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)

New Year's Eve at Times Square

I spent New Year’s Eve doing what thousands of New Yorkers most loathe, or at least will shudder when hearing about it. I spent the 7 hours preceding midnight on the streets near Times Square, in anticipation of watching the infamous crystal ball drop and ushering in 2007 with a million others, 85% of which was estimated to be out-of-towners. Luckily Gerrie and I had 2 enthusiastic out-of-towners in tow too, or else we would never have the bravado to brave the crowds or the courage to face our friends or colleagues who scoff at the idea of even stepping within the 3 blocks radius of tacky Times Square. Being fully unprepared for the size of the crowd, how boring it could get while waiting and how cold the temperature could drop, we went without food, without entertainment and for gerrie, without socks. The first 2-3 hours were bearable and the almost stampede that nearly killed us was exhilarating to say the least. By 9 pm however, the novelty had waned, our legs were killing us, the crowd made us claustrophobic and the stale air started to stink of lit cigarettes and unwashed hair. After skipping on dinner, we were also ravenous that Applebee’s -a chain I snobbishly turn my nose up at during normal circumstances- right across the street from where we were standing never looked more morbidly inviting. Unfortunately, leaving the insides of the barricades to enter Applebee's would mean us giving up our hardearned space, something we were too invested in by then.
Luckily at a little past 9, we noticed enterprising deli employees from BellyDelly Deli and La Famiglia walking along the barricades taking orders for overpriced pizza and drinks. The order taker from Bellydelly was really sweet, but the hot chocolate was extremely vile. Still we cupped it in our hands and enjoyed the warmth. The pizza from La Famiglia is something i usually won't touch from a ten foot pole. Even the picture reflects the radioactive orange emanating from the pie. Still, it was gooey, greasy and most importantly hot, and filled our starving stomaches. It was the best slice of pizza I've had.

WD-50

Clockwise from topleft: Yuzu custard, spruce yogurt, pistachio; Irish cream, chocolate, coconut, hazelnight icecream; Soft chocolate, avocado, chocolate soil, lime icecream; Beet, umeboshi, chocolate
For lovers of simple, traditional desserts like brownies and ice-cream, or pie ala mode, the dessert tasting at WD-50 is not for you. My experience Wednesday night was an exercise of mind calisthenics, as me and my girlfriends waded through 6 desserts, some more conventional than others but all containing no less than 3 different flavors. Each artistically plated dish, with a touch of beet foam, a dab of avocado puree or a sprinkling of licorice powder demanded our full attention as we tracked down each subtle flavor with the tenacity of bloodhounds and then try to guess the chef's intentions behind creating each quirky dish.
Some dishes were straight forward enough. Our amuse bouche was a smart riff on breakfast spreads, with a grape jam injected in a disc of cream cheese. Sesame seeds and sauce on the side emulated peanut butter, rounding up the breakfast trinity. A deconstructed Irish coffee dish was a crowd pleaser, with hazelnut icecream paired with a cyclinder of coffee ice filled with extremely spiked whisky caramel.
Some flavor combinations made us pause and go hmmm, but the final presentation and taste worked pretty well and we cleared those plates. Shortbread crumbs with tea flavored ice cream and marshmallows, guava puree and peanut butter/brittle was an explosion of flavors and textures. A long swirl of soft chocolate was paired with avocado sauce, chocolate and licorice soil and a scoop of lime icecream. While the avocado was a surprisingly mild and good fit with the chocolate, the lime icecream didn't fare so well. While it did cut down the richness of the chocolate, the aftertaste was overly bitter and the limey taste jarred disharmoniously with the sweet chocolate. The spruce flavored yogurt (as in the coniferous type) with yuzu custard and pistachio puree was medicinal when it tried it alone, and overwhelmed by the lime and pistachio when paired with the other ingredients on the plate. Still the yuzu custard was without repraoch and the dabs of yogurt thankfully insignificant enough that we too polished off this dessert.
And then there was the dish made us pause and go HMMM. Despite being a big fan of beets, I do not think beets should be dessert, even after having a go at the mildly sweet and very vege-tasting beet foam that came with some chocolate bits and umeboshi plum bits. We were however very impressed with how the kitchen could foam up beet and make thin glassy shards of sweet and very yummy beet chips. WD-50 with its signature method of molecular gastronomy has had a fair amount of hype, and it sure is entertaining and a visual treat if not always tasty.
While its easy to find a slice of pie or cheesecake anywhere, WD-50 offers something unique, even borderline strange to adventurous dessert lovers. And with so much fodder for discussion at reasonable ($35 for 5 courses, $25 for 3 courses) for New York prices and courteous and attentive service, WD-50 is a great alternative New York experience.

WD-50
50 Clinton St (Bet Rivington & Stanton St)

Brunch at Balthazar

An American tradition I have not really picked up all these years is the concept of Sunday brunch. Sure, I like the occasional pancake but I can do that for breakfast and still have lunch as a separate meal. Also, the criminally long waits for overpriced plates of eggs are often not worth the effort. However, there are certain sunshiny holiday weekends when you want to run out of the house into a bustling restaurant to soak in the festive atmosphere, to indulge in well made brunch classics with friends. For that purpose, Balthazar is a perfect choice.
Balthazar is perennially crowded, and at brunch time on Sunday, it is practically a zoo. However, once we were led to our tight little corner right next to the floor length windows that allowed the sunlight to stream into the cavernous room, I forgot the short but uncomfortable wait near the doorway, and smiled as I took in the room, the high walls, the bronze etched ceiling, towering platters of fruit de mare and the frothy bowls of au laits.
While the décor is classic French brasserie, the food was decidedly more American and very good on most accounts. Gerrie’s salad, the only thing off the regular menu that we ordered was laced with a brightly acidic vinaigrette. The egg dishes were varied and interesting. Yanru’s had a decidedly Italian flair, perched atop thick creamy polenta cakes and served with tomatoes and pancetta; Emily’s was lightly poached in a decadent red wine and bacon sauce while Xiaohong’s was scrambled and stuffed into a puff pastry. Unfortunately, the eggs were a little overcooked, marring the pretty picture of eggs in an edible shell. Dawn’s brioche French toast was thick, yummy and a perfect foil for the best bacon I’ve had in a while. Smoked salmon with brioche toast and the traditional garnishes of capers, chives and egg is the French version of bagel and lox and I happily bartered the extra slices from my generous platter of smoked salmon for bites off my friends’ plates. We washed down our meals with cups of coffee and then shared a portion of superior fries just because, hey who doesn’t like fries?
Blasé service at slammed brunch palaces is a common complaint and the servers at Balthazar can be a little tricky to wave down in a room buzzing with activity. But when the servers did get to us, they brought bread, extra coffee and water as swiftly as they could, remembered what each of us ordered and put the correct cutlery on each place setting. Sitting in the warm and delicious smelling room, watching happy and therefore smiley diners around you enjoy their food, chatting comfortably with your friends without actually having to yell, I have to say I understand the appeal of brunch at Balthazar. If a meal was taking a two hour holiday from the real world, Balthazar had transported me to a smoky brasserie in Paris (sans the cigarettes).

Balthazar

80 Spring St (Bet Broadway & Crosby)

Don Bogam

I remember the day korean barbeque entered my life. It was a cold fall night in 2001, my college friends and I had a car at our disposal, for some reason I can no longer remember, and someone suggested we make the northward trek to the part of Chicago that housed many good Korean restaurants for something different. We complied, piled on the car and reached this standalone 24 hour shack that was sitting squarely across from a funeral home. We walked into the restaurant, bundled up in our woolen sweaters, for it was cold, and entered into a haze of smoke, smells and general cacophony. We left sated from the copious amounts of chewy kalbi, numerous small plates of banchan and with the garlic and soy scent stuck to our sweaters for the next week. From that moment on, my was I hooked and thank God K-town in New York is only 15 blocks away from home.
It wasn’t that difficult for me to like Korean food. I had grown up tasting soy sauce, dried shrimp, hot peppers and the other common Asian condiments that made up a Chinese or Korean meal. But many of my friends that went with me to Don’s Bogam did not grow up eating those foods and Korean bbq was a novel thing. Luckily, barbeque is not a foreign concept and people jumped on the opportunity to watch their own food cook.
Don’s Bogam, with its honeycombed window design and sleek white bar is very modern, and familiar to the new Korean diner. Kneeling during dinnertime can be an excruciating exercise, especially for those not used to it, so we sigh a breathe of relief upon finding out that the squat tables in the dining room were really faux squat tables with big holes beneath to allow diners to rest their feet in. Also absent on its walls were slips of writings in hangul that are common fixtures in restaurants catering to the native eater. This calms the non-Koreans diners, who may feel alienated otherwise, obsessing about potentially missing out on a particularly tasty special or that the paper was in fact a health warning that was concealed to them. Even more calming is the presence of Korean friends in the midst, who took charge of the ordering situation so all we needed to do was smile at the servers, raise our hands when we needed more OB beer (uncannily like a Bud in terms of bottle design), lift our chopsticks and dig in.
Our group of 10 ate heartily on surprisingly fresh and sweet seafood lightly grilled on the table, and different cuts of beef, both marinated and sauce-free. Being a flavor freak, I preferred the heavily sauced ones (yes I ought to be shot). Still, the chicken bbq at Shilla beat the beef cuts at Don’s Bogam by a long shot. We also had an order of bulgogi, thinly sliced beef cooked with vegetables, a lot of onions and garlic and a sweet sauce. The only disappointment for me was the jap chae, which like most restaurant cooked jap chae was a sweet sloppy mess. The restaurant served a variety of banchan, and it was interesting inducting new eaters into the delights of fish cake (or fish sausage as we like to call it), multiple types of kimchi and the spicy dried shrimp that unsurprisingly made some flinch. Oh well, a few more meals and we’ll have them down the tiny shrimp like the rest of us.
We rolled out of the restaurant reeking of smoke and garlic despite ominous warnings not to wear wool. But what can’t a little dry cleaning do?

Don’s Bogam
17 E 32rd St (bet Madison & 5th Ave)

Fika espresso bar & Petrossian bakery

I cannot think of a more ideal way to start the day than to have a croissant in one hand and a cup of joe in the other. Unfortunately, that thought apparently isn't too unique, and my original breakfast spot, Petrossian, a place better known for its caviar flights and cans of imported foie gras but also a seller of a superior croissant was filled with like minded people at 10am today. Disappointed but not defeated, I weighed my options, and decided that a croissant to go was better than none at all.
Luckily for me, a standby cafe was only 1 block away. So I paid up and toted my croissant, along with 2 crunchy on the outside and custardy on the inside canneles to my standby, FIKA espresso bar, a Swedish cafe that invites all to " drink coffee". I ordered a cup of cappuccino brewed from swedish coffee beans from a cool Nordic blond (but only in appearance, she was v. nice), perched myself on a steel countertop and uncomfortable bar stool that exuded Scandinavian design asthetics, stopped myself from getting a swedish meatball sandwich with lingonberry sauce and dug into my croissant.
The coffee was smooth and nutty, but the croissant, with its glossy exterior, a great shatter factor, flaky and light insides and a 100% buttery but not cloying taste stole the show. If only it wasn't so bad for me would I eat one more gladly for lunch.
So the moral of the story is this. Do not allow a little hitch like the lack of sitting room to get in the way of good eating. Oh no! Apply a little thought and always have back-ups, and you can have the same great breakfast one-two punch like me =)

FIKA espresso bar
41 W58th St (bet 5th and 6th Ave)
Petrossian
911 7th Ave (bet 57th and 58th St)

Cheap treats @ economy candy

I find it hard that anyone would dislike Economy Candy. It is both a purveyor of kitsch and candy for serious chocolate connoisseurs, with the candy types ranging from wacky giant PEZ dispensers and anatomically correct chocolate babies (taste more like taffy), to hard to find imported Cadbury chocolate from the UK and chi-chi Scharffen Berger bars. You may go in with a certain item in mind, but you'll never know what you'll end up buying, because temptations are abound. If in case you're just browsing, rest assured you'll find something calling your name. And no matter what you end up buying, you are quite certain you are getting quite the bargain here. Case in point, a 1 oz bar of Scharffen Berger milk chocolate, retailing for $4.50 per bar on their website only costs $3.50 at Economy Candy.
I, for one, was highly distracted the moment I was let into the shop, literally on a sugar high by just inhaling the sweet scent of the hand-dipped chocolate and the huge slabs of halvah. I saw the colored candy buttons of my childhood (the ones my mum told me were toxic and would stain my stomach neon pink and yellow) ; really hard to find European items such as Kinder-Surprise eggs with a toy inside and those Mozart chocolate and marzipan balls that my choir friends and I raided the Germany supermarkets for; the Giant PEZ dispensers, gummy dentures; different types of dried fruit and old fashioned American candy bar, some that I've never seen.
Being rather ignorant of the history of candy in the U.S., I picked up the Sky Bar, an unconventional chocolate bar with 4 distinct fillings that was produced by Necco, only to go home and find out that it has been in production since the 1930s. And all I thought while getting it was "hmm.. tt's a great bar for a commitment-phobe"!!
While I think everyone would like this funky sweet emporium, the economy candy store is truly highly recommended for those who are 1. nostalgic for some old school candy; 2. looking to experience the LES pre- the invasion of the bobo eateries and 3. in serious rebellion against their dental surgeon. In any case, eat up and have fun!

Economy Candy
108 Rivington St

Quickly shabu shabu

Shabu shabu and bubble tea are strange bed-fellows indeed. One's great on a sunny and sweltering afternoon while the other is a perfect antidote against the cold when it's billowing snow outside. Oddly enough, the two happen to share top billing at Quickly, a shabu shabu place fronted by a bubble tea counter.
On a late November evening, my companions and I were there for the bubbling vats of soup and some meat swishing action, although some bubble tea with the meal would not hurt. We were a little skeptical going into the restaurant, as the shopfront looked tiny and a little dingy, and the idea of hotpot and bubble tea specialist just did not elicit much confidence in us. But as we were led to the basement, which was bright, clean and filled with groups of young Asians who seemed really into their food, we relaxed and started ordering.
The concept is simple: an individual sized hot pot for each diner, your choice of 3 soup bases and meats and vegetables to dip into the soup. A bar is stocked with all types of Asian dipping condiments, from chilli oil to sesame paste, as well as a never-ending supply of eggs, which we cooked hard boiled, stirred into egg flowers or mixed raw with the various sauces for a tasty but salmonella-prone dip. We chose a few set meals and some extra plates of meat, which came with fresh thin cuts of beef/chicken/pork/lamb that fortunately did not suffer from freezer burn, vegetables and vermicelli that miraculously multiplied in the pot. Yanru and I kept fishing and fishing and still more would surface when we thought we were done eating. While we were eating, the server (who was kind of spaced out or just overworked most of the time) brought us our bubble tea drinks that came with the meal. Yes, you get tea along your shabu shabu, in case you needed a cool respite from the steamy dinner. My Singaporean friends and I were waxing nostalgia (ok I was) over how Quickly, a bubble tea franchise from Taiwan had quickly whipped up a bubble tea frenzy in Singapore when we were high schoolers only to shut down really quickly too, due to overzealous copying by local bubble tea shops that unfortunately did not make great tea. While the tea we had were not as good as I had remembered it to be, it was definitely somewhat of a pleasant surprise to see the brand alive and well 10000 miles away from home!

Quickly
237 Grand St

Thank you Mr. Turkey

And Auntie Hui, Uncle Sam and everyone else who made this Thanksgiving so tasty and memorable! The holidays are always festive affairs, and feasting, which inevitably leads to over enthusiastic gorging is not only condoned, but expected. Indeed, our hosts would be offended if we didn't try our best to clear our plates, which explains why I am still feeling bloated. While I try to recuperate from gross overeating this weekend, let me count the ways I ate:
1. Sampling homemade scones that Gerrie and I made, to make sure their edibility
2. Licking the left-over sweet cream cheese mixture meant for the highly addictive mini chocolate cupcakes straight from the bowl
3. Surreptitiously tasting everything that goes out of the kitchen in the name of quality control
4. Spooning heaps of yams and stuffing that go with the tender bird that 2 years ago were billed as "White House Turkey" because George bought his from the same farm
5. Feeling torn between chocolate cake or strawberry and banan trifle, both from the kitchens of WW's v. capably baker girlfriend, and finally just eating both, in between popping bite-sized creme puffs, cupcakes and butter cookies from Philly.
All these, and that's only Thanksgiving! I've not even described our post Black Friday meal in vietnamese town, lamb bbqed over an open grill and served with dollops of mint jelly and the most pungent fish sauce flavored croutons one has ever encountered...
No wonder Tyler had been training for Thanksgiving since last week. Next year, I will be a champion eater too!

Sweet Treats

I have a sweet tooth and am unabashedly upfront about it. As a result, I've borne a fair share of good natured ridicule from time to time, when colleagues jokingly hand me the largest slice of cake during "birthday tea-breaks" or snarkily inform me about leftover cookies sitting in certain conference rooms. However, my well-publicized weakness for candy has perks too. For example, I do get the largest slice of cake around, and people remember to bring me desserts whenever they go on trips. John for example brought back some interesting Indian traditional sweets back to the office after his whirlwind trip to India and I was the lucky recipient of my own box when others had to share... MUAHAHAHA
For the uninitiated, India is a sugar-loving nation, but one can hardly tell from surveying the dessert menu at most Indian restaurants in the US. Besides the standard gulab jamun and ras malai, desserts are pathetically under-represented. And you are hardly missing anything if you choose to skip the commercially produced and oversweetened balls of flour and sugar. But sweets, or mithai, are a big part of life, featuring not only during festivals and religious days, but also as common fixtures during weddings. More importantly however, the small but intensely sweet nuggets are so good that you want them to be part of a daily routine, as a after dinner sweet or something you savor with your cup of chai tea.
Of the selections within my personal box of Delhi sweets, I adore the pistachio and almond burfi, decorated with edible silver leaf most. While not as pretty as some of the more colorful sweets, the blocks of candy made from condensed milk, flavored with a smoky nutty flavor are simply irresistable. The ladoo is another popular sweet, reminiscent of a gulab jamun in its shape and sugar-soaked nature, but even more sinful (and thus better tasting) since its deep-fried in ghee. Unfortunately for the health-conscious, we all know that the best sweets are made with real butter, lard, and in this instance, ghee, but sacrifices have to be made, and for now, taste trumps calories, even as I fruitlessly try to limit my Indian sweet consumption to one after each meal....

Novecento & Vegetarian Dim Sum House

Otherwise known as "Steak night and how I paid penance the day after".
A couple years ago, some friends visited Argentina and came back with hundreds of pictures, mate cups and stories about the best steaks they've eaten in their lives. In fact, they regaled us about how they would eat steak for lunch & dinner a few days in a row, often with a few good bottles of malbecs to wash all the protein down. The Argentineans, with the highest per capital meat consumption in the world, sure take their beef seriously. And at Novecento, a small Argentine steakhouse tucked in the slightly scene-y part of West Soho, the gaucho nation showcased its flair for cooking beef.
All four of us, Gerrie, me and two friends had the surprisingly affordable signature skirt steak served with chimicurri sauce. The restaurant did justice to the typically inexpensive and not very tender cut of meat, rendering the steak a nice char outside and moistness inside. While the steak did not need any additional embellishment, the fragrant and slightly spicy chimicurri sauce gave the creamy but bland mashed potatoes a much needed lift. The fries however, were really nicely fried and very flavorful. Yummy. With a few glasses of red wine and serviceable desserts, we had a very nice friday night satisfying our carnivorous tendencies.
A night of vegetables and gluten followed the guilty meat and potatoes meal, as Yanru convinced me to join her for dinner at the Vegetarian Dim Sum House in Chinatown, a place she's been thinking about checking out for months. My initial skepticism about all-day dim sum, meatless to boot was happily proven wrong as we dined on steam tofu-skin rolls stuffed with fresh vegetables and a big casserole of vermicelli and mock ham, which tasted exactly like spam, but guilt-free. However, meatless doesn't always mean healthy, as the lack of meat is compensated by heavy seasoning and liberal dosages of cooking oil. Also, its curious that vegetarian food should cost more than meat, which it did, albeit just slightly in Chinatown. Nonetheless, it was a very filling and tasty meal, and we spotted a few interesting dishes on the other tables that we would like to try. For those leery of vegetarian food, or just Chinese food in general, it should be noted that the room was packed with a predominantly young Caucasian crowd, as the food is probably very suitable for vegetarians and vegans, so come on down and try it yourself. You'll be very contented with your mock meats and feel good with the knowledge that no animals had been harmed in the process of your culinary enjoyment =)

Novecento
343 W Broadway

Vegetarian Dim Sum House
24 Pell St

Soup noodles on Eldridge Street

When Yanru first suggested eating Lanzhou hand pulled noodles with a side of Fuzhou stuffed fishballs on Eldridge St, I was a little confused. Lanzhou is famed for its thick strands of chewy, udon-like noodles, while meat-stuffed fishballs are known specialties of Fuzhou. No disputes there. But with Lanzhou in the interior of China and Fuzhou right on the southeast coast, how did the cusines of the two regions collide and interact, and in New York no less?
Questions aside, both the noodles and the fishballs at Sheng Wang were pretty good, especially considering the rock-bottom price of $4 for a basin full of homemade noodles, hand-pulled by the chef standing behind the narrow counter. The list of toppings for the toothsome noodles was long and varied, ranging from pig innards to cantonese roast duck, which is certainly not made in-house and which we avoided. After some inquiries, we ordered the house specialty pork bone soup, which ostensibly came with a few hunking chunks of bones, hacked right in the middle such that the marrow was sliding into the rich, meaty broth. To cut the grease factor, the noodles are topped with pickled vegetables. It was certainly not a dainty dish and Rosie and Ying valiantly tried to finish their portions. A good half dozen Fuzhou fishballs, the size of golf balls came afloating on top of Yanru's fishball noodles, and they were a little doughy but also very satisfying.
Besides Sheng Wang, a few other noodle shops with similar menus line Eldridge St, catering to the immigrant community, largely from Fuzhou, who need a fuss-free and nourishing bite. While the food and the shoebox frills-free basement dining room were a little coarser than we are used to, the humble fare did me good, as I warmed myself on that cold and rainy night with the vats of soup and reflected on my fortune once again, to live in a great, diverse city where $40 and $4 entrees exist within a short 15 block radius and are celebrated alike.

Sheng Wang Noodles
27 Eldridge St