lunch at restaurants I can't afford dinner: Del Posto

The best lunch deal in New York can be found at Del Posto. This is a three star restaurant (possibly four in the near future) serving three courses plus a bunch of extra nibbles and bites for $29. The meal is worth every penny (and probably more, but don't tell the owners). Molly and I had a lunch date with a pair of Brits recently where we were spoiled rotten, starting with a round of complimentary Bellinis. Our party of four is then present with this trio of starters. In the foreground left are gougères-y type things studded with bits of mortadella. To the right are suppli, Roman rice balls with mozzarella in the mix. These are usually coated in breadcrumbs, but Del Posto rolled them in cooked rice and then sprinkled with gold dust. The cups are filled with stracciatella, a sort of egg-drop soup. So simple, yet so delicious, which sums up Italian cooking so often.

Wait, there's more! We then we get a second round of amuses: wedges of buffalo mozzarella dipped in shaved black olive (or was it cocoa...or both?), mini crostada with whipped cod and chickpea fritters filled with cheese. De-li-cious. Please give me only bite-sized tastes from now on.

Oozy, cheesy fritter innards.

For my first course I chose the roasted vegetables with robiola sformato and truffled hazelnuts. in addition to the veg, there were some bites of fruit, including a wonderful wedge of roasted pear. I am a sucker for robiola and have been from the first time I tried it at a little cicchetti stand in Venice some 8 years ago.

Instead of our second course, the kitchen sent out plates of the agnolotti dal plin with Parmigiano-Reggiano. They were served in a napkin nest and we were instructed to take a veal and pork filled packet (still a little wet from the pasta water), and dip it into the cheese before popping into our mouths. Incredible. I could have eaten these all afternoon long.

I had a doozy of a time deciding on a second course - pasta or protein? Once I saw my plate, I knew I had made the right choice. This is Carlo's stracchiotte with frutti di mare alla marinara.
Note the gorgeous two-toned pasta, first of all. The perfectly cooked pasta mingled with rings of perfectly cooked squid and lumps of scallop and this incredibly light, but flavorful sauce of tomato, onion and garlic. I would have a difficult time NOT ordering this on any return visit.

Before we move onto our dessert course, we get a modified cheese course, assembled table side by pastry chef Brooks Headley (a friend of Molly's, hence the extra special treatment. I know you were wondering!). But wait, I haven't even talked about the bread we were served. I didn't take any photos of it because I was too busy stuffing my face with grissini, olive rolls, mini baguettes and foccacia slathered with fancy butter and lardo! So Chef Brooks explains that Lidia, one of the owners, requires that he incorporate vegetables in his desserts, like this eggplant crostada. Here he spoons melted robiola (again!) over the slice.

And then drizzles chocolate over it. A weird combo, but the eggplant was so sweet and tender, it could have been mistaken for fig. The chocolate cut through the funk of the cheese and so it worked!

This was our palate cleanser - a rhubarb creamsicle. That would be rhubarb sorbet on the bottom and olive oil gelato on top and olive oil drizzled over it. The garnish was a piece of brown butter cookie. Yum.

For our official dessert course, we played pass the plate with four different offerings. TI can't remember all the components, but the base was some sort of chocolate, duh. There was also a chocolate twig and the ridged, potato chippy looking thing is actually crumbled penne rigate pasta!

Fennel pollen cheesecake with rhubarb and blood orange, with torn pieces of bread to be used to sop up the remaining juices. This was a cool flavor combination because we were at the tail end of blood orange season and the very beginning of rhubarb.

Chestnut cake with warm plum macedonia, crushed chestnuts and yogurt gelato. More yummmm.

This was the most interesting dessert of the quartet: sfera di caprino with celery & fig agrodolce & celery sorbetto. The little balls are goat cheese rolled in breadcrumbs (I loved the chef's use of bread in his desserts), the dark stuff is the fig and aged balsamic, if I remember correctly. And the green stuff is shaved celery and the sorbet. More veggies in dessert and more incredibleness! The celery was so refreshing.

But no, we're still not finished. We end the meal with more bites, this time sweet and charmingly displayed on a cheese grater. From left to right: mini bomboloni; roasted dates filled with cheese and sprinkled with sea salt; pineapple "jolly ranchers"; chocolate-olive oil popsicle rolled in breadcrumbs.

I thought we were done, but then the drawer was pulled out and there were more bites! Candied grapefruit flavored with Aperol (I think), another mini crostada but sweet this time, of course (I love the parallels with the savory bites), chocolate covered honeycomb (think of the deliciousness of a Crunchie bar and then multiply that tenfold) and caramels wrapped in edible rice paper.

ZOMG!

lunch at restaurants i can't afford dinner: eleven madison park

Is there a more appropriate restaurant than Eleven Madison Park to continue our “Lunch At Restaurants I Can’t Afford Dinner” series? @SimpleSocial treated me to a belated birthday lunch here recently, where a two course prix fix meal is offered for $28. It’s still special occasion fare, but when compared to the unremarkable $19 burgers and insipid $12 make your own salads that are the norm in my work neighborhood, you realize even more just what a great deal you're getting. Eleven Madison Park was awarded four stars by the Times over the summer - I've never eaten at a four star restaurant before! It's part of Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group - I've never eaten at one of his restaurants before either! It's no joke when people talk about the high level of service at his restaurants. Our waiter was attentive without being overbearing and informative without being show-offy. He was knowledgeable about wines and even plated the desserts.

We began with a round of amuses. In the foreground, duo of beet marshmallows and foie gras with red currant atop a very delicate cracker. Both Molly and I broke our crackers between the plate and our mouths. We were both trying very hard to be proper and ladylike, but I guess we are too strong for our own good. Perfect, fluffy gourgeres, a dish of sea salt and butter are in the background.

Molly's first course: the slow poached organic egg with Parmigiano-Reggiano and mushrooms. Foamy deliciousness on top.

I opted for the balik salmon with pommes dauphine, frisée and crème fraîche to begin. There was also a bonus circle of salmon tartar in the middle. The balik salmon was so tender and perfectly smoked.

For my second course, I went with the day's special of pork loin, Brussels sprouts and sweet potatoes. As with my first course, my protein was prepared two ways, which I didn't anticipate. Paired with the loin was basically a hockey puck made of pork, if hockey pucks were amazingly crisp on the outside and amazingly porky and fatty on the inside.

Fried pie. Just kidding! This was Molly's skate.

We indulged and got dessert. Two of them. Chocolate caramel tart.

Brown sugar and blueberry crumble.

Schnitzel!

This is currently my favorite thing to eat for lunch in the wasteland that is Midtown. It comes from a truck called Schnitzel & Things. They recently won the Vendy award for Rookie of the Year. Congrats, guys!

Here we have a pork schnitzel platter with a beet and feta salad and Austrian potato salad. A couple lemon wedges and a pesto mayo round out the meal. The cost? $8. This is a great deal. Most delis around here charge you $8 for a pre-made sandwich that's been sitting around for 6 hours. The schnitzel is the size of a small country. The pizza places around here charge over $3 for a slice so I repeat, this is a GREAT DEAL.

If you time your visit to get to the truck right when they've parked and set up, there's not much of a wait. Don't bother dealing with a knife and fork; the best way to attack the cutlet is to pick it up with two hands and chomp away. Sometimes the meat can get a little tough (a by-product of a very thinly pounded cutlet), but the crust is always delectably crisp. I've also tried the veal but pork is my go-to. For my sides, it's hard to stray from the beets and feta but I rotate in the potato salad and sauerkraut. I strayed from a mayo as my condiment once and paid for it big time! The ginger, scallion and garlic relish was an oily, flavorless bust. Mayo is the way!

lunch at restaurants i can't afford dinner: nougatine @ jean georges

Some coworkers and I decided to treat ourselves to the lunch special at Nougatine at Jean Georges. Three courses for $24.07. An expensive lunch, yes, but I thought of it as an early dinner, and an affordable one at that, at a restaurant that never fit in the budget before the arrival of Double Trouble and certainly does not fit in post DT.

I started with the tuna tartar, which was built atop a mash of avocado and adorned with radish slices on top. A ginger marinade, oozing with umami, was poured around the tuna by the server.

My second course was the grilled beef tenderloin with garlic, parsley and chili, served with sauteed spinach and a rough mash of potato. I normally get my meat cooked medium, but the kitchen suggested medium rare so I went with it. It was perfect. I am sold on medium rare meat now but only at places where I think they'll know how to cook meat properly.

Your final course is a choice of two desserts. I went with the molten chocolate cake, considering JG is credited with inventing it. Not ordering this would be like eating at one of Bobby Valentine's restaurants and not ordering a wrap sandwich.

Mother's Day feast at the Ssam Bar

For my first mother's day, team Jewrean had lunch with my parents and my brother and his family at Momofuku Ssam Bar. It's hard to believe, but there are 11 of us now - six adults, two big kids and three tiny kids! Just six months ago, we were only 8! Dan and I have barely eaten out since the arrival of Double Trouble and I've pretty much given up any hope in ever eating at Ko, but this was a nice consolation.

We ordered a couple plates of pickles and pork buns, as well as the brussels sprouts to tide us over until the bo ssam feast arrived. That would have been more than enough food, but then some comp plates started coming out!

My family's been in the restaurant supply business for over three decades now. I've had many meals where the kitchen sends out special plates, but these took the cake. The cured hamachi arrived first. Linda wonders if the guy who does the ordering in the kitchen is in the house. He was not.

The Peanut shows off her chopstick skills, which are way better than mine.

The roasted brussels sprouts that I love so much. The puffed rice that goes in the dish was, I think, cheese flavored, like mini Chee-Toes, this day. A little weird.

Meacham and Broadbent's country ham, both from Kentucky, with redeye mayo on top. Bread with Vermont sea salt butter and whipped lardo below. The last time I had lardo, it was atop a pizza at Otto years ago. I remember being completely put off by the texture, which was like thinly sliced cartilage or plastic. Not that I'll make a regular habit of eating it, but whipped is the way to go.

Sichuan beef tendon with Chinese greens, peanuts and green mango. Tendon is not ever something I seek out, in fact I go out of my way at Vietnamese or Chinese restaurants to avoid it, but this was enjoyable. It had really deep beefy flavor and wasn't too chewy. The crunch of the peanuts and the freshness of the mango were good compliments.

We all momentarily ignore the food to stare at the Dumpling, who had just woken up from her nap.

Cabbage lettuce patch kid!

Pulling apart the pork butt. The thing was huge. I ate a ton, the table ate a ton and we still had pounds of meat to take home. Served with the pork is a platter of oysters with a light kimchi consomme which I didn't love. I thought they were a little lacking in the briney taste of the sea that makes oysters so delicious. You also get rice and four condiments - kimchi, kimchi puree, ssamjang and a scallion ginger sauce. My style was to put a dab of all four on each lettuce purse I created.

In case you were wondering, Sam and Otis slept through the entire meal!

Lunch at the HBistrO

What a crappy, rainy New York Day. At least I didn't have to walk far to meet up with Lindsey for lunch at the HBO commissary. This place rules! It was Indian day, so I mostly loaded up on that. On my main plate I've got a piece of tandoori chicken (unfortunately super dry, yuck), carrot and onion salad, spicy cucumber salad, basmati rice pilaf, yellow peas, roasted cauliflower with a tomato sauce and a handful of mini papadums. There are also some roasted beets and a mozzarella, pesto and sun-dried tomato pinwheel. I also got some fruit - red grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew and oranges - and a solid tasting chocolate chip cookie. Today they also had a mac and cheese station which was especially tempting after I saw a big bowl of bacon bits.

Oh wait, how could I forgot, I also had three mini samosas! I think they got buried under the beets.

Lunch at Katsuhama

Katsuhama, the only tonkatsu restaurant in New York, is three blocks from my work! There is little section up front that offers bento boxes, onigiri and made-to-order udon, but behind a sliding door is a sit-down restaurant. Similar to its sister restaurant, Menkui-tei, seating is available at tables or the long bar.

I ordered the pork cutlet lunch special. Pickles, miso soup, rice and a mound of paper thin shredded cabbage accompanied the duo of deep fried pork pieces.



The dish of pickles came out first. On this day, there was spicy and non spicy cabbage and a pickled plum. I was also presented with sesame seeds in a grooved bowl. Using a pestle, I ground up the seeds to mix with the restaurant's homemade katsu sauce.



My pork cutlets arrived on a plate with the cabbage and a squirt of hot mustard. The panko breading was enjoyably crunchy, not to mention non-greasy and the pork moist. The Waiters walked by with tongs offering up even more cabbage. The sesame salad dressing they have at Katsu Hama is addictive. I'd have no problem eating an entire head of in a single sitting, in addition to everything else!

Soup and Sandwich at Wichcraft

Potato cheddar soup with parsley oil and half a chicken salad with walnuts, roasted tomatoes, pickled red onions and frisée on multigrain bread studded with lots and lots of seeds from 'Wichcraft on 46th St between 5th and Madison.

I can't help but feel really healthy when I eat multigrain bread.

Ramen Setagaya First Taste

My office closed early last Friday so I headed to the recently opened, much-hyped Ramen Setagaya for a late lunch. Although the restaurant wasn't full and the lines hadn't formed yet, it was a pretty good showing for 4PM on a dreary day. I took a seat along the bar in front of the food preparation area, hoping I could get an insider's look, and ordered a shio ramen and pork gyoza combo. I have to say, I wasn't all that blown away. No photos unfortunately as my camera decided to stop working.

The ramen was good enough, but nothing I'd wait in line for. The noodles came nestled in a bowl with slices of pork, seaweed, marinated bamboo, half a boiled egg and thinly shaved green onion slivers. A tiny sprinkling of pulverized, dried scallops topped off the dish. The pork was flavorful, but on the dry side. I did love the egg. The yolk was barely set, with just a thin layer closest to the white having firmed up. For some reason, seeing the kitchen crew slice the eggs using a piece of fishing wire tied to a cabinet handle delighted me to no end.

The dumplings were a disappointment. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see them being pulled frozen from a bag. I imagine most places use frozen gyoza. But there was a strange taste from either the dipping sauce or the dumplings themselves. It was sort of familiar and though I couldn't quite place it, I knew it was a taste that didn't belong.

At the back of Ramen Setagaya, near the lone bathroom, is another restaurant! It's a completely different place serving pasta and sushi! The other surprise was that the kitchen staff was clearing speaking Korean. So were some of the waitresses. I thought this was a Japanese joint! I'll have to return to investigate.

Meatballs at Scandanavia House

Lunch two days ago was half a dozen golf ball sized meatballs bathed in a cream gravy with pickled cucumbers, lingonberry sauce and a generous portion of dense, rich, buttery potatoes topped with a sprinkling of chopped chives. To drink, a bottle of Kristal lingonberry soda. Yummy.

$6 Bad Lunch, $6 Good Lunch

My lunch totally sucked yesterday. I went to the normally dependable Cafe Zaiya near my office and was excited to see there was one chicken oyako-don left. These seem to sell out quickly here and I generally eat lunch later than most. When I got back to my desk and opened the container, I couldn't find any chicken. After double checking the label confirmed it was a chicken oyako-don, I poked at the yellowish-grey mass and unearthed three tiny nuggets of poultry. The dish was overwhelmed with bamboo shoots and julienned strips of pink-edged fishcake. There's a very good chance I don't know what I'm talking about, but I've come to expect chicken oyako-don to be composed of onions, scallions and egg. Nothing more, nothing else. After a few bites of rice and chicken, I dumped the rest into the garbage. What a disappointment.

Today I decided to go out for lunch. I took the bus up 5th Avenue to Koreatown and settled on Woorijip, which is a sorta fast food place with lots of prepackaged items, as well as a small hot and cold buffet. In the back they have a little counter called something like the Noodle Hut. You place your order with the ahjuma and a few moments later you have a freshly prepared bowl of noodles or hotpot. I ordered sujebi, which is a type of Korean noodle. The chewy sujebis kind of look like a cross between a flattened piece of gnocchi and dduk, Korean rice cake. The sujebis are served in a very basic fish-based broth (dried anchovies most likely), which gets thickened by the noodles. There are lots of scallions along with thin slices of zucchini and carrot. A small dish of kimchi and ohdeng accompanied. Completely satisfying, I couldn't have asked for a more perfect lunch.

P.S. This totally made me have garlic breath for the rest of the day, hooray!

It Crawled from the South Part IV: More Nashville

We had a bit of a late start to our first and only morning in Nashville so by the time we got our bearings, it was already time for lunch. Our pal Christian, who graciously allowed us to crash at his place, implored us to eat at Marche, just a few blocks from his East Nashville home. It's a huge, split level space that serves as a fancy food + takeaway shop and restaurant. The breakfast menu looked awesome, but we were a few minutes late and had to settle for lunch.

So with Mr. Otis Redding playing on the stereo, DMR and I perused the menu. I decided on a cup of ham and vegetable soup and a BLAT - bacon, lettuce, tomato and avocado which came with a side of pickled red cabbage (delicious), along with an iced coffee to drink. Dan ordered a Caesar salad with chicken and a side of fruit. Ridiculously, this felt like the lightest, healthiest meal we had eaten all week! My soup was super yummy, tasting more like a light beef stew, with a nice assortment of fresh veggies and bits of smoked ham. I loved my sandwich, but not so much the bread because it was a little too greasy. I wound up picking out the contents and leaving half of the toasted slices on the plate. While we were eating another CD was loaded up into the stereo and at first I couldn't make out what was playing and thought it was the Rolling Stones, which made me happy. But Dan's ears picked up a Glaswegian accent and the music turned out to be Camera Obscura's latest, which tickled us both pink!

On the way out, we picked up a bag of homemade potato chips to bring back to Team Plumley HQ, where a fried chicken feast would be waiting for us! But before we headed back to Memphis, we stopped off at Hatch Show Print and the Ryman Auditorium, the original home of the Grand Ole Opry. And we managed to get those elusive paletas! For some stupid reason, I got it into my head that I should go a slightly healthy route and went with a tangy and refreshing hibiscus bar, which I've really been into hibiscus this summer. Dan opted for chocolate wasabi. The chocolatiness was creamy and delicious, but we both thought the wasabi could have been stronger and more pronounced.

When we arrived back in Memphis, HTE and Sam aka T-Bone were out at the butcher picking up some meat for the next day's cookout. T-Bone had already stopped by and dropped off two greasy bags of spicy fried chicken from Gus's World Famous, where he has been known to pick up a shift here and there. A true renaissance man. We ripped into the bags once the butcher errand was completed.



It was some damn fine fried chicken and the table went silent as we stuffed our faces. The bag on the left contained wings and the bag on the right was filled with breasts. The obligatory stack of white bread is in the middle.


Rounding out our meal were some baked beans and potato salad. I should have gone for that second breast piece, but instead I got a second wing.

Today's Lunch: Homefront Deli

The office where I work is in this weird food zone. Lots of mega-delis making sandwiches with pre-sliced meat, overpriced (but tasty) chains (I'm looking at you Pret-A-Manger)and high-end go-with-an-expense-account or a-friend-with-an-expense-account restaurants. Not a lot of other options. I frequently get some sort of Japanese on the strip of 41st St, between Madison and 5th, but I think I've overdone it because lately all I'm craving are sandwiches of the non-Asian persuasion. My favorite place to get such sandwiches is the Homefront Deli.

I finally pulled the trigger on the Homefront Deli a few weeks ago. The neon oaktag squares taped onto the front window, on which the specials and specialties were hand written have always intrigued me but I stayed away without any sort of reasonable explanation. I started with an egg sandwich one morning. It was exactly what I wanted - which is one egg with bacon on a squishy roll with black pepper and hot sauce. I feel like most delis really overdo it with the egg. When I order one egg, I just want one egg. Even better, give me a fried egg! I eventually made the leap to lunch, where I started with a cheeseburger and onion rings. The burger was a fine deli/diner burger and the onion rings were awesome in that Burger King onion ring sort of way, which is totally a compliment in my book.

I've also had the grilled chicken over feta salad, which is what I wanted today, only the cold line was four times as long as the hot line, so I opted for something from the grill instead. I got the grilled chicken with lettuce, tomato and steak sauce on a roll. They also threw in some super thinly sliced onions, which normally would have offended me and also given me a headache. I took most of them off, but left a couple rings on for extra flavor. Usually when onions are sliced really thin, they don't bother me. The sandwich was solid, but the fries I ordered to accompany were not. They were disappointingly undercooked and soggy. I picked out about 6 fries that had some sort of crispness to them and threw out the rest. Next time I'll ask for them well done.

geographically inaccurate (and ok with it) + today's lunch

After weeks of pondering, I'm unable to come up with a good enough new name that reflects our new zip code. So I guess we'll just stick with the Park Slope Gastronome, especially considering starting a new blog would mean losing comments like these. Also apparently Clinton Hill is already the most blogged-about neighborhood in the country.

My what to eat for lunch dilemma from the other month is no longer since I started working in a real office again. The new commute sucks, but I love my new lunch options. Right up the street from me is a cluster of Japanese owned businesses, including a small grocery store that also serves dons and udon, a sushi place that happens to make a ymmmy tiramisu and a juggernaut called Cafe Zaiya. There's also a great used bookstore called Book Off. I was psyched to discover this block and did so because I have been experimenting with routes to work. For a week straight my morning routine included a mochi donut from Zaiya. Feeling a bit muffin-toppy of late, I've purposely not walked down this block for the past few days. Anyway, Zaiya reminds me of the food court at Mitsuwa marketplace in Edgewater, NJ. Instead of all the stores and stands being spread out over a couple thousand square feet, they are all jammed in a space the size of your average Starbucks. You can get cream puffs from Beard Papa, a steamed green tea bun or fancy Opera cake from the bakery, a protein and two sides from the hot lunch counter in the back, pre-made sushi and tea sandwiches from the refrigerated case or one of the many room temperature bento boxes and dons from the metro shelving that divides the bakery section from the make your own salad area. Yes, there's also a salad bar. The food and prices are both solid so this place attracts a ton of hungry mid-towners.

Luckily for me, I take my lunch later (1:30 at the earliest) and the scene is a bit more calm then. This morning however I had skipped breakfast so I wound up eating lunch around 12:30. Holy shit, Zaiya was a madhouse. Granted, there were bento offerings I had never seen before, but it was a ridiculous scene. I attempted to make a quick lunch decision, but with all the never-before-seen offerings, I failed. I finally decided on a mixed bento box which contained the following: white rice with a little mount of chopped oshinko atop; a tiny scoop (size of a squash ball, maybe?) of potato salad/mashed potato hybrid; more oshinko; a panko-crusted fried shrimp, a slice of shio salmon, a small slice of some sort of meat loaf, a piece of karage, a hunk of simmered bamboo, two tiny sausages (sadly, not cut to look like an octopus or penguin); chicken and sauteed onions (basically oyako-don without the egg or rice).

What's For Lunch?

All I seem capable of eating for lunch lately is mozzarella + protein. And usually that protein is roast beef or chicken cutlets. What I am getting at is that I've become completely beaten down by my lunch options. If you're in Park Slope you can usually see me wandering aimlessly up and down 5th Avenue between 1-2PM. Nothing sounds overly appealing to me (taste + price) and when I do decide on something specific I seem to get foiled a lot (Palo Santo & El Pollo, I'm looking right at you!).

I had a hot roast beef with mozzarella and roasted red peppers yesterday and a chicken parm the day before. I limit myself to half a sandwich because they are pretty big and filling. I have eaten whole ones in the past and come to regret that choice. DMR usually takes the uneaten half with him to work the next day so it works out well. Both were from A&S Pork Store, which I like quite a lot and will totally miss when we move. The butchers always mistake me for someone else and recently asked how the baby was. I don't have a kid nor am I pregnant, so that was amusing. I nearly got another mozzarella + ? sandwich today but decided against it. Then I decided I wanted El Pollo and hooray, they were open for lunch! They had a few lunch specials written out on a board outside, including a 1/4 rotisserie chicken combo with curly fries. Curly fries? I wanted tostones to accompany my meal but didn't feel like checking in to see if the substitution was possible so I just kept walking.

North of Union Street, I began to feel really stressed out. I had done this exact same quest for lunch route a few days before and settled for something I really didn't want. Today I decided on Nana before I had a breakdown on the street. DMR and I will order delivery from Nana once in a blue moon. They aren't a go-to for us, but it's where we get our roti canai fix. I ordered a lunch special combination of wontons with balsamic soy and a chicken curry laksa. The dumplings were encased in a nice thin skin and stuffed with chicken or pork. I wasn't really paying attention but it wasn't a typical meat + chive/green vegetable mixture. It could have been a chicken meatball even. The dipping sauce came applied to the dumplings (boo!) which unfortunately made all the crispy shallots that were sprinkled atop soggy. Other than that, these were pretty good.

The laksa seemed promising. There was a little fire symbol next to this dish on the menu to indicate its spiciness. I'm still waiting for the spice to kick in. I do give them credit for packing up the sauce/broth separately from the noodles and chicken, but overall the laksa was a disappointment. The curry lacked spice and flavor for that matter! I liked the thick egg noodles, which reminded me of skinny udon. I wasn't expecting fried potato chunks but those were in the container along with Japanese eggplant, scallions and bean sprouts. I don't like eggplant in non-babaganouj form, but have learned to accept it. Maybe potatoes aren't uncommon in a laksa, but these looked like home fries, hence the confusion.

Disappointments

DMR had Tuesday off as part of a four-day weekend, so we decided to head over to Palo Santo for lunch. Once again, they were closed and we were foiled. I guess they are no longer serving breakfast and lunch? According to the website, they're open seven days a week, but there's no mention of breakfast and lunch. Menupages has daytime hours as Monday - Friday from 7AM-3PM, but with dinner only served Wednesday - Sunday. I don't understand this place, which is a sad thing because I really liked going for lunch.

Our consolation prize, or should I say, booby prize was to have lunch at Moutarde. This place just isn't very good. It's not terrible, but as I like to say about many restaurants in the area, it's passably mediocre. Occasionally, the kitchen has its shit together and you get a decent meal, but more often than not, it's a combination of lax service and underwhelming food. I ordered a croque madame with fries and DMR went with the banana pancakes with a side of bacon. The bacon, while a generous side portion of about 5 strips, was completely overcooked. The pieces had curled up like ribbon candy. My sandwich came with greens instead of the fries I had requested. Although the missing starch situation was quickly remedied, there wasn't a french fry on the plate longer than an inch and a half. I must have gotten the last remaining fries in the bag. Dan's pancakes were just bad - nothing fluffy about them at all.

Which brings us to the past weekend in Silver Spring, where DMR and I had the blandest Chinese food ever at the China House restaurant, and unbelievably bad service at the Bombay Indian restaurant. Nearly every dish we had at China House was devoid of flavor which apparently customers are ok with, judging by the brisk takeout business. The food at Bombay was on par with or better than most of the Indian restaurants in this area, but the service was atrocious. The restaurant wasn't even that big and there were 3 servers on the floor plus a manager who didn't appear to be helping to pick up the slack when things fell behind. We had to wait forever for menus (which we had to ask for after twiddling our thumbs for 10 or 15 minutes), plates, our food (Stone Groove's entree came out about 10 minutes after everyone else's), refills on water (I asked one of the servers who just didn't want to acknowledge me. When she was again in our vicinity, I repeated my request and she responded with a deer in headlights look) and of course our check. There was a lot of head shaking as patrons got up from their tables to leave. All the tables seemed to have the same combination of amusement and annoyance. In addition to getting into a productive rhythm in the kitchen and the room, these guys could also stand to be a little more generous with the sauces and chutneys. Ramekins the size of pre-portioned creamers cups you get at the diner doesn't cut it for a table of 5, or even a table of two!

Todaya's Lunch: Delices de Paris

While I do love my fair share of sandwiches overstuffed with cured, poly-syllabic meats or completely drenched in red sauce, I'm also a fan of simpler fare like a jambon baguette. I love the combination of soft, creamy butter and thinly sliced ham on a crusty baguette. I used to get these regularly at Balthazar when I worked one of my myriad jobs in the Soho area. Recently I found a place in my neighborhood that serves a pretty formidable jambon baguette - Delicies de Paris. The sandwiches run a little on the small side, since their baguettes are skinnier than I'm accustomed to, but that's probably all for the better. Both sides of bread are spread with butter. Then they lay on a couple slices of ham and Gruyere. A few halved grape tomatoes and chopped romaine lettuce are placed atop and dressed with an olive oil based vinaigrette. Tasty.

I never really noticed this place until I ran into a neighbor on 5th Avenue with a baguette tucked under his arm and inquired about its origins. 9th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues is just one of those blocks I don't traffic much. There are three gyms in the vicinity (NYSC, Curves and the Y). That's probably why I stay away.

This is what I ate yesterday

I started an entry about Sushi Yasuda a couple of weeks ago, but am waiting for the amazing pictures my friend Matt took of this culinary experience before I complete and post it. In the meantime, I’ll just tell you what I ate yesterday.

I’ve been temping at Phoenix House on 74th and Amsterdam for the last three weeks or so and am now a card carrying Fairwayoholic. I’m addicted. Sometimes I go three times in one day. Yesterday I went twice. The first time I went yesterday was for lunch. From the prepared foods bar I got 2 slices of turkey meatloaf (I ate this on Tuesday too), three portobello mushroom caps (also consumed during Tuesday’s lunch) and an eggplant rollatini with all of the usual ingredients, but HAM as well! The turkey meatloaf and portobellos were delectable for the second day in a row, and the eggplant rollatini was outstanding too. To make matters even better, I’ve been all kinds of spacey lately, so I forgot about the bonus ham entirely and got all excited when I happened upon it with my fork and knife!

After work I decided to go back to Fairway to pick up dinner. I got some sashimi (2p tuna, 2p yellowtail and 2p salmon – v fresh and a steal at $5.99) and some karaage (6 lovely little pieces of fried chicken deliciousness). When I got home I had to run a quick 8 minute errand and then I totally scarfed my food. Afterward, I noticed that Mike Wrobo had texted me to see if I wanted to eat dinner. Despite having just wolfed down the aforementioned, I decided that I was still hungry and was up for a second round of eating. Mike felt like sushi, so we ordered in from Gen (Washington and St. Marks), which is right around the corner from my new and old apartments. I really like this place. I’ve gotten take-out from there a bunch of times and have not been disappointed yet. So anyway, Mike and I shared some tonkatsu (my dear old friend, DEEP-FRIED PORK) and a Mega Godzilla roll, which despite being rather stupidly named, was super tasty. The Mega Godzilla roll was comprised of soft-shell crab and avocado inside the roll, and perfectly crisped eel atop. Since it was Mike’s first and only dinner, he got some miso soup and a mackerel and ginger maki as well. Suffice it to say, I stole a piece of the latter and it was glorious.

Today's Lunch

Hit the Pret again. Got two slim Prets - one BLT and the other with dolphin friendly tuna salad. Since I don't like bread, I combined them and made one big half sandwich. A tuna club of sorts. But now my tummy feels funny again. I had a glorious Arnold Palmer though!

Today's Lunch: Rickshaw Dumplings

I'm in a funk today. One guess as to why. It caused me to be indecisive about lunch. I put it off until about 2:30 or so. But I also still have a cold, which means very few things seem appetizing to me at this point. I left the office and just started walking north on 5th Avenue. I figured inspiration would strike me at some point, and I would go no further north than Koreatown. I dialed up the CLC on the mobile to get some suggestions for her and she pulled through! She's been full of great suggestions of late.

This is how I wound up at Rickshaw Dumplings. I went with the basic pork and chive dumplings in a clear soup with Shanghai dumplings. The dumplings were good - you can get six or nine, I went with the former. They are plump, I mean packed to the gills with filling. I wish there was more broth and more chinese greens, too. The noodles left something to be desired, however, as I found them a little too doughy and mushy. I will however be back - maybe just sticking to dumplings straight up and pan seared, and definitely to get the watermelonade and chocolate black sesame mochi balls. Or maybe I will get them pan seared in the broth for some texture variations.

Hey, two people just walked by my office and told me it smells like fart! I am really sensitive about people thinking that my food smells. It goes back to when I was in elementary school and would occasionally bring Korean for lunch and people would scream bloody murder! Even recently, I remember having bibimbop at this one job I had about 10 years ago and people freaked out! Including you, Heidi!