Friday, July 28, 2006

I Could Have Guessed I Was Eating at the Best…

I have been on a quest to find excellent Thai food in NYC. Since moving here last August, I have found nothing that matches my favorite places for Thai food in Chicago. I know that NYC has great food, but for some reason whenever I have ventured out for Thai (even after doing much research on a place), I have been very disappointed. Last Monday, this changed. I went out to Queens with two friends in search of said Thai food. My friend guaranteed that this place, one of her favorites since childhood, would meet all of my Thai food expectations. We went to Sripraphai. It was fantastic.

Now I don’t always go for such a basic when eating Thai food, but I just had to try their Pad Thai. Amazing…just sweet enough, just peanuty enough, with noodles cooked to perfection. My friends also enjoyed their meals-though they were full of meat that I couldn’t eat. The catfish (Crispy Thai Catfish Salad) looked particularly interesting. It was fried in a manner that made it appear as though sea sponge had been fried. Apparently, this too was excellent. With dinner we ordered Lychee Wine from Thailand. It had a strange grassy smell, but a very refreshing taste, although a little sweet. I would probably not order it again, however, I am glad that I tried it.

Upon arriving home from my trek out to Queens my copy of New York Magazine was sitting on the table with the cover story of the 101 Best Cheap Eats in the city. Sripraphai was ranked 5, and one of only 7 restaurants given 5 stars (http://newyorkmetro.com/restaurants/cheapeats/2006/18479/index1.html). From my experience at this place last Monday, it definitely deserves the ranking. The only unfortunate part is that there might not be a place to match the quality of Shipraphai closer to home.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Lovely Lunch Spot: Zanny’s Cafe

I am on a ‘try all the cafés in my neighborhood’ kick. I stopped into Zanny’s (http://www.zannyscafe.com/) on 108th and Columbus today for lunch. The place is very bright during the day due to big windows, making this spot a great place to sit and read. The music selection this afternoon was not something that I knew, but it was excellent. My lunch was awesome. I ordered the Health Wrap, which has mixed greens, cucumber, tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, olives, brie and mango chutney. Even with the large amount of brie cheese that I consumed, the title of the wrap made me feel like I was ordering smart. One complaint I have is that the wrap did not have many cucumber, tomato, or olive pieces (okay, so I don’t really like olives, so that didn’t bother me very much, but if I did like olives that would have been disappointing, and I was legitimately saddened by the lack of cucumber and tomato). The wrap contained mostly lettuce and brie cheese. However, all is forgiven due to the AMAZING mango chutney and the way that the mango chutney and the brie cheese tasted together on the tongue. Mmmm!!!! I would definitely order this again if there weren’t a ton of other things on the menu that I now want to try. It came with chips or a side salad. I took the side salad, and went for the carrot ginger salad dressing. The salad included more than just lettuce, something that often is not the case when sandwiches come with sides that tend to be more like garnishes. This was actually a small salad of its own right. The carrot ginger dressing was a bit too spicy for me due to lots of shreds of fresh ginger throughout the dressing. I really like ginger and this was even too much for me. However, the salad and the dressing tasted really fresh and light, which was very refreshing during this summer afternoon.

In response to some reviews of this place that I have read, I want to say that I went at 12:30 in the afternoon and the place was busy (it actually was busier by 1:15), but not so busy that I couldn’t comfortably sit at a table and read. Furthermore, there was no time in the little over an hour that I was there reading when I felt that I should leave because the place was so packed that I was either taking a seat away from another customer without buying anything else myself or too distracted to do my reading.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Why I Love Restaurant Week or a Night at Mesa Grill…

So, before I go off on the amazing dinner I had last night, I need to briefly tell you about my Saturday spent at the Siren Music Festival at Coney Island. I would skip it, but I had an arepa, and as I said in my first posting, I am on a mission to try all the arepas in nyc. The one at Coney Island is actually from the same company as the ones served at the International Food Festival, only more disappointing. They were making new ones on the griddle when I got there (I thought I would be getting this uber gooey sizzling one cooking away happily on the griddle as I approached the counter), but instead they served me one that had been staying warm in a heater in the back. It was two corn pancakes with mozzarella as the filling. The cheese was not particularly gooey and the corncakes were saltier than I remember. Although, compared to other amusement park food, I think it was a tasty and unique choice. While my dinner was not particularly worth noting (except for the fact that I had an arepa versus another type of food), I do recommend seeing the Scissor Sisters live. They were awesome.

On to Mesa…It is restaurant week, and being the foodie that I am, I had to check out a swank nyc restaurant that I might not get to (and certainly would not be able to eat three courses at) without some sort of deal. I went to Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill (http://www.mesagrill.com). After this eating experience, here is what I have discovered. I don’t understand why I can’t make a dressing and companies can’t bottle a dressing as good as ones that are made at certain restaurants. My dinner started with an amazing salad. To be fair, it actually started with an excellent house margarita and some tasty bread, but my first official course was a salad. This salad was tossed with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. Now, I pride myself on being a good cook, but this dressing was fantastic…not too much balsamic or overly oily, no sharp flavors, but whatever was in the dressing made one beautiful salad topper that was able to make the entire dish. The salad also had one cm square corn chips mixed in adding an extra crunch. I love when dishes not only taste good but also have a complex texture, especially when it is a dish as simple as a salad. This one had crisp lettuce, crunchy corn chips, smooth kidney beans, gritty chickpeas, chewy tiny blocks of cheese, and salty olives (I recognize that is not a texture, but clearly the olives were in the salad to make it the right amount of salty so that is how I will describe them).

My entrée was the star of my meal. I say this is as it should be, although my friend, slightly disappointed by his dessert, said he is always up for an excellent dessert (a fair statement). Okay, so my Yellow Corn Crusted Chile Relleno was unreal good. The corn bread crumb crust was super crunchy and golden brown. The chile added a little spice that was countered by the cubes of beets that were mixed with smooth creamy goat cheese and stuffed inside the chile. You couldn’t really taste the beets except to recognize that they were the ingredient that held the flavors of the dish together, adding just the right amount of sweetness and turning the goat cheese into this beautiful pink color to contrast with the dark forest green chile and the light brown casing. So pretty… Really, the beets were brilliant. Who would be creating a new dish and think, ‘I know, if only there were cubes of beets inside the chile, it would be perfect’? But someone did, and this makes me happy.

As I mentioned earlier, dessert was not the star. It was fine. I ate it because it was sweet and tasty enough. Blueberries were involved. The point is you should eat at Mesa Grill, and feel free to skip dessert.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Good Food in Midtown? Amazing Akdeniz

On Wednesday, I found myself at the library by Bryant Park around dinnertime. I was hungry and about to meet a friend. We did not want to travel too far to find food because, as is not uncommon this summer, it was raining. Browsing menupages I found Akdeniz (http://www.akdenizturkishusa.com/). I was not expecting too much, but it was the right price in the right location, so off we went.
The food was great and so was the service. Our waiter was extremely attentive, as were all the other waiters at the restaurant. Water glasses were always being refilled. It is my opinion that waiters who know the right time to refill a water glass are one important sign of a great restaurant. I will go as far as to say that restaurants that do not have waiters that know the exact right time to refill a water glass (when the glass is almost empty but before all of the water is gone) might be good but cannot be classified as great.
On to the food…we ordered Mediterranean Salad, Stuffed Vine Leaves and Cheese Pastries. The vegetables in the salad were crisp and perfectly dressed. In my opinion, the stuffed vine leaves were the star of the evening. They were stuffed with rice that is made sweet by currents. The leaves were chewy, the rice soft and sweet and melted in my mouth and the pine nuts added a little surprise crunch when least expected. I like stuffed leaves when they are tangy, as I have usually found them, but I loved stuffed leaves in this sweeter form. The cheese pastries were cooked to a golden brown perfection, a wonderful hot dish for a rainy night.
For dessert, we were convinced with a simple look from our waiter that it was imperative we did not leave without trying the Baklava. It was served slightly warm making the honey extra runny. The filo dough was flaky and delicious. I was definitely full enough that I could have left without dessert, but I am very happy that I didn’t. From all the other reviews I have read about the place, the food and service is consistently solid. I would recommend checking it out.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Upper West Side Fun: Vintage

Looking for something a little different to do with the later part of the evening, a friend and I stopped at Vintage on the Upper West Side (http://www.vintagenewyork.com/). This is a wine store that serves wines only from New York State, and there is a wine bar at the back. This means that you can taste almost anything you are about to buy. They have about 10 different tasting flights on a given evening or you can just order a glass from their extensive wine list. Who knew NY State had so much wine? Apparently New York State wine is very hot right now around the country (although there is little market for it abroad) due to the fact that the law that banned the selling of New York State wine outside of New York State was just lifted last year. At the wine bar, my friend tried the Sparkling flight, and I had the Riesling. I am currently angry with myself because I loved the first Riesling that I tasted, but I can’t remember what it is called in order to record this information for my future use. Hopefully if I go back to buy some wine, I will be able to remember what the bottle looked like. Anyway, this was a really great way to spend a lazy Saturday evening. Everyone working there seemed to have a deep love of New York wine. The store is open for tasting from 5pm-midnight seven days a week. Apparently there is a restaurant associated with the Soho branch of the wine store, although the bar on the Upper West Side has some snacks and is the location of the company’s monthly wine classes.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Great and Gluten Free: Risotteria

Today I had a good friend in town, and we went to lunch at Risotteria (http://www.risotteria.com/) in the village. My friend is on a gluten free diet, and this restaurant is a gluten free restaurant (actually only about 60% the dishes are actually gluten free). Nevertheless, I was a bit wary. However, it was fantastic. We had a balsamic vinaigrette salad and gluten free pesto pizza with mozzarella, tomatoes and zucchini. Both were excellent! If you go with the salad/pizza share decision at lunch, I recommend you go for the small salad. They are huge, although extremely fresh and tasty. The pizza had a very thin and crispy crust. It was not at all greasy. I particularly liked the pesto on the pizza. It was not too garlicky, focusing most of its flavor attention on the basil. Also, feel free to order less food and leave room for dessert. Now, I know you are thinking, ‘will the desserts be good if they are not made with regular flour?’ The answer is YES. We split the strawberry shortcake. The cake part of the shortcake had the consistency and taste of a brownie without the chocolate. It was very sugary, but not overbearing. The combination of flavors with the sweet white cake, vanilla pudding, fresh strawberries and cool whipped cream made this one of the best desserts I have had in a while. This place is a keeper.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

A Unique Spin on Dessert: Rice Pudding

Tonight was my roommate’s birthday. In celebration, a group of us went out for the evening and in our travels we decided to check out Rice to Riches (www.richtoriches.com). This is one of those chic boutique type restaurants serving only one type of food-in this case rice pudding. Tonight they were serving 20 different flavors of rice pudding. My favorite of all the ones I tried was ‘Category 5’ Caramel. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Almond, but many people in my group thought this one was the best. The people at the counter will let you have a taste of any flavor, and pretty much everyone I saw tasted more than one flavor before making their final decision about what to order. I got a Solo size (advertised as feeding one), but I would recommend having a friend share it. I would have liked an option for a cheaper smaller portion, since the solo was $5, and way to much food for one person. However, other than that, I really enjoyed my dessert.