Pearl Oyster Bar

As readers of this blog well know, I have two roommates. While we all fit the stereotype of nice Asian girls overworked in the financial world, have similar hairstyles and share a kitchen and a vacuum machine, we also all have a good appetite and a distaste (or rather, lack of motivation to go on) for diets. However, when it comes to what we eat, our individuality shines through somewhat. Gerrie's the trendiest amongst the three of us, with an admirable goal of dining at as many brand-name culinary temples in the city. I am the eclectic eater who will munch at anything but the kitchen sink and have a weird fascination for off-beat eats , and Ceci's the classy chick who goes for classic and elegant food. With that in mind, for Ceci's belated bday dinner, we decided to go to Pearl Oyster Bar, a homey New England style seafood house in the village for an unpretentious evening, slurping down fresh shellfish and trying out the "best" lobster roll in the city.
After a 3 day survey of lobster pounds in Bar Harbor during August, I thought I would have good authority to say that the cramped dining room was prettier than any simple shack I had been to in Maine. The seafood at Pearl was also as fresh as those I had eaten in Maine, and perfectly cooked to yield an even better taste than the great tasting, but simply boiled lobsters and sublimely fried fish and clams I had. Between the 5 of us (rmmates + friends), we split a platter of fried oysters (a little over battered), and another plate of briny and yet sweet raw clams and a refreshing, fruity riesling to rouse up some appetite.
After we hacked away at the appetizers, our entrees found its way onto the table and we tasted through 5 dishes, including a good sized and nicely grilled lobster, a generous bowl of bouillabaise that was stuffed with small and plump mussels, a roasted whole fish (snapper? or mullet?) that I did not taste but looked and smelt fantastic. I ate a slice of snow white cod, succulent and flaky, tasting like what fish fingers would taste like if they had been made of real fish and only lightly dusted with floor. And Gerrie ordered the house specialty lobster roll served with a heap of shoestring fries, which at twice the price and almost twice the size of any old lobster roll you see in a fish shack in Maine, was quite a tasty, mayonnaisey monstrosity.
Dinner for the three of us must end on a sweet note, so despite already stuffed stomaches, we ordered a slice of blueberry pie and two sundaes to share. The pie was great. Not too sweet and the slightly sour tang of the blueberries blended well with the creamy sweetness of the vanilla icecream that topped it. The hot fudge and butterscotch in the old-fashioned sundaes were unapologetically viscous and rich and the whole deal with thick fresh cream and more vanilla icecream was pure fatty sin. But so good we ate it all up.
Like Ceci, Pearl Oyster Bar is a classic.

18 Cornelia St

Pinkberry

It was an indian summer night of sorts this evening, where after a week of grey skies and chilly temperatures, the weather warmed up to hit mid-70s, the perfect weather for a cool treat. Frozen yogurt comes to mind, and with that I walked to ktown for a cup of the heavily touted Pinkberry yogurt.
Pinkberry is an LA transplant, and the Los Angelenos apparently love it so much that it launched a thousand parking tickets, as the yogurt eaters had no qualms double parking and making all sorts of parking violations in order to get to their yogurt. After a small cup of plain yogurt topped with fresh raspberry, I could see what the fuss was about. I really enjoyed the tanginess of the yogurt, which was great alone but also served as a bland enough canvas to highlight the flavors of the toppings. Detractors complain about the texture, citing iciness. Although I enjoyed the taste and the texture, I can see where the complaints are coming from, particularly if they are more used to the creaminess of ice-cream.
Cost-wise, a cup of Pinkberry yogurt is slightly higher than a similar cup of icecream, but in the land of absurd rents and labor cost, I can forgive the slightly higher prices as well. For people who are determined not to be fleeced, the fresh fruit toppings may offer more value for money than say Cap'n Crunch.
To sum up, yes the fro-yo is a little icy, a little tart and a little expensive. But it sure beats the artificial creaminess and sweetness of Tasti-Delite IMHO. I wish the proprietor luck however in attracting enough customers, because despite all the publicity and hype, the customer flow was a little slow on a warm Wednesday night. One can imagine how much business they will get on a cold January day...

Pinkberry
7 W 32rd St

Breakfasting on the UWS

Of all the days in the week, I choose to be the most productive on Sunday. Sunday, of all days... i don't get myself....
Anyway, a typical routine would be like this: Wake up a little past 8 am and immediately panicking, for church starts in an hour. Rush out to church at 9 and by 10:30, I get out of the service, and have a good day ahead of me to waste. With the extra time on my hands, compared to the more sensible people who are still sleeping in, I also have the tendency to wander around the UWS more, buy things I don't want and shop for food I am certainly do not need. Case in point: I had 2 breakfasts today. I certainly wasn't starved the day before, nor even mildly famished after i devoured my first meal, but I felt compelled to have the second breakfast, because it was pastry =p
First stop: Le Pain Quotidien for a good cup of latte in a handle-less cup, and a huge eggy brioche, slathered in marmalade and strawberry confiture. Although its part of a chain, the big and brightly lit room and the fresh smell of baked bread and other yummy sweets gave the place a friendly, warm personality unlike regular chains.
Next stop: Soutine Bakery for a thick slice of honey cake. Unlike the brisk efficiency experienced at Le Pain Quotidien, service at the tiny storefront was a little more languid and even warmer. The shop assistant served up freshly made croissants, cakes and tiny fruit tarts filled with seasonal fruits to all her customers, regulars or not, with a wide, lazy smile. The honey cake, bought in a whim, was really sweet, tasty and very filling, particularly after being heated up in the microwave and paired with tart yogurt. I would definitely eat it again. So thanks to some spontaneity and a good appetite, I had yet another productive and happy fooding sunday.

Le Pain Quotidien
60 W 65th St
Soutine Bakery
104 W 70th St

Soba Koh

It was a beautiful summer day last sunday, possibly the final summer weekend warm enough for beach afficionados to get some tanning done. It was also a perfect day to slurp some soba to cool off from the unseasonal heat. So I made my way to Soba Koh in East Village for a late lunch, only to find myself the only customer at 2 pm. While its a shame business wasn't as brisk as the proprietors would have liked, I rather enjoyed the calmness of the dining room, further set off by the austere decor (all dark cherry wood and minimalist sharp planes).
What a setting for a solo bowl of hand-made buckwheat noodles! With a healthy dose of wasabi and fresh scallions, the dipping sauce transformed from monotonous to bracingly refreshing. The generous serving of anago and green pepper tempura was crunchy and greaseless, complementary to the slick coolness of the otherwise bland and slightly chewy noodles. I ate quickly, unable to stop from alternately dipping the noodles and the tempura into the sauce and putting the food straight into my mouth. Soon my soba craving was sated. While slightly more expensive than my usual midtown lunches, the luxury of enjoying good food in the stillness of an empty room, where the only distraction you have is whether to eat the tempura or the noodles next and not which report to read while you eat and type simultaneously, well that is a good feeling worth its weight in gold.

Soba Koh
309 E5th St (bet. 1st & 2nd Ave)

Saigon Bahn Mi

Soho has become my new neighborhood ever since I started working at the Used Book Cafe on saturdays, and it is no wonder I've started scouring for things to eat while working the espresso machine for a good 4 hours meant to be tea-time. As comprehensive as the drinks and sweets menu is at the cafe (macaroons and stella artois make a killer combination) , its a little lacking in the savory foods line-up. Luckily, Saigon Bahn Mi is there to the rescue, keeping the hunger away with a warm crusty french bread sandwiching crunchy pickled carrots and refreshingly fresh cilantro, salty vietnamese pastrami and a weird-looking but tasty orange pate that's supposed to be the "supreme" version of pates.
While reference to it being the best sandwich in town is contentious, it is definitely the most value-for-money sandwich however. A huge hunk of bread, meats and vegetables all for $3, enough to tide me through a 4 hour shift, and even dinner if I manage to stop myself from eating it all at once. So far, it hasn't happened yet, but the sandwich is really best eaten in whole, so say I...

Bahn Mi So 1
369 Broome St (Bet. Mott & Elizabeth Sts)

Rice

If the mess of dark purple rice studded with green edamame beans remind you of the south east asian dessert pulut hitam, you are not too far off the mark. The rice is indeed the same variant of those used in the making of the sweet, coconuty dessert, but instead of finding it on the menu of a Malaysian restaurant, right below bubur chacha, Yanru and I found the black rice sharing a bowl with a variety of rice-toppers in a cheap and shabbily cool restaurant in the hipster-infested area of Nolita. Besides black rice, which we suspect was also cooked in coconut milk, the restaurant features about half a dozen or more other types of plain and flavored rice, from japanese to basmati, and even to one dish flecked with cilantro, parsley and spinach.The rice-toppers, from curries to ratatouille, to surprisingly hefty tofu balls drenched in a fiery sauce weren't bad either. Prices are very reasonable, and we walked out paying less than $10 with tax and tips. Rice the restaurant, attempts to make the act of rice-eating new and fresh, and even an old fogey like me, who likes her standard jasmine rice chinese takeout style, with a slight al dente texture, can't help but have to try something new. But if you are not willing to try, there will always be jasmine rice.

Rice
227 Mott St (Bet. Spring & Prince St)

Daisy May's

The pig gig, as with any semi-important thing in life, like buying an air ticket, requires a certain level of commitment. First, you must be curious and eager enough to fork out $400, non-refundable, for the whole pig (because why go for half if you can get the whole thing?) at least 2 days in advance. Next, you have to assemble the crew of 12-15 friendly pork eaters to share your meal, and cajol/beg/threaten them not to ditch you at the last minute. But once you've followed through, you will, as I had last night, enjoy a close encounter with Mr. Pig, and make a really fine meal out of it.
Daisy May's operated only as a take-out counter and a couple of food carts in the city, but they have expanded since to also include a sit down area, which resembles a mess hall more than it does a formal dining room. The service is largely DIY, but that doesn't mean there was no service, as the chefs did their best to keep our raucous bunch happy, fashioning a makeshift bottle opener so that we had access to our beer (they don't have a liquor license, thus we were supposed to bring our own alcohol and corkscrew etc), and carrying out the pig with some sense of solemnity and gravity, as we and the rest of the diners gaped at it.
Now to the pig. To be honest, I was a little let down, thinking that it was going to be bigger than it actually turned out to be. But as we started chomping our way through, it dawned on me that I didn't need a pigger animal. That the suckling pig was deceptively meaty and that none of us would be going home hungry. We started out civilized, picking the meat using tongs, but heck, it was a lot more fun just ripping out the choice cuts with our bare hands (lovingly gloved in latex, to keep us from burning), and we were well acquainted with the different cuts by the end of the meal. The pig's cheeks were lusciously fatty, the loin meaty and the ribs, so perfect, smoky and so good to chew on. So good in fact, that we couldn't help but gnaw on it until the last drippy drop of meat juice had been sucked out. The sides were awesome too, from the tangy slaw, to the bacon-laden beans and the outrageously sweet watermelon that served as dessert. The evening was a resounding success, aided by liberal consumption of beer no doubt, and I have no experienced a night of corporate cheeriness in a while. Let it be known that eating pork boosts office morale!
I must admit the meal isn't for the faint of heart, there were definitely people who looked a tad green in the beginning, and the restaurant does serve the pig headless, under request and heavy duress to accomodate diners. But I mean, seeing the head is part of the experience! But if you are really squeamish, don't sit facing it! That works too =)

Daisy May's
623 11th Ave (corner of 46th)

Hiroko's Place - when the japanese flip burgers

This probably sounds like a travesty on a classic american dish, but my favorite hamburger is bunless, tomato-less and lettuce-free. It instead comes with an egg, fried sunny side up, and topped with a good ladle of bolognese sauce. And a big plate of rice on the side provides the diner with the necessary carbohydrates. The hamburger I've just described is a Japanese take on the good old burger that defines Americana, and is as, if not more satisfying than the original, especially on a chilly and gray weekend afternoon. It is a mushy, meaty, carb-laden meal that works miracles at kicking start one's urges to take an afternoon nap, again, the perfect rainy day activity.
I had my plate of hamburg rice at Hiroko's Place in SoHo, which also serves coffee brewed in the siphon method. Other food items include Omu-raisu (literally omelette rice, or fried rice wrapped in an omelette), spaghetti with shitake mushroom and taroko roe, and hot dogs ala nihon, which looked and tasted like regular hotdogs and were not as satisfying as those from Gray's Papaya. The dishes are mainly conventional japanese-western food, and simply cooked, but had a very home-cooked quality to it that made it comforting to eat. The comfortable sitting, dim lighting and 2 bookcases filled with magazines and japanese manga in the restaurant also gave it a lived-in look. As though as you were visiting a slightly kooky but well-loved aunt (the ones that wore fringed skirts, were constant travellers and part-time tea-readers) and lounging on her green polyester couch, waiting for the sleeping bug to kick in after a heavy, comforting home-cooked meal. A blissful venture indeed.

Hiroko's Place
75 Thompson St (bet Spring & Broome)

Barbes

In an attempt to break out of our chinatown rut and try something different, my friday evening dining companions and I made our way 10 blocks south of the office to Barbes, a french moroccan restaurant at Murray Hill. While the restaurant was crowded on a weekday during lunchtime when I last walked past it, the dune colored dining room was only half full when we walked in at 630 on a friday evening. However, the crowd grew larger as the night went on, and so did the chatter and clatter of the plates. Still, the tables were nicely spaced and the huge palm tree that sat squarely in the middle of the room (and next to our table) gave us a semblance of some privacy and probably acted as a noise buffer, or buffer others from the noise we four loud females were making.
While a few dishes showed signs of french inflection, the menu is largely focused on traditional moroccan items, namely tagines (hearty stews in a moroccan clay pot) and couscous (semolina grains. semolina is also the main ingredient for pasta, and therefore some people identify couscous as a type of pasta) . And since neither ying nor rosie had not had moroccan food before, and it is harder to find compared to french cusine for sure, all 4 of us ordered either one or the other dish. We also ordered a very french, and very good duck confit salad to share. The composition was an amalgation of well balanced flavors, with the salty and earthy duck blending extremely well with the mild lentils and the sharp and peppery mesclun and the sweet roasted beets.
Unfortunately, the moroccan entrees did not fare as well. The couscous were well cooked and non soggy, although a little lacking in sale. However, the meats that came with the couscous, grilled or stewed, were all overcooked. Grilled chicken breast on top of a plate of couscous dressed up with plump golden raisins were stringy. And the lamb in the tagine was too tough and underseasoned, despite the best efforts of the prunes in the same dish to provide some seasoning and taste. The tagine unveiling ceremony was however, very impressive. So points for that. The fish tagine in a spicy tomato stew happened to be the best entree that evening, but the favorable impressions was marred when Ying ate a spoonfull of clay. When questioned about it, the servers explained that the pot might have chipped because she had dug into the pot too vigorously. But points still go towards the service, as the servers were pretty apologetic about the mishap and the overall service was attentive and prompt.
We surveyed the dessert menu afterwards and found the offerings of about half a dozen french based desserts perfunctory at best. Still, we ordered a molten chocolate cake (mistakenly advertised as chocolate souffle to us) which was pretty standard.
In the end, we had a really enjoyable dinner. However, it was more a function of the boisterous conversation and the enjoyment of each other's company, and food unfortunately, played second fiddle.

Barbes
19 E36th St (At Madison Ave)

NB: My pictures of the tagines did not come out properly so i filched a picture online. Ignore the gnome =p

Serendipity 3

After 2 years and multiple tries, I finally made it into Serendipity 3, the famous ice-cream parlor made even more popular by the ill-fated, bland (un)romantic movie with the same name minus the number 3 (Why John Cusack? Why?) The "general store" in its late-afternoon glory

After a 30 minutes wait on a Tuesday afternoon, instead of the usual 2 hr wait during the weekends, we entered the dining room, dimly lit by tiffany lamps and adorned in that haphazard manner, romantic enough for lovers and quirky enough to appeal to children, the two group of diners largely responsible for the crazy lines. And for both groups, the place is perfect for an afternoon snack, a romantic jaunt, or for dessert after a hard day of shopping at Bloomingdales. For other diners, the place might not be worth the wait.
We had the signature frozen hot chocolate, an oxymoron in any case and a disappointment if you were counting on getting a drink both chilly and boiling hot at the same time. However, the huge bowl of frozen chocolate ice, topped with a big dollop of whipped cream and shaved chocolate was still refreshing and while expensive, was not exhorbitant in the city. Throw in the quaintness found in the cool recesses of the room and the hype at dining in one of the most popular restaurant/cafe/ice-cream parlor in the city, $8.50 is not such a bad deal after all.

Serendipity 3
225 E 60th St

The Chinatowns

Three consecutive meals at three different Chinatowns (two in NY, one in Boston) later, I've come to the conclusion that if you can stomach 1) a little bit of attitude from the servers, 2) sitting with others on the same table and 3) the insanity that’s called parking in Chinatown, you most definitely be able to find some excellent grub at hit me its so dirt cheap rock bottom prices. And have money to spare to eat dessert too!
Anyway, P and I hit Boston's Chinatown for Sunday brunch and both of us remembered a taiwanese restaurant (uncreatively named Taiwan Cafe) which we had been to and really liked 3 summers ago when visiting a friend at MIT. So we had the signature pork chop rice, not very suitable at 11 am, but very satisfying, with a huge pork chop deep fried in star anise-spiked batter laying atop a huge mound of rice, which was in turn drenched with dark, sweet and salty meat sauce. The plate of the rice also came with a hard boiled egg cooked in soy sauce and some pickled vegetables which helped balance the oily factor. We washed down the rice with a fresh bowl of sweet soy milk served in a bowl and picked up another plate of fried vermicelli, once again topped in the tasty meat sauce and also a big roll of baked chinese dough （烧饼）All that for under $15 bucks with a hefty tip!And the leftover dough served us well as an afternoon snack while stuck in traffic too! Parking was a crazy affair however, with hungry chinese eaters double parking, placing cars blatantly next to the fire hydrants etc, so if we do ever go back, we'll be taking the metro.
Almost 10 hours after our foray into Boston's ctown, we landed in Flushing, Queens. This time we headd to Shanghai Tide for what else? shanghainese food, including a steamer full of soup dumplings, which, while competently made did not wow us. We also had 2 not tt memorable dishes and a bowl of spicy dan dan noodle that stole the show. Its amazing how good a little bit of minced pork and a lot of chili oil mixed together with handfuls of scallions can taste. While we were there, we observed the bulk of the diners actually eating hotpot, which while did not seem like the best summer dish to us, was indeed a huge bargain, as $18.95 yielded an all you can eat buffet and as much beer you can drink. Again, we spent no more than $25 dollars, tips included. We blew the remainder of our cash on cantonese desserts at Sweet & Tart Cafe, where we had a hit in the doubled boiled ginger egg custard （姜汁炖奶）and a miss in the classic green bean soup （绿豆汤）. Still at $6 dollars, the entire tab cost less than a frozen hot chocolate in a certain Manhattan eatery, which while satisfying, is definitely not worth its price.
Chinatown #3 is our very own sprawling Manhattan version, where littered amongst some serious duds like the (un)Yummy Noodles are several more worthy restaurants. We discovered a newfound favorite in Great NY Noodletown, where the minced beef congee is up to discerning standards, and the portions for the wonton soup are huge, with more than half a dozen wontons, all swollen with fresh, succulent shrimp. We liked that place so much we were there three times (once we didn't get seats because it was so darn crowded) in less than 2 weeks. Talk about an obsession. We ended our mad eating session that day with a superlative bowl of sweeten silken tofu (豆腐花) for a princely sum of $1 from Kong Kee Food Corp. This made our total lunch expense that day $10 including tips! Slap me now, I'm giddy with the realization that I fed me and my bf for the same cost of a salad in midtown! How much less I would be spending if the office was closer to ctown =(

Taiwan Cafe (34 Oxford St, Boston)
Shanghai Tide (135-20 40th Rd, Flushing)
Sweet & Tart Cafe (13611 38th Ave, Flushing)
Great NY Noodletown (28 Bowery, NY)
Kong Kee Food Corp (240 Grand Street)

When in Maine, eat seafood

Before you leave on a holiday to Maine, which unabashedly proclaims itself as the vacationland of USA on its license plates, consider this: make sure everyone on the trip enjoys eating seafood. Any partiality towards fried food is also very welcome. Seafood, largely fried, sometimes boiled, but always served alongside wickedly good french fries fueled our traipse through the beautiful Maine coastlines and Acadia National Park. Fortunately, we love seafood, and were determined to try everything Maine is famous for, including lobster in any permutation, fried seafood of all kinds and wild blueberries, fresh, in compote, pies, soda and even beer.
We began our education on Maine seafood the moment we crossed the stateline, leaving the highway via Exit no. 3 towards Kittery. There, nestled in the midst of several factory outlet malls is Bob's Clam Hut, a classic New England fry shack famous for what else? clams, and the in-season lobster roll. At 1pm, there was a long line at the place, with shoppers and roadtrippers eager to nosh on some good lunch. We grabbed a lobster roll and fried haddock and sat in the picnic area behind the shack. While the backsides of outlet malls didn't exactly provide much scenery, that also meant we weren't paying for ambience and every dollar spent was going towards the succulent lobster meat binded very lightly in mayo and the freshest bits of fish we have eated in a while.
Next stop, Mount Desert Island, where we stayed for two nights at the Hearthside Inn and made our way on the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest peak in eastern US, and invariably ate more seafood. Our dinners were classic Maine experiences, the lobster bake, complete with steamed clams, corn on the cob, clam chowder, lobsters and a lot of drawn butter. Slices of freshly made blueberry pie completed the artery clogging meals both times, once at Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound, where we shared a table with two men travelling on their RV from California to Canada, and Stewman Pounds, a tourist trap on the water in Bar Harbor, which surprisingly served up a really tasty and large lobster for very little moolah, courtesy of the 4-6 pm early bird dinner special =p At Ben & Bill's ice cream and fudge shoppe, we saw an interesting ice cream flavor, the lobster flavor, made with fresh vanilla icecream and real lobster chunks. Unfortunately, I was too chicken to try it. For those with unadventurous palates like me, they do serve conventional flavors, including a wild sounding moose droppings flavor, which was actually just malt balls mooshed in chocolate icecream. Nothing quite extreme at all =p
After bidding our goodbyes to Bar Harbor in all its picturesque glory, and to the yummy breakfasts our host Barry and Susan prepared, including blueberry pancakes (yep, we just couldn't get enough of blueberries), we made a stop to the Kennebunks to catch a glimpse of a lighthouse and some fried clam strips at

in Kennebunkport. Chewy, briny and coated with a crunchy batter, they sure made it easier to say goodbye to Maine, where the water's clearer, and air crisper and the skies are bluer anyday.

Luckys Famous Burgers

You know there can't be too many worthy burgers to be eaten in Singapore when Carl's Junior is the most serious contender. Hence, I entertain my boyfriend's whims to eat burgers (as with creme brulee and too many bowls of onion soup) with minimal persuasion, or coercion involved. Also, I was interested in checking out Lucky's, a somewhat new burger place 2 blocks from home, and so we went.
While Lucky's was pretty busy on a weekend afternoon the last time I passed by, the sitting area was relatively empty and customer-free. We were a little skeptical, but got past that quickly, ordered our food at the counter and sat down on the uncomfortable and very bright chairs. While waiting, the 3 plasma screens mounted on orange walls provided us with entertainment in the form of tonight's Yankees game. Besides the plasma screen, there wasn't anything else to distract you from your burger, or the bright walls or bright furniture so flourescent that they bordered on being clinically deranged.
I had the standard cheese burger while the bf went upscale and ordered the swiss cheese and mushroom burger for $2 more. We also ordered an order of crinkled fries to share, which at $3 was not a great deal, but I don't care coz what is a burger without fries? Also, the fries were fantastic with the spicy "lucky" sauce that was served alongside it. The burger was not too charred and was juicy enough, enough though slightly more cooked than I normally like my burgers. P's burger was less well received however, as the cheese was not melted enough and the mushrooms were a little underseasoned... We also bought a burger and some humongous onion rings back for my sister, who was blase about her burger as well. I think burgers don't travel well, that's why. Nevertheless, a good burger in the neighborhood in my humble opinion, in a psychotically cheerful environment. I would go back.

Lucky's Famous Burgers
52nd st, bet 8th & 9th Ave

Bouchon Bakery

I make a trip to the mall every Sunday at 10:30 am. I'm not quite the only person in the mall at 10:30 am. The shop assistants are dressing up the mannequins; the early grocery shoppers are taking the escalator down to whole foods to buy their sunday supper; the tourists, always early birds have just finished their walk through central park and are enjoying the cool respite of the air-conditioning. And I, without having to jostle my way through the crowd unlike any other time of the day make my way to the third floor, to Bouchon Bakery's take out counter. So far, I've had a good brioche and sticky bun, an eh macaroon and great croissant and a pain au raisins. I'm crazy about the raisin croissant in particular, sweet, sticky, flaky, chewy... Sometimes i bring a book to read, and other times I pretend to do some work, but really, I am there to drink my coffee and munch on my pastry, and watch life pass by as I enjoy some alone time in a mall, being anonymous in the city, just before the usual humdrum sets in. How sweet are the weekends...

Bouchon Bakery
10 Columbus Circle, 3rd Floor

Sakagura

Eel encased in Tamago
The persistent rain and Ying's tight schedule ruined our plans to have Asian tapas down in LES, so we decided to pursue small plates of a different sort at Sakagura, which came to our attention by way of a NY Times article and Yanru's Japanese salesperson acquaintance's recommendation. Sakagura is known in the city as a place for sake, but even if you are not a fan of sake (we weren't), it still makes for a great spot for authentic, non-sushi (as advertised by the restaurant's website) Japanese grub in an unpretensious, but un-ghetto like underground restaurant.
For the uninitiated, Sakagura can be tricky to find, as it is stuck in the basement of an undistinguished office building in midtown. It did not help that google maps was playing tricks on me and gave me a wrong location. But no matter, we soon got to the address, and after walking down a scary looking flight of stairs into the basement, we soon found ourselves in a clean and cavernous space, nothing like the dank and narrow staircase that led us to it seem to suggest. The room was dimly lit, but not so dark you cannot see your food, and while suitable for rambunctious groups, was quite enough so that pairs and trios of diners will find it easy enough to conduct civilised conversation as well.
The food comes in small plates, well-priced under $10. Our server recommended that we each picked 3 plates, but a better suggestion might be to start with 2 each and work your way through the drinks and dishes before ordering more. We ended up with 8 dishes, including a dessert and that made for a filling meal already.
The NY Times likened Sakagura to a pub, but as with everything Japanese, the food was just daintier, prettier and tastier. We had a range of dishes, from the raw fluke sashimi served with ponzu sauce, to the heartier meat dishes like the chunky 4 sq inches of BUTA KAKUNI (fatty pork belly simmered in a soy and sugar sauce) and shredded beef ribs slow-cooked in a flavorful broth and served with a generous lump of shredded daikon. The Japanese omelette is familiar to everyone who eats cooked sushi, but comes with a twist, or a sliver of broiled eel folded in the middle. The deep fried dishes were also well executed. The tori-kaarage was moist and the marinade smelled wonderfully gingery, and the shrimp balls were soft and almond slices encasing it provided a good crunch. Personally though, i thought the almond could have been better served if it had been crushed into smaller pieces instead. The salmon ochazuke (rice in broth, topped with a slice of poached salmon) closed the savory part of the meal, simple and austere, cleansing the sweet, tart, salty flavors off our tongues with the tea broth. While simple and non-too original, we felt comforted by the home-style food, dishes a Japanese mum with a deft hand at seasoning would make for her brood, and dishes we wished we could make at home, with a little more care and a little bit more time on our hands.
Of course we had dessert... We shared a pear mille feuille, which was presented as a sandwich, only that the puff pastry contained more butter than any pullman loaf you've eaten, and the filling was soft pear poached in simple syrup, served with a dollop of cold creamy custard. The mille feuille was served with a scoop of houji icecream that alternated between sweet and bitter. Yummy.
Since sake was the name of the game, we also tried a flight of 3 sakes and reaffirmed our conviction that sake was not our poison of choice. However, alcohol does tend to make us chattier so we sat and talked for almost and hour after the meal was complete and our bill was paid for. And there was never a rush to check for the bill nor did the servers shoot us disapproving looks the whole time. This restaurant is a keeper.

Sakagura
211 E43rd St, B1 (Bet 2nd & 3rd Ave)

Chocolate Haven

Trust the French to call a less than healthy obsession on haute chocolaterie "un péché mignon", or an adorable sin. Well, adorable or not, I do have a pretty big sweet tooth, and an appreciation for good chocolate. Thank goodness I live in New York, the land of $5 chocolate bars and gourmet chocolate shoppes, ranging from artisanal local names like Kee's to conglomeratized mega- brands such as Fauchon and La Maison du Chocolate. Chocolate Haven sits in the middle of the spectrum, a large enough enterprise to have 2 factories and a website selling a whole gamut of cocoa-loaded goodies and a celebrity chocolatier at the helm, but still small and localized enough to be quintessentially New York.
Chocolate Haven's owner is Jacque Torres, dessert wunderkind and ex-dessert chef at the legendary Le Cirque. Besides all those titles, he has also been called the city's Willy Wonka and in his shop/factory down on Hudson Street, I could see why. Instead of the austere decor in La Maison du Chocolate, the walls within Chocolate Haven are painted in vibrant reds and oranges. The servers (aka. Jacque's Oompa Loompas) were likewise dressed in bright reds, greens and yellow tops and all wore weird multicolored braided headdress of sorts, as though as they were wrongly transplanted in the greyish cityscape, and should have been in a tropical rainforest instead.
Some things to try while in the shop are the signature hot chocolate (in the normal and wicked version, wicked being spiced i think); the chocolate truffles and the chocolate chip cookies, and during the hot summer months, the decadent cookies and icecream, in the form of an ice-cream sandwich. And if you are looking for some more durable gifts, the chocolate bars, as well as the bags of chocolate dipped sweets, ranging from marshmallows to expresso beans to malt balls. While not as blatantly New York as bagels and pretzels, these chocolates make an equally worthy food present from the Big Apple.

Chocolate Haven
350 Hudson St

The 7 train and Cantonese food

There is something about the 7 train that I find utterly charming. It could be the fact that it hurtles through the railway tracks at breakneck speed, as though the train drivers are paid according to how fast they drive, or that it rumbles unapologetically throughout the entire trip to finally spit its passengers out into the heart of mainland china. In any case, for manhattanites smittened with teochew duck and taiwanese oyster omelettes, you would have to endure the slightly painful journey via the 7 train to get to Flushing to get to those local delicacies.

Cantonese food, however is another matter. Manhattan's Chinatown is the stronghold for early chinese immigrants who hailed from Hong Kong and Guangzhou, and consequently, there is no lack of decent cantonese restaurants on the island, from the hole-in-the wall Hong Kong style cafes to large banquet restaurants. In fact, Ruoying and I had enjoyed a really enjoyable and dirt-cheap lunch at New Wonton Garden just the other day.

Ruoying's ordered the namesake wonton noodles with charsiew and the wontons were plump and juicy while the egg noodles had just the right elasticity to it. My beef brisket with hor fun was equally impressive and I slurped up every single drop of the flavorful beef broth, no doubt boiled for long hours over slow heat in a pot that probably gets a good scrub once every 5 years.

Given the ample supply of fair to good cantonese restaurants in the city, it would seem strange that we chose to eat at a Cantonese restaurant for dinner at Flushing last night. It was less a conscious decision but more a result borne out of a series of happy accidents yesterday:
1. First deciding to go to Flushing for dinner after finding out that taking the E train followed by a transfer on the 7 train would cut travelling time by 15 mins (after 1 yr, me and the subway system still don't get along)
2. Getting there for free, after a tourist who was going home but still had money in his metrocard kindly offered his card, with the remaining value to the first person he saw in the station (me!)
3. Choosing the restaurant by getting lost in Queens and finally stumbling onto prince street, then marching into the restaurant based on the crowd of old folks and their kids standing impatiently outside, without any notion about cuisine they served. We figured that if the cantonese grandpas and grandmas can stomach the wait outside, in a not so cool night, to eat here, so could we. It was only after we had stepped out of the restaurant at the conclusion of a great meal that we discovered, located on the old-fashioned red awnings, are 2 capitalized words "Canton Gourmet".
But what an awesome meal it was! Between my sister and I, we had garlic stir-fried spinach, less oily and light on the seasoning that several other versions we have had in other restaurants; a fine steamed chicken boldly flavored with a viscous ginger sauce and some unidentifiable chinese herbs; and a plate of sweet and succulent shrimp, deep fried with the lightest coat of batter and then flash fried with a mixture of minced shallots, ginger, garlic, scallions and dried red peppers. YUM...And once again, we left wondering, "how do the chinese restaurateurs manage to make a profit by charging us so little?" Our only regret was not coming out to Flushing with a couple more people, so that we could try more dishes, such as the goose web casserole; the cereal crab, which was a house specialty and really great looking steamed fish, whereby the patrons get to choose the fish from the big tanks adorning an entire wall and then elect the way they want it cooked. Well, another time, another meal, another subway ride...

New Wonton Garden
56 Mott St (at Bayard St)

Canton Gourmet
38-08 Prince St, Flushing

HK

A couple thoughts about my dinner at HK, a more upscale version of the neighborhood diner, with a fun vibe and decent prices a few days ago:
1. While HK is understandably an acronym for Hell's Kitchen, where the restaurant is situated, HK is more known as the acronym for Hong Kong. This led to many confused dinner companions, who called to ask "where are we eating again? wok and roll?"
2. Despite reading dire warnings about the service (or lack of one), the servers were surprisingly prompt at refilling our glasses and very nice about sending some bread our way. But isn't bread something restaurants dole out for free anyway?
3. The vibe is cool and youngish, and the decor sparse but in a good way. Just a little incongruous with the rest of the block and the whole area surrounding the Port Authority, but that's not their fault i guess.
4. "The attack of the loudmouths" was the soundtrack of the night, or at least the first half of the evening. A group of diners sitting at the back of the room was talking and chortling so loudly that we seriously contemplated leaving the restaurant. I hope they aren't regulars so the sake of the rest of the diners' sanity.
5. The fried calamari was really hot, chewy and crunchy. The entrees were less noteworthy, but fairly decent for the neighborhood. My chicken paillard was on the dry side, while gerrie's pasta was too creamy. The sandwiches weren't bad though.
6. Other considerations: HK serves up a mean brunch, and is worth a visit especially if you are planning to explore the flea market next to it after lunch.

HK
523 9th Ave (bet 38th and 39th St)

Jiannetto's Pizza & Sullivan Street Bakery

I had two slices of oddly shaped pizza this past week, one from Jiannetto's pizza truck in Midtown and the other from Sullivan Street Bakery. Both were squarish, cut from oblong strips of dough. Call me a traditionalist, but I like my pies nice and round, with a clear delineation between the crust and the sauce and toppings. The shape of the pies aside, I enjoyed both square offerings, Jiannetto's plain pizza, which is baked on location (inside a customized truck) , and topped with fresh tomato sauce, basil and minimal parmesan cheese, is a much healthier option for pizza compared to other midtown options. At $2.25 a slice, it also makes for a frugal lunch, although one slice is seldom filling enough for a person.
While Janetto's pizza is a just square version of the usual neapolitan pizza, to call Sullivan Street Bakery's pizza bianca pizza is quite misleading to one accustomed to the usual pizza pie. It should be called bread on crack or something. The bakers at Sullivan Street Bakery are geniuses for coming up with the chewiest, tastiest bread i have ever had. Pizza bianca is somewhat akin to flatbread, just slightly oily, studded with rosemary and a good sprinkling of salt. It is also oh so fragrant that I can finish a huge slice by myself just walking from the bakery back home, a short 2 avenue blocks away. It has become a saturday tradition to go to the gym in the morning, and then run to the bakery and reward myself with a slice of pizza bianca, which with all the carbs and fats probably about 5423 calories per gigantic slice, but I don't care.
I have also tried their pizza pomodoro to comparisons sake. Sadly I didn't enjoy it that much. After tearing through slices and slices of amazingly tasty pizza bianca, I found the smaller, thinner, tomato-puree encased slice to be too crunchy and a little unwhelming. At $2.75 a slice, I could get almost 2 slices of pizza bianca ($1.50) for the same price. I would take that option any day, and even if they upped the prices, I think I will still find myself jogging over to the bakery faithfully every saturday for the slice to kickstart my weekend.

Jiannetto's pizza truck
47th St and Park Ave

Sullivan Street Bakery
533 W47th St (Between 10th and 11th Ave)

Brasserie LCB

2 days since my dinner at Brasserie LCB and I am still reeling from dinner. Was I reeling from the thick gooeyness of the french onion soup? Or the creamy unctuousness of the foie gras terrine? Or was it the perfectly light grand marnier souffle served with a rich creme anglais that concluded our satisfying meal? Perhaps it was the polished service or the lively dinner conservation with a bunch of loud and fun friends...


Sadly, it was the price of my entree, a plate of dover sole meuneire, an entree that was priced to market. Was it good? Sure, the flesh was delectably fresh, the fish being lightly dredged in flour and fried, served with some unmemorable greens and a very fall-like sweet potato puree. But was it worth the price? At $45, a resolute no. Especially when most of the other entrees on the menu was well within the $20-30 bracket and the grilled salmon served on a bed of sauerkraut that katy had enjoyed was only $23, half what I had paid for my more "exotic" fish. I could have had lobster for $10 less. Why is sole so expensive beats me. Ah well, serves me right for not checking the prices before hand....
Despite the sticker shock, the restaurant, with its very old-world charm (with mainly septuagenarians as diners to boot), solidly executed traditional dishes ( the older-fashioned the dish, the better) and amazing souffles is still a pretty decent choice for a night of slightly expensive french fare. Just be sure, as with everywhere else you go, to ask for the prices of specials or be subject to ordering something that could eventually be too much to stomach.

Brasserie LCB Rachou
60th W55th St (Bet 5th and 6th Ave)