London - Amaya

Michelin-stared Indian restaurant? And it serves small plates?! Um, yes please! There's really none of that curry-heavy cooking at Amaya. This is primarily tandoori-based, which is great when you either (a) are nervous about Indian food or (b) you don't want to have an Indian food baby in your tummy after your dinner. I was the latter.

Cocktails were in order as neither AG nor I could imagine drinking wine at this restaurant - sleek, modern and glitzy. Me gusta! I rarely remember which cocktails I order but they were good. One of mine had tequila and lychee and the other one was a passionfruit caipirinha.

We stuck to only small plates (no biryani) and it was fairly easy deciding what we wanted from the veggie dishes (although it was difficult to limit ourselves). But we had difficulty in the fish/poultry/meat section. Do you get the chicken tandoori lollipops? Or lamb grilled on a skewer? Or how about some chicken chops? Or does one pick scallops (no because I don't eat them) or an actual fish? Luckily, our waitress gave us fantastic recommentations. We hadn't even thought of ordering the tandoori-spiced monkfish but this may have been the best part of the evening - two meaty pieces of fish on a mini-skewer, rubbed in spices and grilled. I've heard that monkfish is easy to overcook but this was perfection. And it's not as scary looking here as when it's whole.

The second recommendation from our waitress was to get the chicken or lamb chop. I think we picked wisely. The two fat golden-brown lamb chops came with a surprise - they were stuffed with spiced minced lamb! Genius and delicious. And if you're wondering whether they always give two to an order when you order the "small plate" version, the answer is no. AG had gone to Amaya with her parents and they gave them three pieces on a plate, which is actually very thoughtful because it's always awkward when there's not enough pieces for everyone.

Following our meat dishes were the dal, which while quite plain in and of itself, was livened up by the set of spices (coriander, salted peanut, masala and plum sauce) that accompanies the meal and a raita. It would've made more sense had they served us the raita at the very beginning as we would've like to have tried it on the lamb but regardless, it helped elevate some of the less-interesting dishes. The least interesting was probably the little cakes made of spinach and fig. I didn't detect any fig in there and these were so uninspiring that I forgot we ate them until I came across the picture.

We had almost forgotten to order the simple broccoli dressed with yogurt (and our only "large plate") but so glad we remembered as this was the standout vegetarian dish that night. The other veggie dish, smoky grilled aubergines at first fell flat but once livened up with the (pomegranate?) raita were actually somehow addicting!

Ending our meal was probably the stand-out dessert of the week - an eaton mess. Typically British, it's essentially pieces of meringue, some whipped cream and red berries. The juice from the berries softens the meringue, which in turn adds a pleasant sweetness and the cream adds a hint of richness.

This was most definitely my favorite meal of the weekend and I'd go back and eat there again any day. As long as I can have the broccoli.  

London - Tendido Cero

Unfortunately overshadowed by the other meals that week, Tendido Cero was nonetheless delicious tapas in a romantic setting (as most tapas places should be!). It was also the first time I attempted to take the bus, but failed (as happens quite often it seems) and took a cab. It really wasn't my fault - the bus that is supposed to come every 10-12 minutes didn't come for 30 and I was already late.

AG and I apparently both love Rioja so instead of picking the cheapest, we picked the second cheapest (we're so classy like that but I mean really, we don't know that much about wine except for what we like). The waiter kinda scrunched his face up when we ordered the wine and recommended the one for £9 more. Meh, sure, whatever! So we went with the waiter's recommendation and it was pretty good!

You know what else was pretty good? The most amazingly awesome Serrano and cheese croquettes that we ordered. These were little fried balls of melty-cheesy goodness. I didn't really detect that much ham in there but at least I saw it so it was definitely there.  We also ordered the pan con tomate y jamon Serrano. I like my pan to be toasted and rubbed with garlic. Unfortunately, they didn't toast the bread and it turned soggy from the tomato spread much faster than we would have liked it to. Did we care? No, not really, it was still delicious!

We also ordered a stew of white beans with chorizo (on second thought, maybe the spicy chorizo cooked in cider would've been better but we didn't want it to be too oily), and some crunchy (read: breaded and fried) Arzua cheese with sweet tomato marmalade, which we both agreed would have worked better towards the end of the meal since the marmalade was overwhelmingly sweet.

Lastly, the piquillo peppers stuffed with oxtail  was meh because the texture was just off, with both the peppers and the oxtail (which was actually quite flavorless) both being mushy. An then we can an unremarkable crema catalana, which is like a creme brulee but ours had cinnamon sugar on top.

It kinda sounds like our meal sucked but no, it was quite good but just not as good as it could've been. And much better than the La Tasca chain for tapas (errr...that's a not-so-nice dig from me...sorry if you ever read this AP!)

London - Ottolenghi

Ottolenghi, you deserve your own, lengthy post. I can sing praises all day. Everything in your store screams "eat me!" Butternut squash, roasted aubergines, chili-laced broccoli, glazed carrots...my god, if I had one of these near me I'd never eat elsewhere nor would I cook! Screw the meat, this is vegetarian paradise. So since there's no Ottolenghi in the U.S., the next best thing is the cookbook. You know, the holidays are coming up, hint hint.

(They had a no-photo policy but I managed to sneak a quick one of the pastry section from the hallway leading up to the store)  

AG left work early and stopped by Ottolenghi for takeout dinner before I got there. Vinegared beets with apples, broccoli with chili and garlic, glazed roasted carrots, potatoes and grain salad and sugar snap peas and green beans, and a pear and sultana tart that tasted like fall...I knew I wanted more.

Wandering over the next morning, I picked out the flourless lemon polenta cake for breakfast, which was moist and studded with candied fruit. The icing of top (delicious and ridiculously sweet in its own right by the way) gave the cake the right not-overwhelming amount of sweetness. It was really hard to leave half the cake...good thing I cut it in half before taking a huge forkful. 

And I couldn't not go back again so on Sunday morning, we dropped by to pick up £25 worth of veggies for me to take back to Paris. Mmmm...gonna be waiting for that cookbook. But in the meantime, I might pick up some broccoli or aubergines.

The start of a weekend in London

Time for a long weekend. Armistice day in France = visiting AG, who I went to school with and who was my roommate for 2 years while she's in London. Equally as food-obsessed as me. She works so I had two days of entertaining myself until the weekend. I didn't really feel like going to any museums (although I did drop by the British Museum for two hours) which left only two things - shopping and eating. You can guess which one I focused more on. And so I took myself over to Covent Garden with the intention of wandering around, looking at some stores and finally finding my way over to Wahaca, a Mexican market-based restaurant. First, I'd like to mention that I'm too tall to stand against the "leaning seats" in the tube- I have to bend my head forward. It is not a comfortable position. Also, unlike at the Abbesses stop in Paris, at Covent Garden you get a warning that "there are 193 stairs, the equivalent of a 15 story building" to get to ground level so really, unless you're in fantastic shape, you best be taking the elevator. Which I wisely did. 

After wandering around, trying some things on, taking a picture in Neal's Yard (Dairy and Remedies are both there), the rain started to drizzle, as it most certainly always seems to do in London, so I started in the direction of the restaurant where I seated myself at the bar and proceeded to order an agua de Jamaica. But they're not as cool as me (hah!) so they just call it Hibiscus water. Menu held the usual suspects - tacos, taquitos, quesadillas, burritos, etc etc. But most things are served as small plates. I seemed to have missed this and when I got my pork torta with conchinita pibil, this arrived:

Tiny torta! £4.85! Good but not as good as the ladies at the back of Tehuitzingo grocery store in NYC. This was when I realized that this is glorified street food at expensive prices. Good, sure, but also overpriced. But then again, isn't everything (£4 one-way tube ride?...I got an Oyster after that). The agua de Jamaica previously ordered was downed in a few gulps and then I was convinced to get the hibiscus margarita (tequila during lunchtime, fabulous idea). Good but not great - the one with hibiscus and blueberries at Toloache in midtown Manhattan is a thousand times better.

Despite my better judgement and sensing I might still be a tad hungry, I ordered one more small plate - black bean tostadas.

Disappointment. Don't get me wrong, the flavor was there but it wasn't really a tostada but a large round tortilla chip with a teaspoon of refried beans, topped with lettuce and tomato, corn and blackbean salsa...it tasted more like I was eating chips + fresh salsa than a tostada. But I must commend them on the two accompanying salsas they serve - a chipotle salsa and a habanero salsa. The chipotle brought an earthy smokiness (perfect for the torta) and I thought it was spicier than the habanero, which kinda just numbed your mouth while the chipotle set your lips on fire. Conclusion: if this is some of the best mexican food in london, there are most definitely opportunities to be had.

On Thursday, I had two lunches. The first was an overly-greasy fish and chips of which I ate maybe about 1/3, and the second was wagamama. I couldn't come to London again and not eat there! Actually, the only other time I have been to wagamama was sophomore year in college when we based our operations management project on them.

Behold the chilli men (hah, funny name) - soba noodles (I got really excited there because I thought it was like buckwheat soba but no, tear) with mangetout (wiki says this means either snap or snow peas), spicy tomato sauce, chicken and veggies. Exactly what you need when its cold and drizzling outside so it totally hit the spot although it was actually not as tasty as I remembered. The spicy sauce was heavy on the heat and lemongrass, light on the veggies and noodles overcooked. In retrospect it may have been better to order two appetizers...oh well, can't always win can you?

I would also like to add that had I decided to live in London, my blog might be titled "eating my way though M&S" - there are so many things there that I want to eat. Its like TJs on ready-made, ready-to-eat, takeout crack. Look at these juices!

Stay tuned for more small-plate obsession in London, lots of veggies and some market tidbits. Oh, and one of the most awful services ever in the form of ridiculously long waits. Yay!

Le Bistrot Paul Bert

Oh Mr. Bert, I had heard such great things about you. Were you sick this evening? Was something wrong? You seemed so...down and soooo not up to the praises sung upon you by former diners. Granted, as usual, I mistranslated (only a little) your menu but really, not warning us that the rabbit wasn't really rabbit and was drenched in a sauce made with sang? And underwhelming so much on the tete de veau that as we watched other dinners try it, their mouths puckered and eyes narrowed in disappointment? And cooking your volaille to the point of such dryness that no meat could be found on the bones? Even if you were having an off-day, I don't think I want to cross paths with you again. Ever. It just wasn't worth it.

To start, an under-seasoned and all too cold multi-colored beet salad with arugula and hazelnuts, dressed with olive oil, then the disappointing carpaccio of tete de veau (exactly what you think it is and bad enough that you're eating it already) with an anchovy vinaigrette and capers, and lastly some pan fried squid rings (I was so happy I knew what the word encornets meant and the French couple next to us didn't) that to me seemed a bit too chewy.

The misunderstood lievre a la royale with celeriac puree came next. Why misunderstood? Well my conversation with the waiter went something like this:

Me: Qu'est ce que c'est, le lievre? (What is this lievre thing?)
Waiter: C'est comme un lapin (It's like rabbit)
Me: Mom, it's rabbit
Mom: Oh yes sure I'll have rabbit
Waiter: Mais il y a un gout tres....fort (But it is very...strong tasting)
Me: Mom, its gamey
Mom: Thats fine, I like rabbit. Rabbit is gamey
Me: WHAT IS THIS?!

You wanna know what that is? It's rabbit (well hare actually) marinaded with a bunch of stuff and wine, then all of it (minus the bones) ground with pork and bacon and foie gras and truffles and mushrooms and shallots and other spices and aromatics. Sounds ok, right? Well the sauce is the marinade, reduced, with a final addition of foie gras and the animal's blood which was reserved when the cooking process started. So it was a wine-rabbit blood sauce...apparently that's what the waiter meant by strong. Would have been nice if we had understood each other but hey, a la royale means fit for kings!

My pave de veau aux trompettes de la mort, was a huge chunk of meal and was fairly palatable actually but my aunt's pheasant with sauteed green cabbage with bacon was a dry affair and somewhat amusing seeing her pick up the little legs and wings to attempt (and ultimately fail) to get some kind of meat off them.

The Paris-Breast was the best choice by far, with a thick hazelnut praline that had a long finish on the tongue. It was surprisingly less sweet than the chestnut macaron my aunt ordered.

My dessert, the baba au rhum au savarin was essentially a cake donut with whipped cream in the center hole, all drenched in the cheap-tasting rum that I highly dislike. But props for putting a whole bottle of rum on the table in case I wanted to get completely hammered off a dessert. Which I didn't.

La Regalade St. Honore

Finally. I managed to get a reservation at the La Regalade Saint-Honore.This is what a value meal should be. €33 for 3 delicious courses, starting with complimentary terrine (it was chicken liver) and cornichons, and ending with complimentary madeleines. Accompanied by a bottle of inky cahors that stained teeth and lips black for those who were drinking (not included in the price but not expensive either)

The potimarron soup (can't seem to get enough of it) came with crunchy croutons, bits of bacon (not be be confused with bacon bits), two giant grilled shrimps (prawns perhaps?) and something cheesy over which the smooth soup was poured from a pitcher by the waitress. 

The foie gras (which I thought was just a slab on a plate) was nestled in the middle of an intensely mushroom-y soup.

My poitrine de cochon with lentils de Puy was an intensly porky affair (in a good way). Although the pork belly (from Eric Ospital whose cured meats I had at Avant Comptoir) was mainly fat, I managed to find some crispy meat morsels which were beyond delicious. And the lentils? That was my favorite part of the dish. Smoky from the addition of lardons, these were not your lentil-soup-mushy-lentils. These were something else entirely and I could've licked the plate clean of them had I not been facing the entire dining room.
 

Seeing as I completely mis-translated half the menu, mama got a crispy roasted piece of cod topped with some jambon (de Pays? Eric Ospital's jambon Ibaïona? Whatever, it looked good), sitting on a bed of haricots de paimpol (not to be confused with haricots verts, as I did...) and sauced with cilantro. Mama wasn't a fan of the beans but I'm a sucker for creamy, well prepared beans even if they are under-seasoned. Although she did say that once she started eating them with the ham and fish, not separately, they tasted good.
 

My aunt got a crispy skinned skate with calamari that sat on a bed of squid-ink risotto and was sauced with something...don't know what but it looked pretty! And tasted yum.

And desserts...oooh these were goooooood. Souffle a Grand Marnier was light and airy and seemed textbook perfect or at least how a souffle should look and it was my first time trying one! The crumble aux pommes et poires with caramel chantilly was satisfying in that "its-cold-weather-season-and-this-is-like-pie-but-healthier". Although I'm not sure how healthy caramel whipped cream is.

And my dessert? Probably the best dessert I have had all year. Two pots de creme a la vanille with fruits de passion (why two? I don't know but apparently they sometimes give one vanilla and one chocolate). Basically, a loose custard flecked with vanilla beans and topped with passion fruit. Not only is it visually beautiful but it was so ethereally light. Yes, I went there. I used the word "ethereal". There was no slickness of fat on the roof of my mouth that you sometimes get when you eat a cold dessert thats high in fat. No, this was light, smooth and silky with the passion fruit cutting through the sweetness of the custard. I could have eaten another one of these but 2 was more than enough for this korovka who has let herself go a little in the past month or so.

I'm still not sure if there was another reservation for our table that night (they turned away every walk-in and said everything, even the tables that had emptied, were reserved) or if they just do one-seating-per-table...but we came in at 730pm and left close to 10pm happy stuffed (and perhaps a little tipsy), walking our way back to the Marais, past the Pompidou and Hotel de Ville.

 

NYC = food, friends, family and fun

After flying into PHL (it was cheaper), getting picked up by mama and then taking the train up to NYC from Jersey, I somehow mustered up enough energy to put together a small spread for when JP came home (super late and so not hungry). Not enough energy to go all the way to Whole Foods in Union, but enough to go to the Grand Central Market where produce is ridiculously overpriced but I justified the $8 for 12 strawberries by not taking the train ($5) down and back up from Union. Can't really justify all the prosciutto from Murray's Cheese though...

The awesome weather the next day post-cold and dreary Paris was sunny and high 60s which called for ice cream. I sat on the little bench outside one of my favorites - L'arte del Gelato in the West Village - with a cup of zucca (pumpkin) and dolce di latte (Italian dulce de leche I guess...?) and watched the cars go down 7th Avenue. The pumpkin was surprisingly delicious and I think I'm liking pumpkin more and more now. There may have been spices in it, there may have not...but if there were, they were very subtle as there was no real hint of nutmeg or cloves or cinnamon. I'd like to think I was eating unadulterated pure pumpkin gelato. And it was fantastic. I was almost sad that I got the second flavor with it as I could've easily polished off a whole serving of just the pumpkin but the dolce di latte wasn't too bad either in that I'm-creamy-and-delicious kind of way.

 

And earlier in the day, a sloppy bao with mildly spiced curried ground meat, paired  with grated mango, cilantro and a dash of sriracha from Baoguette, although not as good as I remembered, and definitely not a Num Pang contender, totally hit the spot in a pinch (that pinch being the aftermath of picking out and buying stockings and other related legwear at Century 21...)

Eating continued at dinner where eight of us (sans JP, who had to work a lot while I was in town, tear) descended upon Donatella in Chelsea, the new pizza place with the ridiculous gold-tiled oven. No pictures but the verdict is that, even though there seem to be new non-New York slice pizzerias popping up all the time in NYC and I have yet to visit the majority of them (I've only been to Keste where the middle of the pie was super wet), Donatella was ridiculously delicious. But apparently their oven is a bottleneck (I'm using concepts I learned in school!) and handles only 3 pies at a time so instead of us each having our own (yea, we're fatties, don't hate), we shared and they were kind enough to cut each one into 8 slices rather than the regular 4. 

The deliciousness factor was as follows: Diavola with spicy salami and chili oil (this seemed to be the most popular as we probably had a total of 3-4 pies), Margherita (you can't go wrong with a classic), Donatella with stracciatella and arugula, Capellacio with roasted and marinated mushrooms and then finally, the one I was not a huge fan of, the Enzo, with sausage and broccoli rabe (I love sausage and broccoli rabe pasta but this was just not very good...maybe they should've crumbled the sausage or maybe broccoli rabe doesn't belong on a pizza I don't know but I'd pass on this one next time). We also split some desserts (2 desserts for 4 people) and since we are all such great friends, both sides of the table inadvertently picked the same 2 desserts to share - the zeppoli which were surprisingly light and the sfogliatella where I found the ricotta cream too heavy for my liking.

And speaking of liking pumpkin more and more, at next day's lunch at Maialino with JL, we split an order of the pumpkin agnolotti which were amazingly melt-in-your-mouth tender delicious little packages of pumpkin goodness. The serving size is ridiculously small (12 pieces to an order? And they're not that big) but I could've easily kept eating and eating and eating them. Suckling pig terrine, which was breaded and deep fried, didn't do it for me because of its lack of seasoning but I didn't care since the agnolotti made up for any errors in judgement.  

And in other pumpkin news, what's Halloween without some jack-o-lanterns? So off I went to the pumpkin patch with mama + the little brother (no clue who ppl in background are)...
 

Finally, for JP's and my combined birthday dinners down in Jersey with my family including my mama, grandparents and my brother (who tends to act like a little brat at times, although I love him still) we went to Rat's Restaurant (unfortunately named, I know) at the Grounds for Sculpture. Why? Because the chef there won the last season of Top Chef and because its a 15 minute drive from mama's house in Jersey. I will add that taking my grandparents to a nice restaurant is always such a disaster because my grandfather's diet consists primarily of pelmeni, or Russian raviolis, and he thinks everything else is garbage, while my grandmother is just awkward at restaurants and will only eat filet mignon and is dealthy afraid of choking on fish bones. Le sigh, but what can you do?

Overall, the meal was a little underwhelming - I was expecting better. My tomato salad appetizer was meh with no hint of the promised serrano chile, my brother's smoked salmon was just that and nothing special (although I'm super proud of him for eating half of it, and for finishing most of his mussels since he's a super picky and measly eater who munches on broccoli and celery, as well as sour cream and onion potato chips for fun) and JP's scallops crudo looked pretty but disappointed.

The mains were much better. I actually liked my duck breast, which was clazed with black mustard and soy and came with a pear puree, haricots verts and beets. Thankfully, the licorice-fennel marmelade on JP's super moist grilled pork chop wasn't overbearing and the dried fruit cous cous that came with it was israeli cous cous (he doesn't eat regular cous cous). And my brother liked his mussels, like I said, and liked the fries even more so.

Desserts again nothing special. I remember the creme brulee being much better and the parsnip cheesecake, while cool-sounding, barely registered a hint of parsnip. The caramel ice cream we had was pretty decent but it was presented on little pastry shells that was been pre-frozen onto the plate and were hard to eat. On top of that, they messed up and put the "Happy Birthday" on the wrong dessert, not to mention the awful service all night.

Bottled water instead of tap as requested, the waiter trying to leave before we had finished our drink orders (during which he thought "hard apple cider" sounded like "sidecar") and failure to actually explain what was on the tasting menu. But I guess that's what (unfortunately) happens when gratuity is automatically included, although I thought they'd be more professional.

The rest of the time was spent sorting my brother's Halloween candy. And eating it.

JP - sorry you're not accounted for in the title of the post, but "BF" does not go with the whole "F" theme. Also, I carved the cuter pumpkin, again.