NYC Cravings- Taiwanese Food Truck

So last week, Brian Lim told me about the Taiwanese Truck that comes around on 23rd and Park Ave every Tuesday at 11:15 AM. (It's run by NYC Cravings, and goes around to midtown somewhere too. So last Tuesday, I decided to go try it.

So, I walk over and I see this huge yellow truck in the middle of the street and a lengthy line of (mostly Asian) people. The wait was pretty short, it moved pretty fast. On the menu there were 7 things. You can get either, pork-chop over rice, friend chicken over rice, dumplings (4 for $3!!! You know in Flushing we buy them for 25 cents EACH!? And they taste A HELLA good. Oh, and one time I went to Rickshaw on 23rd and 5th, and it was the most disgusting 4 dumplings I've ever eaten in my entire life, not to mention, I think I paid like $7 bucks for 4 of them. EW!), tea eggs ($1 EACH!) and some other random things. Of course, I knew, that in buying this, I would be disappointed. Nothing can beat the awesomeness of 66 in Flushing. For $5.95 you can get the most great tasting Taiwanese grub in the US- I mean, TRUTH- all authentic Taiwanese kids live up in Flushing- so they HAVE to have some of the good foods there!

Anyway, from the truck, I got the porkchop over rice. Okay, my first reaction when I opened my bag- it was huge. They give you a LOT for $7. A little too much, actually. There was 2 huge slabs of porkchop over what seemed like a bottomless pit of rice and sour cabbage. (mm, i love sour cabbage...) This might be a blunt statement, but it's probably better than any high end, asian cuisine restaurants found in manhattan. Sure it's super oily and gross, but that's what Chinese food is all about!

They have sriracha sauce, duck sauce, soy sauce and dumpling sauce!


Here is my pork chop over rice. To be honest it WAS a too oily and too salty for my taste. It felt like you needed to eat a lot of rice to balance out the intense saltiness of the pork. I mean, even the sour cabbage felt like the water to counter the saltiness... Anyway, to be honest, for this area, it's good. So if you guys are in the area, and have some time- and is seriously craving some taiwanese food... you should try it out!


Taste: 2/5
Atmosphere: N/A
Cost (w/o tax+tip): $7 for a plate, $4 for 3 dumplings, $1/teaegg

1ST NYC FOOD TOUR !!!

Saturday was our First Ever New York City Walking Food Tour. It spanned from Flushing, to Chinatown, then all the way up to 53rd and 6th ave.

*** BE WARNED, THIS POST IS IMAGE-HEAVY / INFO-HEAVY ***

My friends visited me from Rochester this past weekend. We decided to do the 'Ultimate food tour of New York City'. These Rochestarians especially, never really get the opportunity to have amazingly DELICIOUS asian cuisine, so asian food was a must have during their trip here, mixed along with a lot of other good treats.

So, our 'Foodie Team' consisted of:
Cindy (yours truly) Christine, Jocelyn, Alex, Jack, Caleb, Leo (troopers that made it through the entire day) Jean, Oliver, Dan, Christy, Oronde, Brian, and PaulFrank(LOL) that made some great special appearances.

CLICK HERE TO SEE ACTUAL PLANNED MAP

A recap of the day:


It started out in Flushing, where Christine, Alex, Jocelyn and I started with an infamous Congee and fried dough combination. The four of us shared 2 bowls of congee and one order of fried dough. It was a good kick-off meal and would hold us over til we got into Manhattan. The congree is great here and they give you a lot for a good price. (Price range: $3/ person) We got on Chinatown van to meet up with the rest of the crew at Jing-Tong Dim-Sum Restaurant.



There, we ordered a good number of little dim sum dishes, a lot in which I'm not sure even if I described it you would understand. To be honest, I am not a fan at all of Dimsum because I have subjected to it since... forever. Being born into a cantonese family, I have been to dim-sum one too many times already and could go the rest of my life without it and be okay. But my friends really wanted it. So we got it. Had to manage their intake so they wouldn't get too stuffed because there was so much food coming up at a later time! We ended up splitting it to $5 / person and we had about 12 people (which was a pretty good deal)!



Afterwards, we walked down to Mott Street and got some "bubble tea" from Ten Ren Tea House. (Price $3.50/ cup - in Flushing you can get it for $2.50 a cup!!) I've always been a fan of their bubble tea's because they are made with real tea leaves and not powder.. you can really taste the elegant TEA-TASTE! One of my favorite orders here is Green Tea-Milk Tea with Tapioca. Their tapioca is also one of the best kinds out there because there's a inner sweetness in the actual tapioca. It's also very soft, moist and goes well with the tea.

Our next stop was over to Kat'z Deli. Yeah, yeah, I know a lot of you guys have already tried it. But this was my first time. Basically we walked in and saw a HUGE MASS of human beings! When you first walk in, you get a little ticket that they mark when you order. And you can't actually LEAVE the deli until you show them a blank ticket, or pay for your marked ticket. I thought this was a great system and somewhat interesting. (I thought I had lost my ticket halfway through our meal! >__<) Anyway, the sandwiches were GREAT !! They totally pack the bread with tons of meat, and its tender, juicy and warm! It was little on the salty side for me, but the pickle on the side definitely made a huge difference in battling the saltiness!!





As I was walking around the whole place, photographing it, I saw this big guy, wearing a cute 'KATZ DELI' Sweatshirt- that I thought looked really cool. So me, being me, I asked him if I could take a photograph of him. So he was like, "Uh sure". Then he ended up telling me he was the owner of the place! And that I should hurry and try some food because I've been missing out since I've never been here. HAHA! (GG, cindy).

Here's the owner, Alan Dell (left)



Between the 9 of us, we shared 2 sandwiches, which cost about $4/ person. Since it's around $15/ sandwich. Pretty good deal for just "trying it". I think I would definitely go back some day and try it out.

After that, we went over to the Momofuku Milk Bar. Okay, for most noobs (like myself), there are 3 Momofuku restaurants. There is the ssam bar, noodle bar and milk bar. (the milk bar was the targetted place, but we ended up walking into the ssam bar and noodle bar before finally finding the milk bar!)





I got the "Crack Pie" slice, which is a rich mix of butter, heavy cream, brown sugar, sugar, and a little corn flour. Contains no actual crack- but I'm sure if you were starving, that sweetness that bursts in your mouth could have you wanting more...I shared a pie slice with a friend and was pretty much satisfied with that small half. The price for the slice was a bit steep, seriously, $5 for a slice of PIE?! But it was definitely worth trying. Christine tried the "Red Velvet Custard", which I took a spoonful of and it was super-RICH. (I wouldn't be able to finish it without a cup of milk by my side). Alex got the Pork-Bun (which to me, seemed like paying $12 for a McMuffin... haha.. no joke..)

After that, we all walked over to Ippudo. I've been here before, and wasn't impressed the first time; and again was not impressed this time either. Perhaps I'm not that big of a fan of Japanese noodles or something, but this place just gave you a hefty bowl of ramen that puts you to sleep. I'll admit, they give you a lot of pork/meat with your ramen, but the taste was just so-so. My friend got the pork buns (pictured below) and I hear those are good too, but I wasn't about to pay $10 for 2 little pork buns... at least not this time.




After wards, we walked up to Shake Shack (definitely also, again, not my choice). The line was extremely long, since it was a beautiful day outside, after such a long winter... A few of them got burgers/fries/shakes. I passed on this. I could go here anytime I want. (I work a block away. Haha) I'd admit though, their burgers are pretty good. Their shakes always seemed a little TOO thick for me, to the point where I have to use a spoon and eat it like ice cream... but the atmosphere around here is great when the sun sets =)


Finally, after a few more stops around town, we ended the night sharing Hallal Food (Chicken/Lamb over rice) on 53rd and 6th. It's one of those places that you go when you're having a strange craving. The Hallal man only opens after 7:30 PM, and there's generally a huge line for it. The cost is $6 for a huge platter of rice/chicken and lamb. It's a good deal, and even better if you share it!!

** I told a lot of friends about this tour idea, and a lot of them seemed genuinely interested in doing one with me also. It'd be great fun to go with a lot of people, and its definitely a great way to try a lot of different things without stuffing yourself too full! So I'll be trying a "pizza quest" sometime soon. let me know if you're interested! **

Bocca De Bacco - NYC

Last night, one of my good friends, Justis Hao, had his 22nd birthday celebration at "Bocca de Bacco". It was pretty awesome. I didn't read up a lot on the place beforehand, all I really knew was that it was some kind of Italian place with a huge selection of wines. As most of you may already know, from my past blogs, I was in Italy this past December and I had a really hard time with the food there. It's not that Italian food isn't that good, don't get me wrong, it's just I assumed there would be more variety....

Well enough about that, I walked into the restaurant, and I had a lot of trouble trying to open the doors. The doorway has this plastic-saran-wrapping around it. (which I still don't know why so many restaurants have that..) Once again, the sign on this place is not bold, so you really have to be LOOKING for this place in order to find it. Once you walk in, you see walls lined with wine. There's even an area behind the bar where they have concocted an interesting way of preparing draft wine...

For appetizers: They gave us some dry bread (of course! with olive oil). One of my friends ordered a bruschetta with mushrooms and truffle oil, and here are some more images:



Entree:
Well anyway, I was really full from my lunch already, so I had already planned on something light. SO, I ordered the "Capesante Sedano E Pomodoro baked scallops, light tomato-celery - herb sauce". And it was AMAZING. They gave me precisely four plump little scallops, grazed with tomatoes on top of this herb sauce (that tasted a lot like liquid avocado to me..) It was slightly grilled and crispy on the outside, and tender on the inside. It was actually really good. I don't normally order seafood, I'm more of a chicken-type person, but I did this time, and I was super impressed.



To be honest, I didn't really like the idea of paying $20 (this is not including cash for wine, tip and tax....) for 4 little pieces of scallops, but they were tasty. This place is definitely a bit too pricey for my liking, but it's delicious and has a nice atmosphere for dates, parties, or just a bunch of friends hanging out. It's dark, with littering of tungsten light here and there. Once in a blue moon coming here would be all right- probably not going to be a habit...


*** I've decided to be a little more harsh in my grading. A lot of my friends have been critiquing me, saying that I'm too "nice" to every restaurant. PSH! So, fine. Anyway, I'm really enjoying writing this blog! I feel like I'm learning so much more about places and people, and also getting in a lot more usage with my photography! Thanks everyone who invites me out! You guys truly add a lot to me and this blog! so COMMENT anywhere you can! facebook/buzz/blogspot ***

Taste: 3/5
Atmosphere: 3/5
Cost (w/o tax+tip): Range about $18-25 ($$)

Shelley Ting's Vietnamese Spring Rolls - NYC

All right, this is a special post! For the first time, I am venturing on a critique of a friend's cooking. Honestly, I'm only writing about it because it's... THAT GOOD.

Last night we had yet another surprise birthday party for another friend. For this, we went and did somewhat of a Pot-Luck style. Miss Shelley Ting cooked some huge pots of Baked Ziti and a batch of her specialty Spring Rolls. They were amazingly delicious. No joke. Let's be truthful here, the Pho Bang Spring rolls have always been considered the best. Even though that restaurant is the grossest, most HOLE IN THe WALL, place ever- they redeem themselves because of the taste of their SPRING ROLLS. The taste is unique, special and fried to it's perfection. So, it's very safe to say, I have never had Spring Rolls that could somewhat measure up to those...UNTIL I MET SHELLEY TING'S SPRING ROLLS!


(sorry, I only had my blackberry handy at the time!)

Anyway, I think they are a freakin' 10. The sauce that she made to accompany it was also delicious. It was perfectly fried, crispy, yet still perfect enough to not CUT open your mouth when you chewed down on it! The stuffing inside was a great blend of saltiness, and the mixture with the sweet sauce really kicked it up. I interrogated her after I ate one, asking her what recipe she used to create such a masterpiece- she was like, "Nah, I just made it up. [I used] Shitaki mushrooms, garlic, ground pork, vermicelli, shrimp, eggs".

ok.... *****NEWS FLASH ******
I think everyone knows that I absolutely hate eating mushrooms of any shape, size, type, etc, etc. But i ate it-- UNKNOWINGLY !!! That is how FLAWLESS this freakin' spring roll IS!!!!!!

Sigh, I have been owned- but I'm not complaining. hehe.

As for the sauce, she used, "sri-chia sauce, honey, fish sauce, lemon, soy sauce, water". It was sweet and tangy and went so well with the crispy salty spring roll! It was an awesome combination!!!

10, 10, 10!

Taste: 5/5
Atmosphere: 5/5 (everyone loves the happy/cuteness of miss shelley ting! ^__^)
Cost: If you're nice, she'll make it for you for free. If you're ... uh, you should try at least getting her the ingredients! LOL

BKNY - NYC

The first thought of I had in my head was, "ghetto". Half the sign doesn't actually light up (as shown in the image above) but the outer shell is quite deceiving. When you walk inside, it's actually a very large and spacious area. It's quiet and dim, the getup is nice, except for this really tacky relief of the Statue of Liberty on one side of the wall. The bathrooms are exceptionally clean, I liked their sinks.



For my entree I ordered the "Massaman Curry". It was pretty awesome. Granted, the presentation wasn't the best and again, I was put off by it's boring look. It just looked like a bowl of watery curry, and a side of white rice. (the image on the right was my own take at TRYING to be a food stylist.. haha- working with what I have!) The curry was spicy, but it was the kind of spicy that doesn't hit you until after you've eaten so much (since it's so good). It's also really sweet too, the mix of coconut milk is delicious. It was a great combination. The curry was a mix of chicken, potato and onions. Overall it was a delicious meal, a lot better than what I was expecting. I wouldn't say this place is amazing, but it's decent. If you're looking for a spacious place that is comfortable and quiet, then you could come here. I honestly think it's a little pricey for the type of food they give you. I mean, if you want some good curry, you can just hop over to Flushing and get a decent meal at Sentosa for about half the price. BUT, the drinks are decently priced here, you can get a good thai iced tea for $2. (sentosa charges $3.50!)

We got Jenny a Red Velvet Cake from Martha's (Oh, wait til I do a review on THAT place..ha)




*slap

Taste: 4/5
Atmosphere: 4.5/5
Cost: Range about $14-20

Ramen Setaguya - NYC

The other night, I went to the Ramen Setaguya House in Flushing, Queens. There's a chains of these little restaurants, mostly in Manhattan. I believe there's one in the East Village and one in Greenwich Village. But yes, I went over to the one in queens. I ordered the Tsuke-men. Basically it's a large bowl of cold noodles, and then a side of soup/sauce, in which you dip the cold noodles in the smaller bowl for the best experience. The soup sauce is variable, depending on what you want to order. I ordered the pork-based soup, so it had little chunks of tender pork in it, with some seaweed and other salty delights. It was SO delicious. The funny thing is, even though I studied in Japan-- I NEVER had these noodles before! However, I did hear a lot of jokes about "tsukemen". There's this joke that you say, "ramen-,“tsukemen-, Boku ikemen!” (I'm very handsome!) It's like a Japanese rhyming joke. REAL funny...I think. But the guys said it a lot over there. Anyway, I always wondered what tsukemen was ... now i know! haha! A bowl of ramen costs about $8.50 - $12.00.


Taste: 4/5
Atmosphere: 2/5
Cost: Range about $9-$15 (depending on tip/drinks etc)

Ilili - NYC

So on Thursday night, one of my old college friends came down to New York to visit, all the way from Singapore. He's going back to get his masters in Music and he has been auditioning in Julliard, Eastman and some other great schools, so cheers to Jon! To celebrate his return, we went out to eat at Ilili. It was a Mediterranean restaurant. Lucky for us, it was New York's Restaurant week, where a ton of restaurants offer full course meals for a fixed price which is usually a lot more affordable than the regular prices. This, obviously is a gimmick to somehow increase the amount of resturant-goers in New York, and it helps business... of course.

Anyway, when I got there, I was a bit early so I hung out at the bar area until everyone showed up. It's a nice place, a long and narrow entryway, dark, a great place for a romantic dinner, or just a few friends to hang out. When I first got to the block where the Restaurant was, it was a little hard to find because the sign is completely hidden, and you need to REALLY look in order to find it.



Anyway, upon sitting, we had this waiter come up to us and offer us a free wine tasting. This week, the offered us some "Chateau Kefraya". (I honestly cannot tell you what exactly this wine is, but I can tell you it tasted like water to me...) For my appetizer, I ordered the Hommus (chickpea puree / lebanese tahini / lemon & olive oil) and Steamed Clams (harrisa butter / toasted pita baguette). It was SO delicious! The clams especially! The sauce that they cooked them in was perfect, light and tasty. The bread that they toasted along with it had some strange spicy taste to it, it was different but delicious. For my main meal, I had the Beef Kebab (marinated filet mignon / harissa pita / shishito peppers). Honestly, i was pretty disappointed in the main dish. The beef was overcooked and somewhat burnt, it tasted really hard and wasn't very tender to chew... but it wasn't that bad, since I was already well filled by the appetizers.

For dessert, I ordered the "Achta" (Traditional Lebanese Dessert, w/ Simple Syrup & Bananas) HONEST- it tasted SO BAD.... lol! I tried it and it was like, sweet cottage cheese with an extremely strange texture. I ended up stealing Jack's "AWAIMAT" (Lebanese Beignet w/ Orange Blossom Simple Syrup) *image above* - this was basically a glazed donut... in little circle balls...

My friend also ordered this: "Ilili burger" (basterma / kashkaval cheese / arugula / minted yogurt) It looked prettier than my kabob, so I took a picture of it:



Taste: 4.5/5
Atmosphere: 5/5
Cost: Range about $35-50 (during Restaurant week), probably a lot higher otherwise.