More...

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

breakfast in paris


waffles with nutella, montparnasse

Monday, July 25, 2011

a morsel - chikalicious


post-dessert petit fours at chikalicious... coconut marshmallow, double chocolate cookie, and some sort of spice cake with whipped cream.

they look so pretty and adorable, right?!

well, looks are deceiving: the coconut marshmallow tasted like a plain marshmallow rolled in store-bought dried coconut--not exciting and even borderline embarrassing to serve to a customer, the chocolate cookie was insanely dry like chalk, and the spice cake was just meh. 

honestly, i don't understand why everyone is so crazy about this place...

Saturday, July 23, 2011

blue hill - west village

blue hill... doesn’t that name just conjure up visions of purple cows resting on a bucolic lawn, nomming on blades of grass as melodious birds sing madrigals?

or maybe that's just me. in any case, i had very little idea of what blue hill would actually be like until i arrived at its secretive, slightly subterranean door just off washington square park. i hadn’t yet heard that the obamas chose it for their date night in 2009, during which the entire block was roped off, or that it was michelin-starred, or that this city location is but the offshoot of an upstate new york farm/restaurant for which reservations must be made at least a month in advance.

all i knew was that i had briefly peeked at its menu online, and (don’t be offended) was slightly dismayed to find it very green and leafy-looking and holier-than-thou. there was a slew of nauseating buzzwords and phrases: local, seasonal, know thy farmer, bounty, celebration, mission, farm fresh, first of the season, yadda yadda, which, for some, might be a draw, but for me was a red flag. firstly, i have a few issues with locavorism, which i won't delve into here. secondly, after pure food and wine, i was afraid of another establishment where the concepts are ambitious but the taste is lacking, where the mission to educate and elevate leaves one’s mind engorged but hunger unfulfilled.

up close, however, blue hill wasn't that type of banjo-strumming carrot stick wielding hippie-esque place at all. sure, there were bouquets of sunflowers everywhere (probably locally-grown by a farmer named fred, or something), and waiters who have a borderline creepy encyclopedic knowledge of who fed and watered every single ingredient in each dish, but that was all in terms of the locavore side of the restaurant.

many might choose to dine at this restaurant for its philosophical underpinnings. for those who don’t really care (me), just the food is enough reason to come. putting all else aside, blue hill plain serves up delicious fare.

it started with the bread, little fresh-baked mini-baguettes. unlike restaurants that might wow with four types of butter infused with herbs (coughdelposto) blue hill just had one simple round pat. but my gosh it was delicious. this is a lofty statement, but i mean it:

this was the best bread i’ve eaten in new york city—warm and crusty (but not sore jaw-inducingly so).

just perfect.


and then came the amuse-bouche: cute little burgers made with tomato, ricotta, and almond flour patties.

HOLY CRAP THIS WAS SO GOOD.

the combination left my tongue thinking, "?!!?!" the sweetness of the "bun"--almost like cornbread--the piquant tomato, the soft ricotta; my mouth was definitely amused by this explosion of flavour. unbearably cute presentation, gorgeous flavours, impressive creativity.

we ordered the most boringly named appetizer on the menu: early summer vegetables and fruits, which was exactly what it sounds like: a plate of cucumber, peaches, radishes, turnips and tomatoes, served with a dollop of cream.

it was so simple and fresh, and the grilled peaches, in particular, were so, so good, despite the fact that they were, you know, just peaches.

anyone who has lived outside of the u.s. for a while has probably noticed that american produce is lacking in flavour, perhaps because everything is harvested super early and nothing is grown with love. but these veggies were different. eating this reminded me of visiting my grandmother's house in rural china, where--whenever we felt peckish--we would just go into a field, pluck a cucumber or tomato off the vine, rinse it in a clear stream and eat it on the spot, the taste of nature and the sweetness and the warmth of the sun palpable on our tongues.


for my main i ordered the wild striped bass with summer squash, zucchini, pine nuts and 'bio-char' eggplant (i still don't really understand what that means). this was good but not stunning--well prepared, perhaps ever so slightly overcooked.



my friend got the poetically named "klaas martens' emmer and quinoa in the style of primavera." (i'm guessing klaas martens is the name of a farmer, how quaint.) this was sort of like a quinoa risotto, very pretty and very unique. quite good, although it felt a bit strange to be eating a soupy plate full of quinoa, corn, peas, and veggies.




for dessert, strawberries with spice cake and rose ice cream. for the longest time we couldn't pin down what the flavour of the ice cream was, and asked a waiter who incorrectly told us it was "strawberry sorbet." don't you love it when they try to make stuff up that's obviously not true? in any case, this was good, which made up for that little service slip-up.



complimentary petit fours: a flourless chocolate cake in the foreground that was so soft and cloudlike, and a raspberry gelee-topped bite size cake of some sort, which was amazing. the raspberry gelee reminded me of the hawthorn jelly my mother used to buy at grocery stores in china: sweet, tart, and a lovely end to a beautiful meal.

Friday, July 22, 2011

just discovered this little gem...

the new york michelin guide inspectors tweet @MichelinGuideNY. :)

some of the messages are the archetypal fussy french inspector, i.e. a bit out of touch with the average eater--

"Favorite snack food? Organic kale 'chips' made with tahini, cider vinegar, shoyu, garlic, onion, pink salt-I never leave home without them"

"Snuck into Per Se for a glass of bubbly before dinner at #Masa"

But some of them are absolutely priceless:

"It’s always nice to have a chat while dining alone at the bar, except when friendly becomes a pick-up attempt. Awkward"

"The trouble with eating Italian food is that five or six days later you're hungry again"

love. :)

Monday, July 18, 2011

a preview - blue hill


recap soon!

but in short, it was fantastic. :)

brunch at salt, soho

a lovely friend and i had brunch on saturday at salt, a cute-as-a-button spot in soho. it was wonderful--there was tons of natural light streaming in through the huge windows and doors, which were left open to reveal the crystal blue sky that day. exposed brick walls, long communal tables à la hogwarts, and cushioned window seats completed the quaint, cozy look. best of all, we sat and picked at our food and jabbered away for two hours, and never felt rushed once.

oh, and they have a $6 coffee/tea + mimosa deal. needless to say, we indulged.

monica's omelet with smoked salmon, leeks, and crème fraiche


my frisee salad with house kippered salmon and poached eggs.


lovelovelove runny egg yolks. perfect comfort food...




and then we walked around soho and came upon this... LOL

Thursday, July 14, 2011

a very east village weekend part ii – pure food and wine

if you are what you eat, i would probably be a walking temple of refined sugar and white flour. after my raw, vegan meal at pure food and wine in gramercy last sunday, though, i felt like a walking salad.

on the menu, there's no animal products, nothing heated over 118 degrees, and only "biodynamic, organic, and simply sustainable" wines and sake (for an added incentive to imbibe). the website preaches about preserving "vitamins, minerals, and enzymes" (dubious, imo). the kitchen is devoid of stoves and ovens; food is prepared using spiralizers and dehydrators and other fancy gadgets and gizmos. dishes are served cold—lukewarm at most.


it's exactly the kind of place that trendy new york yuppies and the vegan set would adore. it's also the type of place anthony bourdain would probably set aflame before stuffing some sausage and organ meat down the throats of the staff and cackling manically.

though i am decidedly an omnivore, i was quite eager to try this place out—partially because i went through a militant animal rights/vegetarian phase in middle school (embarrassing but true), during which i ate nothing but frosted flakes cereal and bananas for an entire year, but mostly because my friend told me that the first time he ever ate here, orlando bloom and miranda kerr, who live in the neighborhood, were sitting a few tables over. any comestible that might have had even the slightest chance in making them as beautiful as they are, is food i want to eat.

the main restaurant was literally empty when we arrived at 8 p.m., giving the false impression from the street that the place is deserted and quite unpopular. in reality, all the diners are just basking in the summer warmth on the terrace, which is adorned with flowerbeds, red plush seats, and candlelight. even if you hate vegetables, just the garden itself would be reason enough to make you want to come here and hang out—it’s that pretty.

like this, but with people


onto the food, though!

we started with the niwa maki with avocado, enoki mushrooms, and pickled heirloom baby carrots. it tasted very fresh and light, though i remember thinking how it would be ten times better if there were a bit of tuna in there…



for my main, i got their signature lasagna, made with thin strips of zucchini as the noodles and macadamia pumpkin seed “ricotta.” everyone raves about this dish, and i saw it being carried out of the kitchen quite a few times. sun-dried tomato marinara acted as the raw substitute of the bubbling herby tomato sauce to which we are accustomed, and the dish was stuffed with layers of basil pistachio pesto.



it looked stunning—the colours vibrant and alive. it tasted… cold.

it was as difficult to cut as, well, raw zucchini, and with each cold crispy crunchy nutty bite i would think of the béchamel-oozing piping hot versions i had had in rome, whose tender noodles forks could pierce through with ease. perhaps i should have stopped thinking about non-raw food and just savoured the very unique tastes and textures of a raw dish, but i just can’t dissociate the word “lasagna” from images of golden threads of cheese and simmering sausage and beef...


in retrospect, i should have probably come here on a night i wasn’t absolutely famished and craving a burger.

my friend got the sweet corn and cashew tamales with chili spiced portabella, which i stole a few forkfuls of and enjoyed. it was warm!! i love warm food.


the desserts at pure are much hyped, and were definitely what my insatiable sweet tooth was looking forward to the most. i was craving chocolate fondant (as always) but of course there was none of that oven-baked richness here. instead, we opted for the dark chocolate trio of chocolate cardamom coconut ice cream cone, pistachio gelato ice cream sandwich, and chai tea creamsicle, as well as the passionfruit panna cotta.



the chocolate cardamom coconut ice cone was definitely my favourite; the spice added a complex dimension whereas the other pieces just tasted like slabs of very dark chocolate.

the passionfruit panna cotta was, dare i say it, too passionfruity, too tart, too like eating the fruit rather than a dessert derived from it.


throughout the entire meal, i felt like i was not eating real food, but just salads in disguise. the lasagna was a salad with nuts, albeit arranged artistically. the tamales were corn husks stuffed with chopped salad. the desserts were one step removed from cacao, spices, and fruit still dangling from their branches.

for food that isn’t processed or cooked, it’s good. for the challenges and constraints of its category, it’s admirably creative. for a single meal, it’s fun and different.

for my regularly indulged tongue that has developed a taste for full-fat pots de crème and luscious grilled foie gras, however, this meal left me feeling cold and leporine.

forget orlando and miranda. i’ll stick to my impure food and wine, please.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

the great boston macaron expedition

given that this blog is the namesake of my most beloved pastry, it's basically a crime that i haven't written anything about macarons yet. i'm sorry! there's no excuses, except that there's too much to say. (but at the same time there's really nothing to say--a macaron needs to be experienced, not talked about.)

anyways, that changes today. i'm going to detail one of the most absurd, unhealthy, and immoderate things i've done, foodwise, in recent memory.

i've dubbed it the great macaron expedition of april 2011.

it all started when, unhappily back at school after a food-filled week in france, i bemoaned boston's lack of good macarons. boston, i was convinced, didn't have macarons that could hold a candle up to even just the mediocre ones in paris, not to mention laduree or pierre hermé.


i want you.




admittedly, i had never tried any macarons in boston before making such an assertion, but i was certain that just by virtue of not being french, and not being consumed in a tearoom in saint-germain-des-pres, boston macarons were doomed to taste, feel, and look inferior. (yeah, i'm pretentious, but i'm not the only one. a former classmate/current colleague of mine once said, vis-à-vis gastronomy, "Boston is God's punishment for all of our sins."

a macaron is not just about having the right ingredients, or a master pastry chef, or fancy flavours, or the perfect features and proportions and textures--it's about the environment in which they are made and purchased and savoured. boston might have fine patisseries, but it doesn't have the french waiter, or the parisian air so redolent of lavender and freshly-baked bread and love, or...

okay, i might be romanticizing a bit here, but i was confident that boston macarons were going to suck.

my friend sam, a boston native, was eager to prove me wrong. "Boston is the 12th largest city in the world by GDP," he pointed out. (my response: "so?") what it may lack in quality, boston perhaps makes up for in quantity: there were macarons to be had at l.a. burdick's, athan's bakery, tatte fine cookies & cakes, flour bakery, st. emilion macaroon company, etc. 

i was dubious but optimistic when we set out on a trip to gather macarons from every single bakery in boston that offered them. we were going to compare and contrast, record voice notes, and photograph each specimen. we were going to dissect, inspect, and eat them all. in a single sitting. omg. this was scientific, this was delicious, this was disgusting. this was the over-the-top pursuit of the perfect macaron.

we did our research, and headed to the danish pastry house, menton, formaggio kitchen, burdick's, crema cafe, and sportello. i'm getting a sugar high just looking at that list...

lots of places that we thought would stock them ended up macaron-less, and formaggio's was closed by the time we got there, but by the end of the day, we had a trunk filled with enough macarons to feed marie antoinette and her entire retinue.


macaron acquisition in progress.

dessert for two
the loot! as you can see, we didn't just get macarons, but other sweets as well: almond tarts, coconut macaroons, baklava, a giant pistachio-studded meringue from sportello, and other random assorted pastries.


in a vague attempt to be healthy, we decided to make a lots-of-greens dinner before digging into dessert. on the menu: poached eggs with homemade hollandaise, sushi, and salad with strawberries and avocado. domestic goddessy-ness on display right here (just kidding, i did very little of the work).




but of course, what we really want to eat were the macarons. so we began...

up first were these babies from sportello. they look, erm, like i made them, haha. (not a good thing.) lumpy shell, off-center sandwiches, and far, far too crumbly. with each bite, shards of macaron rained down onto the plate, which sort of defeats the air of elegance that is supposed to accompany macaron consumption (admit it, we all eat macarons partially to seem cultured).



sportello's meringue served as a palate cleanser lol. i had fun chipping tiny pieces off this gargantuan block and nibbling on them between macarons.

menton is actually a french restaurant in south boston that presents bite-size macarons to diners after their meals, but with sam's connections, we got a bag to take with us. :)

these menton mini macarons were surprisingly quite nice despite their unconventional diminutiveness. lemon and green tea were my favourites. soft texture, not crumbly, good ratio of filling to cookie. however, i do wish they had been larger--it's hard to really enjoy the taste when they're so tiny.



oh burdick's, you are such a disappointment, from your inexplicably raved-about hot chocolate (which i find far too rich and gag-inducing) to these macarons (flavours were ginger, raspberry, chocolate, citrus, lavender, and pistachio). they sure looked nice--smooth, well-formed, and good texture--but tasted so weak.

to my disappointment, the raspberry didn't taste like raspberry. to my relief, the ginger didn't taste at all like ginger. (i have ginger issues.)

the lavender was nice and lavender-y, probably my favourite of the bunch.


starting to get a headache now...


danish pastry house macarons. nothing of note. the coconut macarons were lovely though!
the aftermath...



as if that weren't enough sugar, we proceeded to bake more cookies using the egg whites we had leftover after making the hollandaise sauce. specifically, coconut meringue cookies! the recipe came from the joy of cooking, aka the bible.



i promise they tasted better than they looked.

a gazillion calories later...

the verdict is: boston should stick to chowder and baked beans. macarons belong decidedly to paris.

is this any surprise?
however, i'm willing to give new york a shot this summer. :)

(all the photos except the first two were taken with sam's badass nikon D700.)
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...