Another brunch spot!

Due to Groupon, I am adding this to my list of brunch spots - Ciao for now!
Weekend brunch is just $9.50 and includes a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and fruits. The menu includes pancakes with many add-ons, french toast, eggs, and everything is hormone free, grass fed, etc. In other words, awesome. :P

They even have cakes and three convenient Manhattan locations. :P

Check them out!

Lunch from MinarNY

I was watching Tony Bourdain's No Reservations - where he went to Kerala, India (yay for free on demand) and wanting to go there myself - I mean he made everything look like it was the best thing he ever ate! And I thought, how come we don't have that kind of cooking in NYC?

Well, it is because Kerala, though poor, is still a nice enough, laid-back place to live. So most of its people enjoy life there - whereas NYC life is completely and utterly different.

But since I can't just take off and fly straight to India, I was sitting at my desk, thinking...I want Indian and even if it is not Kerala's regional dishes - big fat shrimps and curries and all their yummy stuff...I still want Indian.

Of course, I decided to go with the flow and order from MinarNY.com.

Minar has very good tasting food - I was introduced to this place by a co-worker, who just happens to be Indian as well. =P

Therefore, I trust that it is very good, indeed - and the owner is named Singh. What more can I say?!

I ordered the standard fare, of course - chicken tikka masala and alu paratha. I just love how the tikka masala tastes from here - no Jackson Diner but still very good and I love Indian breads!!!

Chicken Tikka Masala with Rice

The chunks of white meat chicken are firm but still moist with the deliciously seasoned sauce that goes awesomely with the rice and the bread!

I am not sure what is in it - I don't really care because it smelled and tasted very good!

Alu paratha, Indian flat bread stuffed with potatoes

Okay, so people might ask - why do you like this so much - it's just like a pita with potatoes inside! Wrong. This bread is soft, tasty on its own but with the seasoned potatoes, tastes like starch heaven. What is starch heaven? I am sure there are fluffy potato bits floating around like clouds...well, maybe not. And I'm on a diet but I can't help myself.

I like to dip everything into the tikka masala. It was a very yum yum combination.

All in all, it was good lunch - finished my crossword, discussed some political stuff...and went back to work afterwards. :P

MinarNY (you can order online)
Midtown - 31 & 5th Ave
5 West 31st St.
New York, NY 10016
212.684.2199

And yes, I am still waiting for Barb to upload some food porn for 2 dinners worth of posts.

Since I can't post about ....Oliva's or Pera due to lack of photos...

Yes, waiting on Barb to post pics - also I don't have my transfer cable for my cam so I can't post about Minar - my lunch from them today - I'll post about brunch/breakfast spots I have yet to go to but definitely want to go to. I might have to do up a Tea spot. Nothing like Afternoon Tea to hit the spot...and I've yet to have my favorite clotted cream with preserves on lovely scones Stateside...I miss you Ritz London.

1. Sarabeth's West : One of the busiest - yes, busiest brunch spots in the city, it is definitely one of the spots I want to try to hit soon. This is all due to their menu - things like Lemon and Ricotta pancakes with fresh berries, fat and fluffy french toast with fresh strawberries and bananas, pumpkin waffles with sour cream, raisins, pumpkin seeds and honey...and of course, they have warm organic maple syrup for all of that!
2. Wafels & Dinges : I fell in love with the original Brussels and Liege waffles in Brussels - (and their luscious chocolates too) but had a hard time in NYC finding anything fresh - mostly - Leggo my Eggo type deals. This is a nice shop - but yeah, it's in a truck so I need to figure out how to plan my day so I'm like right by when they arrive. :D Or, I can just hit the Bierbeek cart in the Seaport.
3. Petite Abeille : About a 18 blocks from my job is this Belgian spot - where I still haven't gone to try their moules or lobster or waffles... I'm too lax on this. I'm going to have to come here...:D Plus one event is the All You Can Eat mussels fest and I love moules!!!  Did I also mention these guys have a ton of Belgian beers? Yeah...must go.
4. Buttermilk Channel : With edibles like Warm Sour cream donuts, maple & bacon roasted almonds, and pecan pie french toast...of course, I want to go! This place is in Brooklyn - Carroll Gardens, to be exact and yes, I think it is probably worth the roundabout trek from Queens to try their pecan pie french toast. :)
5. Good Enough to Eat : I'd go for the blueberry pancakes or the Peter Paul  Pancakes since those come with Belgian chocolate and coconut - topped with....toasted coconut or the strawberry almond waffles made with almond filled batter or the signature Good Enough to Eat french toast - made with their very own cinnamon swirl bread...:D
6. Bubby Tribeca : I have to try their wild maine blueberry pancakes or sauteed banana walnut ones or even their sourdough pancakes since the dough for it was started in 1890. :D Interesting... Or one of their Brunch specials - which has everything from eggs and pancakes to rainbow trout scrambles...
7. Norma's @ Le Parker Meridien : Devonshire cream!! Yum - Banana Macadamia nut flapjacks or the super blueberry ones with devonshire cream o r even any of their incredible sounding pancakes, french toast...I mean hot chestnut pancakes? A crackly brulee top?! PB& C waffle? Crepes?! Who could resist?

Well, 7 places where I have to go and try their brunch....next up would be an Afternoon Tea listing. Heh.

ThaiNY from delivery.com

Well, they're technically NOT from delivery.com but today I happened to see that they joined them so I decided to have pad thai for lunch.

A pad thai lunch special with one appetizer is $6.95 - the portion is more than enough for lunch but less than enough for two lunches...

Forgot to take pic before I ate 1/3 of it...

I stuffed myself with this pad thai which was not too fishy but not spicy enough for me. I wish I remembered to ask for hot sauce.

Anyway this is not the best pad thai I've ever had but it is good enough for a quick lunch - it took less than 15 minutes to get here from its location and I'm in the boonies of Manhattan!

Thai NY
394 3rd Ave
New York, NY 10016
(212) 696-2888

Really old posting about Big Wong's from a few months ago...

A few months ago, my mother dragged me out to C-town and I don't like C-Town. Yes, I'm Asian and I don't LIKE C-town - except for 100 Mott Street lol and Nyonya!

Anyway, I told her I would treat her to lunch if we went to Shanghai Cafe because I absolutely LOVE their soup dumplings...I need to bring my camera in sometime to take nicer photos of their food. So far, everything I'd ever tasted from them has been good.

I have to stop now because...this isn't about 100 Mott Street's most awesome soup dumplings but about Big Wong's.

So my mother says no and I'm like pissed because it was hot out and I wanted my bubble tea and soup dumplings. And yes, I'll still act like a bratty kid...because well, she's MY mom and I can..lol and ummm yeah.

We shop a bit more and then she says she is hungry so she steers us to this hole in the wall called Big Wong's.

This is a typical chinese restaurant - poor wait service, the abrupt mannerisms, etc - which I absolutely hate and will only deal with if the food was like mind-blowing spectacular...(Shanghai Cafe - is one of few places I would deal with if it was like that but they are usually nice.)

Well, they seat us at a table in the back - it was two tables put together in case of foursomes but I am sure the legal fire-hazard limit has been surpassed a long time ago. As usual in Asian restaurants as these, the tables could barely fit one person's food, let alone two.

I discover the menu they gave us was not the lunch menu for all the prices were like $20 and $15 dishes - I am sure for the tourists who happen to wander in. They only had the one menu and the other table had it. We got it finally and was able to look at the choices.

We had to fight for the attention of the wait staff...and this is just to order. And to get water? Puh-lease...

Anyway, I decided on the roasted pork wonton soup with noodles and mom got the duck noodle soup.

So what they do is make wontons, cook it, then add it to the noodles with soup. They cut up roasted pork (the kind you see hanging in the store windows) and put that on top. Voila.

This is not the best photo as I used my camera phone and it looked fine to me in there but turned out blurry. Oh well...

Blurry photo of roasted pork wonton noodle soup

It actually tasted fine. Not great but pretty good. On a positive note, the wontons were almost as good as my mother's.

I could not finish it all and just forgot about most of the noodles - eating most of the wontons. I gave leftover pork to my mom...as she doesn't like paying for food and then having leftovers...

Mom seemed to like her roasted duck - for a time, I didn't eat it because ducks mate for life and that was once a partner to another duck, you know. Now I just don't eat it because it is really just fat.

Roasted duck with noodles in soup

I would not go out of my way to come here - not when soup dumplings are so close by but it was decent - lunch was about $11 without tip. Mom, of course, left just $2. But I don't feel that bad because the table next to us had about 5 dishes and just left $2.

Big Wong King Restaurant
67 Mott Street
New York, NY 10013-4838
(212) 964-0540

Lobster Lunch @ Bar XII

So Barb came back to work and we decided to go to eat at Bar XII. See, I had this groupon - you shell out $20 for $40 worth of food and drinks - well, we can't drink during 'work' hours so we just went for the food.

So Michelle had gone there for lunch previously and so we decided we wanted a lobster lunch too. In the summers, Bar XII has a lunch special on Mondays - $16.95 for lobster special.

We met there around 1:30 p.m. (way past my usual lunch hour) and met with Annie and her friend. Michelle came later. lol.

We ordered the lobster specials but were not told beforehand to have them season it Cajun style.

It finally came - a heaping plate of food - lobster cut in half, split open with accompanying side of corn on the cob and a baked potato.

Lobster Lunch

To start with - the potato was bleh...I know it's a baked potato but I've had tasty ones - and ones with lots more butter.

The corn - disappointing. It was not sweet or juicy like the corn I get from the market - it was rather tasteless and I just felt like it was old corn...lol. Barb said it wasn't very good.

The lobster was okay. It was hard to crack open - the shell was not hard - so the cracker didn't do a good job on it...but yeah even the crackers weren't very strong... I know - I'm sort of dainty when it comes to this - having had easy to open lobster at Chinese restaurants where all you do is stick a fork in it and pull out the meat but...yeah...to compare...to compare...lol...

City Crab was way better. Yes, it's more pricey but I feel the cost justified the end. My tummy was really happy there. :P

And City Crab is part of Restaurant Week...*BIG HMMMMMMM*

My birthday Dinner @ Natural Tofu

A few weeks ago, my friends took me out for my birthday dinner and karaoke! It was pretty fun. :)

We went for Korean food - which no one but Nicole and I had before. Interesting...

I took them to a place I've been to with my other pals. Natural Tofu - on 32nd St between 5th and 6th Aves - on the second floor - you can see the diners from the ground level if you look from across the street.

Now - Korean restaurants always serve you freebies -

Freebies - from bottom left - bean sprouts, unknown for next two above - reddish ones were kimchi and last one seemed to be leeks or spring onions... That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I mistakenly ordered two scallion pancakes - you really only need one if people like it - maybe two.

Scallion pancake with octopus and scallions! Yum.

The next things ordered were beef fried rice and pork fried rice along with spicy tofu and the beef shortribs...

beef fried rice - the egg is to mix in - hence the hot hot plate and wooden tray...

not sure what this is?

Spicy tofu - need the really spicy one lol...:P

And the beef shortribs which I think I might have forgotten to take a picture of...SORRY!!! That turned out the be one of the best dishes of the night - the spicy tofu was too mild to be yum for me. But that's just me...

Afterwards we did head to Duet Karaoke and luckily we got two hours of singing and some drinks out of it - though the drinks were not good. Sneak your own in if you can...Lol.

Natural Tofu/Seoul Garden
34 West 32nd Street
New York, NY 10001-3800
(212) 736-9002


Duet 35
53 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001-2219
(646) 473-0826

Blockheads Lunch

A while back, we went to lunch - Barb, Michelle, and Nicole included - to Blockheads - where we encountered a seemingly new rule - ids. We felt rather flattered...lol...but we also questioned the waitress and she said that it was a new rule - anyone ordering drinks - regardless of how old they look - needed to provide id as proof of legality.

So much for looking way younger...lol.

Anyway we ordered the frozen margaritas - except for Barb who was not allowed.

And then came the burritos -

Blockheads Beef Burritos

Forgot what this was...

Same as the top? :)

I believe they were tasty enough for what they were - a chain burrito - steps above Taco Bell food but not as good as what I saw on Man vs. Food - the episode where he went and had a 10 lb burrito somewhere in L.A.

I just mostly recalled that it filled my stomach so much, that I could not have Red Mango...

Brunch near...Crunch - yes...but it's true...

A few weeks back - I would even venture to say - about a month or so ago - Barb and I, after a less than intense work-out at Crunch by Astor Place, decided we wanted brunch - or rather, I stated that I was absolutely hungry and was in the mood for a big lumberjack breakfast. And Barb was like...now you just put me in the mood for pancakes...

After wandering aimlessly and fruitlessly, for there were no 24 hour brunch places by the University, we ventured towards Bowery. 

Lo and behold, Barb sees across the street - a sign - a sign that said Brunch! 

As we looked at it, we realized how familiar this place was - how very very familiar. And it turns out, that many years ago, we went to Agozar's for Rania's birthday dinner and ended up at this very spot for an after dinner drink. 

We went inside and Barb gives the host the grilling - do you have pancakes, does it come without the mixed berries, etc. After he checked and we had our assurances that the berries can be left out, we were seated - opting for the coolness of the indoors with the living bamboo plants - rather than the outside, where humidity and heat awaited.

No one laughed at our gym attire or my lovely Chuck t-shirt. A plus!

Now for the name - I HAVE NO IDEA - it is about a block or two from Agozars! Somehow I must find its name and address...

Okay, moving on to the food - 

We ordered drinks - Mimosa and bellini first. They had complementary banana nut bread - delicious!

After some deliberation, Barb ordered her mixed berries and nuts pancakes without the mixed berries and without  most of the nuts...while I changed my mind and went for the french toast with maple syrup...

Please do not drool over your keyboard...lol....

Fluffy Pancakes without the berries and a few nuts...

French Toast with fruit

The maple syrup came in a little log cabin glass carafe and was excellent over the French Toast, which was nicely executed...good challah bread with a layer of strawberries in between the two slices... Simply good - maybe not good for me but it was a tasty bit of food. :)

I can't vouch for Barb's pancakes but they looked nice and fluffy and I would say it was also very good.

Somewhere near Bowery - a block or two from Agozar's. My nameless delicious brunch. :)

Updated: No longer Nameless:
Bowery Bar & Grill
40 E. 4th Street
New York, NY 10003
212.475.2220

I also saw some bad reviews but actually, our experience was very far from bad. The waiter was attentive as was the host. We were able to get our check not long after we asked for it and we had refills of water almost as soon as we took a sip.

OMG - Extended restaurant week in NYC!!

Are you not excited? How can you NOT be?! Restaurant Week is now extended until September 6th!!!

Get your eats on and hop over to http://www.nycgo.com/!

Upcoming Dining Options and reviews!

Alice's Tea Cup

Bar Paya

Bespoke Chocolates

Brick NYC

Ciao Bella

Florencia 13

Nolita House

Nomad

Onieals Soho – 174 Grand Street –
Pera

Pop Yogurt

Tbsp

Vic's Bagel Bar

Olivas - review coming up...need pics from Barb.

Fuse @ 34th & 2nd Ave - Thai & Japanese

For lunch last Wednesday, we decided to hit up this place called Fuse, located between 34th and 35th Street, on 2nd Ave. It was a newly opened place which I had never been to but a few coworkers had and they loved the pad thai. When I saw that they had RAMEN, I knew we had to go there.

Ramen must be one of the best noodle dishes ever invented. Real ramen is made with fresh noodles, in a delicious broth soup – usually soy based or miso based. However, miso is usually an iffy thing because it is rather difficult to get a good miso soup whereas soy is a simpler base.

The place reminded me of Cafe Asean in decor with its rough whitewashed exposed brick side and cheaper tables and chairs were alright. As usual, my complaint lies with the small tables that Asian restaurants prefer.

My coworker, Rania, ordered the pad thai.

This pad thai she liked as it wasn’t too fishy – which is caused by flavoring it with the traditional anchovy sauce – a staple in SE Asian Cooking. She did pick out all the chicken and it might be that she just didn’t like the chicken in the noodles as she is indeed very picky about her meat.

My other coworker, David and I both had the ramen.

Okay…to be perfectly honest, I would not have the ramen again. There is something to be said about authentic ramen and inauthentic, which this appeared to be. The soup was not astounding and did not beg for me to slurp the noodles up rapidly or drink up the whole bowl of it. The noodles were clearly not freshly made. The naruto like fish cakes were bland at best. The pork pieces were fatty (just like Japanese ones) but the taste was not as divine as the ones I had in Japan.

There was just a glimmer of hope that we would get a decent ramen near my workplace but it turned into epic fail.

Fuse Japanese Thai
625 2nd Ave
New York,NY 10016
212.213.3883

Irma's B-day @ Agozar's

For Irma’s birthday, we went to Agozar’s again. Yay for Agozar’s! But it was a Saturday and their early bird menu is Mon-Thurs only! Like older folks don’t need to eat on the weekends!

Haydee made reservations but it was pretty empty when we first arrived. It got really crowded as the night went on (our reservation was for 6.)

It was also quite a beeyuuuutiiiiiiifulllll day. Quite lovely so that even waiting outside was fine.

Plus Haydee had invited another guest who invited another. So she was giving directions to them and I was texting Barb and talking to Irma. Irma had no idea they were coming.

We decided to go ahead and get seated as we were all hungry.

For appetizers, we went with :

This was made from plantains but not fried up and served alone. This was more like a dip and it was pretty good – a nice start to our meal.

This was a plate of mini empanadas – beef, chicken, and mushroom. All were yummy.

These were delicious shrimp in a double garlic sauce and if you like garlic, this was it! I dipped the bread and ate it and the sauce was just the right amount of garlic, seasoning. -_- I want more.

This was chicharron de pollo – a crispy fried chicken which was nice and hot when it came and it was quite delicious. But then again, fry = yum.

I think we could have stuck to appetizers and drinks with no problems.

However, we went ahead and ordered main menu items. Why? Because when you are starving, your eyes are always bigger than your stomach!!!

Haydee’s cousin ordered this vaca frita. A fried beef, which is fried to a crisp.

This was the other beef special – I forgot how to spell it all. It’s meat surrounded by thin flat plantains and therefore, the beef was moist.

And I learned that lechon meant pig. So this is lechon, a moist, tender pork dish. It was pretty good but not as good as other lechon I’ve eaten.

This is paella marinara, a lovely rice dish cooked with seafood. I would rate this pretty much average because the rice was just tender but this was not the same paella marinara I’ve had at other places – such as this one restaurant overlooking the cliffs in Fort Lee, NJ. This was passable with a slightly bland seasoning.

The ambiance of Agozar’s is a fun, hip vibe with loud music and great staff. Our primary waiter was Jose and he was very attentive and did alot of special touches like get a flan with a candle for Irma’s song. The whole restaurant erupted into applause at the end and it was pretty fun to have that attention on Irma, who was beet red.

This is definitely a great place to go for their happy hour specials and early bird specials – 2 for 1 drinks and appetizers in the lounge or bar as well as $14.95 3 course dinners are fantastic bargains in NYC.

Cinco de Mayo @ Agozar's

I had not planned on going out for Cinco de Mayo but I decided to at the last minute. So that day, after work, I met up with Babs @ 35th and 1st for a walk up to the Katwalk ( I should say west because the Katwalk is on 35th and 5th.)

We went to fellow lush – Michelle’s Cinco de Mayo event @ the Katwalk and would be meeting her there.

We arrived early, and there was a girl who looked just like Michelle there. Except it was of course, not Michelle but her sister! So we had special which was none too special – some disgusting drink. It was so bad, I did not care to memorize the name! The chips and salsa were good – the salsa had a nice kick to it.

But when Barb got up – there was gum…on her black skirt. The employees were not really cool – the manager either. They did not offer anything but ice to try to get it out. Well, it did but not all so she was fuming. Michelle took pictures and the manager rushed over and told Barb that Katwalk will pick up the tab for dry cleaning. After that, Barb was not in a good mood so we decided to hit up the Cinco de Mayo event @ Agozar’s.

It was crowded for a Wednesday but then again, it was Cinco de Mayo!!!

We had about a 10 minute wait even though the lovely hostesses told us 20 minutes. We ended up walking around block to the other door (Agozar’s has this cool L shape space). We got seated and we ordered drinks. Being Cinco de Mayo, we were able to get the two for one specials. So – we had Mojitos! Sorry, I didn’t take pictures. Well, I got a mojito the 2nd time and it was so good. The first drink was not so good. I think it was a coconut concoction that made me think of diesel fuel.

And because we were so hungry, I didn’t get a picture of the empanaditas or camarones al ajillo.

But here is the mystery dish – . It tasted yummy – fried bits of something delicious but then fried foods almost always tasted good!

Babs ordered her special item: which was a fried shredded beef. It was as crispy as it looked and served over plantains.

I ordered the Agozar’s version of arroz con pollo – , which I must admit I was not too fond of. It was tasty – seasoned lightly with nice pieces of chicken but it just didn’t have that oomph that I expect from this dish – especially after having it elsewhere like the cheaper Rivington restaurant.

It was a good Cinco de Mayo anyway. And we got two necklaces out of it. Score!

Shanghai Cafe - Soup Dumplings!

A few Sundays ago, I stayed @ my friends’ place in the city. Sunday, Irma wanted to get a facial so we went to Avani. Epic fail! They were fully booked that afternoon so Irma and Haydee booked two facials for the following weekend. Then we were hungry so we went to find food.

I had a craving for soup dumplings so we ended up going to Shanghai Cafe – after I assured Haydee, one of the world’s pickiest eaters, that there would be some edibles for her and her mother besides my soup dumplings.

So we got to sit in the wooden booths – which if you know about Asian cafes/restaurants is a good thing because the tables are way too small to hold any amount of food with room to eat. So we got our ‘large’ table and rang up the order:

2 orders of soup dumpings – #2 (pork only – the crab one is just not as good)
1 order of fried dumpling
1 order of fried rice

I think that was it. I’m not 100% sure.

Anyway, I made Irma and Haydee try the soup dumplings and they actually LIKED it. It was like a miracle.

For those who have never eaten soup dumpling before, you simply must go and eat it. Like soon. Like right now.

A soup dumpling is just what it sounds like – a soft doughy casing with a juicy soup center around a lump of delicious pork minced with vegetables etc steamed in a bamboo case over cabbage leaves. The key is not to burn your mouth as you bite into this juicy morsel or dribble soup over yourself.

Yummy. I love soup dumplings!!! And that’s that.

Shanghai Cafe
100 Mott Street
New York, NY 10013
212.966.3988

Cool Itouch App

So I got my Itouch and it is super-awesome. I found an app called “Nutrition” and it logs your water intake, food daily and also charts your weight. I think it was Free.

I have used it a grand total of two days and I find it awesome. I’m supposed to keep a log of like, my daily intake and stuff and this app even lets you email the daily to your pc so you can print it and give to your doctor like I must.

Yah, non-food related post but I thought it was worth sharing.

Sidenote…Itouch battery life is SO not made for apps. lol. Barely lasts the 1.5 hr commute to work. Steve Jobs!!! Go fix this!!!

New Addictions - Yeah, as if I need another!

My latest non-techy gadget obsession are these DR – that’s Duane Reade you guys! – new snack thingies they came up with.

They call it guilt free snacking but I don’t know. I just know that it’s 130 calories a bag, no transfat and made with whole grains. Oh, and it tastes really good!

It is called Drizzles – they come in milk chocolate and cinnamon streusel and they are both delicious. They have white chocolate too but I love the other two flavs alot!

I got several people in the office eating them too. Haha. The 411 is:

130 Calories
Servings per container 1.3 but we eat the whole bag
Fat 5 g
Sodium 95mg
Cholesterol 0!!
Total Carbs 18g
Sugar 10g
Protein 4 g

Not so bad according to my friend, who is a weight watchers fanatic.

Can be found at all DRs.