Mesa Grill

My sis and I are avid watchers of Food Network shows. She is particularly tickled by this show called Throwdown with Bobby Flay, where Flay, a big name chef in the New York food scene basically travels around the country challenging amateur/professional cooks on their specialties, and loses, most of the time, spectacularly. Intrigued by his celebrity and skeptical about his cooking skills we like other celebrity chef collectors decided to vist Mesa Grill to taste his brand of Southwest American cuisine.
The restaurant was large, airy, with brightly colored walls to evoke the Southwestern style. The burgundy banquette with printed cowboys provided the kitsch factor. The food in general was good. In fact, the bread basket, filled with a variety of sweet and savory baked goods and redundant chili relish was rather tasty. I couldn't get enough of the mini jalapeno puffs, glistening with butter as I pulled them apart. Ruoying on the other hand found the raisin scones just as buttery and irresistible. Cornbread and a pecan/cranberry bread rounded up the sinful quartet.
The entrees were spicy, thanks to the liberal addition of jalapenos. A pair of poached eggs on sweet potato and chicken hash was a riff on classic eggs benedict. The hash, studded with jalapenos was sweet, salty, and spicy at the same time, but a little deficient on the chicken. I preferred Ruoying's omelette to my hash however. I found out that goat cheese tastes really good with eggs, and also neutralizes the piquantness of fresh sliced peppers. Two hefty slices of ham accompanied the eggs, glazed with a sweet apricot sauce and tasted like jerky. Biscuits that were meltingly buttery and fluffy completed the plate. The portions were generous to the point of huge, with my mounds of sweet potato hash seemingly self-regenerative. No matter how hard I worked at it, it remained largely intact.
As we left the restaurant, we spotted some cookbooks, signed by Mr Flay on display for sale next to the hostess stand. I am sure, many of our fellow diners like us are drawn to Mesa Grill by the celebrity factor. There's not quite as much drama at the restaurant as compared to Throwdown, but at Mesa Grill, at least you are assured that the food is tasty.

Mesa Grill
102 5th Avenue
www.mesagrill.com

Forte Baden Baden

Thanks to a couple of influential reviews, KFC now stands for Korean Fried Chicken in the city. New York Times featured the dish in a recent review, calling the chicken
moist with "crackling crisp skin". While Paul was in town, Gerrie and I visited Forte Baden Baden, a pub in Ktown and purveyor of the said dish to test these claims.
The golden bird, first roasted to seal in the juices and then deep fried came in a huge platter for $19.95, looking extremely delectable. It was accompanied by thick fries and a bowl of sweet and munchable pickled radish. A pair of squirt bottles housed ketchup and chilli sauce for people looking for more flavor. We bit into the chicken, waiting to
crown the Koreans masters of the deep fat fryer. The meat was juicy while the batter free skin was paper crisp. But there was no revelatory moment. In fact, we three had been eating chicken fried in this or in a very similar way all our lives. Any decent Cantonese restaurant would feature this dish, sometimes with garlic, sometimes without. Congee Village down in Chinatown does it well, as do Ping's with its mini quail version.
Aside from the mild disappointment experienced from eating something familiar (we had expected somewhat unrealistically in hindsight, that Korean chicken would have a more bombastic taste), we enjoyed ourselves immensely in the darkened room eating, besides the chicken a fiery dish of stir-fried octopus and vegetables, crimson from chili paste resting atop a bed of udon. In the darkened room fashioned like any other pub in the city, we washed the gut-sticking food down with beer, giggled at the servers' faux military garb and ate heartily. While the chicken at Baden Baden does not displace chicken at KFC in our mental ranking of best chicken tasted (there is something disturbingly comforting at eating commercially fried chicken from a tub), we enjoyed the alternative pub experience at Baden Baden and will recommend it to anyone looking for something more substantial than fries and onion rings to go with their beer.


Restaurant Forte Baden Baden
28 West 32nd St (5th and 6th Aves)
(212) 714-2266

B&G Oysters

Being a solo traveller often means dining alone. And while I'm fine doing that at lunchtime, dinner is another matter. For one, its quite acceptable to be eating alone at noon. Afterall, no one makes plans for lunch. But dinner, well. To put it bluntly, unless you're eating at the hotel dining room, you'll probably stick out like a sore thumb, a single diner in the midst of canoodling couples in popular restaurants in every city. I get stressed out eating alone and given the choice, would rather stay at home for a homecooked meal.

Unfortunately, I was on my own at a conference this week in Boston, and was not going to settle for inedible room service. An inquiry with the concierge led to my walk across the Back Bay area on a deliciously warm evening to B&G oysters, a seafood restaurant/bar built for solo diners. The open kitchen and surrounding marble bar dominates the long and narrow room and the bar seats offer a good view of the happenings in the cooking area, the calculated shucking of the oysters, the opening of wine bottles, the feverish pace which the chef kept, prepping 5 dishes at once. My server was helpful and knowledgeable but never overbearing and steered me into a few oysters from about a dozen other choices to start. She picked her favorites from the local region (no west coast oysters that day) and the Island Creek oysters from Massachusetts did not disappoint, pristine and plump, sweet and slippery. The only one I didn't enjoy as much is the better known blue point oyster, which was a little chewy. I judiciously stopped at 3, but looked enviously on at another diner three seats away who ordered a dozen for himself, just for starters, before proceeding to order a "real" appetizer and a main course.

I selected the spicy clam stew from a dozen or so entrees as my main course and watched while the chef prepared my meal. In a few frenzied motions, no spare movements wasted, he sauteed the onions, tomato and garlic rapidly, fried the chorizo, added the clams, poured in the broth and served the stew in the instant the clams opened up. The littleneck clams were chewy and amazingly sweet, pairing up well with spicy chorizo, pungent scallions and crunchy crostini that I dunked repeatedly into the stew. As I ate I could just imagine how wonderful the clams would have tasted, raw and dressed with a spritz of lemon. Unfortunately, the clam dish is too popular and the restaurant seldom has extra that they can sell on the half-shell, but they would be happy to do so if available. An ice cold beer to wash everything down followed and I spent a few happy minutes chatting with my server, discussing her favorite dishes and observing the crowd in the room. While pairs and trios made up most of the clientele, there were others like me, eating contentedly, happy to be alone.

B&G Oysters

550 Tremont St, Boston MA 02118

JoJo

Ruoying was in New York again, this time in transit for a few days before she starts her internship in Atlanta. To celebrate the end of another school year for her, a nice dinner was in the order. Ruoying loves beautiful interior design, atmospheric spaces (she goes to disneyland to bask in corporate happiness) and is our family's final arbiter of all things stylish. And after struggling between the "tres paris" brasserie Balthazar and the jewelbox JoJo, I went for the latter.
The food at JoJo is very enjoyable, and similar to what Ruoying and I had at Nougatine, another Jean Georges Vongerichten's restaurant. Ruoying's duck entree married two concepts Jean Georges is particularly known for, light modern french cooking with an Asian accent. Her dish paired gamey tasting, perfectly medium rare slices of duck breast with a spring roll of duck, golden brown and redolent of chinese five spice and shitake mushroom. Given the chef's french roots, certain dishes had a decidedly french flair. The fries for one were fresh, crispy and well salted. My roasted chicken with its crispy skin and wonderfully moist meat sat in a gentle ginger broth, but was more Provencal than Asian with the addition of green olives and preserved lemon rind. The chickpea fries (tastes like hummus, shaped like french toast strips and textured like fried polenta) indicated an homage to the Mediterranean, was a tasty side but a little dense. Jean Georges has been credited with the creation and popularization of the now ubiquitous molten chocolate cake. Paired with a scoop of vanilla bean icecream, this is one most mundane dessert. However, JoJo's version is swoon worthy, a small concentrated disk of high quality chocolate, with the velvet softness of the cake in contrast with the warm ooze of molten chocolate playing at the tip of one's tongue.

After hearing all about the intimate boudoir-ish decor and superior atmosphere, we were a little let down to find JoJo's interior, with its mini chandeliers, deep velvet banquettes and heavy brocade drapings a little too precious, a little too dated. A great date place for couples it with have been, with flattering dim lighting and a mostly soothing atmosphere, if not for the cramped seating and awkward positioning of all the two tops in the restaurant. I tried and did not find a table for two that offered enough privacy for a romantic tete-a-tete. I had requested for a table for two on the charming and slightly brighter upstairs dining room, but was given a makeshift table (possibly a picnic table moved upstairs just to accomodate by request) placed along the staircase, with Ruoying knocking on the potted plants behind her everytime she moved her seat. We quickly requested a change of tables and were then seated on the banquette downstairs. They were comfortable if not still very cramp and served our purposes, but the placing is set so strangely that we were not seated across each other but next to each other in a right angle. I ended up staring at the diner on the next table everytime I lifted my head from the dishes. Fine by me, but I bet he was hoping to be looking at his wife instead of an stranger for a good 2 hours.

The seating arrangements however made it easy for us to conduct a conversation with the couple next to us, and the lady who was celebrating her birthday with her husband sidled next to us, to say somewhat conspiratorially that we were the two youngest tables in the room. We concurred despite the fact that she must have been at least 10 years older than the both of us, because the rest of the diners were slightly older, and we spotted a table of sprightly octagenarians celebrating their friendship in a table nearby. But in no way did I feel mistreated for being too young, and for the price, which is very reasonable (entrees ~ $20-30) for new york standards and on par with hipper downtown joints, the food was certainly a notch better.

Will I be back? Probably for the cake, and certainly before I turn 65.

JoJo

160 E64th St (Park & Lexington Ave)

(212) 223-5656

Union Square Cafe

Last Sunday Dawn and I dined at Union Square Cafe to investigate the reasons why it is one of the toughest reservation to score in a city filled with tough reservations, and how it has managed to stay atop the Zagat's most popular list for over a decade in a city where a new restaurant is born every 2 hours.
The place: For a place that charged so much, I was certainly expecting a much plusher setting instead of the slightly dated room with sloping floors and a tiny bathroom located too close to the main dining area. But as I settled into our table on the narrow alcove overhanging the main room, laughing heartily at times, sharing food casually with Dawn and peering voyeuristically at the food diners downstairs were eating, I realized that in a room that makes everyday food unique and ordinary events special, there was no room for opulent furnishings and chandeliers.
The savory: A pioneer of the New American bistro since its beginnings in 1985, Union Square Cafe has spawned many copycats. I guess I am spoiled and have been enjoying my fair share of seasonal cuisine and local produce, so while the food was fair, we were not particularly thrilled by the appetizer and entrees. The batter for the frito misto we shared as an appetizer was light and the seafood fresh. My osso buco was tender and the bone marrow a rich spread for good bread but too heavy for me that I brought most of it home. Dawn's duck was tasty, but a little tough and over-salted. Unlike the duo of duck she enjoyed at Cafe Boulud, where she was still waxing lyrical over, its unlikely that she'll remember this duck by next week.
The sweet: Easily the star of the night was the perennial favorite warm banana tart with macadamia brittle and vanilla ice-cream. The alchemy the pastry chef performed on the warm banana encased in the light, barely-there pastry shell, sweet and uncloying vanilla icecream and slightly salted caramel macadamia nuts was pure magic. It was so insanely good that I almost swooned upon my first bite. This humble looking tart is easily the best dessert I've ever had. Our second dish, a baked alaskan with chocolate icecream and served with fresh and candied orange and kumquat slices was unfortunately overshadowed by the extraordinary tart and played second fiddle. Without the tart however, it would have also been a successful dish.
The service: A little slow throughout the whole meal and our server seemed to be very busy with many tables at once. But, Danny Meyer is famous for his dedication towards great service and likewise our server was professional yet friendly and helpful at the same time. I had when making the reservations mentioned that we were celebrating Dawn's college graduation and our server came up to us before the meal to congratulate her. It was such a joy watching Dawn's surprised reaction. As for the icing on the cake, one of our dessert, the baked alaskan was comped, courtesy of the restaurant in commemoration of the happy occasion. It is no wonder the Union Square Cafe is the restaurant people choose to celebrate their special days.
The verdict: The banana tart is enough to bring me back over and over again, but the polished yet personable service makes this a true gem.

Union Square Cafe
21 East 16th St (bet Union Square West and 5th Ave)
http://www.unionsquarecafe.com/

Starstruck at Singapore Day

Sunshine days, tropical heat and snaking lines of hungry eaters. The ingredients that made Singapore Singapore were all present in Central Park on Saturday. In a bid to stir up some patriotism and elicit goodwill amongst the overseas Singaporeans, the government decided to stage an I LOVE SINGAPORE event, with Kit Chan belting out "Home", the requisite VIP GOH speech (the DPM was there. you need to be Singaporean to understand the acronyms) and the stars of the show, hawker/street food.
The lines were a little overwhelming at first, but worked more efficiently that the "line that morphs into a triangle that morphs into a bunched up mess" queue system that happens when one tries to get onto an SBS bus or an MRT train. The food was also very good, since the government managed to pay the best hawkers to close shop for a week and fly halfway across the world with their barang barang, and cook for the priviledged few in NYC and nearby cities for free. The servings weren't generous (they had to feed thousands afterall) but the quality was uniformly good, if not even better than in Singapore. When was the last time you ever got chunks of beef in your prata curry? Dawn, my excitable young cousin happily chomped away on kiliney kaya toast, prata, char kuey teow, chili crab and downed a bowl of peppery bak kut teh in the simmering heat. Pictures of local specialties follow...

Yeo's should make Gerrie and I their new spokespeople... seriously... Walter poses happily

Prata on the griddle. A mundane sight in Singapore, but so exotic in New York


Mr Char Kway Teow showing off his stirfry skills on the oversized wok. Unfortunately Uncle is very law by law.. Flirting did not yield bigger portions

I had much more fun than I initially anticipated, and was hardly guilt-ridden about not studying for my exam on this gorgeous day. The pleasure intensified when I met Calvin Trillin, my favorite food writer and talked to him for a good 5 minutes. Mr Trillin was quietly minding his own business and snooping around the tented areas perhaps seeking respite from the heat when Walt helped me accost him and I just descended on him like a starstruck groupie. And now I know which type of fan I am, not the dumbfounded type but the crazily chatty type that would not let her idol get a word into the conversation. I was trying to impress him with my knowledge of Singapore restaurants in the city but drew a blank, being so excited to see him. After I finally blurted out the location of one of my favorite places, he looked genuinely disappointed and said "i know exactly where you're talking about. But isn't it Malaysian?" and left. Oh god... my one chance in promoting my fair island's cuisine to a man with great appetite and discerning tastes, and all I could do was to tell him to go to a Malaysian restaurant!!! Thankfully he will be eating in Singapore very soon under the watchful guidance of KF Seetoh and hopefully that may redeem our reputation as the street food capital of the world!

Singapore (Malaysian) restaurants in the city to feed that occasional craving:

Sanur (18 Doyers St, only place in Manhattan with Nonya Kueh)
Nonya (194 Grand St)
New Malaysia (Chinatown Arcade, Bet Canal & Elizabeth Sts, the one I told Mr. Trillin about)
Jaya (90 Baxter St, Bet White & Canal Sts)

Chiyono

This cozy Japanese restaurant feels like an extension of someone's home. And eating there with a couple of people whose company you enjoy is as comfortable as eating at home, but tastier and with better plateware.

Between the 4 of us, we had a miso-marinated eggplant cold dish, a Japanese omelette simmered in dashi stock and pork dumplings for appetizers. All were passable but too expensive. Better value was found on the entree side of the menu, where we shared slices of grilled miso-cod (flaky, fresh, a tad salty); 2 egg shaped croquettes; a big bowl of buta kakuni (fatty pork simmering in a sweet soy sauce, not meltingly soft but not bad) and very juicy and delicious fried oysters that was surprisingly brimming with hot liquid as we bit into them.

Dessert was intricatedly presented, three distinct items on a single long platter. Like the savory items before it, the flavors are traditional and unadulaterated. We enjoyed the glutinous rice cakes with matcha powder and the red beans with vanilla ice cream, but really loved the white sesame pudding, a wobbly study of milky sweetness perfumed but not overpowered by the nuttiness of sesame. And at $7, the dish was a downright bargain.
Chiyono delivers unsophisticated but comforting home-style dishes and does not cater to the mass of exotic sushi rollers lovers in the city. Indeed you will not find degustatory revelations amongst platters of fried foods and simply grilled fish, and in truth the food's not at all impressive, but the ingredients are fresh and the food presented with such care that you can't help but thank the good proprietress for her efforts for preparing a homecooked meal. A comfortable room (dominated by a communal table, not an ice buddha), a few good friends, a friendly but slow server and an earnest Japanese mama taking care of your daily nourishment, I'm glad not every Japanese restaurant in town is a Nobu.

Chiyono
328 E6th St (Bet 1st & 2nd Ave)

Del Posto Enoteca

I went to dinner at Del Posto last night, but instead of shelling out hundreds, I had a very tasty and affordable meal at its casual dining corner, the Enoteca. For $45, one can partake in 5 courses spanning the entire spectrum of the menu, from antipasti down to the dolci. And with about a half dozen choices per course, you're getting none of that Restaurant Week crap of getting to choose between only dry chicken breast or salmon.

Dinner starts with a basket of about 5-6 different house-made breads, served with a pat of sweet butter and another pat of lardo, unadulterated pork lard perfumed with rosemary, utterly spreadable but a little too rich for me. Germaine and her friend Charmaine selected the luxurious beef carpaccio, simply dressed with oil, pepper, salt and melted mozzarella while I had a luscious grilled octopus. We then had 2 perfectly al-dente pastas, the famous bucatini alla Amatriciana, a thick spaghetti with a small hole running through the strand, slick with a spicy, intense tomato sauce. The other pasta was little ears of orcchiette in a peppery chard base. Both featured the smoky goodness of pancetta and a lot of heat. And as if we needed more pig, Germaine and I picked the roasted pork loin as our secondi, served just a little pink with a sweet applesauce to cut through the fat. The cod that Charmaine got was perfectly cooked, but overall the very big plates of entrees paled in comparison to the pastas.

The desserts were generally good, ranging from the very rich chocolate pudding to the tart and refreshing passionfruit sorbet in my 4-sorbet plate, but we were so full that they did not taste quite as impressive as they sounded on paper. Another reason why the desserts lost some points was due to the fact that some of the desserts such as the chocolate cake and the tart could be found sitting on the table next to where we were seated. While I know intellectually that most restaurant desserts are pre-made, its something else to actually watch the panettone dry out in front of you.

The corner of the enoteca was elegant and cozy, a little too tight but perfect for couples and small groups. Unfortunately none of my pictures came out right due to the dimness of the room. Service was very gracious, and despite spending much less than the big rollers in the main room, we were not treated like second class citizens. My request to pack my entree home was taken without the slightest bit of disapproval and my pork loin met me at the coat check, where the server had thoughtfully left. For pork and pasta fiends alike, eating at Del Posto's Enoteca may be the best semi-fine dining deal in the city.

Del Posto

85 Tenth Ave (Bet 15th & 16th St)

212-497-8090

(The enoteca takes only same-day reservations, lines open at 10AM)

www.delposto.com

Waterfront International Enterprise

During my brief studies in Beijing, I had developed a taste, an addiction towards a dish called 地三鲜, literally translated as the three fresh earthly vegetables(incidentally there's only one root vegetable in the mix). Unfortunately, I've not been able to find this dish in any Chinese restaurant in Singapore or New York since I left China. But my pining ended on Friday when I stepped foot into Waterfront International Enterprise.
With a name like that, one might have thought that the eatery dabbled in the import/export business of seafood. Instead, Waterfront International Enterprise is the sole restaurant in New York (at least to my knowledge) specializing in an arsenal of Northeastern Chinese cuisine. Compared to the refined and delicate cuisine found in the southern coastal regions of Canton and Shanghai, Northeastern food is exceedingly humble in terms of looks and cost, cooked to satisfy one's hunger on a cold winter night in Liaoning rather than to elevate one's tastebuds via haute cuisine. Even the spartan dining room reflected such sensibilities. But the hearty fare, competently cooked and rich with the flavor of soy sauce, garlic and pickled vegetables nonetheless made for a very tasty dinner.
We started the meal with a complimentary dish of pickled spicy cabbage not unlike Korean kimchi and salty roasted peanuts which would have made for good bar snacks except we weren't drinking beer. We ordered a plate of boiled pork and chives dumplings, which I inhaled in the dozens while in Beijing but ate daintily with my colleagues. Our meat dish of the day was a casserole filled with dark soy-based liquid, braised wild mushrooms and chicken. The thick stew was wonderfully aromatic, earthy with the addition of the braised mushrooms. The chicken was flavorful, and not cooked to an unrecognizable mush, a fate that befalls many over-boiled chicken. Translucent glass noodles in the bowl soaked up the rest of the stew and we fished those slippery threads with gusto.
And how can I forget my 地三鲜, an unhealthy vegetarian dish consisting of my favorite deep fried eggplant, potato and fresh green pepper? It was as I remembered, the viscous soy-based sauce, crispy potatos, mushy eggplants and spicy slivers of green peppers melding together to form a dish perfect mixed with rice. We only had a minor quibble with the potato, which should be crunchier rather than crumbly, most possibly due to the use of mealy russet potatos. But with this being the only rendition found in the city, I am not complaining. In fact, with the prolific list of hard to find Chinese dishes such as cold bean sheet salad, various chicken and lamb innards, spicy fried crawfish and sweet, caramelized root vegetables and fruit served alongside a vat of iced water, I'm already plotting my next trip. Any takers for a weekend eating trip to the outer boroughs?

Waterfront International Enterprise
40-09 Prince St (Roosevelt Ave)
Flushing, Queens
(718) 321-1363

Yolato Yogurt Gelato

Similar to Pinkberry, Yolato tries to harness New Yorkers' sweet tooth and guilt complex, selling sweet treats made from a healthier than milk-fat yogurt base. But while Pinkberry serves only 2 flavors of icy soft-serve, Yolato offer a variety of choices, from frozen yogurt to sorbets to yogurt-based ice cream that approximate the texture, creaminess and taste of real gelato. Its flavors also range from the tried and tested to wild, such as kiwinana, a mixture of kiwi and banana that unfortunately tasted rather like banana flavoring.
After tasting about half of what the store has to offer, thanks to a very friendly and obliging shop assistant, we made our selections. Goh Siew picked a scoop of nutella gelato while I chose a tangy strawberry cheesecake flavor. While some of the other flavors tasted a little artificial, we were pretty pleased with our flavors. And while I found the yogurt based gelato to a little less creamy than gelato, it remained very dense and quite tasty. I found my strawberry icecream to be pleasantly less sweet than most found in other ice cream parlors, which made it easier for me to finish the entire scoop without feeling sick.
In summary, Yolato offers a viable substitute for the health conscious but ice cream hungry masses. Go now and you can even participate in a lucky draw, the grand prize being a trip to Italy to visit the Coliseum and its surrounding gelaterias.

Yolato
120 Macdougal St
(212) 228-6303

Blue Ribbon Bakery

If you are seated in the sunny front dining room, you'll miss the oversized brick oven in the basement that makes Blue Ribbon Bakery a true bakery and not merely an ironic name for a small restaurant tucked in Greenwich Village. And while you're tucking into the freshly baked bread, you're missing out on the myriad of scents wafting through the semi-exposed kitchen - a combination of warm yeast, spicy caraway seeds and the honeyed sweetness of plump gold raisins - into the subterranean dining alcove. Goh Siew and I were seated right there with another 20 odd other diners, away from the bright sunshine and picturesque village streetscape streaming through oversized windows in the front room. But truth to be told, I think we had the better seats in the house. For the fragrance of baked bread elevated the pleasure of digging into the overly generous bread basket, piled high with the best free bread I've been served in the city. We had warm and chewy olive foccacia, slices of crusty rye and and a crumbly raisin walnut bread, slathered with soft butter, all before even ordering our entrees.
Greedy for more carbohydrates, I chose a heaping platter of french toast made of buttery challah. It sure soaked up a lot of egg as well as an injudicious dosage of maple syrup. All was good, but getting through all that french toast unfortunately became quite repetitive. I managed to offload some to Goh Siew who accepted the challenge, after having just polished off a happy platter of smoked salmon, the orange fish, yellow lemon slice, green chives and purple onions a colorful composition on the austere white plate.

Service was very good for a destination restaurant, Blue Ribbon Bakery being one of those bestowed with more brunch devotees than they can handle, where more often than not you find harried servers and empty glasses. My glass was always filled even though I drank copious amounts of water, and coffee refills were volunteered and not begged for. With a convivial atmosphere and professional service, and all the bread I can eat, I am probably coming back to Blue Ribbon Bakery, albeit maybe not for brunch, as the menu is a tad limited to french toast and about half a dozen egg dishes. But the bread will be there come breakfast, lunch or dinner. And I hear the restaurant makes a killer bread pudding for dessert too. Yes, I think I will be back.

Blue Ribbon Bakery

33 Downing St (Downing & Bedford)

(212) 337-0404

http://blueribbonrestaurants.com/bakery_about.html

Hotel de la Paix

An entire day spent amidst Angkor Wat's towering spires, Buddha's enigmatic smiles and the flowing motion of Hindu deities carved out of stone can capture anyone's imaginations and awe a person with Cambodia's rich history. However, it imminently also sets people up for disappointment after they leave the temples to go back to modern day Siem Reap. Judging from the intricate temple carvings, ancient Cambodian artisans had considerable talents and their kings impeccable taste. But Siem Reap with an overtly touristy town center, and hastily put up, cookie cutter type hotels was quite charmless in comparison. There are exceptions of course, and Hotel de la paix, with its art-deco exteriors, cool interiors and first-class service is one. However, room rates are also top class and accomodation at the hotel is not a viable option for mere mortals like me. But Pak and I still found a way to enjoy the luxuries of the boutique hotel while we were in Siem Reap. We did so through a special Khmer dinner at Meric, its restaurant.
The 7 course, market centric meal has been written up by multiple international tourism and food magazines, and is justly famous for offering a slice of refined Cambodian food different from the fish amoks found along Pub St restaurants. The first course was a eggplant puree made crunchy with fragrant pork bits. Served between a fragrant basil leaf and a perfect slice of cucumber, this made for great textural contrast. Second came a pomelo and prawn salad that was cool, sweet and tangy at the same time. Third a shot glass of Prahok curry served with vegetable crudites. While prahok is supposed to be made of fermented fish, there was no tell tale signs of fishiness at all. Fourth came Pak's favorite dish, a krill and water lily sour soup served in a hollow bamboo segment. While it tasted a little astringent in the beginning, the natural sweetness and crunch of the tiny shrimp shone through and the soup just got tastier and tastier as we chewed on the krill, shell and all. Dish 5 was a less memorable fish stir fry in the Chinese tradition, but the portions are so dainty that it lacked the gusto and perfume of wok you'd have gotten if you'd ordered it in a hawker stall instead. Number 6 was a sublime pork and coconut soup reminiscent of Thai curry but with less heat and less sweet. The meat literally fell of the ribs and I enthusiastically poured the sauce over rice to maximise my enjoyment of the curry. Last came an assortment of Cambodian desserts, again resembling Thai desserts with its use of glutinous rice, copious amounts of coconut milke and intensely sweet palm sugar but only perfunctory at best. Still, some sweets are always better than none, and having it in a beautiful room overlooking a lush Banyan tree further accentuates the sweet experience.
The good life comes at a cost of $28/pax. While it is a great sum of money in a town where an entree goes for less than $3, and cost more than all our other meals combined in the 4 days, everything is relative. When you think of the alternative as paying for a $300+/night room, the top notch dining experience becomes a steal.

Fish Amok - same same but different

The phrase "same same, but different", commonly found on t-shirts sold in the Cambodian tourist outlets and street stalls can be applied to food found in Siem Reap. The stir fries taste a little Chinese, the lemongrass and spices in the curries evoke a little bit of Thai. But the stir fries taste a little more of pungent fish sauce than soy, and the curries are not quite spicy. The differences are subtle compared to food from its Southeast Asian neighbors, but distinctively present.
Even different renditions of the ubiquitous Fish Amok, available in every Westerner and local restaurant alike vary somewhat. Fish Amok is both cute sounding and mild and easily liked, so much so that the cynic in me wonder whether it is a recent invention to suit Western palates. But it was undeniably popular and mostly tasty.
At the all-time Pub Street favorite Khymer Kitchen (left), we celebrated having watched the magnificent sunset atop the Angkor Wat ruins by sharing a big bowl of its version of Amok, a light green curry chockful of fresh fish, fried morning glory (or kang kong in Singapore), a sweet red curry and some lukewarm but drinkable local beer.
In the foodcourt tucked in Central Market (top right), a modern emporium of Cambodian and even made in china souvenirs, the fish amok hawked by a smiley lady was a steamed, coconut-y custard served in a bowl fashioned by banana leaf. Another Siem Reap speciality we found at the central market foodcourt was cured sausages that tasted like a less smokey version of Chinese sausage that went well with rice. The final version was eaten at a road side stall along the stretch of road near the ultra-modern Hotel de la Paix, and was the least appealing brown gloop shown (right). Maybe we were suffering from amok-fatigue by then, but the stingy portion of fish and the excessive gunkiness of the dish did not help either.
After three days and many meals, we still did not know what a standard serving of Fish Amok should look and taste like. Well, while homogeneity has it merits, some same same but difference isn't too bad.

Riki

I learnt the terms "salaryman" and "karoshi" during sophomore year in a Japanese culture class. At 20 and with no need to be gainfully employed, those words meant nothing to me.
Fast forward 5 years, and I've joined the ranks of salarymen, working amidst warrens of cubicles, day in, day out. And while the concept of death by overwork is still far-fetched, some days are certainly worse than others. And when those days happens, I do as the Japanese do, retreat to a pub of choice for cheap drinks and honest grub. And lucky for me, the presence of the Japanese mission to the UN as well as the scores of Japanese expatriates meant that a good cluster of Izakayas in midtown.
While Peishan was in town, I grabbed her and a couple of friends to Riki for Saturday dinner. The clientele on the weekends was highly multicultural, a sign of izakayas' growing popularity amongst non-Japanese. Also, with ample space, semi private rooms for larger groups and an english/japanese menu, Riki's a good place to learn about izakayas. Perusing the hundreds of menu items (mostly meant to be shared) was an arduous task amongst 9 people, so they elected me as the official food orderer, even though I knew as little as they did about Japanese pub food. But with the help of some draft beer and suggestions from a very pretty server, we did pretty ok.
It may seem gauche to eat that much rice while simultaneously drinking, but the rice dishes at Riki is too good to miss. The kimchi fried rice was especially sublime, each grain of rice cooked perfectly al dente and coated with a spicy and addictive sauce. We promptly ordered another bowl after polishing our first. We also had some ricecake dishes, similar to rice krispies but pan roasted to yield a fun crunchy texture. The pouring of sauce over a hotplate housing the ricecakes also created a dramatic sizzle.
The Japanese adore their Kewpie mayonnaise and it is no surprise to see some comforting, gut sticking mayo-based dishes on the menu. I've had the mentaiko roe and mayo filled omelets as well as the mayo and seaweed-that-looks-like-pure-chlorophyll-topped okonomiyaki. While creamy and savory, they were unfortunately a little too heavy for my liking.
Riki has an admirable kushiage menu (skewered meats and vegetables) and as we walked in we also saw cooks busily negotiating the smoky fire while meticulously cooking the skewers. Both our duck skewer with a bracing wasabi glaze and the tender beef ribs were well endorsed by my table.
My favorite dishes must come from the Nimono (stews) department. The niku jaga is a popular family style dish of potatos, onions, beef and some jelly strands in a sweet soy sauce suitable for pouring over rice. My favorite of the night however was the meltingly soft beef tongue in a salty miso-based stew. The taste and texture of tongue really isn't that different from brisket or more chewy cuts of meat, so don't be afraid and order it if you see it on the menu.
Another great thing about izakayas is that in a city where servers turn tables almost callously, izakayas don't mind if you to sit and linger, and we did the same in Riki, chatting in our very cozy and tight little room long after we've drained our glasses. We don't all need to be salarymen to appreciate that.

Restaurant Riki
141 E45th St (Bet Lexington & 3rd Aves)
(212) 986-1109

Taste of New York

Peishan was in town this weekend and we took the opportunity to eat and drink excessively. Of the various edibles that made the trip through our digestive systems, I'll like to highlight a couple locally produced, proud to be New York specialties.

1) Locally produced wine sorbet using New York State wines from Wine Cellar Sorbets. I bought it at Dean & DeLuca ($7.50/ pint) a week in advance knowing this is something TPS the wine afficionado will appreciate. She did! In fact she polished most of the sorbet for breakfast =p We loved the pleasingly smooth cabernet sauvignon slush that dyed our tongues a deep violet while the fresh clean riesling was unfortunately a little too sweet and too subtle. Nevertheless a good palate cleanser And at 5% alcohol, the sorbets provided just a little buzz. A sugar high and a mini wine high... needless to say we happily dug in.

2) Brooklyn Brewery's Black Chocolate Stout, which we found at Vintage wine bar, a soho bar specializing again in New York state wines and other drinks. We werent even intending to visit this place, but I swear TPS can instinctually sniff out every local bar in town when she wants to. The stout is a beautiful burnished brown, and smelt like molasses and chocolate. Drinking it, I can pretend it was snowing outside while I sit next to a fireplace sipping my beer. And at an alcoholic content of 10.6% I sure was feeling toasty. Better yet if I had some chocolate cake by my side. The chocolate stout is only brewed during the winter season, so grab some before it runs out! This stout, together with the highly drinkable lager that I sell at the cafe makes me, hardly a drinker toying with the idea of visiting the brewery, located just across the river in Brooklyn.

3) Another Brooklyn transplant making Manhattan a better place is Junior's for their famous cheesecake. There are two branches in the city, both in hyper-touristy areas (Grand Central Station & Times Square) but prices are honest, portions are enormous and the cakes really ain't bad. In fact, the rich slab of plain cheesecake was really good! The chocolate and the carrot cakes got my vote too but I was really glad the plain cheesecake was located strategically in front of me for easy access. I wasn't as fond of the gloppy blueberry topping on the fruit cake, nor the artificial tasting strawberry shortcake cheesecake but they too had their fans. While we only had room for 5 slices between the 8 of us that night, I have no doubt I will be returning soon to try out the entire dessert menu. You can also have standard deli fare at both locations, but dessert really is the star. So for visitors with a sweet sweet tooth, why not end your day in the flashiest way, with dessert in Times Square?

Pho Tu Do

Having made the trip downtown in a blistery sub-20s weather just to have some hot udon at Honmura An, imagine my dismay to find it shuttered on Sunday afternoon. They don't serve lunch on Sundays! Argh...
Utterly defeated, I tried feeling better for myself through retail therapy. Did not work. I tried having sweets to lift my flagging spirits, specifically a buttery cherry scone from Balthazar. Did not work. And my fingers nearly got frostbitten while i attempted to eat the scone with an ungloved hand. I needed some soupy comfort quick, and then I realised I wasn't that far from a bowl of pho in Chinatown.
I find the pho scene in New York not as good compared to other cities with larger Vietnamese communities (pho 75 in Roslyn!) but on such a cold day, a steaming bowl of salty beef broth has great restorative powers no matter where you get it. Lukewarm broth, as some restaurants I've been to serve it, is a cardinal sin. Luckily, Pho Tu Do, my purveyor of choice for the day serves strong and very hot beef broth. I gulp done half a bowl quickly, all table manners forgotten until I my face begins to thaw and I start feeling human again. Then I tackle the generous portion of slick rice noodles, thin cuts of raw beef cooked in the boiling broth and chewy, gelatinous tendons. A heap of bean sprouts flash cooked in the broth adds crunch and some sprigs of mint and a squirt of lemon juice invigorates the broth. I can't finish the noodles but the soup's all gone by the time I call for the check.
Vietnamese restaurants in New York aren't largely specialists and Pho Tu Do is no different, serving pages and pages of other cooked food besides pho. This can be both a blessing and a curse, as variety may come at the cost of less focus, but for $4.25, having some pho on a cold winter's day can't hurt anyone.

Pho Tu Do

118 Bowery St (Bet. Grand & Hester Sts)

Ghenet

While Ethiopian food may sound slightly dubious to the uninitiated, one only need to read the menu to find that the core ingredients such as lentils, collard greens and chicken, beef and lamb aren't all that terrifying. But if you are still not soothed by the fact that berbere is a type of spicy seasoning and not some illegal substance, or that injera is meant to be sour, then Ghenet may be the place for an Ethiopian food novice to get his or her feet wet. A restaurant review sitting near the bar at Ghenet likens the food there as "Ethiopian food on training wheels". Perhaps Ghenet may not serve the most authentic Ethiopian cuisine in the city, it is certainly well liked, judging from the crush of people waiting at the bar for their seats at 7 on Saturday, early as it goes for dinner, in New York anyway.
Ethiopian food is meant to be shared sans utensils, and between the 4 of us, we split a vegetarian platter for 2 and a beef dish. Our food was carefully placed in mounds (or globs as walter calls them) on a single oval platter lined with injera, the distinctive ethiopian bread made of teff, a grain indigenous to Ethiopia, with a taste akin to sourdough and a texture like that of a pancake. More injera was served on the side, folded like a pile of napkins. Those went fast too, as we hungrily tore away pieces and wiped up all the vegetable purees and chunks of meat with them. The flavors were relatively mild and anyone used to Indian food would find the tastes rather similar. We washed down our meal witl Tej, the exotic sounding honey wine tasting like sweet mead, and not so exotic after all as the Tej the restaurant serve actually hails from upstate New York. =p
Besides palatable food, Ghenet's popularity can also be attributed to several other reasons, namely the warm ambience and location, which is right smack in Nolita, a neighborhood packed with inexpensive ethnic-ish chic spots and plenty of young adventurous diners who require feeding. The crimson walls, the mood lighting and the sensuality of using your hands to share food also make it a wonderful date place as well. With the large number of couples in the restaurant at the same time as us, it is clear that they are aware of that as well.

Ghenet
284 Mulberry St (Houston & Prince)

Gahm Mi Oak

When the weather is below freezing, and wind chill just makes it worse, a crunchy, cold salad can be a very unappetizing meal. Instead, what I crave for lunch on those winter days is a steaming bowl of soup to ward away the chills. And when I happen to be in the vicinity of Ktown, I visit Gahm Mi Oak for a bowl of seolleong tang.

Gahm Mi Oak is a nondescript looking place on the ktown strip, but its menu distinguishes itself from the other 20 or so restaurants packed on the same block. Instead of the usual gamut of menu items, Gahm Mi Oak's feature a scant dozen or so dishes and a brief survey of the diners will reveal that hardly anything else is ordered besides the ubiquitous bowl of sul long tang. And instead of an array of banchan as is customary at most Korean restaurants, the only side dish served here is a generous plate of homemade radish and cabbage kimchi retrieved straight from its pickling pot. But I am not complaining, as the kimchi is one of the best served in the city, tart yet sweet at the same time, and not so unpickled that the radish tastes raw.

And now the seolleong tang. Admittedly, the white, almost opaque ox-bone broth is not for flavor junkies, but the broth is boiled for such length that it assumes a rich beefiness that does not require a heavy handed approach on spices. All it needs is a sprinkling of salt and some chopped scallions to enhance the taste. And the excellent radish kimchi is a great accompaniment for the soup. Because of the bone marrow that inadvertently seeps into the soup, the broth achieves a thick consistency that does not require additional fortification from milk (unlike fish head noodles in Singapore, where vendors pour cans of evaporated milk to achieve the white milky goodness) And unlike the fuzhou noodle soup made with pork bones, grease is minimal here. Both rice and noodles reside in the broth, and some thin slices of brisket floating on top of the broth complete the soothing dish. So simple, with such humble origins, but so satisfying. I eagerly drink up, slurp the noodles and finish up my rice, and I allow myself the luxury to recede into a warm fuzzy haze of food coma. Finally, with the next bowl of seolleong tang planned, I bundle up, make my exit and face the bitter cold.

Gahm Mi Oak

43 W32 St (Bet 5th & 6th Ave)

Vynl

Everytime I stare into a plate of unidentifiable mush or some strange part of an animal, I ask myself this: Would the range of food I’ve tried be as far-flung if I had not been overseas for the past 5 years? Would I know what sous-vide, gorgonzola and molecular gastronomy meant had I stayed in Singapore? Would I remain in the dark ages of dining, where each meal revolved around my family’s table, the food court at Parkway and whichever kopitiam that served killer vegetarian mifen (hmm.. that’s not too bad a tradeoff)? Living in a major culinary capital like New York has invariably exposed me to new eating experiences and ethnic cuisines. At the same time, while my friends have stayed local, their palates have grown international, thanks to the flourishing of restaurants, cafes and bakeries hawking cuisines different from what you find at the ubiquitous hawker centers.
While a MacDonald’s big breakfast was as close as it gets to brunch when I was 18 (limited by my budget of course), my younger relatives have no lack of options ranging from the chain cafes at shopping malls to the Aussie/ French/ Italian eateries that boast authentic cuisine at relative wallet-friendly prices. If I had wanted French toast when I was in high school, I would have dipped two slices of Gardenia bread into egg and fried it in my kitchen. Now, French toast can be found even in the most humble eating establishment, the kopitiam. Hence, when Dawn, Chloe and Chloe’s friend visited me over the break, I was really scratching my head as to where I could these youngsters with jaded palates to experience something new and unique to New York. With Dawn, we trooped downtown to mingle with Francophiles at the always popular Balthazar. With Chloe and Huiling, it was a trip half a block away to Vynl. If I couldn’t shock them with the breadth of breakfast offerings, then I might as well revel with them in my neighborhood’s glitziest and gayest eatery.
I characterize Vynl as an upscale diner with a theme-restaurant lite vibe, appealing to the local demographics of Hell's Kitchen: young, yuppie, gay. Shimmering silver shades made by linking vinyl records drip from the ceilings, the room glows a deep fuchsia, the walls are lined with Barbie dolls made up to look like popular bands and the toilets are named Nelly, Elvis, Dolly and Cher, with mosaic walls featuring their namesakes. Depending on your mood, you can choose to listen to rock, hip hop to country while washing your hands. Extreme kitsch you say, but no one goes to Vynl for a somber meal. Instead you are always guaranteed with a satisfying meal with great atmosphere. And unlike real theme restaurants, you do not have to make do with overpriced crappy food. While the food is less distinguished compared to the décor, the brunch selection is decent, well made and and prices are competitive to its competitors in the neighborhood. My omelets tend to be dry, but the French toasts are always a good bet. Instead of the aforementioned thin gardenia slices that soaked up too much egg, the brioche toasts are astonishingly thick and very fluffy. Stacked up in doubles, the brioche must have exceeded 5 inches in height and really delicious when paired with syrup. For glitz, twinkles and toast as thick as a phone directory in a convenient local joint, Vynl's the perfect place to hit when in the neighborhood.



Vynl
754 9th Ave (Bet 50th & 51st St)

Cafe Boulud

If WD-50 represents downtown edginess, than Cafe Boulud epitomizes the upper crust, bourgeois lifestyle enjoyed by many living on the Upper East Side. It is therefore no surprise then that the UES is coincidentally where the restaurant is located. While a meal at the upscale casual Cafe Boulud is not a $200 pax shindig at Chef Boulud's eponymous 4-star restaurant, it is still pretty prohibitive on my budget, since I neither work in a hedge fund nor have access to a trust fund. Fortunately for me, my uncle generously treated both Dawn and I to an amazing meal.
Our $38 3 course pre-fixe meal started with an amuse bouche of tuna tartar topped with an apple slice and mushroom gelee effectively wakening our tastebuds with the clean and crisp tastes. I selected my appetizer based on my last experience with the mushroom soup at Cafe Boulud with Pakshun a while ago. The decadently rich soup did not disappoint and was as earthy and thick this time as it was the last, coating my tongue with the essence of mushroom and a lot of heavy cream.
Of the three entree choices available, I picked the lightly and well-cooked salmon presented with the most precious mini carrots in whites and pale yellows. Unfortunately the slightly bitter vegetables did not taste as good as they looked. The obsession with mini-greens extended to Dawn's plate as well, as tiny nubs of brussel sprouts adorned her duo of duck. The mini brussel sprouts were excellent and very seasonal, as was the duck.
For dessert, we both selected a visually stunning and scrumptious baked alaska, which was perched on top of orange and ruby red grapefruit slices and a slightly tart citrus soup, which provided a great contrast to the sweet meringue, lemon flavored cake and icy cool icecream tucked in the middle of the confection.
At this point, we normally would have rubbed our distended bellies and called for the check. But the best is yet to come! My most vivid memory of the meal Pakshun and I had at Cafe Boulud was the yummy mini madeleines the servers set in front of every table after the main meal, and we ate the eggy sea-shell shaped delights up, 3 each with our coffee and tea. It tasted so good when we were already bloated, so just imagine the possibilities if we had been starving!
Fine (or in this case, casual fine dining) can be intimidating for young people used to places with less cutlery, and Dawn and I certainly looked a little out of place, being at least 20 years younger than most of the other diners. One of the biggest fears I have eating out is not using the wrong cutlery, but being discriminated against for being a youthful and less discerning diner. Service at Cafe Boulud was however polite but not obsequious and comfortable enough for everyone of all ages to enjoy. I do believe that Dawn and I were given a less desirable seat, a banquette where we sat next to each other instead of opposite each other, because we did not look like we would complain. We were admittedly late for our lunch appointment on a busy Friday afternoon, so I did not complain as well. However, somewhere between my meal, I conversed casually to the maitre d' about the restaurant layout and specifically about our table and the way it was set up. I believe he understood the cues and decided to make it up to us in a roundabout way by inviting us into the kitchen, where we met the really young chefs responsible for our meal and thanked them for the solid lunch experience. All latent unhappiness about the seats were immediately zapped away by the special attention, although admitted I am easy to please. Some people believe that there should not be a bad seat in a good restaurant at all, and that the act of giving me the seat was ungracious in itself. But I thought the maitre d's special treatment was a pretty crafty but smart one, as it effectively quelled our discontentment over the seats without directly acknowledging it was their their fault. Simple yet masterful, just like the rest of Cafe Boulud. A maneuver worthy of emulation indeed.

Cafe Boulud
20 E 76th St (Between 5th & Madison Ave)