Visting the twin in Durham

I've been unpacking/making house since the day we moved into our new apartment (April 7th). That moving day was fairly hell-ish. It started with me waking up at 7:30am to finish anything that needed to be finished/packed in our corporate apartment, to going to our new apartment at 9am and having all my stuff from Paris finally delivered (yay!) to picking up our UHaul truck and going back to the corporate apt and picking up all our stuff and then dropping by JL's to pick up the TV, dresser and chair, then back to the new apartment to drop things off (mind you, this is in the middle of the day so traffic in NYC is not so fun), and then going to IKEA in Elizabeth and spending lots of time and energy there and basically we finally dropped the UHaul off at around 8pm and they charged us an extra $30-$50 because apparently we were supposed to have the truck inspected before we left with it but we didn't because they told us to JUST GO PICK UP THE TRUCK. so there we went with keys in hand. ANYHOW. 

Thankfully, the weekend before that hell-ish weekend, I spent some quality time in (unfortunately not too warm) Durham, NC with my twin, SK. I figured since she's graduating Duke Law this year, I should go down there one more time (I make it seem like I've been a lot, but no, only once before). Plus, I love me some barbeque. The other time I went, it was non-stop eating, including taco-truck-hopping that we devised. This time was fairly similar as we were pretty much in a food coma all weekend (although a pleasant one).

After arriving in the morning, we had lunch at Toast, a paninoteca which seems like nothing special from the outside. But our sandwiches were ridiculously good and I give them points for not using bread that is overwhelming (e.g., ciabatta). No, they used some kind of hearty wheat-type rustic italian bread which made me think what I was eating was way healthier than what it was. We ordered two paninis and split them. I went for a spin on a classic pasta dish of rapini, italian sausage, roasted garlic and asiago fresca cheese, while SK got the panini with grilled chicken, roasted peppers, mozzarella and salsa verde. Not, I'm not a huge fan of bell peppers/roasted pepper but SK's pick was ridiculously delicious with just the right amount of heat from the salsa. I would have ordered a second one in a heartbeat had we not had other eating plans lined up. Oh, I also tried Cheerwine which has been getting a lot of traction in NYC recently it seems. It's cherry soda. Tastes kinda like Dr. Pepper to me. And contrary to what the name may lead you to believe there is no alcohol content.

We followed up our paninis with a little bit of walking, some window shopping and locopops, gourmet popsicles that are pretty much the equivalent of paletas. And you know I love paletas. I don't think I picked the best one (black raspberry and tangerine) but it was still good and I remember the one I had two years ago was really good too. Whatever, I eat pretty much anything that's put in front of me except for some things.

Our trip to locopops was followed by a fruitless effort to locate the NC Bulgogi truck. Firstly, we are twitter-inept and secondly, the truck lied. They said they weren't doing lunch service that day but they didn't say anything about dinner, and so we kept driving by their spot but they just weren't there! We decided to give them an extra 30 minutes to show up while eating the new Ben & Jerry's Late Night Snack ice cream. You know, I thought I'd really like this one since I'm a huge fan of the sweet/salty combo but it just didn't win me over. The ice cream base was too sweet and the chocolate covered potato chips weren't salty enough. In fact, they weren't even chips, they were kind little pulverized balls of potato-chip-stuff that was more mushy than crispy. Fail. And NC Bulgogi truck fail by this time as well. 

So what to do when you can't have korean tacos and kimchi quesadillas? You go and get mexican tacos as a place called Chubby's Tacos whole logo is an overweight, belly-sticking-out cousin of Speedy Gonzales. My tacos: Carnitas (juicy! flavorful! yumyum!) and Al Pastor (why is this so cloyingly sweeeet???). The best part about this place is the serve-yourself salsa bar with about 10 different salsas to pick from. That and the fact that it's so cheap. Each of my tacos were $2 and came with two tortillas. I also had their agua de melon but I wouldn't bother again - it's artificially flavored and tastes funny. 

If you think that's all we are that day you'd be mistaken. We went out in Chapel Hill where I had one of my first encounters of a real-life campus college, complete with a bar filled with fraternity/sorority people coming back from some kind of formal, and a ton of southern-looking blonde girls. After said bar? Fried chicken and cheddar biscuits at Time-Out at 1:30am. This thing is a monster for $4.50. SK and I shared although she did get herself an extra biscuit. They basically cut open a hot biscuit, put some fried chicken breast in there with a few slices of cheddar which end up melting and provide the right amount of moisture to the sandwich. And the chicken was hands down one of the moistest (is that a word?) pieces of fried chicken I have ever had. Not even fried chicken, just chicken in general. It was surprisingly super juicy. Needless to say, we went home quite happy that night.

And our food adventures continued the next day as how could I go down to North Carolina and not have some pulled pork and hush puppies? That's the thing I was most looking forward to! Last time we went to Q-Shack, a place where the hush puppies are so good I still drool thinking about them. This time we went more traditional and went to Allen & Sons. Yelp reviews made it seems as if it was down some sketchy dirt road in the middle of the woods in who-knows where. No, its just on the corner of a pretty large paved road surrounded by trees. Maybe a little further down are the boonies but we didn't venture that way. Plus, I think Audis and BMWs in the parking lot signify something other than middle-of-nowhere. Behold the sole barbeque I ate that weekend: a pulled pork sandwich with hush puppies and sweet tea followed by a pie-ish banana pudding. 

The sesame seed bun was super soft and I liked how they didn't sauce the meat for you but let you do it yourself. The only strange thing was that I got a couple of unchewable black pieces in my pulled pork but I guess it's just the super burnt parts. But I had to discreetly (not so much actually) take them out of my mouth and put them aside. Hush puppies were super-fried and really sweet. I think I prefer mine with a thinner crust but these were still good. And unlimited refills of sweet tea. Sigh. This is the good stuff right here.

But the banana pudding wasn't enough. I had read about Scratch Bakery before coming down there and had to go. I was warned that they sometimes run out of things but they seemed pretty well stocked (maybe they've gotten used to their popularity?) when we came by around 2pm. I was looking for their peanut pie which Serious Eats ranked as one of their favorite but apparently it's a seasonal special. So we went with a slice of buttermilk sugar pie and a slice of lemon chess pie, although as some point we were considering getting two more slices (vanilla carrot cream and I think the mexican chocolate cream). I loved the buttermilk sugar pie. It reminded me a little bit of tvorog, a russian farmer's cheese. And I was amazed at how the crust stood up to the fillings of both pies. Unfortunately, we were so full that we didn't finish both slices completely, but almost. I was proud of us. 

Since we didn't want to be complete fatties, we went shopping to walk it off. I, of course, had to go and buy something at Anthro (pants! $20!) but we were really looking for a semi-formal dress for SK, which we found at Urban....we also had an Apple Pie Apple while shopping from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. It's a Granny Smith apple covered in caramel, then some white sugary candy stuff, and finally rolled in brown sugar and cinnamon. Most impressive was how they cut it to make it more manageable to eat!

Sunday eating did not end there but with a fancy dinner at Nana's. We had gnocchi carbonara (peas, pancetta, etc) and really good wheat foccacia, as well as fried oysters and calamari to start, followed by some fish (what fish did I order...I forget), and a cast iron grilled chicken with a butternut squash risotto cake. Neither of us finished our entrees (this is the danger of eating so much food during the day!) but somehow we managed to have room for dessert...a meyer lemon bavarian mousse with mini honey-almond madelines and raspberries. 

Ridiculously delicious weekend.

Jersey weekend

I've been hibernating this winter since coming back from Paris it seems. Desculpe. (See, I'm semi-making an effort to learn Spanish....). So now that I'm back in NYC lets do a Jersey post. 

Jersey is where we went for President's day weekend. My mama's house first, where of course we stopped by Taco Bell. Don't hate, the Taco Bell near mama's house is really good, and fresh and their fresco tacos do in a pinch since rarely is there anything to eat back home thats not pre-packaged/processed especially when eating a cold cut Polish/Russian sausage and a yogurt is the equivalent of dinner. 

Next was JP's mama's house where she does not reside at the moment (+1 for beach house in Mexico). 

I think Player kinda remembered me even though he hadn't seen me in over a year, but you know, something about dogs having really good memories....regardless, he was super happy to see us and even happier to be taken for a walk or two on the beach although he did get a sticky-thorn type thing in his paw that made him bleed but we got it out and he was fine. 

Here's Player on the super-windy beach.
 

Here's Player with squinty eyes. 
 

Here's Player getting his belly rubbed by yours truly.

 

After watching Toy Story 3 with JP (who hadn't seen it before and held a grudge against me for seeing it without him) and his brother EP, getting some eye drops from CVS because one of my eyes was bright red from allergies, and visiting Tia C but finding no chamoy salsa at the store, we drove down to Cape May where we had dinner reservations at The Ebbitt Room. By the way, I blame Mittens the cat for my allergies, even though Mittens was locked in a room the whole time and didn't come near me. And Mittens is not her real name but a bagillion times better. JP's top names for cats that we will never have are Mittens, Kibbles and Sprinkles. Dog names are harder to come up with.

Back to The Ebbitt Room. It's a fancy-schmancy place in an old Victorian house that is now The Virginia Hotel. I don't know what was up with the waitress, but it seemed like she thought the three of us were a bunch of punk kids. After ordering a round of cocktails (which the waitress semi-messed up), we got three appetizers and three entrees. I think that made her be a little nicer to us. That, and the bottle of wine we ordered following our cocktails. Then again, if I'm in a nice restaurant and planning to spend that kind of money, the waitress shouldn't be snooty to begin with. I don't know when you go to a restaurant and expect a level of service that just isn't achieved and then ruins your meal. That happened at Rat's back in October/November.

The food was good overall, but there seemed to just be too much stuff going on. I was underwhelmed by the appetizers. A spicy ahi tuna tartare came with orange segments, hearts of palm, cucumber, avocados and plantain chips. I can't say much about it because I didn't try it.  

The calamari with lime-ginger aioli and micro greens were light in batter (rice flour maybe?) but a little greasy and definitely too chewy. The seared scallops with cauliflower puree were nicely seared and meaty, but the puree was way too sweet.

My main of duck two ways with beet risotto was good but nothing to write home about. On one side I had a duck leg confit, and on the other side a rare duck breast (maybe it was a magret, it was pretty fatty...). I did like the duck but the risotto wasn't creamy and a little dry. And then I don't know what was up with the clump of greens in the middle of my dish.

JP ordered what I wanted to get originally - an apple and brie stuffed pork-chop with roasted root vegetables and tarragon-cranberry jus. I thought he wouldn't like it because of the brie but it was barely noticable. This was actually quite tasty except the pork was a little dry...perhaps because there was barely a bone there?

EP had grilled prime 10oz NY strip steak which came with butternut squash and goat cheese gratin, a chili and red wine poached coffee and coffee demi. Whoa, lots of stuff on a plate. The gratin was delicious but I'd call it more a lasagna than a gratin. Although I don't know if there was pasta in it or just potatoes. There was definitely something other than squash and goat cheese. And the poached pear was really good. Just not sure how all of that goes together.

For dessert, we shared the special of the day, a steamed sticky toffee pudding, as well as a panna cotta. The pudding was delicious, but never have I seen a panna-cotta not in a vessel...it was almost like a cheesecake! And it came with a biscotta and other stuff. Everything about this restaurant just screamed that they were trying too hard and putting way too much stuff on one plate. Good but I'm not sure the prices are justifiable...

The next day, after pancakes and tater tots and toast and sausage at a diner, we of course went to eat TACOS. Full disclosure: Comercial Mexicana (no relation to the public company of the same name down in Mexico) in Wildwood is owned by Tia C. Although the prepared food part in the back may or may not be called Ricos Tacos. I still can't figure it out.

You proceed to the back past the wall of chilis and spices, and past the refrigerated (and non-refrigerated) cases of Boing and Jarritos (by the way, a bottle of Jarritos has 220+ calories, so you're better off getting a Mexican Coke) to the counter with the refrigerated cheeses, and order. Your choice - burritos, tacos or quesadillas with a ton of different meats (asada, barbacoa, pollo, lengua if you're into that kind of thing). I, of course, went with the chorizo tacos and picked cilantro and onions as my topping (you can also get lettuce, tomato, sour cream and queso). Comercial Mexicana has ample seating in back (8 booth-type things? And a jukebox!) so we sat ourselved down and waited. But not for long. Four tacos with double-tortillas. 

The tortillas are really good but I actually left the second tortilla from each taco on my plate...too much for me. Along with your order, you get limes, a red salsa (heavy on the dried chiles) and a tomatillo salsa. I preferred the cleaner, lime-ier tomatillo salsa to for an acidic kick to the chorizo. 
 

JP ordered the enchilada tacos but topped them with the lettuce/tomato/sourcream/cheese - I think they would've been better with just cilantro and onions, the way EP got his. Much cleaner and you can taste the meat flavor better. 

Then we went to get a slice of pizza (what can I say, we're fatties) at Sam's Pizza on the Boardwalk. Apparently they burned down a couple years ago and rebuilt but miraculously their really cool old-school cash register survived the fire (insurance fraud?). This was the pizza that two (three?) summers ago burned my tongue. I'm still not a fan - mainly because the sauce on the pizza is too sweet and you can clearly taste the dried oregano in it. Too bad Britton's Bakery wasn't open. I could have totally finished my weekend glutton-fest with an apple fritter. At least I finished it with some Bent Spoon ice cream the next day.