Hi everyone! Happy Easter to you all! Hope everyone is savoring the long weekend and enjoying themselves. I have just survived the first two weeks at my new job and am happy to say that I am enjoying it thus far. It's always a lot easier when the managers and the rest of the staff are such easy going people. I'm going to treasure this four day weekend, and by that, I mean sleeping in and being in full relaxation mode :) Starting next week, I am planning on some (cup) cake testing and my fellow work colleagues are going to be my guinea pigs! Some of them don't know it yet, but they will next week. I'm not making any apologies if there's any sudden weight gains at work!
I am now going to move away from talking about London and start talking about my time in US! Before heading back home, I spent three months in the US late last year with my fiancé. I had a lot of free time and spent quite a bit of time eating. I'm pretty sure I gained some weight. Also, the portion size is out of control. A normal sized main in New Zealand is about half the size of a main in the US!
There will be a two-part blog on New York (pretty much Manhattan only), another two-part blog on New Jersey, one blog on Philadelphia (more specifically Morimoto's restaurant), and one blog on Boston (or more specifically Coppa). Enjoy!
New Wonjo
23 W 32nd Street, New York, NY 10001 (Closest subway: 34th Street - Herald Square)
The very first meal I had was not in New Jersey where I was staying, but in New York. Before leaving NY (sounds confusing but my first day visit to NY had its purpose), M and I decided to go for a quick lunch before taking our train. Quite close to Penn Station was Korea-town. I must admit that Korean food isn't exactly my favourite – though I really do like Korean BBQ – but I was rather more fascinated about how NY had their own K-town. I think it was a matter of convenience really for us to find something close to the train station, but after a quick glance of the menu and their lunch deals (from 11am - 3pm, Monday to Fridays), we decided unanimously on this place.
After we gave our order to the waitress, she plopped on our table a bunch of little dishes, otherwise known as 'banchan'. Included in the banchan was the standard kimchi, which I can't stand anyway because I hate anything pickled (I'm pretty sure I'm going to offend someone with that statement, sorry). For my meal, I ordered the 'ddukbaegi bulgogi' ($11.95US) which was marinated slices of rib-eye with rice cake and noodles in a hot pot. Pretty much korean beef soup. Yum. It was extremely delicious. I ordered a bit of rice on the side even though there were noodles in the pot. It was partly a mistake because I didn't see the word 'noodles' on the menu. Silly me. I still ate the rice...well most of it anyway. Because of my lack of experience in eating Korean food, I mistakingly took the rice cake for fat. I don't even know why I thought it was fat. When I took it home for dinner, I realised that it was too perfectly oval to be fat. Now I'm a fan. Funny that. /embarrassing.
M ordered the beef fried rice ($8.95) which was pretty straightforward but he really enjoyed it. Such a massive amount of fried rice, so of course he took it home as well. Service was quick and efficient and it was a really good first meal. Great prices - especially since we were able to eat two meals out of it! Even though my fiancé and I were so hungry, we decided to take home the rest of what we couldn't eat at lunch because there was so much food!
Clinton Street Bakery Co & Restaurant
4 Clinton Street, New York, NY 10002 (Closest subway: 2nd Ave)
Other than M and his family, the only other people I knew around the East Coast was A and R, both who I knew from back home. R in particular was my eating buddy and I always had faith that she would choose some really good places to eat for the two of us. She was partially responsible for my weight gain. /half joking. Clinton Street Bakery was on her list of places she wanted to go for brunch and after a couple of failed attempts of meeting up and eating, I agreed to meet her here. Little did I know how popular this place was. We were on the waiting list for about 20 minutes, which was a lot better than the 45 minutes that was promised. Luckily while we were waiting, I was able to explain to her my sordid night out (which you will hear about in Part II unfortunately).
From a brief look on the internet, I gathered that Clinton St Bakery were pretty well known for their pancakes. So that's what I ordered. I ordered the banana walnut pancakes with warm maple butter ($14), with a hot chocolate ($3.50) to accompany it. It did not disappoint. It was such a huge serving and it was quite saddening to not finish it all. I was so full, but then again it did not stop me from scoffing a bunch of dumplings afterwards. Whoops. Not only were the pancakes were delicious but the maple butter was great and not too heavy too.
R decided to go for more lunch than breakfast and ordered the grilled chicken sandwich ($13). The whole dish (including potato chips, coleslaw, and a giant gross gherkin) looked like it was big enough for two. She barely made a dent in it despite how much she liked it. Service was pretty fast and efficient which was pretty decent considering they had a packed house and patrons were still waiting outside too.
Momofuku Milk Bar / Momofuku Ssam Bar
251 E 13th Street (on 2nd Ave), New York, NY 10003 (Closest subway: 3rd Ave)
207 2nd Avenue (at 13th St), New York, NY 10003 (Closest subway: 3rd Ave)
This had been on my list long before coming to the US. Granted that my list wasn't very long, but it should count for something. My brother probably had a bit of influence on that as he would tell me about his own eating adventures in New York. David Chang is his favourite chef, and if you don't have a clue of who he is, well then judging from this paragraph, he founded the Momofuku group of restaurants. Due to its massive popularity, the group of NY-based Momofuku restaurants have now been extended to Sydney and Toronto.
Christina Tosi, head pastry chef and owner of the Momofuku Milk Bar has some interesting creations from the names alone. I only wanted to try Momofuku Milk Bar because of their crack pie ($5.25 a slice). I do not exactly remember how I found out about it but the name instantly intrigued me and heard awesome things about how good it was. No, it doesn't contain crack but it pretty much contains a lot of butter and sugar. The recipe is online but it's so time consuming that you'd be better off just buying it at any of the Milk Bars. It is pretty sweet and I did enjoy it, but after such high expectations I was a wee bit disappointed. Even though it's not exactly identical to Depot's sugar pie in Auckland, I couldn't help compare the two and did think (as well as R) that the sugar pie was better. Just thinking about the sugar pie makes me want to drool.
In addition to the crack pie, I also ordered a compost cookie ($1.85 for 1, $5 for 3, $10 for 6). The compost cookie which I also heard about long before visiting the US really intrigued me as I found it hard to imagine a combination of sweet and salty snacks. Chocolate and butterscotch chips, potato chips, pretzels, rolled oats, graham cracker crust, coffee...yeah all of that is (supposed to be) in a compost cookie. The premise behind the compost cookie is to add whatever your favourite snacks are to the cookie base. It was interesting. While it was good, I was expecting a whole range of different flavours that didn't fully exist in my cookie. Again, I feel like I was expecting too much. I'm probably going to try and make these myself (thanks to the Internet) and see what they're like. A potential blog to follow up on!
As for the Ssam Bar, my intention was to go there for their signature steamed pork buns with hoisin, cucumbers and scallions ($10). Not only had my brother raved about them, but if it's their signature dish then it must be good. After such high expectations, they did not disappoint. The steamed bun was so light and fluffy and the filling of pork belly inside was so warm and tender. I probably could have ordered another plate but didn't want to tempt fate. To end my meal, I ordered the peanut butter soft serve ($5) which had concord grape jelly at the bottom. $5 is a bit extreme but it did feel like I was taking endless spoonfuls! It was so delicious. I love peanut butter anything and I probably would pay $5 to eat it again. Service at the Ssam Bar was very very good too.
Cornerstone Cafe
17 Avenue B, New York, NY 10009 (Closest subway: 2nd Ave)
This was another one that R took me to for brunch and I did not know what to expect. I didn't do any of my usual so-called research, so I arrived to this place with an open mind. When I go for brunch I pretty much go for more breakfast type of dishes rather lunch. I think it's partly due to the lack of breakfast I usually eat from day-to-day. For brunch, I ordered the baked eggs with italian sausage, tomato sauce and basil ($12). The eggs were served alongside potatoes and toast, but in my mind when I was ordering it I thought it was going to be a handful of potatoes and a few slices of bread on the side of my eggs. Not only did I expect the skillet to be that big, but I didn't expect three different plates! It looked more like a feast for two and I know it's a comment that's been regularly said throughout the places I've talked about above, but Cornerstone Cafe take it to a whole new level!
To finish this on my own was utterly impossible. To the detriment to my stomach, I tried to finish at least two-thirds of it. It was that good. As much as I love a potato any day, any meal of the week, I actually didn't think they were needed. The only thing I was disappointed about the solid egg yokes. I love a runny, oozy egg yoke.
They make a decent latté too!
Bosie Tea Parlor
10 Morton Street, New York, NY 10014 (Closest subway: Christopher St - Sheridan Square)
If you've been reading my blog from the start, you'd know that I'm a big fan of afternoon tea. I kept telling R that we needed to go out for afternoon tea! Now! Soon! ASAP! I looked into afternoon tea places in New York and wanted to find a really good place that wouldn't exactly blow my wallet but wouldn't compromise on quality. It was pretty busy when we arrived and it was left to me to do all the eating since R, my fellow eating buddy-in-crime had already eaten too much at work. Totally uncool. I ordered the tea for one ($27) which included a two-cup pot of tea, two mini scones with clotted cream and jam, three different tea sandwiches, two mini tea cakes, and the choice of two macarons. I can't believe I ate most of this on my own.
Bosie have such a huge selection of teas that it is almost quite intimidating. I mean, the tea selection has its own menu! For my made-to-order sandwiches, I chose the egg salad, cucumber with cream cheese, and salmon as the fillings which were all tasty in their own right. As for the macarons, I ordered the pistachio and the bacon & maple syrup flavours. The sound of a bacon and maple syrup macaron sounded totally bizarre but I wanted to try it for the same exact reason. The macarons that I ate from Bosie Tea Parlor were fantastic and delicate, only second best behind Ladurée's macarons. Yummy. And the bacon & maple syrup macaron was fantastic. The flavours of bacon and maple syrup were present and the mix of sweet and salty worked so well. I tried a version of this at the Christmas Market in Union Square and it wasn't as good as Bosie's, even though the one I tried at the Market actually had maple bacon inside.
The scones were a big hit with me and R and the little jars of clotted cream and jam were incredibly cute too. The most disappointing thing wasn't actually that disappointing, but I think the chocolate and lemon tea cakes were a bit underwhelming in comparison to the rest of the tea set.
While it's not the most economical meal you'll ever have, Bosie Tea Parlor is definitely somewhere I would like to go back again whenever I get the chance to go back to the US! Now I'm in the mood for afternoon tea – it should definitely be on the cards very soon!
Next blog: Part II of my NYC travels! Some of which includes dumplings, meeting Bobby Flay (okay not exactly), foodstalls at NYC markets, and a bit of a drunken adventure that doesn't exactly need to be discussed in detail...
