for next time.

Burgers at Peter Luger's

2011-01-08T11:57:00.007-05:00

One fine post-call day after a particularly brutal call, Fleurise, Rufino, and I realized that we were experiencing that rare conjunction of moons where friends are all post-call on the same day. It was a sign, and though the collective number of hours slept between the three of us was probably around six, we nonetheless decided to take advantage of the day by getting burgers at Peter Luger.

Getting a burger at Peter Luger had been on my must-eat list for a while; I was influenced by strong recommendations from colleagues ("No one should ever move away from New York City without trying this burger") as well as from well-publicized burger ranking lists (e.g. The Burger of the Month, whose list I am slowing working through: Strongly Agree with City Hall, Agree with Burger Joint, glad to see Shake Shack is not on the list).

We made our way to Brooklyn. Fleurise and I ordered our burgers rare and Rufino ordered his medium rare.

The burgers were amazing! The meat tasted so good. I am usually the kind of person that needs lettuce, tomato, and mayo to feel like I am eating a real burger, but with these burgers (including just patty, bun, cheese, and onion), the meat made the burger complete. We ordered bacon with our burgers, which manifest as these ridiculously thick canadian bacon slices. We ordered beer, which came ice cold in steins. The only thing I wondered was whether medium rare would be more juicy.

About a month later, I got a chance to try. Caroline, Fahad, Chris, and I had a free afternoon so we cabbed it over.

It was just as delicious the second time around. The medium rare was slightly more cooked, but surprisingly, not any more juicy. It didn't matter - the meat was still amazing. So I guess my personal best burger list would look something like this: Best Tasting and Best Quality of Meat with Coldest Beer: Peter Luger. Juiciest Burger: City Hall. Best Regular Fast Food Joint-Type Burger: Burger Joint and Five Guys. As I did with the first outing, I went home and passed out in burger bliss.

Bird head flasks

2010-11-29T19:05:00.000-05:00

I saw these eagle head and swan head liquor flasks at the Met earlier this month.

I wish they produced replicas of these.

Too much pork belly dinner

2010-11-29T00:20:00.001-05:00

We've had a slab of pork belly in the freezer for a long time. It even came with us when we moved. So I decided to cook all of it last night.

I divided it between two dishes. The pot going on top is Mao's Red-Braised Pork, an old favorite.

It came out okay, but I gave ourselves too many fatty pieces. Actually, now that I think of it (and re-read that old post), that wasn't the problem. We needed to cook it for 2-3 hrs instead of the 1 hour Fuchsia Dunlop calls for. Hmm, well, I'll make up the extra time with the leftovers.

The dish in the oven is a batch of Rillons. I got the recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Cookbook. These things are basically pork belly confit.

You cook them in their own fat, flavored with garlic, thyme, and wine. It was delicious right from the oven. Fearnley-Whittingstall says that he likes them better cold. They're not bad cold. I'm eating some cold rillons right now. But the fat is pretty intense when it's cold. You're basically eating lard. Some bread would be useful.

I retrieved the garlic from the rillons recipe before it had a chance to burn.

I gave the pieces to Mabel. Roasted garlic cloves puts a smile on her face.

November dinner

2010-11-28T23:43:00.002-05:00

This post originally took place on 11/11/2010.

Henry was in town doing a project with Josh, so we all (including me, Eve, and Mabel) had dinner together.

Our guests brought over the wine. Included a magnum of barolo and a valpolicella (Henry can't resist the raisonated grapes) which we tied with a bow.

I picked up a last minute beef roast from Citarella which was tasty but not nearly as nice as the ones from our beloved Florence. We also had a dried mozzarella ball from Alleva. Josh and Eve handed off our country ham (which I have yet to write about, but there are some pictures here).

I've decided that there is absolutely no problem with buying prepared sides for dinner. Takes the stress out of having people over for dinner. Citarella has some decent options.

Bahn Mi and Jury Duty

2010-11-14T10:22:00.044-05:00

I had jury duty earlier in the week. I would have liked to sit on one of the cases if I had nothing else to do, but alas.

I got Bahn Mi on my lunch breaks.

The closest place I could find through Yelp was Sau Voi.

Very authentic-looking. Most of the store is taken up with DVDs.

The sandwich was respectable. The crispy bread is key. The crumbs splintering off the sandwich attracted a crowd of sparrows which are always nice. An aggressive albino pigeon, however, put an early end to my meal.

I didn't get picked on my second day of jury duty, and they let us out for good. I decided to celebrate by going to Bahn Mi Saigon Bakery, our favorite Bahn Mi place.

They moved and totally upgraded their establishment. They kept the jewelry counter, and I think even the jewelry is nicer. The sandwich is still awesome, though I think I will not order it spicy again.

Sau Voi
101 Lafayette St (at Walker St)
New York, NY 10013-4165
(212) 226-8184

Bahn Mi Saigon Bakery
198 Grand St (btn Mott and Mulberry)
New York, NY 10013
(212) 941-1541

ASA 2010-San Diego

2010-11-12T19:07:00.005-05:00

The American Society of Anesthesiologists annual conference was held in San Diego this year. I was sharing a room with Caroline and Marny at the snazzy Andaz Hotel, a boutique hotel in the Gaslamp District. We were shocked when we saw our room:

There is nowwhere to hide when your shower has only clear glass! A quick trip to CVS got us the materials to provide some privacy.

Even so, we had to sit facing certain walls when someone was showering because there were mirrors everywhere. But we made it work.

The ASA annual conference sounds nerdy and is nerdy. Here I am modeling a pulse oximeter that goes on your forehead rather than on your finger.

I ran in place and held my breath to see how it would change the reading on the monitor.

The weather in San Diego was very bad. It was cloudy, rainy, and cold. But we got some good eating in. The Tin Fish was right by the convention center. We were sad about the rain.

But Tin Fish's amazing fried oysters cheered us up.

They were the best fried oysters I have ever tried, although they were not quite as good on our second visit. The first time we had them, they were hot, crispy, and extremely juicy when you bit into them. Very delicious.

On another day, Chris, Caroline, Fahad and I had dinner with Dr. Blanck and Sue at Aqua Al 2. Everything was tasty, but the most memorable part of the dinner was trying white sambuca for the first time. I wish I had taken a picture - it is a clear digestif that comes in little glasses with coffeebeans floating within. It is basically pure essence of licorice - not as caustic as Fernet Branca, but potent enough to necessitate slow sipping. The whole ordering of white sambuca came about when we learned that Chris and his brothers drink down a good amount of the stuff during the holidays with this chant, "'buca! 'buca! 'buca!" Seeing Dr. Blanck do the chant was pretty awesome.

On the other days, we ate at Cowboy Star, Stingaree, and Searsucker, all fun to eat at. And on our way home, we paid homage to the ultimate Californian destination - In 'n Out.

Brussels

2010-10-10T19:23:00.010-04:00

We went to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, which includes the Magritte Museum. The weather was fantastic, so we sat outside for lunch. I had a fancy salad and a glass of wine. We wandered around the Upper Town. When we got to the Parc de Bruxelles, we saw this funny lion.

Fleurise said, "I guess not everyone can be a rampant lion."

This gold and black color scheme could be found throughout the city. I thought it was very pretty.

We saw the Royal Palace, the Sculpture Garden, Notre-Dame du Sablon Church, the Place du Petit Sablon, a refreshing park with a beautiful fountain, and the Palace of Justice. There was an antique market near the church. We saw these cool knives.

We made our way back to the Manneken-Pis. There was an escargot stand featuring a bubbling pot of escargot.

10 for 3.50 euro. We went for it. Not only were they already shelled,

but the broth was savory and spicy.

A very nice appetizer to our next venture, which was having dinner at the Grand Place. My camera isn't powerful enough to convey the grandeur of this plaza, so I didn't even try. Suffice it to say that it is a beautiful place to get a beer and soak in the feeling of being in another time. We got a sampling of "Belgian Delicacies" - chicken, meatball, beef - with the requisite frites.

I thought we were winding down, but on our way to look for dessert at the Saint Catherine Square, we ran into an oyster stand. So we got oysters.

When we finished dinner, we still felt like we didn't have our fill of frites. It was our last night, so decided to make our dessert moules frites and to celebrate with a little champagne. We toasted to our last night in the looming presence of the Saint Catherine Cathedral. What a great week.

Bruges/Brussels

2010-10-10T18:24:00.010-04:00

We went on a tour of the local brewery in Bruges, De Halve Maan Brewery (The Half Moon Brewery). These tools were once used in the beer brewing process.

De Halve Maan Brewery make Bruges Zot (Bruges Fool); nowadays they use modern equipment, but on the tour, we saw a lot of old equipment that was used in the past. One floor had large bath-like containers for fermenting the beer.

Another floor had these white cylinders with round holes just big enough for a person to get through.

Apparently, these white containers had to be cleaned very well and the task had to be done by at least two men. The person who climbed inside the cylinder would hum or whistle a tune while the other waited outside. If the singing started to go out of tune, the person outside would know that the cleaner inside was beginning to get affected by fumes, and would help get him out.

At the top of the brewery, we had a view far better than the one at the Bell Tower. We met Saint Arnold, patron saint of brewing, with his brewing stick.

The tour ended with a glass of Bruges Zot. I am definitely a fan. We decided to get classic Flemish food for lunch, so Fleurise and I dined at Bistro de Bekoring. We got more glasses of Bruges Zot. They had these really cute tiny sausages for us to munch on while we waited for the food.

The shrimp croquettes were crunchy, and even better, had this amazing briny of-the-sea shrimp taste. It was the best shrimp croquette I had ever had. Fleurise got a seafood stew. I got eels.

Both were delicious. We packed up our Miffy toothpaste and headed to the train station. The trip to Brussels was, thankfully, uneventful. But we had decided to be adventuresome and didn't make reservations ahead of time based on advice from Rick Steves' guidebook. Rick Steves' recommendations are generally really good, but this is one suggestion that I wouldn't repeat. The tourist office's internet and phone were down so they couldn't help us. So we wandered around the city dragging our suitcases on the cobblestone to maybe 4-5 hotels before we found one that had space and that we liked.

We walked around the city. We saw the Grand Place. Fleurise wanted to get strawberries on a stick, but turned them down once she found out they were for dipping in chocolate.

We touched a brass statue of Mayor Evrard 't Serclaes for good luck (we felt like we needed all the luck we could get). We saw some lace umbrellas with a creepy mannequin in the display window that moved.

We saw the Manneken-Pis, a fountain of a little boy urinating into a pool. We had moules frite at Restaurant La Maree. We liked the sign for the bakery next door.

The weather was beautiful and it was just warm enough to eat outside. After we finished, we called it a day.

Bruges - Day 2

2010-10-07T15:09:00.012-04:00

Fleurise and I were excited for our full day in Bruges. It looked different in the daylight. The town looked so perfectly medieval that for a while it felt larger than life, like we were in a movie set or at Disneyland. I settled into the town a bit more after I read that Bruges today is a pretty accurate depiction of how it actually looked in the old days. The city makes its living on tourism, so it makes sense that money is poured into restorations. We had a view of some of the characteristic gabled rooftops from our window.

We made our way to the famous Bell Tower. On the way, we saw perfect storefronts with beautiful displays of toys and lace and delectable chocolates, candies, and cookies. We paid 8 euros to the city of Bruges so that we could punish ourselves by climbing 366 steps up the Bell Tower. The view was just okay; the best part about the visit was the sign at the entrance.

Frites are specifically forbidden. We walked to Burg Square and marveled over the opulent City Hall. We visited the Basilica of the Holy Blood where it is said they keep a vial of Christ's blood. We went to, of all places, the basement of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where the old ruins of a church had been converted into conference space. We contemplated "Madonna and Child" by Michelangelo in the Church of Our Lady, wandered around the Begijnhof, and sat down at Minnewater.

We had to try out Belgium chocolate, so we visited The Chocolate Line, which sold chocolates by the "mad scientist of chocolate," Dominique Person. He had some crazy stuff, like the Havana Cigar chocolate, which has rum, cognac, and Cuban tobacco leaves. We tried it; it had a spicy bitterness, but besides that, we weren't sure what to make of it.

Along our walk we happened on an old man playing a mechanical organ with a hand crank.

We enjoyed being outside so we decided to skip the museums and rent bikes. The ride was surreal. We rode by a canal to the next town over, Damme.

We went along fields, horses, sheep, windmills, and a majestic arch of trees like those at the Mall in Central Park or at Versailles. I didn't think that a bike ride could ever be this calming.

We walked through Damme and took what looked like a "wandering path" back to the canal.

We came back to town hungry. We sat down in one of those forgettable restaurants in Markt Square, and we had our moules frites, Belgian wafel, our people watching, and our view of the Bell Tower.

To Bruges

2010-10-07T14:31:00.004-04:00

After a visit to the van Gogh museum, we headed to Centraal Station in an attempt to get to Bruges. It was torture! We missed the 1553 train by a hair, coming up on the platform just as the doors closed; we sadly watched it pull out of the station. We waited an hour and got on a red fancy train at the same platform at 1650 only to find out that it was a decoy train that was actually going to Paris. Someone told us to go to another platform, and so we ran to another track. In a moment’s hesitation in assessing whether it was the correct train, it, too, closed its doors and pulled out of the station. We waited another hour and finally caught the 1753 train out of Amsterdam, more than a little disgruntled.

But we successfully made our way to Antwerp, our connecting station. It was one of the most beautiful train stations Fleurise or I had ever seen, but we were too intent on catching our train to Bruges to take pictures. When we finally got there, 2 hours later than we intended, we felt triumphant.

We high-tailed it to the B&B and then walked to a pub, Herberg Vlissinghe, the oldest pub in town (from 1515). On the walk over, the looming gabled buildings, narrow cobbled streets, the canals, and the stillness of the town made us feel like we really were in 1515. At the pub, there was old dark wood and good beer.

Amsterdam - Day 3

2010-10-05T16:38:00.003-04:00

Tragedy! My camera was acting up right as we were starting to have breakfast. So I couldn't take a picture of Uncle E's amazing garlic rice, the beautifully fried eggs, the tomato slices, nor the adobo. But I got it to work eventually and took a picture of this:

Smac! The Amsterdam equivalent of Spam! Breakfast included a few fried slices of Smac. There is nothing like egg over rice, and to have the rice be garlic rice and to have Spam, adobo, and that bit of tomato was like having breakfast in heaven. Predictably, Fleurise and I passed out from food coma afterwards. In the afternoon we went out with Uncle E, Tito Sonny, and his partner, Tito Jap, to Momo where we had some delicious rolls (the foie gras roll was a highlight).

We moved onto PC Hooftstraat, an area with fashionable stores. We had cappuccinos outside and enjoyed the perfect weather and the light.

The uncles went shopping. We headed home, passing by Australian, an ice cream store Fleurise is fond of. They have a funny advertisement on the window:

We sat outside again enjoying the weather some more. We read. Took Uncle E and Tito Gert to Akbar for Indian food. Briefly visited the Red Light District. And then our day was over.

Amsterdam - Day 2

2010-10-04T17:31:00.021-04:00

This morning, we went to the Albert Cuyp Street Market - sort of like a Rue Cler/flea market hybrid. There were grocery stands, cheese booths, and a rotisserie (I love the Dutch word for chicken - kip!), but also baseball caps, underwear, sequined skirts, and perfume. I saw some gorgeous garlic.

We had the great fortune to stumble upon an eetcafe populated only with locals: the "Cafe Coffeehouse."

When we walked in, there was a group of 4 or so older Dutch men who looked liked regulars. They were friendly; one offered me the paper, but as it was only in Dutch, I regretfully declined. I got a cappuccino and a nice ham, cheese and tomato sandwich. Fleurise got a delicious hot kip sandwich on soft bread.

We spent a bit of time at the Rijksmuseum. Then, as the weather was holding up well, we walked through the city going along the lively Leidsestraat, the Flower Market, Kalverstraat, the serene Begijnhof courtyard, a secret Catholic church, Dam Square and the busy main throughway to Central Station, Damrak.

Navigating around Amsterdam was both easier and harder than I expected. On the one hand, I was surprised to find that everyone speaks English. On the other hand, being a pedestrian here feels pretty treacherous; you have to be nimble when walking through the city, as there are hordes of bicyclists, motorcyclists, and disturbingly quiet trams that threaten life and limb. It made me thankful for pedestrian-only streets like Kalverstraat.

We headed back to the market for what ended up becoming an eating spree. We found the siroopwafel man. Fleurise had been on a mission all morning to eat siroopwafels and was ecstatic to have found him. It was the wafel that she ate everytime she came to Amsterdam, and it wouldn't have been a real trip without having one.

We had two freshly made siroopwafels (thin wafels with syrup in the middle).

Since we had had some difficulty finding him, Fleurise asked the siroopwafel man what his hours were. His response: "Sometimes I come late, sometimes I leave early." We got Vietnamese leompia (eggroll) and bapao (meat bun).

Then we got frites with mayonnaise. Here is a closeup of the frites in all their mayonnaise-y glory.

We were pretty stuffed. We headed back to Uncle E's place and sat outside drinking beer and wine.

We couldn't help ourselves when we saw this particular brand.

I liked it a lot - it was a less sweet version of framboise, like a grown-up soda framboise.

We ran inside when the rain began to come down. Uncle E cooked us adobo chicken and pork and a vegetable stir-fry. We ate with Tito Gert. The meal was delicious.

I would end the post here except I have to mention my newest obsession: Miffy. Miffy is a little rabbit who was created by a Dutch author. She has many adventures. Isn't she cute?

Amsterdam!

2010-10-03T15:25:00.014-04:00

Fleurise and I are in Amsterdam. If you can find me, I'm on a bridge over a canal, waving.

Fleurise is here for 2 weeks to help celebrate her Uncle E's 50th birthday with her family. I am tagging along for the first week. We're planning on sightseeing for a few days and then heading out to Belgium to check out Bruges. We are staying with her uncle and his partner, Gert, who own a bed and breakfast along Princengracht.

Uncle E and Gert made a welcome sign for us.

The bed and breakfast is very charming, with steep staircases that take you from floor to floor. The B&B looks right out on the canals.

Fleurise and I took a quick nap and then we headed to Vondelpark - the Central Park equivalent of Amsterdam - with Uncle E, Gert, Gert's daughter Leonie, her son Tristan, and their French bulldog, Diana. On the way back, we grabbed one of Fleurise's favorite foods to eat in Amsterdam - croquettes - from these heated vending machines.

We both got veal croquettes. Very crunchy on the outside and savory inside. I was surprised by how well they turned out. Similar machines in East Village don't produce food nearly as tasty. Fleurise was very happy.

We headed back, and as it was still sunny and warm, we all sat outside drinking champagne, playing with Tristan and Diana.

Fleurise and I were excited to be able to play with a baby, espeically one as mellow as Tristan. Diana was pretty mellow, too.

I haven't gotten a good feel yet for Amsterdam, but I have to say that being surrounded by canals and flowing water feels instantly relaxing. Sitting in the sunshine sipping champagne and watching boats and bicyclists go by is a pretty good way to start a vacation.

Anniversary 2010

2010-06-26T14:06:00.003-04:00

This post originally took place on June 18-23, 2010.

Our car broke down while in the Berkshires for our fifth wedding anniversary. We were on our way to the summit of Mount Greylock.

We were stuck in North Adams for a few days while the mechanic was working his magic. We made the most of it by hiking to the Cascades waterfalls.

A simple walk from the Holiday Inn, North Adams. It was the first time either of us had seen the falls, courtesy of a broken alternator. Our mechanic said that he used to go fishing here as a kid.

Forced to extend our vacation. It was like a second honeymoon.

I proposed at the top of these steps.

We eventually got back the car and made a safe return trip. In the meantime, we did some hiking on the Appalachian Trail, saw a Sol Lewitt show at Mass MoCA, ate, and just relaxed.

A list of places where we ate, almost of them are old favorites from our college days.

Spirit Shop & Deli Station
280 Cole Ave
Williamstown, MA 01267
(413) 458-5511

Our primary source for Berkshire Brewing Company Beer (best beer ever) which we substituted for champagne on this trip.

Super Stop and Shop
876 State Road
North Adams, MA 01247
(413) 664-8100

Mount Greylock in the background. This was our supermarket for 4 years.

Chopsticks
412 Main St
Williamstown, MA 01267
(413) 458-5750

The local Chinese/Korean/Japanese restaurant. Mabel was feeling especially nostalgic for the place.

Pappa Charlies
28 Spring St
Williamstown, MA 01267
(413) 458-5969

The local deli with named sandwiches. The Maria Tucci--turkey, avocado, and sprouts--is one of my favorite sandwiches here.

Mezze
777 Cold Spring Road (Routes 7&2)
Williamstown, MA 01267
413-458-0123

A really good American restaurant in its third incarnation. Took over the restaurant which took over the restaurant where we had our wedding reception.

Blue Benn Diner
102 Hunt St (314 North St) (Route 7)
Bennington, VT 05201
802-442-5140

A cute diner in Bennington, VT. The line for a booth can be ridiculous. We sat at the counter. Gwyneth is known to eat here with her mom at times. No sightings on this trip.

Hot Tomatoes
100 Water St, Route 43
Williamstown, MA 01267
413-458-2722

I love this pizza. I didn't know how good I had it until after I left college. We told them our sob story and convinced them to deliver to our hotel in North Adams.

BrewHaHa
20 Marshall St
North Adams, MA 01247
413-664-2020

Mabel loves this place. The perfect coffee shop. I wish there were a place like it in New York City.

Ye Old Forge
125 North Main St
Lanesboro, Massachusetts, 01237
413-442-6797

Best wings in Western Massachusetts. Awesome beer selection. Sat on their porch overlooking the hills. You can obtain a card that gets stamped everytime you drink one of their beers (it has to be a different beer each time). When you fill the card, you get a stein. If you fill out a certain number of cards, rumor has it that you get your own stool. If someone is sitting on it, you can tell them to get off because it is your stool.

Sushi Thai Garden
27 Spring St
Williamstown, MA
413-458-0004

Mabel and I overdosed on this place while we were in college. They keep expanding into adjacent lots and recently added the "Sushi" to their name so they seem to be doing well.

Freightyard Pub
1 Furnace St
North Adams, MA 01247
413-663-6547

Outdoor seating, saw a freight train go by and got lots of mosquito bites. Service is pretty awful, but the only decent place in town open on a Monday night.

Bascom Lodge
Summit of Mount Greylock, MA
413-743-1591

Working on their liquor license. There was a fridge full of Berkshire Brewing Company beer literally under lock and key, just waiting for their license to go through. Had a surprisingly satisfying lunch of grilled cheese and BLTs here on our hike. The guy in the kitchen really knew what he was doing, and we were really hungry.

Michaels
460 Main St
Williamstown, MA 01267
413-458-2114

Never came here together while in college, but this is a good spot. The old founder was related to Pappa Charlie. Good homecooking, Greek and Italian.

Friendly's
245 State Rd
North Adams, MA 01247
413-664-4300

Very unfriendly the night we stopped by. Our wedding photographer uses this place as a meeting spot for his customers. I have good childhood memories of their lime ice cream which rarely shows up (none on this trip).

Bibimbap

2010-06-25T00:09:00.003-04:00

This post took place on May 25 and June 13, 2010.

We started our trip with bibimbap

and we ended with bibimbap.

The first meal was in the food court of Incheon Airport and the last one was on the flight back home.

Hwangjang Market and naengmyeon

2010-06-24T16:14:00.008-04:00

This post took place on June 13, 2010.

On our last day in Korea we went to Hwangjang market early in the morning before checking out.

We were looking for something to eat.

Luckily there were a few bindaeduk places open for business. This one stone ground their mung beans on the premises.

We watched the cook fry the pancakes in gobs of oil.

The bindaeduk was great. We all liked the stone ground texture. It was all held together with bean sprouts.

Dad’s friend picked us up in his car and we stopped by this naengmyun place on the way to the airport.

It was in a small enclave of naengmyeon places that popped up about the time of the Korean War. Naengmyeon was unheard of in Seoul until refugees from Hamhung brought it to the city. Dad found out on the trip that his mom’s business used to supply the naengmyeon shops in the Hamhung region.

The restaurant was really crowded and really good. They gave us a kettle of warm beef stock to pour into cups and drink as water.

The broth was really flavorful. The naengmyeon was fantastic, a nice final meal in Korea.

Haejangguk and cod stew

2010-06-20T07:06:00.004-04:00

This post took place on June 12, 2010.

The second to last day of our trip I ran into very challenging Korean food.

That's sunji haejangguk. It's supposed to be good for a hangover. I was getting over a mild stomach bug, so I was hoping it could help with that too.

The soup had a really nice, rich beef stock. But it also had blood clot, tripe, and who-knows-what-else. I had the most trouble with the blood clot. I don't like the texture of blood clot, and there was this really large one in there with suspended bubbles and a surface suggestive of heart trabeculae. I was the only one at the table who didn't eat everything.

Oh, that was for breakfast.

For lunch, we went to a place specializing in cod stew. Parts of the stew were good, but there were also these unknown squiggly pieces of cod.

My dad said they were a delicacy and my mom couldn't provide a translation other than saying that they were only found in male cod. They had this weird texture and were pretty bland. Not easy to eat.

Korean BBQ

2010-06-19T18:42:00.002-04:00

This post took place on June 8, 2010.

I got to visit the pottery museums and shops in Icheon and Gwangju and saw a couple huge traditional style wood fire kilns.

At the end of that day, we ate Korean barbecue.

This was the only time we had BBQ on the trip, and it was really good. I'd heard the complaint that beef in Korea is so much more expensive than in the US, and it's true but not in the way I thought it would be.

An order of shoulder meat at this restaurant was 60,000 W, about $50.

That's a lot compared to $20-$30 for an order in a US Korean restaurant, but the beef was so much better. It tasted dry aged and was really well marbled. A better comparison would be to a good American steakhouse where steak for two is usually at least $60. In both countries you get what you pay for.

Jagalchi market, outdoors

2010-06-15T12:39:00.006-04:00

This post took place on June 7, 2010 in Busan.

I finally googled mungae. It's Korean for sea squirt.

We had to pass back through Busan to get from Geojedo to Seoul, and we decided to eat at the fish market again.

Still full from eating mungae bibimbap, we took time to walk through the outdoor markets.

Mom and dad were skeptical of the value of the indoor market and really wanted to eat at an outdoor place, so we did. I picked the place that had the healthiest-looking nakji, aka baby octopus.

We ordered nakji, mungae, and flounder. I was really looking forward to the nakji.

It was still wriggling around on the plate.

It tasted super fresh and wasn't as chewy as I thought it would be. You dip it in a sesame oil-salt mix. After a while the octopus stops wriggling, until you touch it. There seems to be some sort of reflex action going on.

I was a bit sick of mungae, but the stuff from this place was really good.

They were turning the mungae over in the tank and you could see them squirting water. Sea squirts squirting water equals live sea squirts. These were the freshest mungae we ate on the trip. I didn't even notice that metallic, iodine tang. It was just very nice to eat.

The flounder was a treat.

And like everything else, it went from live to our plates in less than 5 minutes.

Mungae bibimbap

2010-06-15T05:57:00.004-04:00

This post took place on June 7, 2010.

After seeing the POW museum on Geojedo, we ate at a mungae bibimbap place. The mungae was basically in terrine form.

And then you mix it up with rice.

It all really tasted like mungae: pretty intense. I definitely wouldn't be able to eat this everyday. There were lots of free extras: a complimentary fish soup with each order which would have made a nice lunch just on its own, lots of banchan, and a bowl of browned rice water.

Beef head soup at Jin Young Restaurant

2010-06-15T05:43:00.004-04:00

This post took place on June 6 and 7, 2010.

We took a day to travel from Seoul to Geoje island by train and boat. When we got in we were hungry. The town by the ferry station was packed with small restaurants, and my mom picked out a 6 table restaurant based on feel and the fact that there were 2 groups there (as opposed to none for the majority of the places).

People were eating jeongol, and she picked out beef head jeongol which none of us had seen on a menu before. It was awesome. It was like sulungtang except with better meat.

I think they used a bone marrow stock, and there was a lot of cartilagenous stuff in the meat. I love it. No brains as far as I could tell.

The banchan was really good too. Really good anchovy preparation and they had this great marinated red pepper oyster dish.

We liked the place so much that we returned the next morning for breakfast. They're a 24 hour place. In the light of day, we noticed that the place is named after me, Jin Young, my Korean name.

We got soon dobu which surprisingly came out in a communal pot. For banchan there was this lotus root which was really good, those great anchovies, and pieces of fish cake. I realized one of the things that made all of them so great was an al dente quality. It's something I hadn't thought about in Korean food but it makes a huge difference.

A bunch of BP workers wearing orange jumpsuits came in for their end-of-shift meal.

The restaurant workers sat down to eat with them like old friends. Another man sat at the table next to us and ate doenjang jjigae while going through receipts from overnight.

Namdaemun Market

2010-06-15T03:05:00.004-04:00

This post took place on June 5, 2010.

After a day at Pamunjun, we went to Namdaemun market in Seoul to eat and do a little shopping.

There were these food tents all over the place with proprietors saying "Sit down! (ahn ja say yo)," with this charming mixture of plaintive- and imperative-ness. Where we ate, the person was running the tent alone, though she said that her husband was a phone call away.

The food was decent, but this is very much more like drinking and post drinking food, not that there's anything wrong with that. Lots of spiciness to make you drink more. We went through her last bottle of makgeolli so she ran to the store to get us a second one.

We got a spicy squid dish, some conch (which I'm going to finally say I don't like in general), and these clams

which were tasty. By the end of the meal we were all like best friends.

For desert we split a huge red bean bun at a different stand.

They were giving out free samples and it cost only 1,000 W.

They also had naengmyun on the menu. A tiny dumpling place that also serves naengmyun? It's so implausible that they would have good naengmyun that maybe they have the best naengmyun. But alas it was not good. I was glad to get some perspective. Not everything in Korea is good eats.

Hodduk

2010-06-15T02:59:00.003-04:00

This post took place on June 5, 2010 in Seoul.

We walked by a stand by the burnt down Namdaemun (southern gate) where I did a double take of an old deaf man rolling dough and putting it into a hot press. I went back with my mom to get fresh, hot hodduk filled with cinnamon sugar.

It was was good as it sounds.

Raw crab from the Yellow Sea

2010-06-15T02:35:00.003-04:00

This post took place on June 4 and 8, 2010.

We had Baekryundo crabs at my dad's friend's house in Seoul.

These are caught in the Yellow Sea which is the sea between Korea and China. They are served in a simple sauce of soy sauce and red pepper flakes and paste.

I didn't realize that they were uncooked until I'd eaten half of one, but once I figured it out they tasted awesome. The crab tastes like super fresh sea urchin, but better and bigger portions.

I must have seem prety excited about them because dad's friend served the crabs to us again a few days later, for breakfast. Even better.

These crabs seem very similar to blue crabs back in the US. Next time I see live crabs for sale, I'm going to give this recipe a try.

North Korean food products

2010-06-14T06:08:00.004-04:00

This post took place on June 4 and 5, 2010.

Just got back to the US last night.

We visited the DMZ twice. Once on June 4 in Goseong on the eastern shore where you could get a sense of what a vast nature reserve the place has become

Looking into North Korea

and the next day in Pamunjun where you get a sense of both the seriousness of the division and how important the theater of it all is.

South Korean soldiers facing North Korea

At both sites you could buy North Korean food products, as a courtesy for tourists.

It's not possible for the South to import these directly; they are imported from North Korea to China, then South Korea. It might have been a fun thing to try North Korean liquor, but it doesn't seem conscionable to buy it from a country with widespread malnourishment.

Dried Whiting

2010-06-12T21:22:00.006-04:00

This post took place on June 4, 2010.

The final day of our east coast tour (and all the tours), we woke up in Sokcho to see the sun rise. We all barely missed it. But we got to walk around by the water and see some fishing boats come in.

It was octopus season.

I got to see some women divers on their way out.

I didn't know there were women divers outside of Jejudo.

This region is known for dried whiting, and today I had dried whiting for breakfast and lunch. The American style breakfast at the hotel looked unappealing, so I opted for the Korean breakfast instead.

The highlight was the Congnalmul (bean sprout) soup with a wonderful dried whiting and mushroom broth. I was one of the best things I've tasted in Korea.

For lunch we had dried whiting at a restaurant in the countryside east of Seoul. They were making kim chi outside the front door.

The roasted dried whiting was fantastic.

It is like a Korean version of bacalao and came out on a hot cast iron plate. Mom says the ingredients included red pepper paste, lots of sugar, and lots of seasame oil.

A good third of our group, which was under 25, didn't care for it. One of them was even a cook. A bit sad, but that meant more for the rest of us. The whole meal felt like it was put together with so much care, and the waitress really wanted us to like the meal. The banchan was good. Everything tasted fresh and although this was not ambitious food, it had a refinement to it. There was a subtle dried whiting soup made with rice water. And I had channangmul, a Korean herb, for the first time; it was served steamed by itself as banchan and had a great fresh edge.

We finished our meal with the customary coffee from an instant coffee machine.

This was one of the best meals of the trip.

Andong jjim dak and mackerel

2010-06-11T10:20:00.004-04:00

This post took place on June 3, 2010.

On the second day of our east coast tour dad woke up super early in Gyeongiu and saw the sunrise.

We visited Hahoe Village and had Andong Jjim Dak, a communal steamed chicken and noodle dish, in Andong. We sat indoors, but the restaurant had a wonderful outdoor seating space.

Mom and dad insisted on supplementing our meal with mackerel, another specialty of Andong, and I'm really glad they did.

It seemed like a different species of mackerel than I've eaten before, and it was delicious.

Hollow stainless steel chopsticks

2010-06-11T10:05:00.004-04:00

This post took place on June 11, 2010.

Today we went to Dongdemun market.

There seem to be thousands of stalls here. My mom wanted to buy some easy-to-wash quilts and my goal was to buy these hollow, stainless steel chopsticks I first used in a restaurant here in Korea.

I think these are the perfect chopsticks. They are reusable, don't warp like bamboo ones, don't chip like laquered ones, don't slip like plastic ones, and are comfortable and easy to use unlike regular Korean metal chopsticks.

Eel backbone

2010-06-10T10:36:00.003-04:00

This post took place on June 10, 2010.

Won Hee's father took us to an eel place for dinner today. The eel was served on a warmer grill and had a nice al dente quality to it. But the cool thing about the meal was this side dish of crunchy eel backbone.

It had a nice fish taste and was super crunchy. Talk about nose to tail eating.

Cheonhodong

2010-06-10T10:20:00.004-04:00

This post took place on June 10, 2010.

We went to Cheonhodong today to visit my parents' old neighborhood. They had houses here and a store in the market in the '60s and '70s.

The first thing we noticed was a knife store that up until 11 years ago was owned by the father of a close family friend.

They sold 10 years ago and the son of the current owner was tending shop.

I bought a knife.

I like the curve of it and the fact that it was made in shop. I'm hoping it will do well in the kitchen.

In Cheonhodong market we spotted a shop that looked like it sat on the site of my parents' old shop. They initially sold dried fish then switched to silverware and china. The current store is selling sheets, coffee tables, and housewares.

It's not as nice as the other markets I've seen, but it was interesting. I saw stands that only sold salt.

My mom says a place like that can survive because Koreans use a ton of salt for Kim Chi. I also saw a store that only sold plastic bags, complete with a mechanical plastic bag folder. And there was whole trunk (not just chunk) charcoal being sold.

Pocari Sweat

2010-06-09T20:35:00.004-04:00

I drank a can of Pocari Sweat last night.

It tastes like sour orange flavored Gatorade.

Pocari Sweat machines are everywhere in Korea. It sounds gross, but if you think about it sweat is all natural and rich in electrolytes, two things people are crazy about nowadays. And just like Poland Spring conjures up images of an isolated spring, the eponymous Pocari Sweat gives the impression that you are getting single source, pure sweat.

Jagalchi fish market, indoors

2010-06-07T19:30:00.005-04:00

This post originally took place on June 1, 2010.

There isn't much to see in Busan except for the Jagalchi fish market.

This place is awesome. The tour gave us an hour to roam free before dinner, and we spent it picking and eating seafood in the indoor fish market. Our guide told us to avoid the outdoor one for some reason.

One of the stands drew us in with red sea cucumber, so we got that, regular sea cucumber, and several small abalone.

The person tending the stand brought everything up to the vast second floor dining area where they prepped it and gave us a place to eat.

20,000 W for the food and 3,000 each for the preppping and seats, plus a bit for soju.

They cut everything here much more thinly and expertly than at the seaside place in Jejudo. I liked Jalalchi's preparation for the abalone, but I definitely think the hack job the Jejudo women did for the sea cucumber was more fun and tasty.

I'm afraid the red sea cucumber wasn't as fresh or good as regular old sea cucumber but I'm glad I got to try something that looks so dangerous to eat.

We met up with the rest of the group at a decent bibimbap place on the 4th floor of the market. The meal came with a simple soup of beautiful tiny purple clams.

Jeju oranges and pigs

2010-06-07T10:39:00.004-04:00

This post originally took place on June 1, 2010.

I went the entire time in Jejudo without trying their famous oranges until I saw them in competing stands at the airport.

I picked the Hallabong brand I guess because the sales ladies were out up front. I learned a lot about sales on this trip, in China and Korea. The oranges were pricey, 21,000 W for 6, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity. They are super local and looked totally gnarly with trails of penicillin fungus in the nooks.

They peeled like giant clementines and tasted sweet and juicy, also not unlike clementines. They were delicious.

On the plane ride from Jejudo to Busan I read about the famous Jejudo black pigs and was bummed about not having eaten them. That is, until I remembered our tour guide telling us how Jejudo is (historically) famous for pigs that eat human feces. Pigs were introduced to the island to serve as popper scoopers. Not sure if the famous black pigs are the same pigs or not, but I wouldn't be able to keep from wondering. Now that I think of it, we did eat at a pork BBQ place. Don't want to think too much about it.

Kalchi soup

2010-06-07T10:12:00.003-04:00

This post originally took place on May 30, 2010.

For some reason we were in a different hotel in a different town from the rest of the group in Jejudo, so just the 3 of us had dinner at a kalchi fish stew restaurant in Seogwipo. The guide arranged for someone to pick us up from the hotel to take us there. It turned out that our driver was also our waitress.

This is kalchi:

I have no idea what it's called in English. But the stew was good.

I was eager to try fresh sea urchin, but unfortunately the season ended in April, I think. We estimated because our waitress only knew the season by the lunar calendar (May and June, lunar). They did have sea urchin milgook, which was good and had a mild sea urchin flavor. The sea urchin they used was frozen.

It was, however, caught and preserved by the waitress' mother-in-law who is a haenyeo or Korean woman diver. Here's a cool painting of haenyeo from the lobby of our hotel.

My mother says that she was taught 3 things about Jeju island when she was in school: rocks, wind, and women divers.

Seaside eatery on Jeju Island

2010-06-07T09:45:00.005-04:00

This post originally took place on May 30, 2010.

We started an organized tour on our third day in Korea. First stop was Jeju island (Jejudo) which is just south of the mainland. Our guide took us to Dragon's Head Rock which had a large rock in the shape of a dragon's head. But there was also this encampment nearby.

They were selling fresh sea cucumbers (haesaam), abalone (junbok)

and mungae!

I have never had sea cucumber or even heard of mungae. And I've never had raw abalone. We sat down at little tables, drank soju, and ate lunch, though we had to get back to the tour bus so we were rushing a bit. It was awesome. The pieces were cut coarsely so you got a sense of what you were eating.

The sea cucumber, in particular, could be different depending on the piece you got. One part of the cucumber burst as I bit down--I think it was the head, do they even have heads?--but it tasted all fresh and oceany. The abalone was a bit crunchy and mild, a treat to eat. And the munge had this sea urchin metallic tang. It wasn't the absolute freshest, but it was still good. It exploded when they prepped it.

They were boiling octopus behind our table so we got an order of that too. Right next to us there was a barrel they use to burn their trash.

I love this place. What a way to start the tour.

Insadong jeongol and tea

2010-06-06T08:49:00.006-04:00

This post originally took place on May 29, 2010.

On our second day in Korea we did some apartment scouting in the middle of old Seoul then had lunch at a relative's house in Sochodong. Ja Won, one of our relatives, took us on a bus ride over the river to Sejongno Street where there is a beautiful fountain and statues of Admiral Sun Shin and King Sejong.

We got roasted chestnuts from this stand

and ate them on the Cheonggyecheon river.

We got soft drinks from the ubiquitous 7-Eleven to wash the chestnuts down then headed to Insadong for a real dinner.

This is the main drag in Insadong with alleyways shooting off of it. Lots of restaurants and ceramics stores. Lots of people walking around. We ate at Sadong Myeonok, a dumpling place that Diana recommended.

It was great. We got Mandu-Jeongol which was cooked at the table.

The dumplings are huge!

Ja Won introduced me to Makgeolli, this inexpensive alcoholic rice slurry drink with active cultures that you drink out of bowls. It is sweet and delicious, I could drink it like juice. It's apparently the #1 drink in Korea and Japan and you can buy it everywhere. Of the few brands I've tried since this meal, this brand is still my favorite.

I feel like I'm the only one who hasn't heard of this drink. My parents have always known about it and Mabel says she knew about it for a while but thought it was a girls drink. I don't care if it is a girls drink. I love it.

We finished our evening with tea at a converted traditional home that is now a tea house and gallery. It had a really nice feel to it and was busy on a Saturday night but still easy to get a table. I like Korea.

Gimpo Market, Korea

2010-06-05T09:07:00.005-04:00

This post originally took place on May 28, 2010.

After arriving in Korea from Beijing and navigating the Seoul subway line from Inchon airport, we got out at the Gimpo Market station to get to our hotel. We settled in and started wandering around to find dinner. I was excited to eat Korean food.

At first it didn't seem promising.

But then we came a upon this cookie truck.

It was late in the day, so they gave us dozens of assorted cookies for 3,000 W (just under $3). We ate them for breakfast and as snacks over the next week. The peanut cookies at the top of the bag were light and peanuty and my favorites.

We were planning on eating at a seafood place, but then I saw fried chicken in the window of this place.

Korean fried chicken! I just wanted a taste, but they only sold them in batches. We ended up getting this large plate of fried chicken for 6,500 W. It was delicious. Super crispy skin and flavorful meat. They left the sauce on the side which was sweet and not that spicy.

It looks like they double fry their chicken. A pre-fry which they display in their window and then a second fry to order. This is a tiny, tiny place with only 2 tables. When we were there it was run by only 1 person who took orders, did the frying, served the chicken and accouterments, and did the dishes.

That would have been a great evening in itself, but then we discovered a long covered market.

I saw the largest pile of garlic ever.

Some whole beef bones.

We reached the end of the market and came upon a pork dumpling and red bean bun stand.

They were good and fresh. Local elections were going on and on our walk back to the hotel a mobile campaign vehicle passed. There was a guy on it waving and saying "Thank you very much" (in Korean) over and over again.

I was pretty full and we'd decided to nix a sit down dinner, but then we saw a fish cake stand.

It was the best tasting fish cake ever. Dad says that it's because I was eating it on the street. Maybe he's right, but it was awesome in and of itself. They give you a dixie cup of the fish cake cooking broth to drink which had a clean taste. Very satisfying.

Lunch at North Korean restaurant

2010-06-03T10:07:00.003-04:00

This post originally took place on May 27, 2010.

On our third day in China our guide took us to eat Naeng Myun at a North Korean Restaurant. Yes, we were in a Communist country. There are two styles of Naeng Myun that I'm aware of, Hamhung and Pyongyang, both out of North Korean towns. I've only seen Hamhung Naeng Myun in the US, but this place had Pyongyang style where the noodles are a bit softer and more translucent.

We started off with some pig blood sausage which tasted a bit bland. I'm told by the others at the table that it could have been better. But the Naeng Myun was very good, and new to me.

The only problem was that my mom was a bit hesitant about eating at the restaurant to begin with and when the entertainment started she walked out.

They were singing this song where they repeated "We are happy to see you" over and over again. A bunch of South Korean tourists up front were really getting into it, a few grandmothers were standing up and clapping. It set an upbeat mood, and my mom couldn't stand it. She said it was the same song the North Koreans sang when they visited London recently. North Korean brainwashing propaganda. They try to make it look and taste good.

Breakfast in Beijing

2010-06-03T09:21:00.003-04:00

This post originally took place on May 27 and 28, 2010.

I went for 3 days in China without decent Chinese food. Jet lag prevented me from staying up and getting a second dinner so I decided to make it out to breakfast. The only problem was I had no idea where we were or where to go.

The night manager at our hotel, who called himself Kevin, pointed out where we were on a map but couldn't quite describe how to get to the one decent Chinese restaurant in the area. It turns out that we were in a Korean tourist and business enclave and most of the places were either Korean or international chains like KFC. He started walking me out the hotel to point me in the right direction but then kept on walking across the street, and then through this gate

all the way to the restaurant.

It was a slow day and really early in the morning (5:30 AM), and he said he had the time. He was so hospitable and generous! I also think he couldn't quite believe I wanted to actually eat Chinese food and was curious to see if I would like it.

They had a breakfast table set up in front.

I got these mini pork buns, a soft tofu dish called Dofuanow, a tea egg, and a freshly fried sesame ball.

The pork buns were pillowy and had a nice anise flavor to them. The dofuanow was fantastic. It had fresh, soft tofu that they scooped out of a huge vat with what I'm guessing is a thin fermented bean paste sauce and minced cilantro on top. There was also a side garnish called Tsienshaw which Kevin said is for people to modulate the saltiness of their meal. He estimated that all of it cost 8 yuan (just over a dollar). I only had dollars on me and Kevin insisted on paying for everything including some pork buns and a sesame ball that I brought back for mom and dad.

Here are my parents the next morning, our last day in China.

My mom was super skeptical of the whole idea, but she was pretty happy once we started eating. They changed the toppings on their tofu, I guess they rotate them to keep things interesting. I had some fresh, warm soy milk (dojiung) with my breakfast. And I ate yotiao for the first time!

Yotiao, Chinese fried dough, is also the name of a protein I studied for my PhD thesis. Our breakfast was 15 yuan, just over $2.

Good and cheap Chinese restaurant near our hotel
No way I'm going to figure out the address
Opens at 4 AM.

Beijing area tour restaurants

2010-06-03T08:49:00.006-04:00

This post originally took place between May 25-27, 2010.

I'm on my China and Korea trip with my parents. We spent the first 4 days in the Beijing area, where Chung Food is blocked completely! The first thing we did was visit Tienanmen and the Forbidden City.

The rest of our time is in Korea, where we are right now.

We've been doing tours and food has been spotty, particularly on the Beijing area tour. A typical site for our meals was a large banquet hall with service designed to deal with dozens of tour bus arrivals. This is what one of these arrivals looked like.

While an impressive logistic accomplishment, they really didn't put much care into the food. The one positive experience I had at these places was discovering Chinese white liquor.

It is potent stuff. Colorless, but tastes like whiskey, and it's awesome.

Another Chinese tour place we ate at had the distinction of selling dead live fish.

Multiple Chinese tour restaurants
Located no where you want to be

Char No. 4, Schiller's, the Standard

2010-05-23T16:03:00.000-04:00

This entry happened back in April 2010.

The first weekend of April most of my college friends came into town for Josh's 30th. Eve dropped him off at Char No. 4 where we all waiting to surprise him.

She got us all a 3 whiskey flight with ascending amounts of rye: George Dickel, Bulleit, and Rittenhouse 25 yr. The George Dickel was really interesting.

I don't quite remember the food except that everything was tasty. The service was exceptional, a step higher than you'd expect.

We were all playing with our cameras.

On the last day, Josh made a reservation at Schiller's.

This place just feels wonderful to be in. There's great light and a nice vibe. We got there early. It was packed when we left.

The Cobb salad was not quite what I was expecting. Very shredded.

We stopped by the New Museum for the awesome Skin Fruit exhibit then walked the High Line and had drinks on the ground floor of the Standard.

Char No. 4
196 Smith St
Brooklyn, NY 11201
(718) 643-2106

Schiller's
131 Rivington St (at Norfolk)
New York, NY 10002
(212) 260-4555

The Standard
848 Washington St (at W 13th)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 645-4646

Pinche and smoothies

2010-05-15T23:30:00.000-04:00

We ate at Pinche yesterday.

Mabel loves their fish tacos. She never feels like she can get enough of them.

Their yucca fries were particularly good yesterday. It was like eating fried dough.

Whenever we eat here, we think of Pinchy, Homer's pet lobster.

We got tickets to see Babies at Sunshine and got smoothies at Juicy Lucy before the show.

The smoothies were pretty gross. Mabel wasn't very happy with her melon-mango-ginger smoothie.

Neither was I with my strawberry-banana one.

We each thought the other person's smoothie was more disgusting. They were all chunky. Mabel didn't appreciate that I told her after the fact that I caught the smoothie guy cleaning out old pulp from the juice machine with his bare hand. We had to just throw them out after a few sips; we would have been better off if we just threw a $10 bill into the street.

The movie was fun. We stopped by Emack & Bolio's on the way home. They were closed, but they made Mojito and Tropical cooler smoothies for us anyway. They were fantastic.

Pinche Taqueria
227 Mott St (btn Bleecker and Houston)
New York, NY 10013

Juicy Lucy Juice Bar
85 Avenue A (btn 5th and 6th St)
New York, NY 10009

Emack & Bolio's
73 W Houston St (btw Wooster & W. Broadway)
New York, NY 10012

Downing Street Bar and Da Silvano

2010-05-08T09:38:00.005-04:00

Mabel and I ate at Downing Street Bar and Da Silvano last night.

Downing Street Bar has been my favorite bar for a while. They have perfect cocktails, nice lighting, and good music. There's a small menu, but my favorite items are a foie gras terrine on perpetual special and their list of toasts which are triangles of nicely toasted, thick, chewy bread topped with things like smoked sturgeon or cheese and honey.

For dinner, we wanted to eat at a touristy outdoor place that we saw across the corner when we ate at Caffe del Mare, but it looked very unappealing up close.

We walked around a bit, saw open tables outside of Da Silvano, and ended up sitting in front of the Bistecca. They gave us Da Silvano menus. It was a lot of fun. The weather was just right, Silvano himself hung out on the sidewalk, and the waiters had a charming, insincere obsequiousness to them that strangely fit my mood. Mabel got Rigatoni Focaccia, and I got Taglierini Contadina. They were excellent in a way I don't know how to replicate. Maybe it was the cream. The last time I had pasta nearly that good was at Lupa several years ago.

When it came time for dessert, Silvano's genuinely warm brother-in-law came by to say that his mother made the tiramisu herself that day. It reminded me of Ed Levine's thwarted attempt to try Rao's cheesecake. How could we say no to that? But we were in the mood for Grom.

Blue Ribbon Downing Street Bar
34 Downing St (btn Bedford and Varick St)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 691-0404

Da Silvano and Da Silvano Bistecca
260 6th Ave (btn Bleecker and Houston St)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 982-2343

New York Hot Dog & Coffee is moving

2010-05-03T22:35:00.001-04:00

Otarian, Juice Generation, and Caffe Del Mare

2010-05-02T17:30:00.008-04:00

We ate at Otarian for lunch today. It was not very satisfying and had the feel of slightly below average airplane food.

It's a new vegetarian place with an emphasis on low carbon emissions. Their menu has the carbon savings compared to the meat version, in kg, next to each item.

We saved about 3 kg of carbon.

I like Energy Kitchen much better. Mabel had hoped to eat at Sacred Chow instead.

To make up for the meal, we went to Taim for smoothies, but the line was out the door.

So we got smoothies at Juice Generation. They were decent, but the best part was finding that they have an orange juice machine!

I've been looking for a place like this for years.

For dinner, it was a balmy night and we went to Caffe Del Mare so that we could sit outside. The best part of the meal was the baked artichoke. There was maybe too much stuffing and it got a bit crumbly towards the middle, but it was like something out of the Pillsbury cookbook.

Colin Huggins was playing in the park again.

We didn't stay to see how he was going to move his piano out of the fountain.

Otarian
154 Bleecker St (btn Thompson and Laguardia)
New York, NY 10012
212-614-6834

Juice Generation
171 W 4th St (btn 6th and 7th Ave)
New York, NY 10014

Caffe Del Mare
89 MacDougal St
New York, NY 10012
(212) 777-7521‎

Cheese Eggs

2010-04-18T00:10:00.003-04:00

I was at MGH for an interview when I came across an old favorite.

Cheese eggs!

Brilliant idea. Horrible for your health. But delicious!

Massachusetts General Hospital
Eat Street Cafe
55 Fruit Street
Boston, MA 02114

Boka

2010-04-17T08:57:00.002-04:00

Had dinner with Jason at Boka on Thursday. I'd never heard of this place before but they're partnered with Bon Chon Chicken. It's the same delicious chicken.

Boka
9 St. Marks Place (btn 2nd and 3rd Ave)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 228-2887

Dosa guy

2010-04-17T08:37:00.003-04:00

I got lunch at the vegetarian Dosa truck on Thursday.

I'm not a fan of the coconut chutney, but the dosa is good and you get a decent portion. Sitting in the park is the best part.

N.Y. Dosas
50 Washington Square S (at Sullivan St)
New York, NY 10014
(917) 710-2092

Mabel's 31st birthday

2010-04-14T22:07:00.007-04:00

All Mabel wanted for her birthday was a quiet dinner with smokey steak, grilled romaine, and white rice, and last night I was happy to oblige her.

We planned on having dinner at Joe's Shanghai with Jen and Diana today just because we haven't seen them for such a long time, and Diana had the idea to get something for Mabel. So we picked up cupcakes at Crumbs.

We surprised her with the cupcakes. When the strangers at our table saw that it was Mabel's birthday, they started singing Happy Birthday! Here's the guy who started the whole thing!

Crumbs sells individual candles, and one of the waiters magically appeared with a lighter.

It was a nice time.

After dinner, we listened to Colin Huggins play Clair de Lune in Washington Square Park.

Crumbs
87 Beaver St (Financial District)
New York, NY 10079
(212) 480-7500

Henri Cartier-Bresson

2010-04-14T21:59:00.003-04:00

Saw the Henri Cartier-Bresson show at MoMA today. I ran into Geoffrey who mentioned how influential Cartier-Bresson was to him and a generation of photographers. I could see how.

Admittedly, I stopped by the museum because I was excited by the prospect of eating in the cafe again. The food is very nice, there's good people watching from the large front windows, and with all the tourists in the dining room its like traveling to another place.

$10

2010-04-13T16:07:00.001-04:00

I found $10 on Cornelia St while riding my bike yesterday! It's going into the Vita-Mix fund.

Jack Bistro and Piola

2010-04-11T22:33:00.005-04:00

Henry was in town this past weekend and stayed with Lucas who knew a few good spots to eat in the neighborhood.

We had brunch at Jack Bistro on Saturday. It's a solid place. The initial plan was for Grey Dog nearby, but the crowds were ridiculous. We couldn't get a table outside at Jack, but there was no problem getting a table for 8. The chicken parm sandwich is good, it's all in the toasted bun.

Today Henry held court at Piola for lunch. Really high ceilings, almost no one there. My kind of place. The pizzas are pseudo-Neopolitan style. All the pizzas we had got a thumbs up except for the carbonara which got a resounding thumbs down. This place is currently running an all you can eat pizza special from 6 pm to 11 pm on Sundays. I'll see if Mabel will be interested in checking out the place in a few weeks.

Jack Bistro
80 University Pl (at 11th St)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 620-5544

Piola
48 East 12th St (btn University Pl and Broadway)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 777-7781

Change towards the Vita-Mix

2010-04-09T21:31:00.003-04:00

Our change jar was full so we decided to cash it in, so to speak. We're saving up for a Vita-Mix.

Here's Mabel on her way to our neighborhood Duane Reade where they have a Coinstar.

Here she is at said Duane Reade. The Coinstar machine used to be around where that Blockbuster machine and ATM are. Turns out that they got rid of the Coinstars from all the Duane Reades months ago.

Now we're stuck with this heavy jar of change while running the rest of our errands. Here's the jar at the dry cleaners.

And here it is at Mailboxes.

That jar is like our little garden gnome.

Here's the jar at Taim.

It is sitting next to a delicious berry and Thai basil smoothie made on Taim's Vita-mix.

Dos Caminos Soho

2010-04-01T22:31:00.004-04:00

Just got back from dinner and drinks at Dos Caminos in Soho. It was the first nice day of the season and everyone was out for dinner.

We tried getting a table at Bar Pitti, but it was really crazy there. I like Dos Caminos. They make good margaritas, aren't ashamed to make frozen ones, and the food is decent. They have very good guacamole. But most importantly, they have a huge porch (and heat lamps). It's still not very warm outside, but we got to pretend it was for a little bit.

Dos Caminos Soho
475 West Broadway (at Houston St)
New York, NY
212-277-4300

Home for the weekend: Vita mix and asparagus

2010-04-01T22:10:00.002-04:00

Mabel and I were in PA last weekend and found that my parents had bought a new Vita-Mix. Awesome!

We've wanted one of these for forever, or at least since Mabel went through a smoothie phase in med school. We made several icy honey dew, watermelon, and Orange Julius (we like it with egg whites) drinks over the weekend and have decided that were going to buy one of our own using saved up spare change jars. Although I wonder how the Vita-Mix compares to the Blendtec.

Over the weekend I also tried to reproduce an asparagus and mushroom dish that we had at Aburiya Kinnosuke a few weeks ago.

Aburiya Kinnosuke used green asparagus, King mushrooms, and roe. I used white asparagus and Portobellos because that's what we had. Both are all good.

Tax Day 2010 and surprise match celebration

2010-03-21T12:19:00.010-04:00

We got our taxes done yesterday and as is customary for tax day, we planned to eat out afterwards.

My Lenscrafters follow up appointment got canceled that morning because of flooding in the store, so Mabel took me to Shopsin's for the first time.

I thought it was great. We got an Orange Julius, the Poached Modern, and fried Brussels sprouts. I couldn't believe it took me 8 years to eat here. I love it. There was a long wait (for an hour after arriving at 9), but otherwise this is my kind of restaurant. The Orange Julius reminded Mabel of her California mall days. I used to think that David Chang brought fried Brussels sprouts to New York but given its presence on Shopsin's menu, I was probably wrong about that. But the star of the breakfast was the Poached Modern. It starts with toasted cheese bread which would be great just by itself, but then they cut it into pieces like they're croutons, toss them in a bowl, and add 3 poached eggs to it so you eat it with a fork. Brilliant!

We continued our love of the modern by going to MoMA for the fantastic Marina Abramovic retrospective. I have a new appreciation for performance art. Mabel was intrigued by the naked people door (we didn't end up going through it). We skimmed a few of the other galleries and came upon a painting I haven't seen before.

(Magritte, The Portrait, 1935)

I wonder if that's what vegetarians see whenever they are faced with a plate of meat.

We got a drink and a nice radish salad at the MoMA cafe before leaving.

I really like this cafe and wish that something like this place existed outside of the museum. You order at the counter and they give you a number that you place on your table. There's self-serve free water and the food is delicious.

It was such a nice day that we decided to walk down to Ssam Bar from the museum. We stopped by a few stores on the way and for some reason she was especially concerned about getting to Ssam Bar earlier than later. We ended up taking a cab part of the way and I didn't begin to suspect why until I saw Diana waiting outside of the restaurant. I wasn't quite sure it was her at first and then I thought what a coincidence. But it turned out that Mabel set up a dinner to celebrate the match and we were all going to have Bo Ssam.

It was all wonderful. Afterwards, we got dessert at Milk Bar and had some mojitos back at the apartment.

Cafe 2 MoMA
9 W 53rd St
New York, NY 10019
(212) 333-1299

10 Downing

2010-03-21T07:57:00.000-04:00

This meal took place on 3/14/10.

Suzie gave us a Restaurant.com gift certificate for Christmas, and we decided to use it at 10 Downing last Sunday.

Mabel has been curious about this place since before it opened about 1.5 years ago. I think the buzz back then had a lot to do with this controversial chef guy Neroni. But he has since left, and now we're able to use a Restaurant.com certificate to eat there.

It was fun. We made an Open Table reservation 15 minutes beforehand and they seated us in a nice corner banquette. The menu was definitely different from when it was reviewed in the Times and service was a bit slow, but we didn't really go for the food and weren't in any hurry.

I got chicken which was flavorful, but the white meat was pretty dry. Mabel was craving a burger. She thought it was respectably average.

She really wanted a tomato on her burger, but they said that they had no tomato because it was out of season. It reminded me of the time Mabel asked for lettuce and tomato at Jack's Hot Dog Stand, and the reply was, "No ... but we have relish." But Jack's is a humble counter restaurant so it's kind of awesome. 10 Downing had mango on their dessert menu, so I'm not sure they can play the seasonality card.

What really made the burger was that the knife in it reminded Mabel of a Colbert Report sketch on how Karl Rove looked like a canned ham.

10 Downing
10 Downing St (at 6th Ave)
New York, NY 10014
(212) 255-0300

Jack's Hot Dog Stand‎
12 Eagle St
North Adams, MA 01247
(413) 664-9006

Hammer library food cart

2010-03-16T18:25:00.000-04:00

This is the most reliable food cart in Washington Heights. They are open 24/7. I have gotten many late night dinners here.

These guys have been working here forever.

Food cart
Northwest corner of 168th St. and Fort Washington Ave
New York, NY 10032

Olive oil poached salmon

2010-03-15T22:13:00.003-04:00

My parents sent me back to New York with some wild salmon that they bought at their Korean market in Philadelphia. It was really good quality and had a nice creamy texture to it in tartare form. I decided to treat it right by making olive oil poached salmon for dinner tonight. It was the first time I've poached fish in oil.

I kept the temperature between 170-190 degrees with my trusty new Polder electronic thermometer. I couldn't bring myself to use 100% olive oil, so I cut it with canola oil, about 50/50, which oddly made it taste a bit like Bertolli olive oil.

Interesting.

Anyway, I added garlic, shallot, dill, rosemary, and lemon zest and cooked until Mabel arrived, about 15 minutes. As a final, smoky coup de gras (as opposed to grace), I wrapped them in Surryano ham.

Shake Shack and Neil's Coffee Shop

2010-03-14T14:17:00.001-04:00

I got to spend most of last Friday hanging out with Diana.

We met up for an early lunch at Shake Shack. It was threatening rain, and the crowd of people was sparse. There were many, many squirrels however.

I don't like it when squirrels get too close. And I don't understand people who try hand feeding squirrels. It seems like the worst idea ever. But I have a feeling that these squirrels have been conditioned to be fed by people. The one above looks too fat for the end of winter. The one below got way too close.

It jumped right up on our table, at least 3 times, and I had to physically push it off each time. It was impossible to shoo away. It looked at my shoo-ing hand as if I was tossing it food.

Anyway, the rest of lunch was very nice. The heat lamps are great, and the burgers tasted even better than I remembered them (I think because they were on the rare side of medium-rare). After the squirrels got to be too much, we headed to the Met.

I have been wanting to see their newly-renovated American Wing for a while. It was a very nicely re-done atrium. Diana pointed out that it reminded her of a mall, but what's more American than a mall? We checked out the storage-like Luce Center, and I saw these cool pastry cutters.

This one is apparently a combination fork and meat tenderizer as well.

I like the square wave pattern that this one makes. I'm not sure why there are mini fists on the end but they're cool. And the fork again? What's that for? Why so many questions?

Madame X was just a few cases away. Just four years ago there were banners all over Boston with her image, and it was weird seeing the painting hidden away now. Since it was frameless, Diana hypothesized that they were maybe fixing the frame. Hmm.

Back in the new atrium they put out a good bunch of pottery. I liked this vase a lot (ca. 1922-28, Fulper Pottery Co., Flemington, NJ).

It's cool how the glaze crystallized like that.

In the jewelry section, I thought these earrings were really cool (ca. 1882-85, Tiffany & Co., New York City).

I figured that maybe crime was a problem in the 19th century and that these covers helped deter muggings. When I asked Mabel about it later, she seemed to think that they're just protective storage covers.

We tried going to the cafe at Maison du Chocolat afterwards, but the cafe was temporarily closed as it always is when I try to go there. It was difficult finding a good place to get a cup of coffee, and we walked around in the rain for a while until we came upon Neil's Coffee Shop.

The last time either of us had been here was several years ago with Jen after church when we similarly couldn't find any other place to go. I guess that makes Neil's Coffee Shop my go to place on the Upper East side.

Update 3/16/10
Turns out that the Met has a little blurb on the earrings.

Shake Shack
Madison Square Park
Madison Avenue and 23rd Street

Neil's Coffee Shop
961 Lexington Ave (at 70th St)
New York, NY 10021
(212) 628-7474‎

Cantoon Garden

2010-03-13T22:26:00.002-05:00

This meal originally took place on 2/21/10.

I was craving Chinese food. A quick search on Chowhound led me to Cantoon Garden, which as pictured here, goes by South China Garden Chinese Restaurant (I have no idea when they changed their sign).

The winner of the night was Salted Baked Squid. David really liked this dish. I'm guessing the squid was dipped in batter and fried; it was well seasoned and had a nice, unexpected jalapeno kick to it.

The Crispy Fried Chicken (with garlic) was decent, but the one at Congee Village is much better.

And we got the Crab with E-fu Noodle, which looked cool but was just okay.

I'd like to come back. The Chowhounders seem to love this place and there are plenty of other dishes to try.

South China Garden Chinese Restaurant (aka Cantoon Garden)
22 Elizabeth St
(between Bayard St & Canal St)
New York, NY 10013
(212) 964-2229

Shopsin's Breakfast Sandwich

2010-03-13T22:25:00.002-05:00

This sandwich originally took place on 2/13/2010.

I like going to Shopsins, but it's often a pain to eat there. They are only open Tuesday through Saturday, and it gets crazy busy after 10 am (they open at 9 am, 9:30 am on Saturdays). One day I had a terrible craving for one of their sandwiches, but wasn't going to be able to make it out to Shopsins for weeks. So I decided to take matters into my own hands.

The object of the craving was the Wiggly Pete, which is a sandwich composed of 3 poached eggs, pork sausage, jack cheese, scallions, and tomato on garlic bread. I basically recreated the sandwich, except that I fried the eggs (gently, so that the yolks were molten and not solid), and also added cilantro.

It wasn't Mr. Shopsins' sandwich, but I think it addressed the craving pretty well.

Sakagura

2010-03-13T21:56:00.003-05:00

This meal originally took place on 10/2/2009.

Dave and I love Sakagura. It used to have more cache in the past than it does now because it was really hard to find, and once you found it, it would be filled with Japanese customers. Nowadays, it seems like everyone knows about it. But it's still worth a visit. We think of it as a more upscale version of Hagi with a great sake list and beautiful and delicious small dishes.

Sakagura is really hard to find because the entrance is via a nondescript office-type lobby.

You have to go down the stairs...

to get to the restaurant.

Once you get there, you have to order the Sakagura Special - an amazing chunk of pork belly in a savory broth. You are not going to want to share this dish because it is so good.

On our last visit, we got a number of other dishes including this beautiful tuna tartar.

We also got grilled Japanese eggplants served with three kinds of miso (egg yolk, spinach, sweet red), soft boiled egg topped with sea urchin and salmon roe in cold soup, and grilled rice balls brushed with miso paste. It was all extremely delicious.

Sakagura
211 East 43rd Street (Basement Level)
New York, NY 10017

Palma

2010-03-13T21:41:00.011-05:00

This meal originally took place on 1/20/10.

Palma started running prix fixe specials during the weekdays last January. Dave and I are a big fan of tasting menus and Palma was offering one for $35/person.

We thought it was funny that sometimes it was Chef Raffael offering the special...

and sometimes it was Chef Ronka.

We got Chef Raffael's tasting menu with the wine pairing. We went when the whole tasting menu thing was kind of new at Palma, and it appeared that the waitstaff was not briefed about the wine pairing option. They were a friendly bunch, but we had to keep reminding them to keep up with the pairings; Dave and I got a kick out of the fact that they were probably just pouring us whatever they felt like pouring, as it didn't seem like they were really clued in about the food. Regardless, it all tasted pretty good. We can't remember the specific dishes, but we do remember that there was some solid cooking and that we had a good time.

Palma
28 Cornelia St
New York, NY 10014
(212) 691-2223

Ippudo

2010-03-13T21:09:00.002-05:00

This meal originally took place on February 10, 2010.

Dave and I decided to go to Ippudo one very stormy night.

As you can see, I am wearing a new pair of polka dot galoshes. We had popped into Ibiza Kids (they are next door to Ippudo) and had bought them right before dinner.

We got to Ipuddo at 4:55 pm and asked the hostess for a table for two. She replied that they were opening in five minutes. I reflexively (and unnecessarily) asked if we could put our name down, to which she responded, "I said we are opening in five minutes." Okay, the hostess is a little testy. Not the best PR for a restaurant, but I let it go.

What really bothered me was our subsequent interaction with a waitress who came by as we were waiting by the hostess' podium. The waitress asked if we wanted to sit down on the benches while we waited. We told her, "No thanks, it's only going to be a few minutes." Her response was, "Oh, you're afraid you're going to lose your spot in line, aren't you?" We smiled politely and shook our heads because actually, no, we weren't afraid - we were at the front of the line. And even if some huge error was made and we were seated second or third or tenth - for God's sake, the entire restaurant was empty. Getting seated was not going to be an issue. Her response - "Oh yeah you are, you're afraid you're not going to get our really good ramen, aren't you? Yeah, you're afraid."

Perhaps I've been lucky - I have not yet run into outright arrogance in New York City so far, but to encounter it in a ramen house of all places is unbelievable. Ramen is food for the masses. It is cheap and hearty and humble fare. Ramen houses should be proud if they make great tasting ramen, but to be this obnoxious about the quality of your own ramen leaves me without words.

As I was eating the delicious and unctuous broth, I decided that I kind of hate Ippudo. We're sticking with Minca. Their ramen is just as good and you are treated a million times better.

Ippudo
65 4th Avenue
New York, NY

Twin Donut and the Keurig coffee machine

2010-03-11T10:13:00.000-05:00

On my Allen ICU rotation last month I routinely got coffee and breakfast from Twin Donut.

It was open when the (depressing) hospital cafeteria wasn't and before the Keurig machine was brought out.

I had never seen a Twin Donut before that rotation, didn't even know of its existence, but apparently they have several shops in the area.

I found their logo somewhat creepy.

It took me a while to figure out, but I think it's because they remind me of the Shining twins.

One of the nice perks of the housestaff at the hospital was the fancy Keurig coffee machine.

I wouldn't have been able to stay up after lunch without it. They always kept it stocked with Green Mountain coffee pods. The coffee it made was just below average, between cart coffee and freshly brewed Maxwell House, but it was fresh and hot and very much appreciated.

Most of my classmates would call me crazy, but I'll miss my morning walk to the hospital.

Twin Donut
5099 Broadway (at 218th St)
New York, NY 10034
(212) 569-1005

Spaghetti alla carbonara

2010-03-09T16:12:00.004-05:00

I made spaghetti alla carbonara for breakfast this morning.

I was planning to go on a relatively long bike ride this afternoon, so I thought it would be a good idea to load up on carbohydrates. Carbonara seems very much like a breakfast food, and I had all the ingredients on hand.

My favorite carbonara recipe is one I learned from Mario Batali. I saw him make it on his old show, Molto Mario, back when the Food Network still cared about food.

It is a cream-less recipe. You start rendering the pork fat in olive oil (I didn't have guanciale so I used some homemade lardons from the freezer) and boiling the water at about the same time and get the spaghetti to just under al dente. Then you put a splash of pasta water into the fat and bacon, put the pasta in the pan and cook a bit more. Turn off the heat. Add a bunch of parmesan, lots (lots) of freshly ground pepper, and an egg white. Stir. Transfer to a plate, put an egg yolk on top, and then finish by putting some more parmesan and pepper on top. I like to add a little bit of olive oil just at the end. Then eat!

I like the egg yolk on top because uncooked egg yolk makes an awesome sauce.

Ripe Avocado

2010-03-07T17:02:00.001-05:00

There is nothing more

delicious than

a ripe

avocado.

Tanoreen

2010-03-06T11:43:00.003-05:00

Crystal's friend, Rosalyn, organized an outing to Tanoreen last night. Mabel couldn't make it because of a departmental communication snafu.

When I walked into the restaurant to meet the others, a couple with a stroller were being turned away because they didn't have reservations. They must not have heard the unfortunate (for them) news of the recent positive NYT review. I felt a little twinge of guilt.

Crystal and Cristiana got mixed drinks which they thought were a bit oversweet, although that didn't stop them from ordering seconds. It looked like lamb was the featured food on the menu, so I tried ordering the lamb-stuffed cabbage leaves. That didn't turn out to be the best choice, because the waiter suggested I get the Lamb Fette (on the specials menu) instead. Sure, why not?

I'm glad I did. It was really delicious. I particularly liked how they incorporated some crunchiness into it.

Dessert was notable for the Knafeh which is this red, baked cheese thing with a shredded-wheat-like topping. The cheese was pleasantly chewy and there was a light scent of rosewater. It was wonderful.

Tanoreen
7523 3rd Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11209

Braised pork shank

2010-03-03T22:45:00.001-05:00

I have a lot more time to cook now that the bulk of my rotations are over and residency interviews are done. So we're more quickly going through the half pig we split with Josh and Eve.

We have had 2 pork shanks in our freezer for months. Last Sunday I braised one of them.

Before:

After:

I did a straightforward braise. Onions, carrots, celery, peppercorns, dried herbs de provence, fresh rosemary and thyme, bay leaf, crushed garlic cloves, cup of dry vermouth, and an old pint of frozen chicken stock from my mom. Then water so that there was a reasonable volume to work with. I didn't bother browning the meat, because I wanted a mellower broth. Two-and-a-half hours over low heat then threw away the spent vegetables. I used my handy Oxo fat separator to degrease, did several passes with a chinoise, reduced the broth about 1/3, and did a final pass through washed cheesecloth.

For vegetables, I boiled turnips, carrots, and baby yukon gold potatoes in very salty water and braised some leftover shallots in butter and vermouth.

Something seemed to be missing, though. I looked to the Silver Spoon for guidance and was inspired by the addition of shredded cabbage to their pork shank recipe. I decided to cook wedges of cabbage in the broth, then assembled the dish.

Mabel thought it was a bit understated. That was exactly what I was going for. I like pork shank. It tastes porky, but it's still mild. And I was happy to have a simple winter dish that didn't rely on bacon or smokiness or lots of fat for flavor (not that there's anything wrong with those flavors).

We skipped dessert because we figured that we'd have an extra drink at the Blue Note later that night. We saw the Bill Frisell, Ron Carter, and Paul Motian trio.

I enjoyed it. Mabel said that they were lulling her to sleep. That doesn't seem to be a bad way to end a Sunday evening.

Blue Note Jazz Club
131 West 3rd St (near 6th Ave)
New York, NY 10012
(212) 475-8592

Roasted cherry tomatoes

2010-03-02T20:22:00.009-05:00

This post originally took place on 2/28/10.

Citarella was selling cherry tomatoes at a good price, so I bought 4 pints to roast.

A couple years ago, Alice Cannon gave me her favorite tomato recipe. She cuts cherry tomatoes in half, flips them skin side down on baking sheets, drizzles them with olive oil, and roasts them starting at 400 degrees and turning down the oven in 50 degree increments every 15 minutes until the tomatoes are caramelizing and just getting crispy on the edges.

I roasted my tomatoes inspired by her recipe, but I was in the middle of cooking a pork shank and peeling vegetables, so I simplified it a bit. I also cut them in half but didn't keep everything skin down.

Then I roasted at 300 degrees for about 2 hours, stirring whenever I remembered to. I didn't get them crispy on the edges, but I decided to quit while I was ahead, and besides, it was dinnertime.

They really cook down a lot. We spread them on toasted baguette with dinner and saved the rest in jars.