Crepes party!

Yesterday I went to a crepes party hosted by one of my friends. On the table are plain, vanilla, orange, and almond crepes along with various fruits, jams and toppings. I brought along a bottle of Black Mountain pinot noir. I have zero taste when it comes to wine so I can’t comment on any specific qualities of the wine but I just remember it being good…

It was the first time I had eaten yesterday, at 3pm, so I loaded up on all the fruits and toppings I saw and must’ve eaten my age in crepes!

Picture: crepe number one. Not pictured: a dozen more after that.

quick post: taiwanese beef noodle soup

I could go for a bowl of beef noodle soup right about now.

Taken at the deli in United Noodles.

more tacos and booze

Since I was in the Chelsea neighborhood, I thought I’d stop by Chipotle for a drink and try their menu. You might be wondering why I would be eating at Chipotle at all places when I’m in mothereffing New York City. Well Nate Appleman, James Beard Award winner and of Food Network (Next Iron Chef, Chopped, etc) was hired by Chiptole to work at this location and to use it sort of as a test Kitchen. For one thing, this location is one of the few that serve margaritas. Another difference is that they have a flaptop instead of a grill that is standard at other Chipotles. I would presume that since Nate Appleman has a hand in the operations, the meats at this place might undergo a different preparation. When I went, they had chorizo as an option in addition to their regular menu. The chorizo had nice char and spice but I thought it was way too salty. That was the thing that killed it for me. Then again I might have been overloaded from salt with the Patron margarita.

Tasty margarita but the salt killed the tacos.

By the way, if you are a fan of Chipotle, you should move to Manhattan. There are dozens of them there! I could’ve sworn I saw a Chipotle on every block. I think Denver might have Manhattan beat on the number of locations but Manhattan has to have the highest Chipotle-per-area density in the US.[see Figure 1]

Figure 1. Chipotle locations in Manhattan

Bo Kho!

Here’s some Bo Kho I had at a noodle shop in Chinatown NYC. I was originally hoping to get a nice bowl of ramen at Ippudo (rated one of the top ramen shops in NYC) but my aunt took me here instead. I can definitely say it was well worth it at only $5 for the bowl, while ramen would’ve cost me $15. This was my first time eating Bo Kho as well. I wasn’t sure what sort of flavors to expect but it was kind of like a french beef stew with Vietnamese flavors. I liked that the noodles were freshly made as opposed to dried.

Tender beef tendons. Yummy.

Vietnamese egg rolls and fried stuffed bean curd.

So goooooood. I’m going to try to make this very soon. I think the wide rice noodles are a perfect fit for this dish. My aunt says she prefers egg noodles but I never like egg noodles in anything but wonton soup.

sawadee krup

This is an oldie. Almost two years ago. Gan made this “fried rice” with sausages,green peppers, cauliflower, and brown rice. He also decided to cook it in a stock pot so it wasn’t really fried rice. If you’re reading this, IT WAS DELICIOUS. *cough*

He redeemed himself with the beer battered fried chicken and fried potatoes.

tacos y cerveza

My favorite tacos and my favorite beer. What else can I ask for?

Campechano tacos. Grilled steak and sausage with onions and cilantro served on fresh-made tortillas. These were so good, the meat was nice and caramelized.

Fresh, warm chips!

Bell’s Hopslam is now my favorite beer. Unfortunately, it is only offered once a year. It really went well with the spicy food. It wasn’t as bitter as I thought. The honey used in brewing the beer really balanced it. The aromas were crazy awesome. There’s a lot of citrus and tropical fruit smell coming off it. I can’t wait till next year so I can get more of it.

Dinner tonight

First, let me tell you that this is the only acceptable way to eat broccoli. Cut the broccoli into florets as you desire. You can wash them if you want but you want the broccoli to be dry when you roast them. Toss the broccoli in a tablespoon or two of oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast them in your favorite roasting pan at 450 degrees until brown. I’m using my favorite cast iron pan!

Look how delicious that looks. The roasting makes them tender and caramelizes the florets. How can you make this any better? Add some parmesan cheese or lemon zest.

Yes, I ate them all.

Salt and pepper shrimp!

One of my favorite things to eat. Head, shell, and tail. A good Chinese seafood restaurant will have a live tank with shrimp, they’re pretty small since the shell will be more delicate and it’s easier to eat everything. The ones I get from the store near me are from the Gulf of Mexico. They’re a little bit bigger than the ones that restaurants serve. Not a problem for me, I just want some shrimp!

The first thing you want to do is take a pair of kitchen shears and trim the antennae, rostrum (the pointy part on the head, be careful not to stick yourself), and the eyes if they make you queasy…

Then just dust the shrimp with some flour (rice, all-purpose, either will do), salt, and pepper. Be liberal with the pepper. You can use a zip-loc bag or a plastic container and tumble the shrimp with the seasonings.

Then fry the shrimp in some oil, something neutral like vegetable or peanut oil until the outside turns pink. This and the carry over heat is enough to cook the shrimp all the way through.

You can serve them as is with rice or if you’re a little more adventurous, you can make a quick aromatic stir fry (garlic, chives, green onion, diced onions, chili peppers, whatever you have on hand) and toss the shrimp in it to get the oniony, garlicy, spicy aromatics on the shrimp.

I had some garlic, chives, and onions on hand so I quickly sauteed them and topped the shrimp.

Some people will peel the shrimp or take off the heads but that ruins all the fun of eating the shell and crunchy heads.

mmm

My dream is to currently eat at:
Urasawa (Beverly Hills, CA)
Alinea (Chicago, IL)
Le Bernardin (New York, NY)
I think I can accomplish this while I’m attending grad school for the next four years.

Want a splendid pie, Pizza-pizza pie, Every minute, every second, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy.

2 terracotta tiles: $2.16
2 balls of pizza dough: $5.18
1 jar of tomato sauce: $1.89
1 ball of fresh mozzerella: $3.99
making your own pizza at home: fuck yeah
(makes about four servings for around $10)

Okay, I cheated a little by buying premade dough and using jarred tomato sauce but this was mostly to test out the technique of using a terracotta tile setup and broiling the pizza. A lot of people use pizza stones that cost upwards to a hundred dollars, but you can get a nice 12in x 12in terracotta tile from a hardware store and it’ll do the trick. So the point of using a pizza stone, usually clay or ceramic, is so that it distributes heat evenly, retains heat, and the porous structure absorbs moisture resulting in a crispier crust.

I was trying to duplicate NY style brick oven pizza with nice charring on the bottom and a crisp thin crust. In order to achieve that you need a hot-as-fuck oven (over 800 C) that only wood fired coal ovens can achieve. So how do you do this at home? Well, one guy on the internet actually broke the safety latch on his oven and used the self cleaning cycle to get it super hot. I don’t think I can do that, so I did the next best thing. Using the terracotta tiles and getting my oven as hot as I could.

I put one on the top rack 1.5in away from the broiler and another in the middle rack and turned the broiler on and let the oven heat for half an hour. The rack set up wasn’t intentional. I wanted to get both tiles on the top rack close to the broiler but both wouldn’t fit.

I made a total of 5 pies. First two I got 2 pies from 1 dough ball about 12in in size and I found that the dough was too thick. Nice and chewy inside toasty outside. A good pie but not what I was looking for. The next 3 I made were from one doughball and that was a good thickness.

I tried to stretch them out but ended up using a rolling pin. I’m not as daring to toss the pizza…yet.

You can see on the right the first ones I made where they were thicker and on the left are the ones I later made that were a bit thinner.

I experimented with the distance of the tiles from the broiler, cooking time, and a few other things.

So here’s one of the pies on a makeshift pizza peel (cutting board). I got it nice and thin and then threw some flour on top. Flipped it over and brushed a little olive oil on the top. Also I learned that you need to use a fork and poke some holes in the pizza otherwise the dough will poof up (the steam has to go somewhere). Then I slid it on the tile in the middle of the oven.

I am a MacGyver in the kitchen.

After about a minute, when the outside is cooked, I take it out and then put about 1 TBSP of sauce then some mozzarella. Put it back in until the cheese is bubbly and the outside is slightly charred.

What it looks like after taking it out:

Toppings:

Back in the oven on the top rack:

End result:

Up-skirt shot:

Another one I made:

Overall, the pizzas were delicious. Anything fresh out of the oven will be delicious. However, I would’ve liked more charring. I’m still going to play around with the broiler and tile setup to get the most heat out of the tiles and good charring without burning the pizza. Next time I might even try my own sauce and pizza dough. I think it would also be good to put the tomato sauce and cheese right on the raw dough and just leaving it on the top rack the entire time to get some more color out of the cheese. The problem with that is the bottom won’t get as crisp as I want.