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

Reading Terminal Market Revisited

Reading Terminal Market Revisited

I haven't really properly explored Reading Terminal since sophomore year (a very old post here). Sure, I'll stop by to pick up some produce or get some Bassett's ice cream, but never really take in all of the eating options.So I spent the good portion of Monday checking out some new places.

The "Blitering Idiot" (11%) @ Molly Malloys. Didn't know they had a bar inside!
A medium sized lobster for us to make lobster ravioli. (post forthcoming! here!)

Corned Beef Sandwich with sauerkraut & spicy mustard from Hershels: I don't think I've ever had a corned beef sandwich before but man they are tasty (and filling).

2lb of cookies from 4th Street Cookie Company. I've picked up 1 cookie from here before because the smell of freshly baked cookies is too hard to resist but they've always carried a steep price tag (usually $2+/cookie). But apparently, they have a cookie sale right before they close where every cookie is only a $1! (cash only). So naturally, we bought 15.

Budapest

Who knew that Budapest used to be two different cities? We mostly stayed on the Pest aka right side of the river of Budapest but that's mostly where the funsie party stuff is anyways. Plus the view of the castle from the Pest side looking into Buda was better anyways :) We found an AMAZING hostel via hostel world and the 9 of us travelling together had a BLAST. Ruin bar crawl and clubbing on a boat anyone?

Arrived in Budapest at 2:00pm and headed over to this bar/pub/cafe per the recommendation of our fantastic hostel staff. Grabbed a dark beer and a eggplant/brie cheese sandwich. yum-o.  

And of course, we just happened to be in town for a random foodie/music festival. 

Had soup bowls for lunch on the first day after an intensive 3 hour walking tour of the city. Amazingly enough, despite the time, we only managed to walk around 10 blocks. Our tour guide really liked to talk. We did learn a good deal of interesting/random/obscure facts and stories about Budapest though.

Lacroix (Part III)

Still haven't finished all of the posts from Southeast Asia (as there is an entire folder of Thai Cooking class pictures to go through and edit) so here is a quick little post on Lacroix for Restaurant Week. Came here last spring (forgot a camera) and last semester (poor dinner lighting) but this time I managed to snap some quick shots before digging in.

Apps: Mixed Greens & Caesar Salad

Main: Lamb BLY & Fish and Chips

Dessert: Dessert Trio

Apps were delish, mains were somewhat underwhelming but the desserts (as always in the case of restaurant week) were amazing.  Also hit up Amada for dinner which I discovered is infinitely better than its lunch offerings but the lighting for that rendered the pictures almost completely black. Oh well...maybe some editing will salvage them.

Bonjour Canada

Yea yea its still Canada but its as close as I'm getting to Europe this year. Although a taste of Montreal makes me want to hop on the next red eye to Paris.  Its actually true what they say - turning any word French automatically makes it sound infinitely more romantic. We just about died every time we passed by a chocolatier or saw the words creme glacee.

Mont-Royal

A (late) breakfast in Mont Royal followed by walking, exploring and shopping, Mont Royal vaguely reminds me of East Village in NYC.  Its filled half with up-and-coming restaurants, boutiques, ethnic cuisine and half with gorgeous residential apartments and hostels. We ventured to the famous 24 hour-a-day/7-days-a-week La Banquise for the famous Canadian poutine later in the afternoon.

Finally tried the much-heralded poutine! And from supposedly the most famous place in Montreal no less. Final verdict? Ambiguous. We ordered the classic which is french fries with gravy and cheese curds and got some bacon thrown in. The fries were not your typical golden diner fries which in this case still worked. The whole mess reminded me of the kind of cheese fries you order from Allegro's at 3 in the morning....I guess that's why this place is open 24 hours. 

Escargot, Salad and Belgian Fries in Mont Royal; My travel companion is absolutely in love with escargot from her travels in France (major jealousy over here) although I've never been very fond of the butter-soaked aspect of the dish. That was until I realized they aren't always soaked in butter. Huh. Well, I still think they aren't that exciting given the other options that exist on a menu. 

Vieux Montreal

Ham quiche with beet salad at an adorable chocolatier/cafe by Notre-Dame Basilica (pictures forthcoming!).  This light and airy quiche inspired me to make quiche on my first full day home...which my father promptly gobbled up. haha.  

A life-changing panini. Sure it looks unassuming but man what a flavor combination: smoke salmon, cream cheese, roasted eggplant, capers, peso and arugula.  I am tying this one at home kids. \

Lunch at Jardin Nelson in Old Montreal. We were fortunate enough to experience gorgeous weather all week and this day was no different.  Every restaurant we passed was filled with bustling diners sitting on patios, by windows and in the open sun. Jardin Nelson took this to the extreme and had two dining terraces as well as an open roof available for locals and tourists alike. The crepe was rather disappointing but  the live jazz music was quite enjoyable. 

A flaky and delicious chocolate croissant and brie cheese fondue with baguette and grapes. I never really got the whole fruit and cheese combo but I always like anything I eat enough times :)

Downtown Montreal

(Left) Portobello burger with sprouts, tomato and some sort of amazing creamy cheese...might have been cream cheese haha. (Right) Burger with brie and bacon. A late (a little too late) spontaneous dinner at 10pm after a 3 hour nap left our stomachs grumbling. This happened to be one of the few places where the kitchen was still open at 10pm (don't ask me why everything closes so early).  The burgers seemed like a safe bet off of the pretty Americanized menu but they were DELICIOUS. I think adding brie to anything just makes it taste good. Funnily enough, they didn't ask us how we wanted our burger cooked but even the medium-well quality left the burger nice and juicy. 

Forthcoming posts: the official most adorable cafe in Montreal (which we went to 2 days in a row even though it was on the other side of town), a good old fashioned French dinner in the Latin Quarter, and a great big bunch of gratuitous scenic shots.

Quick Update

Unfortunately, my plan to take a million gorgeous pictures of Boston did not work out as the camera's battery got completely drained from the jostling of my bag. 
However, I did snag a few shots of dinner from Tap House tonight :)

Chicken and Ribs Combo Dinner.

Mussels with Focaccia

Salmon BLT

Herb Chicken

Bacon & Provolone Burger

Happy eating =]