foodie forever -- Part III

I haven't written about my last day in NYC because the sheer quantity of food and sugar that I ingested on Sunday was seriously obscene(not looking for a repeat performance any time soon). Before going on, I'm going to backtrack a bit to Dylan's Candy Store and Maltese puppies. Pictures are courtesy of Tiff, as always. We wandered by after brunch on Saturday and before our exhaustive tour of the Met. Dylan's boasts a candy staircase with hard candies displayed nicely under florescent plastic steps. Like all stores, this one was crowded with children and adults streaming towards the chocolate and cupcakes. Even though New York is teeming with people, it has a nice feel to it. The people are intense, but friendly at the same time (I think) and relatively well-educated.

Then we passed by a pet store with some adorable puppies, especially this Maltese that was begging for us to take it home. Although I'm not really an animal person, I wouldn't mind having a tiny ball of fur of my own. On the other hand, I strongly feel that people shouldn't have pets at all. It seems utterly cruel to force animals to live in a completely unnatural and superficial environment instead of being out in the wild. I felt terribly sorry for a set of miserable puppies that were going crazy and running up and down the walls of their cage. No, I'm not an animal activist...or an activist for anything.

On Sunday, we started off the day with brunch at Sarabeth's on the upper west side. I had some amazing salmon eggs benedict (what I usually order for brunch), a bite of the most amazing farmer's omlette ever, another bite of the softest fruit muffin with melted butter, a good amount of four flowers'' mimosa, and bread pudding and their famous 'chubbies' (chocolate cookies) for dessert.

After that extremely satisfying meal, we went by Beard Papa's and Grom, but were all too stuffed to feast on cream puffs and gelato (mmmm...gelato). Instead, we went to Levain Bakery, where we invested in a huge chocolate chip cookie that must have had at least a pound of melted chocolate chips embedded in the dough, a chocolate and peanut chunk cookie, and a rather disappointing rasberry twist brioche. Then it was on to Crumbs for red velvet and mocha cupcakes (which would be consumed about three hours later), and finally to Jacques Torres for an assortment of fine chocolates and cocoa powder dusted almonds.

Although I felt like I was going to explode, I still took part in demolishing some delicious, warm, and microwaved melted red velvet cake. We then went to Giorgio's in Gramercy (Italian is wonderful when you're already stuffed to the gills). For starters, we had some crispy calamari and artichokes as well as a beet salad with an interesting spice. Amy guessed rosemary and I guessed basil (she was correct). For our main course, we split a dish of divine glazed duck breast and another of linguini with lobsters and shrimp. The handmade pasta was al dente to perfection and quite lovely. I was positive that I was going to die at this point, but what sane person passes on dessert? we had a refreshing sorbet trio and their 'flagship' dessert of warm and gooey s'mores cake. After that, we went back to the hotel in Chelsea and collapsed. I didn't think that I would be able to eat again for at least a week (I was very wrong, as usual).

The very next day, I ingested another Jamba Juice for lunch and a Nathan's hot dog in the afternoon at Penn Station. Back at home, I ate dumplings, crabs and lobster, steamed salmon, hand-rolled noodles with pork and mushrooms, english muffins with cheese, bacon, and eggs, steamed buns with melted brown sugar in the center, fried flatbread, and much more over the next week...

gorging myself -- Part II

On Saturday, I started off with a smoothie from Jamba Juice. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that it was my first time there. For someone who professes to be such a foodie, I can't believe that I missed out on something so wonderful (maybe because it's actually healthy). Seriously, if I lived across the street from Jamba Juice, I would go there every morning, even in the middle of winter.

Brunch was at Jojo's, a nice cozy little place on the upper east side. I love restaurants that generally cater to an older crowd because they're calm and the decor is understated (and I'm on my best behavior). When eating, ambiance is not terribly important to me, but comfort is an added bonus. At Jojo's, the three of us shared six small plates: Tuna tartare with chive oil and gaufrette (wafer-like) potatoes; salmon with truffled mashed potatoes and brussels sprouts; hanger steak with gingered mushrooms, asparagus, and soy caramel sauce; cod with marinated vegetables; basil ravioli with Parmesan; and shrimp with salad and a tomato champagne marinade. We finished off with some sorbet. The food was excellent, especially the steak, salmon, and ravioli.

After our atypical brunch, we went to the Met. I was there last when I was ten and didn't remember a single thing. This time, I made sure to go through most of sections (skipping Medieval art and Cypriot art), with highlights in nineteenth century European art, Modern Art, and interesting exhibits in the Oceania wing. Of course, we topped off the whole experience with the lighting of the Christmas tree inside the museum. The lighting itself was masterfully done, with a bottom-up approach and a gradual shift from blue to white light for the nativity scene below the tree.

For dinner, we went to the East Village in search of shabu shabu. Shabu-Tatsu had an hour and a half wait, so we wandered down the street and found Sharaku, a nice little place on the corner that served hot pot. We started off with some sushi and sashimi and ended up cooking awesome tasting meat, vermicelli,and vegetables piece by piece in our pot (we take the process very seriously). I loved the peanut dipping sauce and the other, lighter soy sauce mixture.

We had to get dessert after all of that food, so we went to ChickaLicious. The place was very small (like most dessert places in NYC), but was pretty delicious. We got the tasting menu paired with wines. First, there was some sorbet to cleanse the palette. Then there were three desserts: chocolate cake, sweet potato souffle, and baked pear in parchment paper. I also remember some very good maple syrup ice cream on the side. Of course, the dessert wines were lovely (and strong), with glasses of port, sherry, and madeira that we passed around. Finally, we ended with petit fours, which were quite heavenly. The picture is courtesy of my friend Tiff and her iphone.


On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by Daydream, where we actually got a free ice cream because one of my friends submitted a name for it a few weeks ago (she did not pick daydream). Although it was clearly a Red Mango/Pinkberry wannabe, I liked Daydream much better because its ice cream had less of the traditional sour milk taste. The fruit toppings were quite good (I especially liked the pomegranate and rasberries), as well as the almonds. That marked the end of eating for the day and I felt comfortably full. Tiff later burned off all of the calories on the treadmill at one in the morning while zipping through two editions of wsj while I vegged out in front of the TV and watched CSI:Miami and WaT reruns.

eating until I drop

My motto is doing everything to excess. Moderation is for wimps and people with self-control. When it comes to food, everything else flies out the window...this might explain three days of non-stop eating in NYC last weekend (honestly, who else can hit three bakeries, a gelato place, and a chocolate shop all within two hours right after brunch?).

On Friday evening, I rolled into NY on boltbus ready to get a head start on my food orgy for the weekend. At around 7PM, my friends and I went to K-town, where we always make a pit stop at least once. Korean BBQ's always the way to go, especially in a restaurant with three foot high pumes of smoke leaping from the grill in the middle of the table. Our destination was Shilla and four types of meat for our BBQ, the standard beef bulgogi and kalbi, and pork and chicken as well. Of course, I always get the seafood pancake to start and enjoy all of the little dishes (minus the kimchi). Maybe it's because I'm Asian, but the food is just so satisfying (not that pasta isn't excellent) and homey.

After ingesting a week's worth of meat, we headed down the street to Koryodang, a Korean bakery, where I purchased some tiramisu and a scrumptious mocha cake that turned out to be 90% frosting and 10% cake. We then went across the street to Red Mango, where I gulped down my tiramisu surreptitiously while everyone else munched on overrated ice cream. Red Mango and Pinkberry are so hot right now, they'd actually be doing well in this economy if they were publically traded. As for myself, I'm not a fan of the sour yogurt taste and have avoided it since childhood, where I tried it in a liquid milk form. I confess that I do have mixed feelings about Asian pastries. On the one hand, it's great to eat something that's so airy that it's barely there and lacking the cloying, nauseating sweetness that's the hallmark of industrial-grade frosting. However, it just doesn't quite seem like a real full-bodied cake. Nevertheless, I loved the tiramisu and its liberal dust of cocoa powder on top and was indifferent towards the unbalanced mocha cake.

Afterwards, we went to Times Square and to the Charmin/Duracell store. The idea of promoting something like toilet paper is very strange because it's a commodity (same with batteries). Moreover, we belong to a culture where bodily functions aren't really discussed in polite everyday converation. The Charmin store had around 20 toilet stalls and a comedian with several helpers directing people to each stall. People stood in line to go to one of these 'special bathrooms' (myself included) while he made remarks including "drop it while it's hot" and asked a young boy if he could handle going to the bathroom by himself. The duracell store had bikes/snowmobiles that you could petal in order to generate energy. My conclusion: some products just can't be placed, no matter how good the advertising. Also, since Charmin and Duracell are the top competitors in their generic markets (besides Scott's and Energizer), I'm not sure that they needed more advertising. Nonetheless, it was fun and we finished off the evening with some Godiva truffles and turkish delight.