Shanghai Heping at Mott Street!

Family meal at Shanghai Heping on Mott Street! It's rare for me to seek out Chinese food - so maybe it's because I haven't eaten it in a while, but I was pretty impressed with this place:

Crab and Pork Steamed Soup Dumplings: these were good, but I thought the pork soup dumplings that we ordered (not pictured) were much better. My aunt said the skin was a little too thick on both (compared to the ones she had in Taiwan), but for me it was fine. The soup flavor itself was really good for the pork dumplings.

Fried Tiny Buns with Pork: I've always seen these on the menu when I go for soup dumplings but I've never ordered it, so this time I decided to give it a try. It's good for what it is, and there's some soup inside as well.

Dong Po Pork: stewed pork belly with bok choi - this dish was so good. The pork belly (and pork fat) was all melty and matched perfectly with the sweetness from the stewed soy sauce. This was served with steamed white bread (which was great), but I love eating these stews with white rice so that the rice soaks up the sauce.

Stir Fried Snow Pea Tips with Garlic: fairly standard Chinese style preparation of leafy greens and this was really well done - very delicious.

Stir Fried Eel: this was awesome - this was sorta like eating unagi don, but instead of teriyaki, it's flavored with garlic, ginger, and soy. This went perfectly with rice.

Shanghai Heping Restaurant
104 Mott Street

(between Canal St & Hester St)
New York, NY 10013

Pork Slope in Brooklyn!

We stopped by Pork Slope prior to seeing a Sarah Silverman Show.  Pork Slope is from Dale Talde of Top Chef - the concept is Americanana bar food and features a great beer list.  I've heard rave reviews about Pork Slope and this was a great opportunity to try some of Dale Talde's food:

Porky Melt: pork patties with caramelized onions and cheese - this was ridiculously good, the whole thing kinda melts in your mouth when you take a bite. I was eating this with some of the house-made bbq sauce - really fantastic.  I'd come back repeatedly for this sandwich alone, it is awesome - the price is pretty affordable too, always a bonus.

Cheeseburger: get this only if you absolutely need to have a cheeseburger instead of the porky melt for whatever reason. The burger, while it tasted okay, is about as average as you can get and should really be $2 cheaper

St Louis Ribs - pretty good, had a nice spice rub that went well with their BBQ sauce

Tater Tots with Chili - good for what it is

Potato Salad: not great - this reminded me of those economy-size tubs of potato salad that you can get at the supermarket

One BIG hit and a few misses - next time I'll have to try the shrimp po boy (and definitely the porky melt again)

Pork Slope

247 5th Ave

(between President St & Carroll St) 

Brooklyn, NY 11215

www.porkslopebrooklyn.com

Experimenting with My New Blendtec Blender, Initial Trials!

So I bought myself a Blendtec blender for my birthday - it's in competition with Vitamix (which is the one we've been using in class).  Blendtec tries to market itself more for the home consumer - they have a lot of preset recipes like soups, sauces, smoothies, ice creams, etc that you can choose from and it's one button processing (the blender alters speed and duration based on what you choose).  There's also a pulse button and adjustable speeds so you can manually blend something.  Lastly, the Blendtec comes with a recipe book.

I started out trying out one of their recipes - strawberry ice cream.  The recipe seemed simple enough - frozen strawberries, condensed milk, half and half, and a bit of lemon juice (the only thing I had on hand was the lemon juice).  I saw that fresh strawberries were on sale so I bought that, instead of half and half I bought heavy cream (thinking I would make mousse again later on).  So I cut the strawberries and threw them in the freezer, but I don't think I let them freeze long enough - I also used heavy cream instead of half and half, so the consistency was off.  Final result, not a success, but not a complete failure - taste wise it turned out good, but when I first blended it, it was more of a soup than an ice cream (I had to refreeze it again).  Here's a pic - I plated it with some sliced strawberries and a brunoise of strawberries on top: 

Next up - gazpacho.  There was a recipe for this as well, but I again ad libbed a bit.  I had tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, bell pepper, garlic, and jalapenos.  I cut everything into pieces and threw it in the blender - one big mistake is that I totally underestimated the jalapeno.  I didn't take out the seeds prior to adding it to the blender, so it was really spicy.  When I tasted it, the consistency and spice level reminded me so much of salsa verde that I decided to convert it to salsa - I added lemon juice, diced some onions, and added tomatoes.  Pictured here is the gazpacho in soup form:

Now that I had this salsa, I decided to make some tacos.  I bought some pork which I seared and took off the pot - I then made my sauce:  onions, garlic, fire roasted tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, oregano, chipotle peppers, mushrooms, beef stock, and dark chocolate.  After I simmered it for a bit, I threw everything in the blender and pureed it - I then added the pork I seared back in the pot along with some of this sauce - it turned out awesome.  Here it is plated with black beans, red onion, olives, cilantro, and a slice of lime:

Lastly, I made a cream of cauliflower soup - it's very similar to what we did in class but I sorta winged it (I didn't look up our recipe).  Mine was cauliflower, onions, water, heavy cream, and salt.  I took the cauliflower and cut some of the florets - I put oil and salt on these and roasted them in the oven to use as a garnish.  For the soup, I added onions and cauliflower to a pot, and then adding some water to boil it.  Once it was cooked, I put it in the blender with the heavy cream and pureed it.  

This turned out really delicious - the soup tasted like the essence of cauliflower and the oven roasted garnish added a nice salty crunch component - a bit on the dark side, but I like charred cauliflower:

So the blender trials started a bit rocky with the ice cream and gazpacho, but I am really happy with the tacos and soup (especially the soup, that was so good).

Oh and one last thing, here's a bonus pic of my cat looking totally surprised when I first used the blender (it's really loud):

Dining at Osteria Morini - Part of My Michael White Restaurant Tour!

I've mentioned Marea before and how that was one of the best meals I've had last year.  As a result, I've gone to Ai Fiori, Marea's sister restaurant, and now it's time for Osteria Morini!  Osteria Morini is Michael White's casual restaurant and features cuisine from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy (the central city is Bologna).  This is where Michael White worked for seven years, so this restaurant is kind of a homage to his time there:

Polpettine - prosciutto & mortadella meatballs baked in tomato sauce:  a nice start to the meal, the tomato sauce was delicious and the bread was prepared nicely (oiled and then lightly grilled) 

Cappalletti - truffled ricotta ravioli, melted butter, prosciutto:  this is similar to the butter sauces that we made in class, but it's accented with prosciutto and black pepper.  It was definitely tasty - the ravioli was delicious (truffle and ricotta is such a nice combination) and this paired very well with the prosciutto and butter.

Casoncelli - squid ink ravioli, shrimp, scallop, passata, calamari, white wine.  This is the main reason I wanted to try Morini - my obsession with squid ink runs deep!  This was a very nice dish and one that I'll try to recreate on my own.

Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta and Onion - another food obsession of mine.  I love Brussels sprouts (it soaks up flavors so well) - this was a pretty good side dish.

Gianduja Budino - Chocolate Hazelnut custard, amarena cherries, caffe cream, cherry lambrusco sorbetto: this felt like a copy of the maple budino at Locanda Verde (which is what led me to the pasta comparison after the fact) except that it's with hazelnut instead of maple. Both are served with preserved fruit, toasted nuts, and a cherry sorbet as a palette cleanser, though I do prefer Locanda Verde's version. Taste-wise, both are very good, but Osteria's needs more of the preserved cherries and toasted hazelnuts - the proportions of the different components is a bit unbalanced, while Locanda's was spot on.

Dinner at Roberta's in Brooklyn!

After hearing rave reviews of Roberta's and perusing the online menu for weeks, I finally got a chance to go there.  Roberta's is really famous for their pizzas, and I've been eyeing the squid ink tagliatelle with mussels and sea urchin for a while now. The exterior of Roberta's is rather unassuming - the entrance is nondescript and it's surrounded by warehouses.  But the food is what I'm really interested in:

Sweetbreads with Key Lime – I LOVE having sweetbreads fried, and this tasted like creamy KFC nuggets – this was pretty good as is, though I wish there was some micro greens or something to accompany it

Octopus with Black Garlic, Treviso, and Sea Beans – awesome dish, every component worked perfectly together.  This would be my favorite item of the night if not for the following course:

Squid Ink Tagliatelle with Mussels and Sea Urchin – I’ve been obsessed with squid ink and sea urchin and this did not disappoint. Really great, my favorite dish.

Duck Hunt - pawlet, duck prosciutto, leek, sweet potato, onion, chilli flake – we ordered a pizza since Roberta's is known for their pizzas, and I wanted to try this because of the ingredients (haven't tasted pawlet cheese before).  This pizza was good, but doesn’t hold up to all the other savory items we had; definitely needs more duck prosciutto, and the chili flake kinda got lost in all the sweetness. The bee sting (tomato, mozzarella, sopressata, chili, honey) that I had at Madison Square Eats was much better.

Blood Orange Semifreddo, Candied Kumquats, Blood Orange, Truffles, and Walnuts – an okay dessert, nothing really outstanding about it.

A couple outstanding dishes for the night - a different pizza next time will make the next meal here exceptional.

Application of Specialty Cresses II - Broiled Rib Eye with Chimichurri Sauce!

In an effort to use more of the specialty cresses, I decided to do a chimichurri sauce to go with a broiled rib eye. I didn't have a recipe for the sauce, so this was by trial and error - I added ingredients and kept tasting until the sauce was good.  The chimichurri sauce contains the following:

mustard cress
basil limon cress
lemon juice
white wine vinegar
capers
shallots
cumin
crushed red pepper
salt and pepper
olive oil

I did a rough cut of all the ingredients and combined them together, then seasoned it to taste.  Here's the finished product:

The chimichurri sauce paired really nicely with the steak.  Presentation-wise, fanning this out was definitely the way to go.  After broiling, I let the rib eye rest for a bit so that the juices redistribute - then I sliced it, fanned it out on the plate, and spooned the the sauce on top.

In terms of criticism, the acidity from the chimichurri sauce overpowered some of the individual flavors of the mustard and basil limon cress - while the sauce was delicious, the individual flavors of the mustard and basil limon were not as pronounced (as opposed to the scallop ceviche, where the cress was used more as a garnish).

All in all, I would still consider this a very successful dish - this was the first time I plated sliced steak, and I'm very happy with how the dish looks and tastes.

Application of Specialty Cresses - Scallop Ceviche and Squid Ink Tagliattele with Uni!

After getting all the specialty cresses I had to figure out some dishes to feature them.  There was a lot of mustard cress so that was my first challenge.

I was trying to find flavors that would complement mustard but the only thing I could think of was honey.  Then I thought the mustard cress would look very pretty as a garnish for ceviche, and decided to go with scallops.  I wanted to reinforce the mustard cress with whole grain mustard, which would also look very appealing on the plate.

Scallop Ceviche - scallops, whole grain mustard, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, lemon zest, and mustard cress.  This came out awesome, one of my favorite dishes that I've ever made.  I think it photo'ed well and tasted great, I'm very proud of this.

So I've been obsessed with squid ink and sea urchin for a while now - it all started with my birthday meal at Marea, where I tasted their spaghetti with sea urchin, one of the best plates of food that I've ever had.  Ever since then, I've been obsessed with non-sushi applications of sea urchin.  Later on, I had a squid ink risotto with snails and octopus at Traif, my favorite restaurant in NY.

I had some shiso cress and thought it would be great to pair that with uni since shiso is often used with sushi.  But I decided to go with pasta because of my meal at Roberta's, which featured an amazing squid ink tagliattele with mussels and sea urchin.  In addition, I had the Trofie Nero at Ai Fiori, (ligurian crustacean ragu, seppia, scallops, spiced mollica, you can read the review here), which was also delicious.  What resulted is an amalgam of the dishes at Roberta's and Ai Fiori.

Squid ink tagliatelle with calamari, shrimp, tomatoes, shallots, garlic, and crushed red pepper flakes, topped with sea urchin and shiso cress.  All the flavors worked perfectly together - in addition, this is the first time I cooked calamari, and it turned out well.  This was a very delicious plate, I'm very happy with how this turned out.

Demo at FCI from Sandro Romano, Chef de Cuisine at The Modern in NYC, featuring specialty cresses from Koppert Cress!

I took a day off to attend a demo from Sandro Romano, the Chef de Cuisine at The Modern.  The Modern is is a fine dining restaurant located at the Museum of Modern Art featuring original French-American cuisine.  Chef Romano's demo was on modern creations and plating techniques using cresses from Koppert Cress as both garnishes and ingredients in food and cocktails.

A bit of background - microgreens are often used as a garnish for dishes.  However, typically there is little taste to microgreens; it's mainly used for appearance.  Koppert Cress specializes in microgreens (cresses) that actually have flavor and can complement the dish.

Here's a picture of Nicolas Mazard, the manager of Koppert Cress USA who was kind enough to bring us several herbs to sample:

From left to right: shiso cress, mustard cress, basil limon cress

Each one of these tasted exactly as presented in the powerpoint - a chef or a mixologist could do a lot of good things with these.

Speaking of cocktails, the mixologist from The Modern gave us a cocktail recipe that they're testing:
Gin, Lemon Juice, Sugar, Egg White Foam, and Sechuan Button - really delicious cocktail.

Sechuan Button, Salty Fingers

So what's Sechuan Button, you might ask?  This is the first time I've tried anything like this.  Sechuan Button (on the left side) tastes tingly and kinda numbs your mouth (Nicolas described it as being similar to licking a battery) but you end up with a really nice lemony aftertaste.  The salty fingers (on the right) are basically micro sea beans.

After this, Chef Romano demo'ed some dishes for us using the micro cresses to complement his creations.

Here's his scallop ceviche marinated with vanilla, yuzu, and buckwheat with green apple puree and micro shiso puree - this was really delicious.

Basil limon cress glazed rabbit terrine with smoked quail egg - another great dish.

Brin di'amour uncooked souffle with mustard cress - the way he made this was really cool. He combined the souffle mixture with agar agar and carrageenan (both are thickeners derived from seaweed, used in molecular gastronomy) and set it over the fire to keep it liquid. Separately, he had ring molds in ice water. When the souffle was ready, he poured some into the ring molds. The coldness from the ring molds solidified the outside while the center remained warm, creating a "souffle".

Here's a close-up picture of the souffle - really nice dish highlighting excellent cooking techniques and plating - I was really impressed with this.

Finally, Nicolas gave us samples of cresses to take home - and by samples, I mean he gave us a whole box of cresses - very very cool of him to do so.

Now that I have all theses cresses at home, I had to put it to use.  Dinner for tonight:

Fillet of Trout and Flounder Grenobloise style - capers, lemon, and brown butter, topped with basil limon cress.  The basil limon cress did a nice job of complementing the acidity of the lemon brown butter sauce - definitely a successful dish in my book.

All in all, an excellent demo from Chef Romano of The Modern and Nicolas Mazard of Koppert Cress - many thanks to them!

The Modern (inside Museum of Modern Art)
9 W 53rd St
(between 5th Ave & Avenue Of The Americas)
New York, NY 10019
http://www.themodernnyc.com/

Koppert Cress USA
http://usa.koppertcress.com/

Amazing 10 Course Meal at Degustation!

I had a really AMAZING 10 course meal at Degustation. Degustation has 19 seats that surround an open kitchen (similar to sitting at the counter for a sushi bar but a kitchen instead of sushi). You get to watch the chefs make each dish and then it’s served to you – we were seated in front of the plancha so we saw all the proteins cooked there, but the best seat of the house is near the entrance where they plate all the food. Pretty cool setup, it was really interesting to watch the chefs cook and plate everything.

The tasting menu changes every month, but from what the server told me, they only rotate a few dishes – about half the items we had were off the regular menu, so I’m guessing those will stay constant while the other half switch.


Amuse Bouche:

“Spanish Tortilla” – potato wrapper, shallot confit, and quail egg yolk inside – very playful item using potato as a wrapper and having the egg yolk run out once you bite into it

Bacalao Croquette with Aioli – pretty good as well, but more standard in delivery

Course 1:

Crudo of Mackarel – ginger, puffed rice, chive, crispy mackerel skin, champagne vinegar sauce – pretty good bite of food, lots of interesting flavors that melded together nicely.

Course 2:

Celery Root Soup, Chorizo Oil, Crouton – this was okay

Course 3:

Slow Poached Egg, Cauliflower Mousse, Uni, Microgreens - I didn’t realize egg and cauliflower paired so well together and I’m a sucker for uni – this dish was amazing.

Course 4:

Fried Brussels Sprouts, Roasted Beets, Carrots, Spicy Aioli, Hijiki Puree – really nice dish, this is the first time I’ve seen hijiki pureed and it works wonderfully with the fried Brussels sprouts and roasted beets.  A very unique and tasty dish absolutely delicious.

Course 5:

Shrimp a la Plancha, Puffed Rice, Fried Shrimp Head, Pimenton and Sherri Vinegar – the pimento and sherri vinegar was really good, but the best part was being served the fried shrimp head – restaurants need to serve fried shrimp heads more often.

Course 6:

Sea Snail with Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Fennel Mousse, and Crispy Quinoa – another great dish highlighting different textures and flavors - I was really impressed with the crispy quinoa.

Course 7:

Coca Mallorquina – Flatbread with spicy endive marmalade, chili paste, seared duck breast, black radish, and chive sauce – the spicy endive marmalade was so so good, and the duck breast was cooked perfectly - really nice dish.

Course 8:

Coffee Crusted Seared Venison, Black Beans, Farofa, Poached Cranberries, and Banana Tempura –this reminded me of an elevated version of Spanish food platters (rice and beans, plantains, and meat). The venison was cooked perfectly – granted, I haven’t had a lot of venison, but this is the best that I’ve had – nice temperature, texture, and really juicy.

Course 9:

Sangria Gelee, Fresh Mint, Blood Orange – this was decent for a palette cleanser, this is the only item that I thought was a bit gimmicky even though I like the idea of a sangria gelee.

Course 10:

Caramelized Torija (Spanish Style Bread Pudding) with Grapefruit – not really sure how this was made, but the texture of the bread was almost like the melted marshmallow from smores – very good with the brulee. A great end to a fantastic meal.

Degustation
239 E 5th St
(between 2nd Ave & Cooper Sq)
New York, NY 10003
www.degustationnyc.com