J’ai venu, j’ai vu, j’ai mangé

Yoooo. It’s been a long time. To tell the truth, I was getting pretty bored of just writing about what I was eating. So I’ve got to come up with some other ideas that will make me excited to update and write.

I just got back from Montreal. Originally, Ryan and I were supposed to go – I found out about the Osheaga festival earlier this year. The lineup looked amazing, AND it was in Montreal. I’d never been before. Instead I ended up going with my lady friends and we had a blast. Angel, Lindsey, Laurea, and I drove up from Brooklyn, and Robyn flew in from London to meet us there. We rented a house in the Plateau neighborhood, in between the two main streets St Laurent and St Denis, so we were right in the middle of a lot of action.

The first night, we ate at Le Comptoir, which I found on Chowhound and also a suggestion from Andrew (my chef friend from Toronto – who will now be working at a Momofuku restaurant. Woot!) It’s a small wine bar with shareable platters, and we ordered a bottle of [insert Frenchy red wine here] and a few dishes to share. We had a great waiter – we just told him we wanted the charcuterie board and three of their best non-meat dishes, and he brought us a lobster dish, beet salad, and and octopus dish.

It was a great meal to start off the trip. We asked him about some local non-touristy spots and he suggested a bar called Big in Japan, as well as Lawrence, which was another one of our picks.

We headed to Big in Japan after dinner, which was behind a nondescript door next to an all-night rotisserie chicken joint. There was a long, hot & humid hallway where a small line had formed. The doorman had one of those hipster handlebar mustaches….you see where this is going. Inside was a maze of bartop lined with little candles, sake and whiskey hanging from the ceiling, and pretentious hipster servers prancing around in black and white. We ordered some cocktails (cheap by NYC standards) and they were pretty lackluster. We stayed for a round and met Robyn at a dive near our house.

The next day we woke up early and headed to St Viateur Cafe – one of the two famous Montreal bagel spots. We’d been told to try both. I had an $11 bagel in the traditional style – lox, cream cheese, tomato, onion, capers. I shared it with Robyn, who ordered the smoked meat and mustard bagel. They came with salads so we ordered three bean and crab. The three bean salad was from a can and the crab was basically pollock with red food coloring. Awesome! The bagels themselves were fine – I’ve had the same at Mile End in Brooklyn. The general consensus: no need to eat any more bagels.

We then headed to Marche Jean-Talon, which is a famous farmer’s market. We bought 24-hour Bixi passes and biked over to pick up some afternoon snacks. The prices were outrageously cheap, and the quality and choices were amazing.

I bought some yellow cherry tomatoes and split the cost of cheese with Laurea (goat and a stinky semi-firm cow’s milk cheese). Robyn, Lindsey, and Angel bought fruit. Laurea bought chanterelles. We headed home to prep everything and picked up some wine, then ate everything on our back deck.

Group photo by Angel

I also picked up some treats to take home, a port jelly made with chocolate and strawberries (good for steak and cheeses) and a jar of salted vegetables, which you can use in everything from soups and gravies to eggs and vegetables.

Here’s a peek at what I was dealing with at the festival:

I managed to not eat ANYTHING at the festival. No hot dogs, grilled corn, or any meat made transportable by bread. I was proud of myself! I did manage, however, to ingest a disgusting amount of Red Bull. And beer. And vodka.

The best meal by far was on Saturday night at Lawrence. We stumbled in after being herded like sheep through the Biodome at around 5:40pm with no reservations, and they were able to accommodate us. Really cute place with simple, outstanding food:

$1 oysters until 7pm

Liver tart – I was expecting more of a pate type dish but was geeked to get this instead. Flaky crust filled with buttery leeks and topped with savory organs. Seriously my favorite dish of the meal.

Just your typical marinated salmon with potato pancake. Well done but nothing special.

Lobster with radish and potatoes – great combo of flavors.

Duck ham with melon and cheese. Again, great flavors! Salty, sweet, creamy all in one. We had two non-meat eaters in our crew so…more for us!!

Miam miam miam…

Agnolotti filled with potato and mint and topped with a thin brothy sauce. Green beans. Chanterelles.

Grilled ox heart with beets, radish, greens, onions… Another winner. Steaky and earthy – really simple and good! I’d never had ox heart before and it is just like eating beef.

For dessert we had Baked Alaska and Peanut Butter-Chocolate Pudding. I have to say the pudding was my favorite. I love anything custardy and creamy!

By and large/head and shoulders above…the best meal I’ve had in a really long time. And super reasonably priced, considering we each got a cocktail and a glass of wine.

It was really hard to fully enjoy the city and all it has to offer while also trying to make it to the festival in time to see the bands we wanted to see. But we managed to pack in a lot of things in our short visit. Bands, the Biodome, biking, shopping, after parties with performing bands, Club Super Sexe (yes, we did it), and a short jaunt into old Montreal.

More pics from me and Laurea via Flickr – check out our sets for the full experience! Angel’s to come next year (love you, Na!).

Next time I will bring Ryan and we will eat the shit out of smoked meat and more Lawrence and Joe Beef and Schwartz’s and then bike it off before heading to microbreweries and drinking ourselves silly.

A bientot!

Ass backwards

Sunday started off normally enough, with brunch at Tom’s. Ryan and I both ordered the corned beef hash breakfast, mine with grits and his with homefries. And also a side of bacon.

Then we headed into the city for our hot stone massages, which I booked via Lifebooker at East Beauty Day Spa. $29 for an hour massage + hot stones. It’s in the middle of Chinatown right off Canal St, and it shares an entrance with Fay Da Bakery’s back of house operations, but dammit we walked out of there all wiggly jiggly and floating on clouds. They’re also selling their own vouchers for the same treatment for $35 now, so get on it. I guess you can drop my name. Anyway long story short, best massage I’ve had in a really long time.

We originally wanted to go to Curry Ya, but with the heat/humidity I wasn’t feeling curried fried things. So we decided to go with Sobaya for something cooler. They weren’t open yet at 4pm so we went to Chikalicious first. This was my third time but I haven’t been here in about six years or so. Still so delicious, although three of the items on the menu have been on there for the past eight years.

The amuse, yogurt with blueberries and yellow watermelon sorbet. This was so delicious – really great mixture of flavors and textures. Creamy, icy, sweet, tart. Super refreshing.

Ryan got the Fromage Blanc cheesecake island thing with sherry and I ordered the Darjeeling Panna Cotta with plum sorbet and gelees. It came with Moscato d’Asti. I tried to make this for him back in November for his birthday, with a tangerine granita instead. Needless to say, mine was not as light or silky as this, even after throwing out the first batch. Need to tweak the recipe, obviously.

Petits fours for the end – coconut marshmallows, chocolate cookies, and pecan sandies. I think I’ve unleashed a monster because I can see us making many return trips here. Fine by me, as long as we always do dessert first. It’s a timing thing.

Soba at Sobaya. Ryan was craving uni and so ordered the Uni & Grated Mountain Yam soba. I ordered Ikura & Grated Daikon. The soba here is not as good as Sobakoh’s – some of it was stuck together and it was not as fresh-tasting. Also, a lot of them were broken! Gah. Grated mountain yam (tororo) has a texture not unlike snot, which is off-putting. It’s a weird dish to eat, and I much prefer the Uni Ikura Soba at Sobakoh.

Dinner was a mixture of antipasto and cold cuts from Whole Foods (prosciutto di Parma, mortadella, gigante beans, olives, marinated mushrooms) as well as a wedge of morbier and some Innis & Gunn and Alba Scot’s Pine Ale. True Blood & The Newsroom are on tonight. Great way to end this day of languid hedonism. Ha.

The Stomach Monster Diet

Grub Street is a necessary evil. One of my favorite columns is The New York Diet (now called The Grub Street Diet I think) which is a weekly where they ask semi-famous NY-ers to keep a journal of what they ate that week. I’ve always loved reading it – I guess it’s kind of one of the reasons I like to keep a food blog. Here are a few of my favorites, from the more recent posts:

Jim Nelson of GQ, whose dislike of fancy dinners and contempt for dumb things people say echo mine.
Rae Cohen & Noah Bermanoff of Mile End Delicatessen. One of my favorite spots.
Melissa Clark, food writer. Bone marrow for breakfast!

I’m not proclaiming to be a semi-famous New Yorker but this is my food blog so you’re going to read about what I ate this week. Sorry for the double post on Minetta Tavern.

Saturday: I woke up and put a couple of Trader Joe’s mini croissants in the oven for me and Ryan. They are surprisingly good – you just have to remember to put them out the night before so they can defrost and rise. They also make really good frozen chocolate croissants. We ate these with Bonne Maman blackberry preserves & gen macha. I buy it loose.
For lunch I made a riff on these quesadillas. I used sour cream, and added anchovies, capers, and pickled ramps. I made two of them and washed them down with some sweet tea that Ryan brewed the night before.
For a snack I had a handful of dark chocolate covered blueberries from Trader Joe’s but I wasn’t feeling the sweet so I sliced up some salami instead from Les Trois Petits Cochons (3 little pigs for the Franco-challenged). It’s the best grocery store-bought salami we’ve found.
I’d made reservations for Betto through Savored – we were going to see Asobi Seksu + others at Brooklyn Bowl that night and I wanted to have dinner in the area.

We ordered some cocktails to start, I had one called the Golden Ratio with mezcal, tequila, grapefruit, and other things in it, Ryan ordered one with apple brandy and absinthe.


We got the lamb special as well as the platter of 5 crostinis. Also the fluke crudo, which they forgot about until the very end. Service was a bit spotty as our guy got quadruple sat but the food was good. I really love ‘ino and I’m glad to have Betto in Brooklyn. The chicken liver and white anchovy crostinis were my favorites. The lamb was good but my favorite part of that dish was the smashed potatoes. It came wish salsa verde and greek yogurt which we slathered all over the meat. At the show I had two pints of red sangria and Ryan had two Crown & Cokes.
We got home and he was starving at 1am so we ordered delivery from Pino’s which I’ve never ordered from before. With good reason. A pepperoni pizza order came with red bell peppers on it, and the Greek salad was basically just cheese and onions. I also had a coconut water before going to bed.

Sunday: We woke up and didn’t have any breakfast – it took us a while to get going. We had lunch at Milk Bar which is one of my favorite spots. I had a fresh limeade and scrambled eggs and avocado on brioche. Ryan had a cappuccino and full eggs, which are toasted pieces of sourdough with ham, gruyere, tomatoes, poached eggs, and avocado. We took Milton to the park and there was a food truck rally there so I got a dark chocolate shake from Milk Truck. You know, a snack.

Dinner was at PokPokNY which opened about a month ago. We met some friends there as well as my roommates and ordered a ton of food. It is really great to have friends who are willing to travel and eat like pigs. Standouts were the catfish and noodle salad with dill as well as the khao soi. Also the smokey grilled eggplant salad and Chiang Mai sausage. The cocktails were also delicious – I had the Tamarind Whiskey Sour and Ryan had the Southside, which was gin-based, with mint syrup and lemon. For dessert we got the condensed milk ice cream with espresso (Affogato), which came with fried crullers. Such full bellies made it hard to bike home.

It really was worth the wait – D&L put our names in right at 5:30 when they opened and we were sat closer to 7pm. For once, something lived up to the hype!

Monday: For breakfast I had some OJ and Cap’n Crunch out of a red Solo cup. Yeah, it’s like that at work. For lunch I wanted to take it kinda easy because of all the eating we did this weekend (it’s usually not like that, I swear!) and because we had another feast at Minetta Tavern planned for tonight. So I got a small thing of white Japanese rice from…Rice and I went to Foragers and got a half pound of broccolini. I stash chazuke packets  in my desk drawer so I ate that with the rice – just add water. Also, a lemon Snapple. Made from the best stuff on earth, tastes like the worst shit in the universe. Blech!
We had dinner at Minetta Tavern to celebrate our 1 yr anniversary –  I know….It’s more an excuse to eat out more than anything! I had a glass of sparkling rosé and Ryan had Old Speckled Hen on draught. To start we got the bone marrow app and oxtail-foie terrine. I know. I know. Then we each got the Black Label burger. I got a glass of Bordeaux. Chocolate souffle for two. I wanted to cry – tastes so good, no space left! I even took the burger off the bun and stopped eating the fries (which are so good…).  Such a good dinner, I just wish I’d had more space to eat it all.

Tuesday: Breakfast was just a Special K cereal bar (strawberry) and OJ. For lunch I had wild mushroom agnolotti and jarred Prego marinara with some romano cheese grated into it, and leftover cubed saussicon sec. I like to use everything up in the fridge if possible. I don’t usually snack at work but today I had a single serving of hummus and some baby carrots, as well as a few mini Twix. Also, lots of water. Dinner was Trader Joe’s frozen cioppino. Has anyone else noticed that there is less seafood in there now? For dessert I had 3/4 of a Turkey Hill vanilla ice cream sandwich. I’m afraid after the crazy first few days the rest of this diary will be boring because we’re trying to take it easy this week.

Wednesday: Once a week I have to come into Manhattan to pick up mail for work. I try to do this on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays so I can hit the Greenmarket.
Today I picked up a small basket of little strawberries – I miss these so much from California. They’re not as sweet as those (sunbaked = best), but still better than the gargantuan supermarket Driscolls. I also stopped into City Bakery on my way back to Brooklyn. I usually alternate between the blueberry corn muffin and maple bacon biscuit. I got the biscuit today and ate it at work with some gen macha and strawberries.
For lunch I brought something healthy since I’ve been eating like crazy the past few days – kale and farro salad with avocado and tomato, and a shallot vinaigrette. I also snacked on strawberries all day, then met my old coworker Dan for ice cream. We’re right down the street from Jacques Torres’ ice cream spot, and I got the spicy chocolate ice cream in a cone. Dare I say, Ample Hills’ Mexican Hot Chocolate is way better. There’s a weird aftertaste in Jacques’. Sorry dude, I had to toss it after I got halfway through it. I also had half of a Mini Babybel cheese wheel. It’s like plastic cheese – I couldn’t finish.
For dinner, I met Ryan at the grocery store. He’d brought home some beets as they’d just taken them off the menu, and I came with honey chevre, pickled ramps, and vinaigrette I’d made this morning.

We grilled up some pork chops, the beets, and some scallions.

I made an arugula-beet-chevre salad, and we ate the pork chops with prosciutto on top. Also a quick sauce made of apricot preserves and chopped pickled ramps. We bought a bottle of wine on the way home also, a Picpoul which was lemony but still strong enough to pair with the salad and pork. No dessert – we read World War Z and James and the Giant Peach on the couch.

Thursday: Breakfast was semi-gross. I biked to work today and it was about 90 degrees out. I had a Special K chocolate granola bar and peach Snapple at work. Blech. I managed to hold out til lunch – I had a leftover pork chop from last night, plus that apricot-ramp concoction, plus kale and farro. Still pretty healthy I guess.
I met my knitting group at No 7 in Fort Greene where they have a pretty decent happy hour – $3 pints, $5 well drinks, $9 cocktails and $3 broccoli tacos. I had a pint and taco, which is done in the Taco Bell style except for the one important fact that it doesn’t send me straight to the shitter. In fact they are quite delicious, with a layer of black bean mash between the taco shells, and feta-broccoli-pignolis inside. Really really good. Two pints to wash that and some french fries down.
Ryan met me there and after hanging out for a bit we went to Taro on Flatbush for sushi. I’m super skeptical of sushi in these parts but Taro is actually pretty decent. We got a small bottle of Sho Chiku Bai, miso soup, seaweed salad, the special tuna app (4 kinds of tuna nigiri style), 2 rolls, and 2 of the uni specials.

The uni special was two pieces either sushi or sashimi style, one each from Maine and California. I liked the California one best, for it’s brininess, Ryan liked the one from Maine better for its sweet and creamy texture. I love uni so much so much so much! However when I checked my Seafood Watch app, I learned that both of these varieties were not in season. GOOD JOB, ME! For penance I will compost all of next week and walk my ass all the way up to Hollenback Garden in Clinton Hill to drop it off. Hating myself a little bit, but damn that uni was delicious.

Friday: WE ALL GOT LOCKED INSIDE!! I ate Cap’n Crunch cereal instead of my roommates. 12pm and the locksmith is still not here, so I make what’s left of the mushroom agnolotti with marinara, some grated romano cheese. Also a kale salad with thinly sliced red onion and avocado, vinaigrette with a little honey. Also some iced tea. I’m mad I am missing DUB pies at the office, as Fridays is our team lunch day.

I worked from home and made a bunch of bracelets with leftover knotting cord from a previous girls’ craft brunch session.
For dinner I had plans to make chicken saltimboca with a kale-apple salad but it started downpouring and I was being a brat and didn’t have an umbrella to get all the groceries. Plus we had plans to see Moonrise Kingdom at Nitehawk. So we ordered in from Istanbul Park which was pretty stellar the first time. I got the mini appetizer platter which was about 6 different cold apps jammed into a small takeout container – it’s really a lot of food for only $12. Sadly they did not pack me a piece of their delicious Turkish bread which is chewy and crusty. Instead I got a dry ass pita that I couldn’t even swallow. Two glasses of Picpoul.

On our way to the theater we stopped by Momofuku Milk Bar on Metropolitan and each got cereal milk softserve with cornflakes and two chocolate chip-cornflake-marshmallow cookies. During the movie Ryan had two Jameson’s neat, and I had a glass of rosé and a glass of prosecco. We shared one of the cookies – seriously the best thing ever.
Before bed I had some coconut water.

The death of me

I think I’ve told this story about 500 hundred times already. Ryan and I met last year. But before that I’d been a pretty regular customer of No 7 Sub at The Ace Hotel, where he ran the kitchen. I had a boyfriend at the time. I’d come in at least once or twice a month, and at some point started getting free cookies in my bag. The first time it happened, I thought it was a mistake and they’d given me someone else’s order. But then it happened again. And again. At work we started a joke and started calling him “No 7 Boyfriend.” But I had no idea who it was! I thought it was Dave, the expediter. And I was like “Nooo, not my type.”

One day my coworker/friend T came with me, intent on finding out who the mystery cookie person was (I’d already broken up with my boyfriend by then). Well, it was Ryan. Finally last May (this is 6 months after I found that first cookie in my bag, by the way) I went on a day that my office had dubbed “Mad Men Friday” where everyone was to dress up and drink martinis all day. I went to get a couple of subs with a coworker and in my bag was the usual cookie…this time with a business card attached to it for “Lt Chef Commander Ray Ray Steele, Sous Chef/Timecop.” And on the back, a note that said “We should be friends.”

WTF? I WAS SO MAD.
Because I loved those stupid sandwiches so much and now I could never go back there. OR I’d have to beg my coworkers to bring one back for me. Either way, he’d messed everything up. Well I got nice and drunk from red wine and scotch during happy hour and decided to call him and yell at him. Except he was in DC with family eating a huge tasting menu at Komi. So I left him a not-so-mean message. He called me back the next day and we ended up talking for a long time, mostly about the meal he’d eaten the night before. And then he called me the day after that. Etc. We got along really well….You know how old jeans feel? Like that.

Everything has always revolved around food and what we’re going to eat next. As it should be. Food was always central in my childhood, from weekly dim sum at Mao’s Palace to raclette at La Locanda and birthdays spent at House of Prime Rib and Thanh Long. My family’s businesses revolved around food as well – we owned a supermarket in Daly City and now a Filipino food import/distribution company.
Ryan also grew up around food – his dad runs a kitchen in Florida, and Ryan grew up working with him, working his way up from bus boy to back of house/kitchen. So really, we didn’t have a choice.

We celebrated the day we met with a dinner at Frej, which was amazing. Most of these photos aren’t mine – I found them on Flickr. So thanks, The Food Doc, for taking such excellent photos.

After an amuse of fried sweetbreads, we were served our first course of Maine shrimp with kohlrabi and oyster cream. Ours also had cucumbers. Can I just say one thing: OYSTER CREAM. Some of the kohlrabi and cucumber were pickled, which added some tart mouthwatering-ness to the dish. I really just did that.

Next we had Scallop Ceviche with cabbage, pickled ramps, and fried seaweed. This was my least favorite of the courses – I can’t quite put my finger on why…the cabbage and fried seaweed just didn’t seem to go together on my taste buds.

This is photos is hake, but we got pike. There are potatoes and sprat milk on the plate as well.

Sadly, I cannot find any photos of my favorite course, which was the pork belly. This was sliced and served atop creamy smoked cheese and nettle puree and topped with slivers of fried rye bread. I’d never had nettle before but it’s great – it tastes like green! (Note to self: make anchovy-nettle pasta this summer)

This is beef cooked in hay with onions and garlic mayo. At this point I was getting pretty full – those little courses add up!

For dessert we instead received the Chamomile Parfait with Carrot Cake. Strangely good! Just like everything else we ate. It was like eating super creamy ice cream that didn’t melt.

I normally shy away from fancypants dinners and tasting menus like this. Mostly because they’re expensive and just seem pretentious, with a lot of squeeze bottle nonsense. I prefer simple, rustic food. But this was really great – I would really love for them to find their own place so they could be open all week.

Our actual (?) anniversary is the 19th, which last year was Father’s Day. That’s right, folks. The Time Cop asked to be his girlfriend on Father’s Day, at the beach. We have been inseparable ever since, much to the chagrin of friends and roommates (roommates mostly, I think). I suppose it doesn’t help that we also live about eight blocks apart.

After much debate on where to eat, we decided to go with Minetta Tavern. I love it because the first time I ate there I sat at the bar with OR (Other Ryan…Castro) and next to us was an elderly couple who shared a giant steak. After finishing it woman picked the bone up in her hands to gnaw at it, and at the end of dinner, they also shared a chocolate soufflé. I thought that was the best shit I’d ever seen. Still do.

Here’s what we ate:

I didn’t get a photo of every single dish because that’s kind of annoying (yes, I realize it is…) but here is a photo of the crazy bone marrow appetizer we got:

MEAT. BUTTER. That’s 1 1/2 whole shanks. When the waiter brought it to our table my eyes bugged out of my head – SO MUCH BONE MARROW! I should’ve been smart and ordered a salad as a second app but Ryan really wanted the oxtail & foie terrine so I said yes to that. I also should’ve made us split the Black Label Burger but we each got one. Do you see where this is going?

I was so uncomfortably full. For dessert we got the chocolate souffle for two. We don’t even like chocolate!! I was grabbing my stomach, making horrible faces, and nearly in tears. But it was a magical pot of choco-goodness. Seriously – souffles are hard to get right but this was was damn near perfect.

We waddled out of the restaurant and it wasn’t until we were halfway home that I started to feel normal again. To quote my parter in crime: Yeah I guess I did go a little overboard…

Story of my life. I’m eight pounds heavier and I’ve gone up a pants size. You can buy new jeans any time, but you can’t always find your other stomach monster.

Food Porn

Catering from Mile End – my pick for Friday lunch at work.

After watching The Hunger Games, we got hungry.

Talde #5 with Dave & Karell

Bacon rillettes from The Meat Hook, front & center. Tom Mylan: idol status.

Dark chocolate rootbeer float at Ample Hills. This, after chomping our way through Flushing.

Al Pastor & Bisteca tacos from Mexico Blvd.

Yumcha Sunday with RR & Mimi. Salt & pepper squid, sticky rice with pork & peanuts, clams.

Bufala mozz and beefsteak tomatoes at Dino. “Everything needs salt.” Fort Greene has been surprisingly disappointing lately in restaurant options/quality.

Flushing Foodventure

There is too much food to be had in Flushing. We headed out last Sunday with the best intentions to eat ourselves silly, but didn’t make it too far off the main drag.

We started with $1 duck buns at Corner 28 – they’ve been $1 since I first came out here about three years ago (shameful, I know). But it’s nice to know that while lobster roll/artisanal popsicle/gourmet grilled cheese prices have steadily climbed, these have remained cheap as hell and are still delicious.

Then we headed to that dirty ass basement foodcourt where Xi’an Famous Foods started. It’s still there, but the menu is easier to read (more pictures!) and they have actual styrofoam plates to serve food on rather than takeout container lids. I ordered the Liang Pi which are cold noodles in a spicy sauce with cucumbers, bean sprouts, and cubes of gluten. I really wished they were bean curd, because the texture of gluten freaks me out a little when it’s served like this. Ryan got the Spicy & Tingly Beef Noodles, which are similar to nou riou man and served hot. We ate like pigs while listening to the quick, loud thumps of noodle making.

I had plans of also visiting Biang! which is Xi’an’s newest restaurant, but we opted for something sweet and got milk tea from Coco Tea & Bubble. It had pudding and coffee jelly in it. And then, more $1 duck buns for the road.

Next time we’ll eat pig’s blood cubes & fluffy shaved ice with stuff on it!

I fucking love New York

Saturday turned out to be the stupidest day ever. But all those fails don’t matter when you have the East Village a couple of train rides away. Ryan wanted tako wasa and I couldn’t think of any places in Brooklyn that served it, so we went to Sobakoh, which serves fresh housemade soba hot or cold with different toppings/sauces/broths. I’d been wanting to take him for a long time:

This is the cold Uni Ikura Soba, which is one of my favorite things ever. Thinking of doing a “Top 5 Dishes” type post in the future and this would definitely be on it. Ryan got the Softshell Crab Tempura Soba served hot. The crab came on the side and the noodles came in a broth that tasted like tempura dipping sauce, which is essentially dashi, mirin, soy sauce, and sugar. Both were excellent in completely different ways. I loved the freshness and creaminess of mine, and also the crunchy-saltiness of the tempura. I love when you dip it into the sauce/broth and it gets soft, then you have to eat it right before it turns soggy. SO GOOD.

They don’t have tako wasa there so we headed to Decibel where they serve the biggest bowl of it that I’ve seen yet. About half a cup for $5! So we got some sake to drink – Kaori Ginjo & Rihaku Nigori. I have been coming to Decibel since I first moved here and it is still as crowded and crazy as ever. I hope that never changes.

After Decibel we headed to Chikalicious Puddin for dessert, which was pretty packed. They serve a huge variety of things now…I remember when it was just soft serve, chocolate chip cookies, and the three puddins – Adult Chocolate, Brioche, and Creme Brulee. They have green tea shaved ice with adzuki beans now, a ton of cupcakes, NY Cheesecake, eclairs… We got some chocolate chip cookies and a hot fudge sundae to eat on the way home. It has crunchy bits and nuts in it, and we finished it by the time we got down to Dallas BBQ. That’s about 5 blocks.

The cookies are my favorite because even though they use a lot of chocolate chips, they are semi sweet. And the cookies are chewy and thin and pretty greasy, IE: perfect. Puddin is the outpost of Chikalicious Dessert Bar across the street, which is seriously a three-course dessert spot. You get an amuse, then the main dessert, then a plate of petit fours. I haven’t been there in years so a return visit is due. They have wine pairings as well, or you can have coffee/tea.

It is 8:30am and Ryan is still sleeping. I am going to eat a cookie.

The Weekend

I’d just planned dinner at Talde with Dave & Karrell, but Ryan and I were so excited we decided to bike there for brunch on Saturday. It was a shitty day, so it wasn’t too crowded. We had a great server and she started us off with a couple of Bloody Marys – spicy and garnished with pickled ginger and celery:

For food we ordered the Lobster Bao Buns (which is like saying Lobster Bun Buns since bao basically means bun, DALE), which were good & spicy with huge chunks of lobster:

Also the shiitake-spinach-scallion chang fun which were a little vinegary, a good contrast to the sausage-egg-cheese fried rice:

I wanted something sweet so I suggested getting some scoops at Sky Ice, where I got Lychee Rose sorbet (too sweet for me!) and Black Sesame Ice Cream. I wish I’d gotten Thai Tea as well – Ryan got it and it is slightly bitter, so it went really well with the Lychee Rose.
There are actually tiny flecks of rose petals mixed in. And also little strips of nori.

For dinner we made this black olive salsa and also had last night’s leftovers – paté, piave, mortadella. Nothing too crazy because we had a concert to go to (after which Ryan bought a slice of Junior’s strawberry cheesecake to bring home).

On Sunday I gave Ryan two options already knowing which one he’d choose: Filipino brunch (Mom gave me some frozen bangus/milkfish last time I saw her) or dim sum. So we headed to East Harbor Seafood Restaurant in Dyker Heights. I am Chinese but the dialect I speak is the Taiwanese “hokkien,” so was completely lost here, where Cantonese is spoken.

But we survived – we managed to get ourselves on the list and seated within 5 minutes, ordered a pot of pu’er, and out-ate the mother-daughter FOB team sitting across from us.

This place has the best egg tarts! We got them still warm – my favorite.

Afterwards I still wanted more dessert – I was craving that one that is milk with red bean, grass jelly, and tapioca – no idea what it’s called but if I didn’t have to chew that shit it’d be sucked down in a flash. I thought Quickly was in the area but it turns out that Google Maps is a goddamned liar so instead we went to the Chinese grocery by the train station and got shrimp for dinner:

I peeled & deveined the shrimp, then worked on the salad. Ryan finished up the pasta, just a standard shrimp scampi with grape tomatoes, garlic, sauvignon blanc, red pepper flakes, and parsley, finished with breadcrumbs.

I’m not too happy with the salad – I wish I’d left out the romaine. But at least the pasta was good!

You win some, you lose some

The week started off really beautiful so I asked Ryan if we could grill out on his roof. I asked for hanger steak and lots of vegetables. This is what happened:

I marinated the flank steak in red wine vinegar, a little olive oil, shallots, salt, pepper. The tomatoes are just sliced and tossed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper. There’s also grilled onion, sauteed mushrooms, grilled corn on the cob and zucchini, and slow-cooked broccoli rabe. I prepped all of this and only cooked the broccoli rabe – I am a good ass sous chef!

And this is what we drank, which is the last of my Lot18 wine:

And then because the food sat out all night before I finally put it away, I got sick from eating it the next day. I’ll spare you the gory details, just know that I ate rice with plain broth for the next 2-3 meals.

Thankfully my iron stomach recovered quickly and the following day I was craving Chuko. They had the softshell crab bun from their ramen event as a special:

I ordered my usual vegetarian miso ramen but it was terrible! This happens every so often. I turned to see who was working the kitchen – my suspicions were confirmed…he’s usually the culprit of my not-so-great ramen.
It just tasted like salt. Highly disappointing but Ryan is the best and let me trade bowls with him. I only ate about half so he got to eat his ramen anyway. Winning!

After dinner I was feeling brave so we went to Ample Hills and got a pint of ice cream:

As well as a scoop of vanilla bean for me, topped with chewy hot fudge.

We ate this last night:

That’s toasted sourdough from Almondine, dried cherries that I reconstituted in Bulleit Bourbon, cornichons-mortadella-spicy coppa-Piave-gorgonzola dolce from Choice Greene, paté, butter, and radishes. Cold cuts, my favorite dinner.

I’m back.

SHHH It’s okay, we’re on bikes

Please note, these meals were eaten in a span of ONE WEEKEND.

On Saturday we went to the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene. Ryan has never been before because he usually works all day. However, the Universe wanted him to try Lonestar Empire’s brisket, so we were blessed with some free time. They make their own pickles and BBQ sauce, and Linyee gifted us with a scoop of potato salad. It is the best the best the best. Have you signed up for that Brisket Lab? Me too. But this is the brisket that all brisket shall be measured from.

I went out of order, we ate these fried anchovies from Bonchovie first since Lonestar wasn’t ready yet. I would ask for them w/o the heads next time, as chewing through all the sharp/hard bits was not that fun. My fault.

Milk Truck’s dark chocolate shake. We are not fans of chocolate, however this is really thick and creamy and delicious. After watching the kids at the booth dick around for 20 minutes turning people away because they weren’t open yet we finally scored one and drank it on the way home. Then I promptly passed out for an hour, biked up to Greenpoint to grab Ryan from work, and headed to our next destination.

The Meatball Shop. The guys behind these restaurants are GENIUSES. First of all there are about 4-5 different meatballs on any given day. You can have your meatballs any way you want, with your choice of sauce: plain with sides, smashed in a brioche bun, in a hero sandwich, or as I like to get them, with everything but the kitchen sink. Which means you get 3 meatballs with your choice of sauce, and then 5 different kinds of market veggie preparations. It’s different every time, and it’s a shitload of vegetables.

That’s not all. For dessert there are freshly baked cookies, which you can mix/match with ice cream and make your own ice cream sandwich cookies!! This is snickerdoodle with vanilla ice cream. Their cocktails work like this as well – they have different mixtures and then you pick the liquor. We both chose strawberry & rhubarb, but Ryan got whiskey and I got Prosecco. Two entrees, two cocktails, and one dessert set us back under $50 before tip. Genius.

On Sunday I woke up wanting pie. So we biked to Four & Twenty where Ryan got a Salted Caramel Apple pie and I got the savory Butternut Squash-Ginger-Sage pie. It was creamy-savory-flaky-delicious. Then because he kept complaining that pie was not enough for breakfast I suggested biking down to Red Hook to Fort Defiance.

Bloody Marys, biscuits & gravy, and the breakfast biscuit. This is a cheddar biscuit with ham, a fried egg, jalapeño jam. Was hoping to have some of their famous Muffaletta but it’s not on the brunch menu. Must return!

After a shower & a nap (for me at least) we headed up to Williamsburg again on bikes. I’d made reservations at Betto through Savored, as I had some dining credits. It’s not a bad deal, you pay $10 for a 30% off coupon and make reservations through the site. The restaurant choices have been spotty but I have been wanting to try Betto for a while – I have been eating at Jason Denton’s restaurants since I moved here almost 10 years ago and they never fail to be always delicious all the time. Happy hour at Betto ends at 7pm and includes reduced price cocktails, 6oz pours of draft beers, and one each of sparkling, white, and red wines for half off.

The plates are small so we got a few things. We started with a sampling of crostinis, from the bottom up: white anchovy with mayo, chicken liver, pesto, homemade ricotta with honey, and fennel with citrus. We also got a vegetable side, roasted baby heirloom carrots with lemon ricotta, pickled red onions, & lardons.

We ordered Calamari a la Plancha from the menu, which was very slightly spicy and smoky. Calamari was cooked perfectly.

The meat special was braised pork belly, flash fried, served with smashed potatoes and salsa verde. Also a side (a big side!) of broccoli rabe.
This is the kind of Italian dining I love – super simple food that tastes delicious, and a big wine list. I only wish we lived closer. But I will suffer Williamsburg for this place – they were playing CCR, Led Zeppelin, Bill Withers, Steppenwolf, and that song from The Warriors, and we were not seated next to any annoying people. With our track record for that this weekend, it was awesome.

Dessert: a chocolate bourbon pecan bar from Baked while watching Swamp People at home. The teams picked off three 12-footers, Tete Dure, Pas Tout La, and King Tut. Looks like we all won today.

P.S. I have no idea why my pants are so tight.