East Village & Beyond

A roundup of the notable eats from the past 2 weeks in NYC. Despite the long commute to work, East Village sure has its charms..especially when it comes to all of the great food. The night before I moved to NYC, I created a spreadsheet of 100+ restaurants/foodtrucks/holeinthewalls that I had to try. Fortunately, I've manage to slowly chip away at the list (while concurrently adding even more).

1) Asian Goodness

Totto Ramen: Spicy ramen with egg + char siu pork, Extra intense ramen with extra pork, egg and other goodies
Prosperity Dumplings: BEST DUMPLINGS I have ever had (and $9 for 50 of them???)
Brick Lane Curry House: Lunch buffet for 10 bucks!

BCD Tofu House: New K-town obsession. Spicy cold noodles and spicy hot tofu :)
Sao Mai: $6 bucks Bah Mihn and Pork Bun.Yummy and one of the cheapest eats in EV.

2) Flushing

Hahm Ji Bach aka the most famous Korean BBQ in Flushing, Queens. Michelin recommended to boot.
Pork Belly & Gal Bi

Li's Noodles, Kung Fu Bubble Tea, Xiao Long Bao from Nan Xiang Dumpling House, Portuguese Egg Tarts from
New Flushing Bakery.

 3) Drinks

Cucumber cocktail, Punch bowls from CienFuegos, happy hour at 10 Degree Bar.

4) Gourmet Fast Food

Crif Dogs Hot Dog
Luke's Lobster Lobster Roll

  
5) Good Old Fast Food

Japadogs: Beef hot dg with spicy mayo, seaweed and other Asian flavors
Mark's: Bacon, regular, and pulled pork sliders & cheese fries

Korean Eats

4 weeks later and I have finally discovered Korea town. How it took me so long to find the place I have no idea but thank goodness I did. Although K-town is awkwardly located between home and work with neither being walking distance, I have still managed to find enough excuses to frequent the street. Especially after eating at work and in Hells Kitchen for so long, I was starting to seriously crave my usual staples of noodles, gochijang, and soy.

After a friend from Penn got settled into the city, we journeyed to K-town where I finally got my first Korean BBQ adventure. Talk about a serious food experience! I don't think I have ever eaten that much since the Chinese New Year's. Long story short, easily one of the best meals of life if for no other reason that the food was good and there was so much of it :)

Look at this massive array of banchan (korean side dishes)! Our favorites were the dried tofu skin, cured radish and two selections of kimchi.

BBQ sampling of gal bi, pork belly and tenderloin (?) Not sure what the last one was but lets go with tenderloin. Funnily enough, the gas for the BBQ was broken that day so they created this makeshift grill on a portable gas stove.  Not the truly authentic BBQ experience but I wasn't complaining. 

I think my favorites were the two beef selections since they were both marinated nicely and seasoned. The pork belly was cooked well with some kimchi and garlic. 

Egg in hot pot, tofu, rice and snapshot of an (almost) empty plate. tehee. It always baffles me how closely so many Korean dishes resembles Chinese dishes (ok yea one would intuitively come to that conclusion) but still. Take the egg dish, gyeran jiim. I literally grew up on the exact same thing from the time I was maybe two to well...now. My grandmother still makes it for breakfast everyday. Custard like and piping hot, this was one good gyeran jiim.

To add to the this foodie joy, I was shown Marks Plaza 1 day later where I saw the mecca of ramen and I was seriously seriously in love.  An impromptu dinner at Ippudo where I had a dead phone and no camera meant yet another ramen meal with no pictures to share.  Oh well, at least Momofuku is still on the to-do list.

Dinner on a rainy Thursday at Soba-ya. Tempura in hot broth had never seemed like a culinary feasible idea and after finally trying it, I think I am still of the same opinion.  We had a sampling of dishes including some salmon (meh) and pork belly which was served with a poached egg in a slight broth (yum).  As the name of the restaurant indicates, Soba-ya is known for its buckwheat noodles but I found them to be rather unimpressive - maybe it was just the dish we ordered since soba is normally eaten cold. Or maybe I just don't like buckwheat. haha. 

Fried Rice Balls with Sesame Filling at Tkettle, Ja Ziang Mian at Shanghai Mong, Chocolate Soup Dumplings at Rickshaw's Dumpling Bar and Red Bean Smoothie Bubble Tea at Tkettle. 

Shanghai Mong, located in K-Town, calls itself a Chinese fusion restaurant... aka the Korean version of Chinese food.  I'm not sure what the exact sauce they used for the ja ziang mian was but it must be a common Korean ingredient since my friends have cooked with it before.  Of course, it tasted nothing like Chinese ja ziang mian but who is complaining as long as the food tastes good?

TKettle is also an adorable snack/bubble tea bar located at Saint Marks Plaza. They serve an interesting version of french toast, omelets as well with an assortment of dessert snacks. 

Dessert after work at Kyoto Tofu.Black Sesame Tofu with hoji-cha syrup and white sesame tuile.
Mango and Coconut Soymilk Soft Serve Sundae with fruit compote, matcha mochi, brownie topping and pocky.

Tofu? In a dessert? My friend promised me this was worth losing an hour of sleep over after I returned from work on a Tuesday night. Even though I had already changed into my pajamas, the foodie in me still ventured out (fortunately, the place was only around the corner) to try this famed tofu. I absolutely loved the soft serve but the smorgasborg of toppings  was a bit of an overkill. The black sesame tofu was light and refreshing, akin to a very subtle version of a panna cotta. I will admit it was worth the trip over :)

FINALLY I got to try the famous Bonchon Fired Chicken! And YES it was worth all of the hub bub because they were everything they promised to be: perfectly fried, crispy, juicy and flavored to the level of spicy that  makes me want to do a little dance (which yes, I did). The cold noodle dish of the day was also exactly what we needed after walking around the city for 4 hours. Apparently, some of the dishes at Boka are hit-or-miss but the fried chicken is a winner :D

Dinner at Grand Sichuan in Chinatown: Fei Pian, Spicy Lamb and Eggplants with Green Peppers.
The lamb was sadly nowhere near as spicy as a Sichuan restaurant should be serving but the fei pian was some of the best I have had. It was served with crushed peanuts, grounded garlic and just enough spicy pepper oil. 

A New Perspective

When I first started this blog, I had intended for it to be more of a reflection of the fun eats that Philadelphia had to offer. However, I quickly discovered that I neither had enough time nor the pocket change to go gallivanting across the city when the mood struck me. What with classes soon to start, I'll have even less time for my frivolities.  With that in mind, I decided to tweak the purpose of this blog. Since I am a college student, and one of the hardest things to do in college is to maintain a a consistent diet - I'll be focusing a lot on quick, simple recipes that I make in my own dorm as well as quick and yummy eats that I find on Penn's campus. There will still be the occasional gluttonous journey downtown and I still haven't forgotten about my tiramisu adventure, but I do think that this new perspective will be more relevant and useful for the readers as well as a motivator for me to keep on cooking :)

Having said that, this is what I had for dinner tonight: (first meal to come out of my new (tiny) kitchen!)

Bi Bam Bap! It is probably my favorite Korean dish of all time. It's so perfect - it has a little bit of everything that is amazing: rice, veggies, meat, egg AND spicy hot sauce. Need I say more? The summer before I started college, I worked at a Japanese restaurant and practically lived off of this dish because the kitchen made it for us for dinner every night. There are so many variations for this dish: chicken/beef, carrots/radishes, spinach, cabbages/lettuce......YUM.

I used a pretty inexpensive piece of meat since we are college students after all :). I think this was a shoulder cut? Any type of meat would work although if you wanted to be authentic, go for bu gol gi. H-Mart also sells pre-marinate bu gol gil for about 6 dollars a pound.

First step: marinating the meat. I used soy sauce, sesame oil, salt, pepper, garlic powder, srirachi, and mirin (for a little sweetness).

Used about 2 tbs soy sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp salt, few cracks of pepper, drizzle of srirachi, and 1 tsp of mirin.

Stir fry the vegetables:  used button mushrooms, (shredded) carrots and (strips of) zucchini with soy sauce, salt and sesame oil.

Also blanched some spinach and cut some Romain lettuce.

Cook an egg and put it all over a bed of rice! I like my egg the traditional way with the runny yolk but feel free to cook the egg completely.

What the dish looks like once you mix in the secret ingredient: spicy pepper paste (Gochujang). We didn't actually have any so we went to Koreana and the nice lady gave us enough for dinner and then some. Yay Koreana!

Firsts and Lasts

My Canon Rebel xsi came in on Friday! Naturally, I couldn't wait to start snapping pictures and fiddling around with the manual setting. Here are the scenes from the weekend:

last cooked meal at home (and first food shot with the new camera)

Inspired by the brunch I had at Distrito a few weeks back, I made this for my last breakfast at home. Toasted flatbread smeared with refried beans, scrambled eggs with cilantro, fresh tomatoes, sauteed salmon and a crackle of fresh black pepper. I know some people can't stand cilantro but I absolutely love it. My mom put it in practically every dish so naturally, I do too :)

Finally tried Taro Bubble Tea! About time so it is what my blog is named after...Got this one from Koreana. The taste is slightly creamy/milky with a naturally sweet flavor. The bubbles had a great consistency AND I got a a boba tea rewards card. 5 bubbles teas = 1 free one! I shall be frequenting this newly renovated eatery often this semester :)

Kim Bap. Typical but tasty nonetheless.

This baby was SO DELICIOUS. It's not even on the menu. You have to specially request it, I think its "7D"? Basically its spicy chicken with carrots/scallions on a bed of rice, fried egg on top all served in a steaming hot pot. I requested for mine to be EXTRA spicy and surprisingly enough, it actually was! Its so big its enough for two meals :)

Random frolicking on campus :p

That's me on the right with two of my pledge sisters who I saw for the first time this summer!

Helloooo Penn!

(Almost) ready for a new semester :)

Kimbap