Wong + Grom
January 26, 2012 § 1 Comment
Cornelia Street off Bleecker has a trove of great restaurants – Pearl Oyster Bar (where I had my first lobster roll), Cornelia Street Cafe, Le Gigot, Home Restaurant (a brunch favorite with killer oyster po’boys and duck confit butternut hash). The newest of these gems is Wong, by Simpson Wong, whose cuisine can only really be described as Asian fusion. Unlike typical notions of fusion, however, the food here is not as contrived at all and familiar Asian dishes are delivered with unique flair.
Sorry in advance for the very dimly lit, awkwardly tinted photos. The restaurant was extremely dark, even by 5:30pm, and our candle gave everything a reddish glow. The interior is much like any other casual dining place nowadays, minimalist with classroom-style chairs, open kitchen so you can see the chef working on your dishes, and a long, wooden bar where patrons can sip Asian-inspired cocktails while waiting for their table.
The waiter first brought us some curry with paneer and naan, the restaurant’s version of bread and butter. The flavors in this little dish were incredibly sharp, and it bode well for the rest of the meal.
Our starter were the house specialty, Wong’s duck buns, with cucumber and chinese celery. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the herbal taste of Chinese celery in what I’d assume would be a fatty bun (akin to Momofuku’s pork belly buns) but we ordered them anyway since they were one of the better known dishes and we weren’t disappointed. The celery definitely added an earthy element, balanced against the fatty, tender duck. The buns were also crisply fried, which was a very nice and unexpected touch.
Initially, we also wanted to try the Hakka pork belly small plate, served with turnip, taro root tater tots (I wanted the dish for this alone), and greens, but the kitchen had sadly run out so we got the shrimp fritters instead. Normally, I don’t like foods that are too tart, and this dish had a really bracing, acidic vinaigrette (no doubt nam pla played a part) poured on everything else immediately before eating. It was a bit shocking for my taste buds at first, but as we continued to mix the sauce with the noodles and fried shrimp, the flavors began to meld together and harmonize with one another.
Our shared main course was a real show-stopper, Wong’s egg foo young. I’ve never actually had regular egg foo young before, so I had no base of comparison, but this was perfect in so many ways. The day’d been extremely cold and we had basically walked the length of Bleecker Street, so to dig into such an insanely comforting, egg-yolk-and-lobster-filled dish was a real treat. Add crumbled salted duck-egg yolks (which my family goes absolutely nuts about), and we were mopping the last scraps up with whatever bread there was left.
We didn’t get to try the famous duck fat ice cream (served with poached plums, tuile, and 5-spice cookie) since we were worried it’d be too much rich food but picked up some gelato from Grom on the way back, though in retrospect I suppose Grom ice cream isn’t that much less indulgent than duck fat ice cream. Mandarin and torroncino (nougat) for me, pear and cassata Siciliana (almond chips, candied lemons and oranges) for Laura.
Wong
7 Cornelia Street
New York, NY 10014
212.989.3399
Grom
233 Bleecker Street (and Carmine)
New York, NY
212.206.1738
Dominique Ansel Bakery
January 22, 2012 § 3 Comments
Lately, whenever visiting New York City, I’ve been more interested in exploring small, cozy coffeeshops (or places that serve afternoon tea, which is a topic for another time) or casual bakeries as opposed to more formal, sit-down restaurants (my wallet has been grateful). One such place that Laura and I visited was the relatively new Dominique Ansel Bakery tucked in the Soho district. Ansel used to work at the famous Daniel Boulud, including when it won its first three Michelin stars, four-star New York Times rating, and James Beard award but then decided to venture out on his own by opening a neighborhood cafe.
The space was much bigger than I anticipated, with plenty of indoor seating and a covered atrium with heating, and as with all great bakeries, there were cases of Ansel’s beautiful pastries, cakes, and desserts, a feast for the eyes.
The bakery also has a decent amount of savory offerings for lunch, so Laura and I ordered the roasted pork club, the truffle grilled cheese, and a Paris-New York pastry for dessert. The roasted pork club came stuffed to the brink with surprisingly tender and flavorful pork, halved hard-boiled eggs, tomato, lettuce, and a killer spicy mayonnaise that tasted slightly of chipotle. Laura’s truffle grilled cheese was an inexpensive indulgence, with slices of garlic rosemary sourdough bread slathered in butter on the outside and oozing with mozzarella, Gruyere, and Fontina cheeses on the inside. I’m considering buying a small tub of truffle butter to attempt a recreation at home. Our Paris-New York, a twist on the Paris-Brest, was a beautifully-presented pate a choux dough filled with peanut (the candied peanuts on top, so tasty!), caramel, and chocolate. What more could a girl want?
Places like Dominique Ansel – with their calm atmosphere, excellent and beautiful food, and friendly service – always make me a little (read very) jealous of my sisters living in the city, especially Laura, who lives close to Union Square and could easily walk to Dominique Ansel. How nice would it be to spend a day window-shopping and wandering in Soho and then indulge in some eclairs and coffee? Summer in New York can’t come soon enough, but in the meantime, I’m stuck in the frigid cold subsisting on painfully ordinary food.
Dominique Ansel Bakery
189 Sullivan Street (btw Spring and Thompson)
New York, NY 10012
212.219.2773
NJ eats
January 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
Thai food at Four Seasons and pizza (including a dynamite eggplant, spinach, mozzarella, and roasted red pepper slice) at Mario’s Famous pizza. Good food with good friends.
Kunjip and Koryodang
January 11, 2012 § 1 Comment
One of the many television shows I’ve been watching over winter break is Kimchi Chronicles, a PBS documentary slash travel show about the food and culture of Korea. Of course, it was only natural that afterwards, I had a fierce craving for Korean barbecue and kimchi. When it came to deciding where to meet some Georgetown friends in New York City, Kunjip in midtown came to mind.
The restaurant was just starting its dinner rush when we arrived, but within half an hour, there were lines out the door, which we took as a good sign for the food. Overall, service was efficient and almost a bit too hurried, but you could tell that the manager and staff had done this many times before and had developed a system to make sure tables were being filled as quickly as possible.
We began with panchan – small side dishes to accompany the meal – which included various kinds of kimchi, mung bean sprouts, steamed eggs, and fish cakes with vegetables.
We ordered haemool jun gol, a spicy seafood soup with a whole octopus, clams, shrimp, crabs, tofu and rice cakes. Although the flavors were good and I loved that our server cut up larger pieces of seafood with scissors, the octopus became quite tough and overcooked, pretty much inedible since it was so chewy.
We couldn’t have a Korean dinner with barbecue, so we ordered kalbi, which was served ssam style with fermented bean paste, rice, scallion salad, and garlic wrapped in lettuce. The meat was very tender and juicy, but the portion was a bit underwhelming considering the price tag.
Our final dish was ddukboki, starchy cylindrical rice cakes reminiscent of gnocchi in a spicy, sweet stew with onions and carrots. So comforting, my favorite dish of the evening for its simplicity.
Afterwards, we stopped at nearby Koryodong for bubble tea and dessert. The pastries and assorted breads were standard Korean desserts and not particularly jaw-dropping, but the space was the perfect place for all the catching up we had to do.
In the past, I’ve kind of forgotten about Koreatown since it’s so close to Penn Station, but after visiting these two places, I’m looking forward to exploring its restaurants and cafes a little more in the future.
Kunjip
9 W. 32nd Street
New York, NY 10001
212.216.9487
Koryodang
31 West 32nd Street
New York, NY 10001
Dim sum at Oriental Garden
January 1, 2012 § Leave a comment
Christmas Day, our family eschewed staying at home like we usually do and drove into New York City for dim sum in Chinatown (now that’s a Christmas brunch I can get with). Our usual choice, Jing Fong, wasn’t available since there were large parties going in at noon, so we ended up at nearby Oriental Garden, where the staff seated us in a different, quieter part of the restaurant.
This was probably one of the most relaxed dim sum experiences I’ve ever had. Usually, customers wait eagle-eyed for carts of their favorite foods and dim sum ladies yell whatever they have in loud Cantonese, but in this section of the restaurant, waiters just circled around quietly from table to table and even let us order directly off the dim sum menu in batches.
As typical with dim sum, most of the food we got almost instantly, including shrimp “noodles,” Shanghai buns, taro shrimp puffs, baked pork wedges, and bacon-wrapped shrimp balls (something I’ve never seen in a Chinese restaurant). Overall, the dishes were quite good, with the super crispy and light taro shrimp puffs being my favorite.
The next go-around, we ordered Hong Kong-style dumplings, which were fried and a bit chewy for my taste, and a whole slew of the classics, like chicken feet, beef tripe, shrimp-stuffed eggplant, shrimp dumplings, shu mai, black bean steamed spare ribs, bean curd with pork, and lotus leaf sticky rice. Stand-outs were the flavorful yet delicate shu mai, the savory spare ribs, and the shrimp-stuffed eggplant, for which I always have a weakness.
And one of our final items and my favorite, was the humble (fried) turnip cake, which I always smother with hot chili sauce and wolf down like a baby dinosaur.
So even though we weren’t able to eat at Jing Fong, I’d say we discovered another solid place for dim sum in Chinatown, with better service than most Chinese restaurants. After looking it up online, I’m also curious to try their supremely fresh seafood during dinner hours.
Also, Happy 2012 everybody! May all your dreams come true in the new year. 🙂
Oriental Garden
14 Elizabeth Street
New York, NY 10013
212.619.0085
Balthazar
December 27, 2011 § 4 Comments
Balthazar in Soho was always one of those restaurants I’d always walk by and think, “maybe next time.” I’d heard good things about the place but prices were pretty steep for someone on a student’s budget and I figured, it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Last week, Laura and I were in a celebratory/holiday mood and hungry after walking all over downtown, so we finally decided to treat ourselves to an all-out meal at this beloved bistro.
Although it doesn’t look that big from the outside, the interior of the restaurant is almost cavernous, with high ceilings and booths that stretch deep into the restaurant. Despite the huge space, we felt instantly at home either due to the cute Christmas decorations or the fact that even though it was 4 pm, there were a lot of people enjoying their food.
Bread and butter came first. I always take this as a small indicator of how much a restaurant pays attention to detail. First, is the butter salted and soft? There’s nothing more annoying (ok, maybe an exaggeration) than warm, crusty bread (another detail) and a frigid chunk of tasteless butter alongside it. Happily, Balthazar passed this test and Laura and I ate almost the entire thing before stopping ourselves to save room for the starters.
We ordered the onion soup gratinee, one of Laura’s most favorite dishes in the world. It might possibly be one of the best French onion soups that I’ve had, no doubt because they top rich, caramelized onions with a giant slice of bread and cheese and torch the thing so it becomes almost like a savory brulee.
We also ordered the chicken liver and foie gras mousse with onion confit and grilled country bread (this is where saving some of the bread basket did us good). Fatty and smooth – it was the holidays after all – with chunks of coarse sea salt on top, this dish becomes a meal in itself. It’s perfectly balanced; the mousse is creamy and flavorful, the onion confit has a bit of sweetness, the greens add bite and rawness and the bread has that slightly burnt flavor and crunchy texture. Even though it didn’t seem like much initially, the mousse is very rich and a lot to finish, but we didn’t really have a problem with that.
For our entree, we split the Balthazar bar steak with bearnaise sauce and frites. It’d been a while since I last had steak and I had to get used to its pure beef flavor. The fries – apparently Bobby Flay’s favorites – were crisp on the outside and creamy on the inside and even though I was getting full, I kept nibbling at them until they were basically all gone.
And finally, to round out our classic French bistro meal, we ordered the warm chocolate cake with white chocolate ice cream. That’s right, white chocolate. Not your typical vanilla. The cake itself fell into the “crisp on the outside, molten on inside” category and the usual contrast between warm cake and cold ice cream brought an end to a truly wonderful time. I’ll definitely be returning to Balthazar, even if it’s just for some bread and a latte.
Balthazar
80 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012
212.965.1414
Website
Smallish bites uptown
December 24, 2011 § 2 Comments
After breakfast at Alice’s Tea Cup, Laura and I continued to buy small bites of food from uptown shops to bring home as a pre-Christmas snack for the family. We stopped by Salumeria Rosi for spicy coppa piccante, where the people working the counter were very generous with their samples. At some point in the future, I think it’d be really nice to settle into the restaurant area with a giant board of cheese, cured meats, and a glass of red wine. I’d also really love to get my hands on some of that porchetta.
We also visited nearby Levain Bakery, known for their enormous, bajillion-caloried cookies. Although we only got their chocolate chip walnut cookie (so buttery and delicious and only about 2/3 baked through so the center was basically cookie dough), next time I’d really like to try their brioche with cinnamon butter.
And finally, we took a nice walk across Central Park from west side to east to pick up some macarons from Laduree, which had changed some flavors since I was there last, adding a citrus passionfruit, black forest, and chestnut pear flavor. We got two gorgeous gift boxes of six to bring home for my parents, who’d never tried them before and absolutely loved nibbling on them with cups of hot tea.
And with that, I wish all of you a happy and delicious holiday!
Salumeria Rosi
283 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY
212.877.4801
http://www.salumeriarosi.com/en_ny/home/
Levain Bakery
167 West 74th Street
New York, NY 10023
212.874.6080
http://www.levainbakery.com/
Laduree
864 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021
646.558.3157
Laduree Shops
Alice’s Tea Cup
December 22, 2011 § 3 Comments
Christmas is the time for kitsch. Laura and I celebrated the end of her first round of college finals by embracing everything cute and corny at Alice’s Tea Cup, where the food and ambiance come together to create a really enjoyable and relaxing experience. The restaurant/tea shop itself is excessively decorated and eye-poppingly colorful, especially in the storefront area, but the actual dining room is more toned down, with old wooden spinning tables (machines removed of course) and mismatched tea settings which add to the place’s charm.
Alice's Tea Cup
We started with a pot of Alice’s Tea, their custom blend of Indian black Vanilla with Japanese green tea and rose petals, which was “smooth and subtle.”
Alice's Tea
Laura indulged in some of their Scones Benedict, with two poached eggs over a split savory scone healthily smothered in rich rosemary hollandaise sauce and served with a side of crispy potato hash. As soon as she broke into that first gooey, golden yolk, we knew we were in the right place for breakfast.
Our breakfast spread
Scones Benedict
But nothing, not even potatoes and yolky eggs, could deter me from the enormous lemon poppyseed glazed scone served with raspberry preserves and clotted cream. It was one of those moments where something so seemingly simple turns out to be so frikkin’ amazing. I spent most of breakfast just focusing on the scone (which is big enough to be breakfast in itself) and pretty much ignored my very good cornmeal and blueberry pancakes with maple syrup.
Lemon poppyseed scone with raspberry preserves and clotted cream
Cornmeal pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup
So buttery and flaky, the tart lemon tasted so delicious against the thick, dreamy cream and sweet, fruity preserves, and it was a perfect accompaniment to the hot, only slightly bitter tea. It was hard to walk pass the pastry counter on the way out without getting some more scones to go, and I was still dreaming about them this morning. Next time, I think I might just get their small pot of tea and 2 scones for $10 and spend all morning eating crumbly bite after crumbly bite.
Pastries and scones
Alice’s Tea Cup
102 West 73rd Street
New York, NY
212.799.3006
http://alicesteacup.com/
A classic
December 19, 2011 § Leave a comment
At Mario's
Sometimes, nothing beats buffalo chicken pizza. A must when home from break.
Mario’s Famous Pizza
3 Stephenville Parkway
Edison, NJ 08820
732.516.9300
Stops at old favorites
December 18, 2011 § 2 Comments
Whew! It’s been a while. I’m finally on winter break (until forever it seems) and spending most of my days on the couch in front of the television with my laptop. Yesterday I did finally manage to leave the house to reunite with high school friends in New York City and we managed to get a lot of things done.
Jiawen and Cathy with Mario, the apartment bear
First, an obligatory trip to Shake Shack, Madison Square Park with Jiawen and Cathy because I needed to get my burger fix. Between Cathy and me, we ordered our individual single Shack burgers and then split some fries (which seemed to have crispier exteriors and creamier interiors than I remembered) and a Shack-ago dog. Cathy said she still preferred a classic hot dog with ketchup and mustard, but I actually quite like all the vegetables and celery salt, even though structurally, the hot dog becomes a very hard thing to eat with all those toppings.
Oh, how I've missed you
Madison Square Park
FOOD
A beautiful Shack burger
The fat squirrels of Madison Square Park
On our way back to Jiawen’s apartment, we also stopped by nearby Eataly, which was completely packed with tourists and people doing their holiday shopping. Is the place ever not super busy? Every time I go and want to take my time and look at all the jams and spreads, cured meats, and cheeses, I lose my patience because people are constantly shuffling along and end up giving up within 10-15 minutes. I can’t even imagine waiting for a table at one of the restaurants.
Mushroom varieties at Eataly
Citrus!
We also dropped by Doughnut Plant, right by Jiawen’s apartment, to pick up a couple donuts: tres leches cake and pear yeast (a holiday flavor). The tres leches was indulgent as ever and still one of my favorite flavors (aside from carrot cake and peanut butter and jelly yeast, which were both gone by the time we got there), and even though the pear was quite good, the glaze was a bit too sweet for my taste.
Doughnut Plant
Pear
Tres Leches
Finally, we found our way back to Jiawen’s couch and had some time to relax before an evening of Korean food, drinking, and intense karoake. Cathy and I did, however, manage to slip out for a bit in the middle of watching The Adjustment Bureau to visit Whiskers in Wonderland at the Metropolitan Pavilion at 18th Street and 6th Avenue, where there were tons of cats (and not many dogs) looking for a new home. As expected, there was a lot of cooing and “awing” going on, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take home any cute critters this year.
Whiskers in Wonderland
Siblings
Huge, huge thanks to Jiawen who arranged everything and happy holidays to everyone!
Notes on Food 