Tonight's Dinner

Went to Marvin's to see one of the best episodes of Battlestar Galactica yet and to catch up on some Gilmore (OMG! Jess was wearing a t-shirt with the cover art from Dinosaur Jr.'s Green Mind on it UNDER his BLAZER. The one with the little girl smoking a cig!). He cooked me a delicious dinner which consisted of the following:

London Broil - Marinated in soy sauce, garlic powder, onion salt and black pepper. I ate like 8 slices. I feel funny now. I got some au jus on his stain resistant tablecloth, so I just wiped off the stains as if I possessed magical powers. That tablecloth of his REALLY works.

Baked Potatoes - Before putting them in the oven, Marvin stabbed the potatoes with a fork and slathered them with canola oil, kosher salt (we both agree - too much salt) and black pepper.

Thanks Marvin! Next time I post about dinner at Marvin's I'm hoping it will be about the rib roast currently residing in his freezer.........

Today's Late Afternoon Snack

Went to Great Neck Noodletown* (Bowery and Bayard, C-Town, NYC) with Mike W. We shared the following:

Three Jewels (roast ducky duck, roast pork and soy sauce chicken) - Chicken and duck were especially tender and delicious today. The best thing about this dish is the oily green garlicky scalliony sauce they serve it with.

Salt Baked Shrimp - Tasty fried deliciousness.

*Restaurant is actually called Great N.Y. Noodletown, but I've referred to it simply as 'Great Neck' for years.

Last Night's Drunken Snack Attack

San Loco (Ave. A between 9th and 10th) around 3:40AM

1 chipotle chicken soft taco*
1 pork pipian queso loco taco*

*Barfed. Frowned.

Last Night's Dinner

MM's Birthday BBQ - First of all, mazel tov to Mike for cruising around this planet for three dozen years! OK, here's what I ate:

1 chicken sausage w/ fresh cilantro (one of my purchases from Trader Joe's on 04/28)
1/4 of aforementioned sausage (Took one bite and then dropped it on the ground. Felt shame and remorse.)
1 1/2 pieces of yummy smoked beef sausage (purchased by Youthlarge at the Union Square Farmers' Market)
1 turkey dog (Youthlarge was nice enough to split the top of the dog for me and stuff it with white cheddar cheese. I then placed it back on the grill, bun and all, to melt the cheese a bit. Heaven.)
1 bite of Youthlarge's bratwurst (which she split the top of and then stuffed w/ potato salad! Pure genius!)
3 pieces of skinny, but succulent sausage in some sort of pinwheel formation! (brought by Dave N. I don't know where he got it, but I plan to find out.)
1 scoop of potato salad containing bonus bacon
1/2 slice of cold bacon (the bacon was truly meant as an accoutrement, but I ate it as a 'main' anyway. Sort of gauche, I admit.)
4 potato chips w/ potato salad on top (one was actually a little sandwich w/ potato chip 'bread')
3 gummy worms
7 or so wasabi peas

Beverages consumed - 3 Harpoon Hibernian Irish Red Ales, 1 Hoegaarden, 2 Yuenglings

Bacon-O-Meter

Number of strips: 5.5
Type/brand: Niman Ranch Applewood Smoked Center Cuts were the first 4, not sure about the other 1.5
Consistency: all-around great!
Location: our house / Mike and Jim's backyard
Comments: For breakfast I broiled up some bacon in the toaster oven. This is my preferred method of makin' bacon. You do have to keep a close eye on the bacon because once it reaches a certain point, it has a tendency to overcook or burn really quickly. It happened to me once and I wasn't too happy with my crispy bacon but the party goers I made it for still gobbled it all up. The other strip and a half were eaten in Mike's backyard. There was an entire tupperware container full of cooked bacon for use on the burgers. I really love cold bacon! I put one strip on my burger and then later on had another half strip because I kept looking over at the tupperware and had no self-control. Also, Mike's lady Sara(h) made a delicious potato salad with had bacon in it! But because it was pieces and chunks, it doesn't count.

Total count from April 26, 2006: 9.5

Today's Brunch

Had brunch at Les Enfants Terribles (Canal and Ludlow, NYC) with Newell. At first, I thought the service, like the children, was terrible. In hindsight, I think I was just really hungry and ornery because the waitress ended up winning me over, despite the fact that she served me water in a not so clean glass (there was pulp) with a live bug swimming around in it! Oddly, I was not that grossed out by this because the bug was such a good swimmer. I took an interest in him the way most people take notice when someone decides to swim across the Channel. He successfully swam from one end of the glass to the other, but decided to double back and never completed his second length. Sadly, the little bug passed away more or less equidistant from either side of the glass (R.I.P - April 29th, 2006). Despite our sadness, we still somehow managed to eat:

Newell - Eggs Benedict with bacon, french fries and salad ($9.50), 3 cups of coffee ($1.50)
China-Latina Chowhound - Duck leg confit with Guinea pepper, served with french fries and a frisee salad w/ crispy bacon - bonus meat rules! ($10.50), 1 caipirinha ($5.00) and 3 cups of coffee ($1.50)

Mine was delicious. The duck was succulent and practically fell off the bone. Newell's was just so-so. I thought the yolk did not look runny enough, but he assured me that it was. Overall, I give today's brunch 3 stars out of 5. This place is much more impressive at dinner time. Better menu, scene and service.

Another Last Night's Dinner

Had an awful day at work, so Youthlarge suggested we get a quick drink (yummy pint of Blue Point - thanks YL!) at the Old Town Bar on 18th between Park and Broadway. Afterward, we walked over to Trader Joe's. This was my first time there, so I was eager to procure some deliciousnesses. After making my purchases, I decided to hop into a cab and go straight to my friend Papper's for some NHL playoff action:

Hurricanes 3, Canadiens 2
Sabres 4, Flyers 5 (Good game - I was rooting for Buffalo though.)
Stars 4, Avalanche 1 (Stars still alive. The best thing about them is that they have a large fan base, but those crazy Texans still have NO idea what's going on, or how the game of hockey is played in general.)

Upon arrival at Pappy's house, I was pleased to find that he was just putting the finishing touches on his fusilli with creamy ham and peas sauce. I had bought some yummy chicken drumettes (basically c. nuggets) at Trader Joe's, so I heated those up and we scarfed them with the aforementioned fusilli. This concluded Phase 1 of dinner. Murphy and Newell stopped by, but had missed Phase 1 of dinner, so we had a second wave of fried chicken products. Newell wanted to get a half fried chicken with pork fried rice from the local ghetto Chinese place. I suggested that in addition to that, he pick up some chicken from the local Kennedy Fried Chicken type place so we could do a nice little compare and contrast. All in the name of science of course. Newell refused, but was kind enough to pick up a second half fried chicken with french fries from the ghetto C place, which I split with Sean Murphy. To be honest, it was some of the best ghetto C chicken I have ever tasted.

Beverages consumed (in order) - 1 Kronenbourg 1664 (ahhh, reminded me of Paris), 1 Beck's and 2 Coronas

Last Night's Dinner: Maria's, I mean Press 195

You've probably caught on by now that we don't cook much at home. Occasionally, I'll try to make something on the weekend where there will be enough leftovers for Listmaker's lunch for a couple days. Last night I planned on picking up Mexican from Maria's on the way home from work. Most of the Mexican places in our neighborhood serve what I refer to as Mall Mexican. You know, lots of shredded lettuce and bad refried beans from a can. Maria's is actually really good, but when they are on top of their game. Unfortunately the service is most always sloppy and the food sometimes is lazy. When I got to Maria's, I said hi to no less than 4 people who worked there. All but 1 ignored me and walked practically through me. Finally after what seemed like 10 minutes, the one woman who acknowledged my presence came over and I let her know I was picking up an order. Only then does the sour owner of the place who was serving as bartender pipe in with "take out is running 30 minutes." Oh. Thanks for letting me know after only standing around for ten. I reach for my phone and there are two messages from the husband letting me know what I had just found out at the restaurant and that he had ordered instead from Press 195 up the block.

It's a shame Maria's has to suck more often then not. When on, their plaintains are the best in the area, but it's always a crapshoot. There could be no one else in the restaurant and your food is still going to take nearly an hour to be served. What is up with this place? And now they've expanded and the atmosphere is frantic. There are a handful of people at Maria's who are pleasant, sure, but overall, this place needs to get its act together.

So yeah, we got take out from Press, a pressed sandwich shop, and it was an off night for them too. The normally tasty #9 (homemade roast pork, jack cheese, pickled jalapenos, cilantro, onions and roasted garlic spread) didn't do it for me. The pork was dried out and assembly of rest of the fillings was uneven. We also got a citrus chicken salad (mixed greens with grilled lemon chicken, goat cheese, fresh orange supremes, caramelized walnuts, cranberry citrus dressing). Again, the meat was super dried out. We decided that it would be a great salad, if it was just a Citrus salad, no chicken.

Today's Lunch

I work in Midtown, so for lunch I usually go to one of those typical Midtown lunchy places and get a soup, or a strange but delicious combination of salmonella laden hot buffet items, or I go to this place called Guy & Gallard and get some sort of fish, mashies and julienne vegetables, or maybe bok choy instead. But today I went with something totally different. Today I had HUNGER for lunch. I didn't really like it. It was hard to chew and swallow, but wasn't quite as gamy as I thought it would be.

This Morning's Breaky*

Leftover potato pancake from last night's dinner (Whole Foods prepared foods section). The flavor was very nice and oniony, much more so than it was yesterday. The odor caused two of my co-workers to become chartreuse with envy.

* Apparently both 'breaky' and 'brekkie' are in usage and considered to be correct. Which do you prefer? I'm not married to either, so am open to suggestions.

Another Tonight's Dinner (But Really Last Night's): Geido

I worked up a huge appetite playing soft ball in Red Hook last night. This was my first time playing with this team (Magnetic Field) and I was a little nervous. I didn't hit a lick (in fact each at bat, the ball would travel a lesser distance) wound up playing a pretty good first base and got named MVP! We went back to the bar and had a beer and celebratory shot of Powers and then it was off to Geido with Listmaker, BonitoJack and the People's Cortney.

I become loco at Geido. It's a wonderful little Japanese place that's like half izakaya / half sushi bar. Everything is so reasonably priced, I always over-order and wind up busting my belly. A small bamboo tray of steaming hot towels was placed on our table as we sat down and I just had to sink my face into it. It felt good. Our friends ordered first, getting a bottle of cold sake, shumai, an EOP roll, Dynamite roll and like 100 pieces of tuna and Spanish mackerel. And then it was our turn to order, well my turn since I have to order for my husband at restaurants like these. A sudden bought of ADD took over and I totally ordered all over the place. We started off with some miso and shared a small green salad. Then we got a plate of ika rings. Panko covered squid which looked like a plate of onion rings. For our rolls, we also got an order of EOP and Dynamite, basically because I couldn't think and I had just heard Bonito order them and it was fresh in my mind. Listmaker loves his unagi so we got some eel battera, which is nigiri sushi pressed in a wooden box. I trade one of our eel batteras for a Spanish mackerel. TASTY! We definitely had enough food there, but then Jack had to go and reminisce about this cheese katsu dish on the menu and so I had to order one. Basically it was 3 layers: panko, pork, melted cheese. Holy moly it was good. I'm glad I got some exercising in earlier. For dessert, we got Listmaker's favorite: green tea ice cream with crushed red bean sauce. Before we started eating he said there was no way he would share dessert, but he began to lose steam around the cheese katsu and definitely needed help to tackle the ice cream.

Tonight's Dinner

Had to leave work around 5:45 to go downtown to get my head shrunk and now I'm back at my office of all places! Why oh why do I procrastinate so much during work hours? Wait! I should ask my shrink about that! Anyway, en route back to my office I stopped at Whole Foods and picked up some meatballs and potato pancakes from the prepared foods section. Odd combination I know, but I'm quite enjoying it!

Another Today's Lunch

A veritable snooze-fest. I too was in the mood for soup, but was literally incapable of making any decisions and was too lazy to walk more than half a block from my office. So I went to the place where we get all of our corporate catering, Tasty Cafe. Once in there, I toyed with the idea of getting one of those customized salads that always ends up costing you about $7M after all of the 'toss-ins' have been accounted for, but the line was too long. I then shifted focus back to my original thought: soup. There was a creamy and fatty looking portabella mushroom soup that caught my eye, but I ended up going with the boring chicken soup. It was ok, but I found an entire sprig of rosemary in it - I felt like I was eating a goddamn Christmas Tree! Oh - and I found a BONE.

Today's Lunch

For lunch today, I went down the street to the 5th Avenue Epicure, similar in fashion to those delis on steroids that populate this area of the Flatiron. The Epicure offers pre and made to order sandwiches, pasta, protein + 2 sides, make your own salad and a lovely selection of soup. I thought I might be in a soup mood, so I got a sample of the potato chedder (of course the fattiest soup they were offering today i'm sure). It was delicious, but I opted against it and instead got two pieces of rolled up spinach and cheese lasagna which my eyes first thought "how skimpy" but in the end turned out to be just right. Their pasta and "entree" dishes comes with a side salad I really like. It's really basic, but they cover all the bases: lettuce, grape tomatoes, carrots, red cabbage and a cucumber ring (seeds hollowed out). Balsamic and oil was the dressing of choice. Actually if I had one complaint about the Ep, it would be that they have a weak selection of dressings.

p.s. i think someone in my office is eating sardines again!

Another Last Night's Dinner

Take-away from the Chip Shop/Curry Shop. I worked a little late last night and didn't want to waste any extra time waiting for the food to be prepared, so I called Listmaker from the el portion of the F line to let him know my whereabouts and he then called the Chip Shop to place our order. We we able to agree on a main (chicken tikka masala), so we ordered one adult portion rather than 2 kids portions, which we often do. The kids sizes are a revelation at the Chip Shop. I love being able to order a mini fish and chips while Listmaker orders a meaty mac. But then again, any time I order anything with chips, it causes problems in our household because then Listmaker wants to share and I'm all, "get your own!" Our protein was supplemented with rice, papadom, vegetable samosas (4 small ones) and an apple, walnut and stilton salad. The latter, along with Bonnie's buffalo wings has turned Listmaker into a fan of bleu cheese. Hooray! We never get the naan at the Chip Shop, as it's simply inedible.

Bacon-O-Meter

Number of strips: 2
Type/brand: Niman Ranch
Consistency: Perfect
Location: The City Bakery, NYC
Comments: I had no intention of eating bacon today. But then I dropped in on the City Bakery this morning (damn you for being on my way to work!) to get some yogurt and fruit. As I was standing in line to pay, I noticed the glistening strips of porcine goodness. They looked like model bacon and I couldn't resist and you know what, I'm happy I didn't resist, because my bacon-dar was totally spot on. Although the size of the bacon seemed a little smaller than what I'm accustomed to there, the were cooked absolutely perfect. The fat wasn't overly chewy and the meat portion toothsome.

Total count from April 26, 2006: 4

Last Night's Dinner

Last night I had dinner at Japonica (University and 12th, NYC) with my friend Lauren. Usually when we go there, I get the sashimi platter with a fried oyster roll (kaki fry!), but last night I decided to go for the Japonica Box (bold denotes what I selected when a choice was to be made):

1) Miso soup or Edemame
2) Spicy Tuna Crunch roll (spicy tuna and tempura flake), Hot Alaskan roll (spicy chopped salmon, avocado and cucumber), Hama-Peno roll (chopped fresh yellowtail and sliced fresh jalapeno)
3) Shrimp and Vegetable Tempura
4) Eel-Don or Alaskan-Don
5) Chicken Yakitori or Beef Negimaki
6) Ice cream or sorbet (I chose neither as my mantra is 'meats not sweets'.

My only reservation about the Japonica Box was that it did not contain any sashimi. I'm not a HUGE maki person, so I would have passed on all of the aforementioned rolls to get my hands on some sashimi. So I ended up ordering some hamachi (yellowtail) and hirame (flukey fluke) a la carte. But then when my big box came it didn't even have any of those novelty rolls! Instead it included 4 pieces of maguro (tuna), 2 pieces of sake (salmon) and 2 pieces of hamachi! Listen, I was pleasantly surprised, but WTF? Had I known about the sashimi substitution, I certainly would not have ordered pricey sashimi a la carte! I ended up spending a lot of money, but it was yummy. I do find Japonica to be overrated and over-priced, but it's a Village staple and I keep going back.

Afterward my friend and I went to go get Chinatown style massages in the West Village. No happy endings, or 'frips' as it were. You can read about the massage later on my other blog, China-Latina, but I'm new to this whole blog thing so don't know how to link you.

Another Today's Lunch

For lunch I ordered the LS12 from my favorite work Chinese place, Chef 28. For those wondering what precisely an LS12 is, it's the Lemon Chicken lunch special. With the lunch special, one is able to choose from the following in the way of sides:

1 - white, brown or fried rice
2 - egg roll, spring roll, hot & sour soup, egg drop soup, wonton soup or soda

I chose brown rice, which I later discarded by accident (ok, on purpose - I'm not so into rice) and wonton soup, but I was THIS close to getting a fatty egg roll. I was envious of my colleague's LS32 - delicious looking and tasting (I traded her what was supposed to be two pieces, but she took three, of my lemon chicken for two pieces of her sesame chicken) sesame chicken.

I am now feeling very bloated, stuffed and tired. Am on the verge of asking 'why is this happening to me?', though I know the answer all too well. I think I will make myself some Bigelow Mint Medley tea now.

Today's Lunch

I'm eating a salad of romaine, cucumbers, hard-boiled egg, grilled chicken, chickpeas and mozzarella with a balsamic dressing and a couple shakes of black pepper. Not too low fat, but not terrible either. The crunch of the lettuce and cukes are a nice contrast to the texture of all the sausage products (angus dog, jubilat kielbasa and sliced sopresatta in a panini) I had for dinner last night. I hope Listmaker had a salad or something light for lunch today too. He was having the post-Gowanus Yacht Club groans last night.

Bacon-O-Meter

Number of strips: 2
Type/brand: Niman Ranch
Consistency: A little bit more well done than I like, but bacon was still chewy.
Location: The City Bakery, NYC

Total count from April 26, 2006: 2

Welcome to the Gastro-dome

This is going to be all about all things food. I was originally going to call this blog The Park Sup but thankfully I realized what a stupid name that is. I'm not the best eater or the best writer, but I'll try my best. The PSG will be a mix of short and long reviews, a compendium of daily food consumption and the bacon-o-meter, which will keep track of how much bacon I consume.