East Coast vs. West Coast

I ordered the chopped salad at Bonita on Bedford for my last day in New York before heading back home to the Bay Area. I was totally happy with my salad and it's slightly spicy lime vinaigrette, but I can't say it was necessarily all that related to what I think of as Mexican food. Of course, maybe I should have ordered the tacos or a quesadilla in order to really experience this place, but I'd been hearing all week about how much better Mission burritos are back in San Francisco as opposed to anywhere in New York and how nothing will ever compare to eating Mexican food in California.

I'm betting maybe Mexican food in Mexico.


Chopped Salad:

It's All Greek To Me

As we explore our area in Brooklyn more, we also develop favorites. We headed back to Tai Thai for some of that great green papaya salad. I tried a new item, the veggie dumplings, which were so soft and plump you could just eat them up. Which I did.

Dinner was at Kefi, a big beautiful Greek restaurant on Columbus. It was spacious, airy, and they had divided the eating area up into three sections, so no matter where you sat it felt like a smaller, more intimate space. The food portions were large and filled with feta. My favorite was probably the tomato salad that came with croutons, cauliflower, onions, and of course, lots of feta.


Green Papaya Salad (Som Tum):


Veggie dumplings:


So much Greek food:

Epilogue

I'm not going to cover the last day in depth. This part of our blog was about our shared experiences eating in New York and she went home one day earlier than me.

I will say a few things:

Our last meal together was at the mediocre Mexican place "Bonita".

I ate dinner with James in Astoria the night before I left at a great little place on 34th Ave., S'Agapo. I had lamb fricassee with artichokes.

That made it seven times I ate lamb while here in New York

Four of those time where at Oasis.

That looks like this:

We had Japanese food seven times.

And to top it all off at around midnight, the night before I left I got to eat Souvlaki at my favorite Souvlaki stand in queens.

The Souvlaki Man's Stand has gotten bigger

But the Souvlaki is Exactly the Same!

Day 14 (The Ultimate Day) Tai Thai & Kefi

We started our last day the same way we've done the entire trip; arguing about the question of brunch vs. lunch. After tramping up and down Bedford for our millionth and possibly last time we finally begrudgingly settled on going back to Tai Thai, the quite good Thai Place we'd gone to earlier that on our trip. It was just as good and efficient as I'd remembered.

For dinner we went with Kirstin's friend Sandra to a great Greek place on the Upper West Side called Kefi. The food was very good and priced pretty much as reasonably as anything I'd had back in my beloved Astoria.

We ordered four appetizers for the table; an amazing sort of califlower/tomato salad, a feta caper olive concoction and some sardines. Everything came with caperberries and feta cheese on it witch was just great by me.

I also finally got the branzino I was hopping for. It just the way I wanted it; perfectly pan fried and served with a nice mix of roasted tomatoes, potatoes and olives.

A meal full of feta and love.

Sandra and a large amount of food

My beloved Branzino

An Ouzo sour, the only drinkable ouzo I've ever had

Day 13 (The Penultimate Day) The Simple Cafe &

For lunch we went back to the Simple cafe of which I have nothing new to say. I ate the exact same thing and had a very similar experience. Grrr... if a salad's $10 I do not want it to be "simple".

The accursed burger with no-bun of the wheat intolerant.

For dinner me and Kirstin Planned on splitting up. A plan I'm glad to say we failed in because we ended up going to a place I've been wanting to go back to for some time. A little Japanese place on St. Mark's called "Go".

All the food I've had at Go has been good (except the time I tried Natto there, but that was the Natto's fault). The one thing I wanted to go back for was the Ochazuke, a Japanese "peasant dish" made by pouring green tea mixed with dashi over rice and topping it with varying ingredients.

We ordered the Umeboshi one. It's deep hearty dish that you can just imagine tastes even better in the cold winter months of Kyoto. I've never seen it on any other menu in the U.S. and I've been looking for it for years. Having finally gotten to taste it again I think I've figured it out and I'm intent on trying it at home. In fact I bought all the ingredients today.

Day 12 Samurai & Fish

Kirstin wasn't feeling that well this day so we didn't make a big thing out of lunch. I just got myself a bento box at a mediocre Japanese place in Williamsburg with the mediocre, obvious name Samurai.

Literally nothing to write home about.

We had dinner with Kirstin's friend Hilary in this place in the west village I'd been really looking forward to called simply "Fish". (To know why I was so excited refer to the picture of a sign Kirstin posted below)

I ordered the oyster special and a "Down East Lobster Feast". The oysters where great (especially considering the price). The lobster feast was truly decadent. It came with a pound and a half lobster, four steamed clams, french fries and corn on the cob.

This was truly an orgy of sea-food, starch and melted butter.

Lemonade?

My friend Sandra plied her friends with promises of watermelon and watermelon-themed drinks for her birthday party, so I made sure to eat well before heading over. I started the day with the Simple Cafe again, and ordered another delicious meal with a lot of liquids. This time it was french toast with coffee, orange juice, and a mango mimosa. I haven't been able to go wrong there yet. Our next stop was the Greenmarket in Union Square. I searched high and low for lemonade here. Then I expanded my search to the neighboring cafes and to a kiosk that called itself a juice bar. No lemonade to be had anywhere in Union Square in the middle of summer. Amazing. I settled for some cold mint tea from one of the farm vendors that actually hit the spot perfectly. Dinner was at a great Japanese place, Go, in Greenwich Village. The highlight here was some rice with ume (plum) that you pour a savory green tea mixture over, but we also got some really good spicy tuna rolls.

Starting the day right:


French toast:


I love Japanese food:

Here Fishy Fishy

I skipped lunch because I wasn't feeling so good. I rallied for dinner, though, since we were meeting my friend Hilary in the West Village for seafood at Fish. It was totally worth it.

The sign that got us in the door:


The oysters themselves:


Lobster bisque:

Day 11 Google & Khyber Pass

For lunch we went and visited our friend Greg Travis at Google New York. A truly bizarre place full of strange corridors and razor scooters.

Greg brought us to the cafeteria where their was such a huge variety of food I couldn't see why anyone working there wouldn't just bring there laptop in there and eat all day. That's what I would do even if the food was a little mediocre.

I can't really remember what I had, some salad and soup and some rock hard chicken. I do remember that when I followed the arrow pointing to the bathroom I was led to a strange area that seemed to be part of another building. I couldn't get out of this area without a security code. I almost panicked then I just followed someone else in, even if there where signs everywhere saying "beware of tailgaters".

Weird!

Dinner was also a weird environment but with much better food. We ate at Khyber Pass, an Afghan restaurant in the heart of St. Marks Place.

I'd never had Afghan food before so I was exited to try is out. I got a sort of lamb spinach stew thing. It was quite tasty. It was like a cross between indian food, middle eastern food and for some reason Philippine food.

The weird part of the visit was the thing we sat on. It was an elevated sort of booth/coach that your supposed to sit cross legged at like at some Japanese restaurants. The only problem was there was literally no place to put your feet. It was the most uncomfortably seating situation I've ever had and it looked so comfy at first.

Anyways the food was great and we sat at the only table that had this strange set up so I'd still suggest it.

Apparently I Eat a Lot of Eggplant

We had lunch at New York Google's cafeteria with our friend Greg. I reverted to my old Google cafeteria behavior of just making a salad at the salad bar to avoid lines at the grill and to avoid the temptation to eat way way too much. Of course I also grabbed one (or two) of the desserts at the end, which included a cake-like vegan cherry cookie. The food was good and the view of the city was amazing.

We met up with my friend Mike for dinner on St. Mark's after visiting the Museum of Sex where we learned about homosexual penguins. We went to an Afghan place, Khyber Pass, and sat at the window table, which was raised up on a platform so you could sit cross legged on long pillows to eat. The atmosphere was cool (literally and figuratively) which was a welcome break from walking the avenues in hot humid weather. I had eggplant with yogurt, which was a nice consistency and filling without being heavy. I can't remember ever having eaten Afghan food, but I would definitely seek it out again.

Eggplant:

Day 10 Coney Island & PT

If yesterday was all about the places on my list that involved food, today was about the one thing that didn't. Unless you count fried clams and corn dogs as food. Today was the day we went to Coney Island.

Food wise it was a little unremarkable even if otherwise it was awesome. I ate a corn dog and fries at "Beer Island" immediately after arriving then we walked the full length of the board walk and got some food at a Russian place called Tatiana that had live fish in aquariums under there dance floor.

I ordered a quite good shrimp cocktail although looking at every one else's plates I wished I'd ordered something more complex. There whole fish looked great, hell even their salads looked amazing.

For dinner we went to a place called PT right next to our apartment. It's a very classy looking Italian place with a beautiful outside garden in the back. I was enticed by the promise of bronzino on their menu, a fish I love that we don't get much of on the west coast.

We where headed to a street festival later that night so we figured we'd order just a few lighter sides and leave some room for street food later. We shared a salad of assorted boiled beets, shaved carrots and a fantastic italian gorgonzola and an almost too cheesy (as if that's possible ) asparagus "gratin".

Kirstin got an eggplant crostini that looked awesome. I got a dish of chopped baby artichokes and home made sausage. Artichokes are by far my favorite food and something I order whenever it's on the menu. These where not the best I've had but they where well cooked, sliced and sauteed. Not exciting but so much better than some of the overcooked boring chokes I've eaten.

In the end we ate nothing at the street festival.

All Your Wheat Are Belong To Us

I had visions of going to Coney Island today and only having ice cream and deep fried oreos to eat so I decided to stock up on my typical snack while here: cereal with milk and blueberries. Once at Coney Island we stopped in at Tatiana, a Russian place along the boardwalk on the Brighton Beach end. I ordered the mini-pastry plate since I wasn't in the mood for a whole fried fish. The little canoli-like bites were good, but I liked the fruit that came around it best - blueberries, raspberries, and a strawberry.

Dinner was at PT near where we're staying. I highly recommend it. It was magical to go into the back garden (which really does have a garden) and sip red wine next to a lavender plant with fireflies starting to flicker as the sunlight disappeared. We ordered only starters, since that way you get to try more things, and the portions were delightfully big. I ate crostini with eggplant, asparagus with parmesan, and a beet salad that also came with raisins, pine nuts, thin strips of carrot, and gorgonzola. And since Damian is gluten-intolerant, I also got to eat the entire bread basket.

The wheat is all mine!


Beet salad with gorgonzola and raisins:


Asparagus with cheese:


Crostini:


The scenery at PT:

Day 9 Raj Mahal & Kabab Cafe!

Me and Kirstin both had lists of all the things we wanted to do on this trip. Most of mine involved eating. We did two of those things this day.

For lunch we headed to 6th St.. between 1st and second to eat at one of the many Indian restaurants that line that block. This area is famous for there meal specials for just $6 at lunch and $7 for dinner you can get an entree an appetizer some muligawany soup, nan, Papadam, rice and a desert. I ate here often when I lived in the city.

All the different restaurants ran together in my mind so we just picked one at random. The place that had the most enthusiastic guy outside, a little place called Raj Mahal.

We sat outside, I got the Tandoori chicken and Kirstin got the Sag Paneer. The food was all pretty average. Not the most exiting Indian food in the world but with the aid of the small price, the large amount of nostalgia and the large amount of food I wasn't about to complain.

Dinner was at a place that held another very special place in my heart. The Kabab Cafe!

Located just one block from where I used to live in Queens, this legendary restaurant has only five tables. It also only has two employees or really one employee (a prep chef) and an owner.

The owner Ali, a large gregarious Egyptian man comes to your table and tells you what he has that day. Once you order he goes over to the tiny kitchen in the corner and cooks it for you then brings it back and often scrapes it directly from his pan onto your plate.

We ordered a beet salad (something I'd eaten here before and tried unsuccessfully to recreate ever since) and some sardines to start. The beets I've already expressed my excitement over but the sardines where just as good, in truth better. Oily and just fishy enough. We ate them and left little skeletons on the plate reminiscent of the cartoon Heathcliff.

For entrees me and James got meat. I got grilled baby lamb chops and james got half a duck. I tried James' but really I couldn't tear myself away from mine. Such a simple dish. I hinted in my first post that grilled lamb can only get so good. That comment was truly put to shame this day. These where the best lamb chops I've ever had and I eat at least one lamb chop a week.

Food!

We started the day walking along 6th street where all the Indian restaurants are. I decided on Raj Mahal because this one had a table on the porch in front of the recessed doorway. It was a good deal, something like 5.95 for soup, samosas, pita, dahl, and an entree. It was good. I especially liked the soup, which apparently is one of those kinds of dishes that everyone has their own special recipe for. I approve of this restaurant's recipe.

I finally found the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck after we descended from Highline Park, right next to a film shoot with Chris Kattan. I had a heaping coneful of hazelnut ice cream. The ice cream was delicious, as was the cone (I don't think people usually notice the cone, but this one was definitely noticeably yummy).

We met James for dinner in Astoria at the Kabab Cafe. No wait, make that the Kabab Cafe! Because that's what the sign outside the restaurant says, and everything is clearly better when you add an exclamation point to the end of it. It's just one guy making all the food and only a few tables. We sat for three hours, which was fine since we ordered a few courses, including sardines and beet salad. I had hawashi for my entree, and it was super good - a mix of ground up mushrooms between thin pita with homemade yogurt, veggies, a fresh piece of fruit, and fried greens. The greens were fried to a crispy crunch, which I love. Homemade yogurt! Beet salad! Kabab Cafe!

View from our table at Raj Mahal:


Samosa:


My table at the Kabab Cafe was looking at me:


Beet salad:


Hawashi (for those not ordering large plates of meat):

Day 8 Bonito & Nobu

Our only concrete plan before we left for New York was a reservation we had at Nobu for 6:30 on the 13th.
I woke up late but I still had to eat something before our reservation. I headed down the street to a little Mexican place Bonito I’d noticed to get some tacos.

Being from the bay area I normally I avoid Mexican food in New York at all costs but this place had something about it that suggested authenticity. Maybe it was the plastic lobster and steak sign above there awning.

Immediately after entering the door I half wanted to flee. The waiter was an overly friendly tattooed white person, everything was too clean, and tacos where listed at $10. I asked the white guy how many Tacos came with this and he gave me a long description of all the different tacos you could get, why didn’t they just have this on the menu?

As it turned out you got three tacos is you ordered the steak ones, not a bad deal. You had to pay for chips and salsa but at least it came with three different kinds of salsa and tons of home made chips.

One small hispanic woman made up the entire visible kitchen staff. She was an amazingly fluid person to watch. Throwing tortillas here and there with one hand and scooping sauce with the other. I was hypnotized.

I took the Tacos home and ate them. They where good, fresh and light with a nice chipotle sauce. Still they lacked something, something that is missing from all east coast mexican food, not something I can put into words, but it’s absence is always conspicuous.

Anyways Nobu was really the point of this day.

I’d been there before over ten years ago. Still I figured I might as well get the second tier tasting menu since I’d already tried the first one. To describe everything we ate would be too much of an endeavor but I will try to at least list the courses.

Drinks:
First I ordered the “Cucumber Martini“ a delightful combination of lychee, cucumber puree and vodka. A drink so clean and clear it didn’t even taste like I was drinking alcohol.

Later I got a “Matusuhisa Martini” with Hokusetsu Sake, Vodka and ginger because I wanted something I could feel.

Our tasting menus where as follows:

First coarse: Cold Appetizers

Me: Some sort of Japanese oily wrapped around stalks of asparagus drizzled with Yuzu (Japanese Citrus) sauce.

Kirstin: A yellowfin tar tar served in a wasabi sauce with some sort of frozen stuff on top.

Both dishes came topped with Caviar and accompanied by a Yamamomo the “Japanese Apricot”

Second Coarse: Salads with Sashimi

Me: A micro green salad with a light ponzu dressing and a raw sockeye salmon which I gave to Kirstin because I don’t like Raw salmon.

Kirstin: Seared Ahi on a bed of mixed greens with sesame ginger dressing. I ate the Ahi, it was perfect brushed with a small amount of white and black petter corn.

Third coarse: New Style Sashime (a food invented by Nobu owner Iron Chef: Matsuhisa)

Me: A lightly seared bonito topped with chopped onions and cilantro in a with some sort of amazing dark green jalapeno sauce.

Kirstin: A japanese snapper seared very quickly with a high temperature blow torch drizzled with yuzo, oil and chives.

Fourth Course: Fried Things

Me: An amazing piece of Japanese style fluke battered in a wheat free batter and flash fried. Served with a skinned cherry tomato salad.

Kirsten: Bay shrimp tempura in a bowl. Sort of like Japanese pop corn shrimp.

Fifth Coarse: Main Coarse

Me: Rare Washu beef with a wine-miso sauce served with roasted baby vegetables and a piece of fried lotus root topped with poached Foie Gras.

Kirstin: Nobu’s signature dish. Miso glazed black cob with pickled baby ginger. Fish that tastes like butter.

Sixth Course: Sushi

We each got six pieces of perfectly fresh nigiri served with a bowl of extra complex tasting miso soup (I’m sure they make the dashi themselves) with baby clams in it.

Last Coarse: Dessert

I couldn’t eat much of mine (a super chocolaty mouse thing topped with shiso syrup) or Kirstin’s (Some sort of ‘smores thing) so you’ll have to look to her post for this one.

At the end of this day one basic thought came to mind. Sometimes some of what people tell you about New York really is true. “You can’t get good Mexican food” and “you have to try Nobu if at all possilble”.

Pretty Much Just Pictures

We went to Nobu. It was overwhelming, and if you want to read more details about the dishes included in these photos, check out Damian's post from this day, which is not quite a thousand words, but getting close.

The wasabi sauce around the fish was really hot and delicious:


Seared tuna:


New-style sashimi:


Shrimp:


Miso-marinated (a signature dish):


Variety of sushi:


Miso soup with clams:


Scrumptious smore:


Damian's chocolate and shiso cake with green tea ice cream, both of which I ate too: