yaokui

Nyonya Restaurant

Posted by Sarah and Gan at 1/13/2008 | Labels: ** stars, $ price, New York City Food

Address: 194 Grand Street, New York

Phone: 212-334-3669

Nyonya is a very popular Malaysian restaurant in NYC that serves pretty decent Malaysian dishes. Gan and I love to go there for their curry stingrays, yong tau foo, prawn mee, wah tan hor and satay. I am particularly happy with the service, the waiters and waitresses really take good care of their customers. The ABC (mix shaved ice dessert) there is a must try.

Hainanese Chicken

Stingray Curry in a casserole

Kangkung belacan

ABC - mixed shaved ice topped with brown sugar, jelly, syrup & evaporated milk

Won Dee Siam

Posted by Sarah and Gan at 1/13/2008 | Labels: *** stars, $ price, New York City Food

Address: 792 Ninth Ave, New York, NY

Phone: 212-459-9057

We were introduced to Won Dee a long long time ago by Gan's college friend Henry and it has been one the Thai restaurants that we go to from time to time for good and cheap Thai food. This is a hole-in-the-wall kind of restaurant but the place is clean. The Pad Kra Prow, Tom Yum soup, Kang Dang and Curry Puffs there are fantastic. Sorry guys, Gan and I did take out so there's no food pictures this time :) -- we went to Won Dee again this past Friday and thought I should revise the posting by adding some pictures of the food. The dinner at Wondee Siam was satisfying, as always!

Gan: There's a second store called Won Dee II but we prefer this one as the lady who cooks in this one is great. This is always a good place to stop by for a good Thai meal. It's very reasonably priced too.

I think the restaurant only has 8 tables in total
Gan: The kitchen is even smaller! You have to go across it to get to the bathroom.

Kraree Puff - ground chicken, sweet potato, onion, curry powder, white pepper wrapped in french puff pasty dough sheets, served with cucumber sauce. Wondee Siam's kraree puffs are absolutely delicious!

Tom Yam Goong

Yum Woon Sen - spicy glass noodles with shrimp, lemon juice, onion, ground chicken, squid and chilli. A very refreshing and appetizing dish.

Fried pork Pad Kraq Praw sauteed with basil and chilli - the fried pork was not on the menu and was recommended by our waitress. Love it!

Pla Rad Prig - fried whole red snapper topped with garlic & chilli spicy sauce. Not too bad

A table full of delicious home cook style Thai food. Be sure to try their Kang Dang chicken as well.

Gahm Mi Oak

Posted by Sarah and Gan at 1/08/2008 | Labels: New York City Food

Address: 43 West 32nd St, New York

Phone: 212-694-4113

We have tried Seolleongtang at regular Korean restaurants before, but none of them can make Seolleongtang like Gahm Mi Oak. Seolleongtang is a soup made from the bones of ox legs, cooked for many hours or the entire day until the soup turns milky white. It is usually served with rice /noodles and seasoned with salt, pepper and chopped scallions. I read somewhere that Seolleongtang is great for curing hangover, so maybe the next time you are in the neighborhood after a long night of clubbing, you can drop by at Gahm Mi Oak and let their delicious ox bone soup help you feel better!

A full pot of ox legs soup!

Best Kimchee

The Soo Yok dish at Gahm Mi Oak is really good as well. Thinly sliced cooked beef briskets and beef tongues served with scallions tossed in spicy sesame oil, and bean paste+soy sauce for dipping. yummy!

Seolleongtang is served unseasoned, so it is up to you to season the soup with salt, pepper and scallions to your liking.

Happy Sarah

Sue Ann got a beautiful scarf from Lian for her birthday! Happy Belated Birthday, again, Sue Ann!

Tomoe Sushi

Posted by Sarah and Gan at 1/05/2008 | Labels: *** stars, $$ price, New York City Food

Address: 172 Thompson St, New York

Phone: 212-777-9346

Anyone who lives in New York and love sushi should really check out this restaurant. It is almost a crime to not eat at Tomoe Sushi, given that they have one of the best sushi in town at such reasonable price! Gan and I have been relying on Tomoe Sushi year after year to satisfy our sushi/sashimi cravings without breaking the bank. The freshness of the sushi at Tomoe is comparable to those you get at places like Sushi Yasuda or Sushi of Gari, but instead of paying top dollar, you are really getting your money’s worth at Tomoe. It is said that Tomoe Sushi is able to serve sushi at such a good price because the owner has the best selections/supplies of fishes from the local distributors – talk about the importance of having good “guanxi”.

The best way to sample the sushi/sashimi in this restaurant is to order the Sushi and Sashimi combination dinner. Gan and I would usually share one combination dinner and have some ala carte sushi/sashimi - we definitely recommend the Hamachi ("belly" yellowtail) and Toro (fatty tuna). We love the tempura here as well; they are almost as good as the tempura we ate at the tempura specialty restaurants in Tokyo. If you have room for dessert, don’t miss out on the restaurant’s signature tempura banana vanilla ice cream, it is so good.

The restaurant opens at 5pm for dinner and since it does not take reservation, expect to wait in line even during icy cold winter. But once you get in, you will forget about everything else, and feel totally blessed with simple, fresh and heavenly sushi.

Ika Butter - squid with soy sauce and butter

Asari- Jiru - small clams in clear soup

Ebi - Tempura - shrimp tempura

Japanese style spare ribs

Tatsuta - Age - fried chicken Japanese style

Yu – Dofu - boiled bean curd served in ponzu sauce

Sushi - Sashimi combination - 10 pieces of sashimi 5 Pieces of sushi and half portion of spicy tuna

some ala carte sushi and sashimi we ordered (the hamachi/yellowtail, hotate/scallop, ama ebi/sweet shrimp are our favorite)

Sarah & Ray

Cafe Katja

Posted by Sarah and Gan at 1/03/2008 | Labels: ** stars, $$ price, New York City Food

Address: 79 Orchard St, New York

Phone: 212-219-9545

It is not easy to discover a restaurant like Café Katja in the Lower East Side unless it was from word of mouth since the restaurant is tiny and quite hidden. Our loyal blog readers and friends, Ravi and Laura, had recommended this restaurant for our first dinner together, and I was very excited since I have not tried Austrian cuisine before. But what is Austrian food anyways? It seems like the dishes such as Bratswurst, Beef Goulash and Spaetzle are quite similar to those dishes served in the Polish, German and Italian restaurants. I don't know much about Austria, but I read that it is a multi-ethnic country, and that probably explains why its cuisine is so familiar.

For appetizers, we ordered Aufschnitt Teller which has a variety of cured and smoked meats, spreads and home-made pickles and Liverwurst with red onion jam. I thought the appetizers were not bad, but they were not really my favorite since I am quite picky when it comes to eating cured meat. But I love my main dish. I ordered the Home made Bratwurst with sauerkraut and finished everything before Gan got a chance to taste it. Lucky for me, I got a taste (or two) of Gan's Beef Goulash with Spaetzle and I thought it was a nice hearty dish. There were only two types of desserts served at the restaurant - Gan and I shared a Linzer Torte while Ravi and Laura had the warm chocolate cake. Our Linzer Torte was tasty and Ravi and Laura's warm chocolate cake (which they were kind enough to share some with us) was delicious as well.

Overall, this is a restaurant I would go back again for good, simple and cheap Austrian food. Be sure to order a cup of mulled wine when you are there as well, Ravi introduced it to me and I am totally hooked now!