Back to New York

So I havent updated it since I got back from New York but I should really start going out to Seattle and visiting new restaurants or visiting local favorites. Blogging is something fun especially when its interesting. I am heading on vacation for 2.5 weeks and I am leaving June 25 and will be back July 11th. I am heading to New York for a day and then departing to Israel. I am more than excited to go and I can not wait to explore the holy land. :) Its going to be an amazing adventure and I will sure be blogging about the trip, the food, the people I meet, and the adventure I learn. Ill also be going back to New York and blogging about the restaurants I visit. I can not wait and hope that you all tune back in to my wonderful adventure. Goal for the rest of the year for me is to go check out amazing restaurants and to blog about them. :)

Enjoy and bring on the summer! :)

New York day 4&5

So I guess that I have been kind of slacking lately-maybe thats because Ive been busy eating too much food! We have been doing a lot of site seeing and a lot of being touristy the last two days and Ive enjoyed every minute of it. On Thursday mid afternoon we went to a place called Pastis. Its a cute little corner french cafe.

As you can tell it was a sunny afternoon. We enjoyed the lovely french decor and food was amazing. My sister had Mac and Cheese with bacon-which basically was like a heart attack in a dish. But it was so amazingly delicious and I loved every bite of it. I was glad she shared.

I decided to stick with the basics and do linguine with conckles and garlic. Wow it was super garlicy with slivers of garlic cloves and lots of parsley and white wine with butter. Very scrumptious and went  quite well with the bread which I used to soak up the left over butter/wine sauce.

We went to dinner at a place called ESCA-which is Mario Batalli owned. I had 6 different oysters for a starter, amazing Pomegranite Bellinis, yummy crab and artichoke dip, and then I had a lovely tasty trio of fried seafood which had octopus, squid, cod, and clams. Breaded quite nicely and accompanied by a herb aioli and some fresh sea salt. My sister on the other hand had the potato gnocchi with basil, buffalo mozzerella and delicious creamy ricotta. I enjoyed hers a little more but overall it was mighty delicous I enjoyed every bite of the meal. Sorry there are no photos but I felt that taking pictures at a nice super nice 4 star restaraunt was not really acceptable or welcomed.

We went to go see the Lion King which was AMAZING!!! I couldnt have asked to see a better show and I had amazing company too!!

On Friday morning we went and met a family friend, Laura Friedman at Toloache. It was a cute restaurant and the drink list was one of the best Ive seen although considering the time difference I did not see a reason to have a drink at 9 o'clock my time. I forgot to take pictures of the food but it was quite delicious and they had amazing churros!!

We went to Bouchon Bakery for dinner and had an amazing time. I couldnt believe how delicious a simple Flutternutter Sandwich could be.

My sister had an amazing Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese. It was made with Roma tomatoes for a sweeter taste to it but the bread was a hit on both of ours!!

Post more pictures later tomorrow after some more eating and visiting MOMA and the Tim Burton exhibit. I think that tomorrow will be one of the more intersting days since we are going to Little Italy too.....

HAPPY READINGS!

Day 3 in New York-Loving Every Minute

Today has had to be one of my favorite days. It wasnt the food that made it that amazing but it was the people I spent it with today. I met some old friends of mine from about 10 years ago in the city and it was a great reunion!!

From L-R Carly, Me, Adam

Two of the greatest friends Ive had for over 10 years. Both amazing. Carly met us for lunch today at Caffe Falai. It was a cute little neighborhood restaraunt decked out in all white with beautiful chandaleirs which I shouldve taken pictures of but the food was quite tasty and I tried Wild Boar for the first time. It was very rich and very tasty.

PAPPARDELLE ALLA ZUCCA CON CINGHIALE, butternut squash pappardelle, with wild boar ragu which was good but needed a little extra salt! I thought the butternut squash line ontop of the bowl was a little over the edge(haha) and didnt really think it was necessary but overall the taste was quite delicious and the wild boar ragu melted in my mouth.

Carly's dish was GNUDI, spinach,ricotta and sage-infused brown butter sauce. It was an elegant gnudi and the sauce was really good! The Gnudi was not as clumped together as I thought it would be. It was actually light and fluffy and the sage infused borwn butter was so delish!

This was quite a colorful dish. Although I didnt taste it, it looked amazingly delicious and had a great presentation. This dish that Mara had was the RAVIOLI DI SPINACI, ricotta stuffed spinach ravioli with fresh tomatoes,burrata cream and spinach puree.

I thought the Latte that Mara ordered was quite beautiful and couldnt resist in taking a picture of the hearts. Their coffee was really good and a perfect way to end a nice meal.

After walking around for sometime and seeing different stores that we dont have back in WASHINGTON we ended up seeing a falafel restaurant that looked mighty fine and was actually on the itinerary of places to go. So we went to Mamoun falafel. The falafel was quite cheap-$2.50 and I was quite impressed with the falafel itself. Pretty good for a tasty sandwich of goodness.

This was just a plain falafel

This had Mamoun's famous hot sauce on it. Which was quite spicy. I could hardly use it.

Its a cute place. I liked their Falafel a lot. It was delicious!

We went to the Worlds Greatest Pastrami Sandwich Deli. Called Katz. It was amazingly delicious and it was more than I expected.

Our delicious sandwich on White bread-comes on rye bread but it has mayonaise, swiss cheese, and thick cut pastrami that you could tell has been aged well, not too salty, not to tough, just right.

This displays our dinner for the evening. The pickles were a migthy tasty treat-you could tell they were freshly made and the fries were the big streak fries that were amazing dipped in mustard! I almost want another one-but maybe next year. The place was packed and full of many types of people but everyone was in there enjoying the warmth and a delicious sandwich with some of the best pastrami in town!!

CUPCAKES CUPCAKES CUPCAKE GALORE!!

We went to Crumb Bakery where they make some of the best cupcakes ever. I was amazed by all the flavors they had-they even had a cotton candy flavor one but I didnt feel very risky and wanted to stick to something I was more fond of. We chose 4 since my sister gave me a gift certificate for the holidays there so we chose a black out, red velvet, vanilla with sprinkles, and an oreo one. I was really suprised how moist (the word I hate the most) the inside was and it was not to dry or crumbly. The frosting was quite delish and the presentation was very beautiful and elegant.

Our cute cupcakes in the box with a lid

Our cute cupcakes without the lid.

L-R Top Oreo & Red Velvet

L-R Bottom Blackout and Vanilla

I was quite a happy panda eating the red velvet cupcake. It made my night and to top it off it was the perfect cupcake with the perfect sweet but not too sweet cream cheese frosting. Tomorrow holds more adventures and maybe we will venture out even more and try something even more unique. Hope you guys are all enjoying my blog and wish you were here to expirience what I get to have!! <3

Day 2 in NYC

Today we had an eventful day. We started off heading to the East Villiage and Union Square. We did some early shopping but didnt find much and went to MESA-which is the restaurant that Bobby Flay owns. We started of with an appetizer of Goat Cheese "Queso Fundido"-it came out on a nice glass long plate and it was a nice presentation. The Cheese was excellent and it was really hot and stringy like cheese should be. It had roasted red peppers and sauted jalapenios to top it off.

The chips were made in house but I felt like they were baked instead of fried because there was no grease on them what so ever.

I had the Roasted Sweet Potato Ravioli with Smoked Chiles, Toasted Pine Nuts with a  Cilantro Brown Butter sauce. The ravioli was made in house and the plate presentation was quite lovely. The taste was delicious and I thoroughly enjoyed every bite!

My sister had the Baby romaine salad with Chorizo, Cotija Cheese, Pulled Croutons, with a Roasted Garlic dressing. Quite delicious and I loved the bowls that they served all salads in.

As we were on our way to NYU to go check out the campus and get my sisters books we went to Pomme Frites-a french fry place where all they serve is French Fries with a million different kinds of dips.

There they make your french fries when you order and you chose dips from the dip selection on the board.

I chose the Mango Chutney, the Vietanamese Pineapple, and my sister ordered the roasted garlic aioli. I think she has an obbsesion with roasted garlic. They were mighty tasty treat and they were so amazingly delicious and hot off the press!

Overall it was an exciting day with lots of snacking and eating and I love NY more each and every day. Cant wait to see what tomorrow holds and all the good treats we get to eat!

Mary's Fish Camp-A tasty treat

Me at Mary's Fish Camp

So I arrived in New York after about 5 hrs on a plane. Being up at 3:45 wasnt very easy when I normally wake up an hour later for work. I realized after my father had dropped me off I had left my phone in the car.......Great no Cell Phone!!! What am i possibly going to do? Well I am kind of enjoying not having it but will have it eventually-thanks to my awesome parents. Moving along-the weather here is cold but its not too chilly-but my face and ears felt like they were popsicles. Glad I brought a lot of warm clothes. So food-thats what this blogg is about. So my sister took me to this cute little restaurant-Marys Fish Camp. I thought it would be a bright, well lit, packed restaurant-but to me it was on the corner and it seemed like a little small friendly neighborhood restaurant. We sat down and were greated with ICE COLD water.....my favorite after an evening of a brisk walk-my sister walks quickly so I was thirsty by the time we arrived. The Menu was a one page offering with specials on the wall. It was a cute little place I might add-and it was warm-which was also even better.  FOOD WAS AMAZING.

My first dish was  brussel sprouts that looked like it had been shaved or thrown threw a slicer. They were thinly sliced, sauteed in bacon fat, with bacon bits and carrots, some salt and pepper and garlic. Oh they were a tasty treat.

My sister Mara ordered the lobster roll. Which was at market price but suprisingly wasnt badly priced at $25 dollars. It was a lobster tail with mayonaise, garlic, chives, salt and pepper. Very plain and simple but oh so tasty. The roll they used tasted much like a rich brioche roll because of its texture and had a touch of flakiness but was quite dense and amazing. I think the roll was just as good as the lobster but being an old baker I can get kind of picky with dough and rolls themselves. It came with shoe string fries that looked good but we had too much food and I didnt feel like eating them.

My dinner was quite amazing. I had red curry mussels served in the red curry broth along with a small baguette. It was mighty tasty, not overly coconut milk, spicy, or garlicy which I thought it could be since there were whole slices of garlic. The broth was perfect for dipping and the mussels were plump and unusally large full of flavor. It was a great success for the first meal in NY. We are going to Katz deli for some delicious pastrami sandwiches-Im excited for the kosher dill pickles!!

Leave comments or feedback. Remember this is the first one, so I might have rambled on a little too much but I'll improve with the next blog!

Starting Blogging

Hey Everyone,

So Ive decided that I am going to start blogging this year but Im not going to blog about life adventures because I can make one up later but I am going to start blogging about food. As some of you know and some may not know I went to Culinary School after high school and had an amazing time. I now work at Whole Foods Market and have a huge love for food. Always have-always will. Food inspires me daily and it is an amazing thing about life. I will be going to New York on Monday January 11, 2010 and I will be posting blogs here and there along with pictures about restaurants, food, and everything else that either has to do with cooking for food itself. Enjoy and please leave feedback-whether its negative or postive!!

Much love to you all and hope that you are all having a great 2010 so for!
~Jordy