Meskel

Address: 199 East Third Street, New York, NY

Phone: 212-254-2411

Ethiopian restaurants are very popular in NYC, but for some reasons, Gan and I have never tasted Ethiopian food, until yesterday. A bunch of us went to a very tiny Ethiopian restaurant call Meskel in Alphabet city to have dinner with our friend Po Li, who will be leaving for Malaysia in a week. Some of us decided to share a vegetarian platter that comes with sauteed string beans and carrots, collard greens etc, a Meskel platter which has a sample of different braised meat such as lamb and beef and Doro Wat, a braised chicken legs dish. We were all ecstatic when the waitress brought out a gigantic platter with everything on it!

I knew before going to this restaurant that I would most likely have to eat with my hands but I didn't realized that it was going to be a challenge for me. I don't usually eat with my hands (except for ribs, fried chicken and fries....), therefore the task of scooping up some vegetables or meat using a piece of Injera (Ethiopian white bread)was not particularly fun for me. But it was worth the work as the food was quite delicious. Overall, Ethiopian food somewhat reminds of coconut milk based Malaysian Indian food. Not something I will eat very often since it's rather heavy.

Vegetarian platter + Meskel platter + Doro Wat

Bruce (third from the right) was holding a plate of Injera. They tasted somewhat like dosa/tosai/tosei to me.

We cleaned up the plate pretty nicely! hungry people!

Mitsuwa Supermarket Giant Blue Fin Tuna Cutting Performance

Giant Blue Fin Tuna Cutting Performance @ Mitsuwa Supermarket

Address: 595 River Rd # 1, Edgewater, NJ

Phone: 201-941-9113

Gan, Oi Yen, Nick and I went to Mitsuwa Supermarket at Edgewater NJ today to check out the Giant Blue Fin Tuna cutting performance. Even though I have been to Tsukiji market in Tokyo, I have never been able to wake up early enough to check out the auction in the morning (LAZY!). So this was really the first time I have seen an uncut Blue Fin Tuna, and boy it was gorgeous! The Tuna weighs around 700lbs and I believe it's about 4-5 days old. According to the announcer, Tuna taste better when it's aged for a couple of days.

The supplier of this Blue Fin Tuna also supplies to the top Japanese restaurants in NYC such as Masa and Sushi Yasuda. So it was great that we get to buy Toro for roughly $1.50 per slice, instead of the usual $12 per slice charged at the high end sushi restaurants. At the end of the performance, people were just snatching those tuna as though it was free (Gan was one of them, haha). We bought some Tuna blocks for dinner as well and it was amazing.

Gan: We bought a couple of ohtoro and chutoro tuna block as well as some nigiri sushi made from the fresh cut/butchered tuna. Can't get any fresher sushi than that in the city. As with beef, tuna taste best with its marbled fat. Ohtoro is the fattiest and chutoro is next. Just to echo one of the things that the announcer mentioned at the performance, it's a common misconception in America that the color (redness) of the tuna determines the quality of it. the best tasting tuna is usually the one with higher fat content and they are usually lighter in color, usually in pink.

I want all of those!!

It was funny to see the guy using a special hammer to cut the tuna

Gan: They don't waste anything. The fins are used. The head as well. Even the meat was scraped off the bone. We were wondering how much was the whole tuna's worth in a normal market. If it's about $40-$50 per pound (of course, not all are toro quality from the fish), that 700 pound fish is worth $28K-$35K!

Oi Yen imitating the look of the Blue Fin Tuna

Gan: Hmm... I see the resemblance. Glowing skin, shiny eyes, and decorated.

Amazing Toro Sushi, freshly cut from the belly

Han Ah Reum Supermarket Foodcourt

Address: 321 Broad Ave, Ridgefield, New Jersey

Phone: 201-943-9600

Gan and I absolutely love the food court at Han Ah Reum supermaket near Palisades Park, NJ. We were introduced to this supermarket by our friend Ray sometime ago (he's our source to all good stuffs in NJ :) ) and we have been going there for food shopping and lunch/dinner ever since. We love the spicy chanpon noodles there and for about $8, you can enjoy a bowl of spicy seafood soup with homemade noodles. You get also get dishes like Kalbi Tang, Abalone Porridge, Soon Do Boo Chigae etc. Two thumbs up for this place!

Gan: This is one of the main reason I love the NYC metropolitan area (including NJ). The influx of immigrants in these area introduces a lot of possibilities in terms of culinary choices as well as ethnic food products (groceries). Mitsuwa, the Japanese groceries supermart at Edgewater is great for its Japanese produce (japanese organic eggs, cucumber, eggplants, and of course the seafood). The Korean groceries like Han Ah Reum is most famous for their great beef selections, especially the ribs (kalbi).

Spicy Seafood Chanpon Noodles

Gan: It's Chinese Korean but they are uniquely Korean because of their hot paste soup and noodles. It's really spicy but they're great. I think the key is they stir fry all the ingredients first, chinese style with the high heat wok before adding it onto the blanched noodle and spicy soup.

Jar Jiang mien- korean style.

Gan: Another Chinese Korean dish. Don't look appetizing with the color but the bean paste sauce with the noodle is great.

Yaokui Gan

Tailor

Address: 525 Broome Street, New York

http://tailornyc.com

Phone: 212-334-5182

We've finally tried Tailor. In terms of food concepts and presentations, there were a lot of similarities between Tailor and wd~50. But I feel that Sam Mason's Tailor has a long way to go before it's at the same level as Chef Dufresne's wd~50. Overall, the food was good, but I wasn't exactly wowed. Surprisingly the Salty dishes were more impressive than the Sweets, which puzzled me a little since Sam Mason, is after all a star dessert chef. My favorite dishes there were the Chorizo Cured Kampachi, Roasted Duck and Pork Belly with Miso Butterscotch. I don't really have a favorite dessert at Tailor, I thought they were all ok, but if I absolutely have to pick one, I'll have to say that the cheesecake paste was quite unique.
Gan: You hear it all the time but yet, it's amazing to see how often (in my humble opinion) restaurants keep forgetting this. "Keep it simple". "Let the ingredients speak for itself". "Good food do not have to be complicated". Gordan Ramsay lives by it. Thomas Keller perfected it. Even the Japanese makes it a cardinal rule to their cuisine. Tailor, it seems, had fallen victim to its creator's past success. Avant garde for the sake of it does not necessarily yield positive results and that is the case with this establishment. I agree with Sarah that there's a lot of similarity between Chef Duffresne's wd~50 and Sam Mason's Tailor. However, there's one big difference between them. Coming out of the dinner at wd~50, I can say the taste of the food was the most memorable experience that night, more than all the experimental, molecular gastronomy, and interesting presentation/plating. Sadly, I can't say the same after the dinner at Tailor. For some reason, when I give some thoughts to this, the always entertaining Iron Chef came to my mind. Specifically, it's the epic-like battle between Chef Morimoto's Neo Japanese cooking and the Ohta faction's traditional Japanese cooking. Morimoto was always chided for his perceived lack of respect for traditional Japanese cooking method by mixing it with elements from other cuisine. I have been a fan of his neo Japanese food but more than anything, I think I have respect for his willingness to take risk.
Back to Tailor... A bit long-winded on this.. hehehe :-) I commend Tailor for their willingness to take the risk in trying to advance their concept of blurring the line between dinner and dessert. There's some hits and misses in the dishes but overall, I think it's confused by its own complexity.

Bazooka cocktail - Vodka, Bubble Gum Cordial, House Sour

Diane and Jie Siang

Chorizo Cured Kampachi, Sweet Potato Cream, Potato Granola

Gan: I like this just as Sarah did. Quite a lot going on.. and can't really smell or taste sausage in the chorizo cured kampachi. The fish however, was salty, which I guess could be from curing it with chorizo (a usually salty sausage) and it works well with the sweetness of the garnishes.

Monk Fish Risotto

Gan: The risotto was creamy and goes well with the well cooked monk fish. I like most of the fish dishes. We actually ordered one of each dish from the menu for both sides of the table. Lol.. yao kuis!

Peeky Toe Crab, Pineapple, Basil, Pine Nut Puree - I don't quite like the taste of pineapple foam with crab.

Gan: I also agree with Sarah. Foams are usually focussed on the flavor (pineapple in this case) and light or airy. It doesn't have the original texture and are meant to be used as flavoring agent for the underlying protein. But pineapple flavor over peekytoe crab (used to be a throw away by product of lobster fishing) seems to be too overpowering for me.

Roasted Duck, Spaghetti Squash, Chanterelles, Raisin Dashi - Love the duck and the Chanterelles mushrooms

Gan: I think the sweet raisin dashi goes well with the duck, as with most sweet sauces. This is an interesting tasting dish and I like it.

Pork Belly, Miso Butterscotch, Artichoke - delicious!

Gan: I got the last piece of the pork belly and had the one without the crispy skin! Grrr... :-( The miso butterscotch sauce was yummy though.

Passion Fruit Poached Char, Lime Pickle, Coconut - a refreshing fish dish

Manchego Cheesecake, Concord Sorbet, Sage - the white paste on the plate was actually the cheesecake ;)

Gan: The cheesecake was not good for me. I didn't like this one at all. Not the taste which was way too sour for me and not the presentation, which didn't look too appetizing.

Black Olives, Sorbet - hmm....this dessert was strange.

French Toast - so so....

Gan: It's definitely an interesting dessert. Breakfast in dessert? As the waiter kept repeating.. it's outrageous!

Nick and Oi Yen

Sripraphai

Address: 64-13 39th Ave, Woodside NY

Phone: 718-899-9599


I miss the Sripraphai before the New York Times article...the place was less crowded then. You did not need to wait 30 minutes to get a table, and the restaurant was just a simple hole-in-the-wall place that served authentic Thai food. But as long as the food is good, Gan and I will still go back there since this is only place in NYC where we can find food that taste like those back home.

Gan's favorite - BBQ pork

Fried Shrimp Cake

Papaya salad - SPICY!

Steamed Tilapia Filet with ginger - we like this dish because it reminds us of our mom's cooking, but I thought the fish was overcooked, so I might not want to order this dish again the next time.

Chinese Broccoli with Fried Pork belly