Everything I Ate For My 30th Birthday

On Wednesday I turned 30.  I'm really not too torn up about it though because 30 is going to be a pretty incredible year for me, buying a home and getting married!

I celebrated my birthday the only way I know how....lots of FOOD!

To begin with I had an apple fritter at Dean and Deluca that basically blew my mind.  I could have had nothing else the whole day and still been in a happy place from this fritter.  It's totally packed with nutrients because it has apples in it and they cancel out all the sugar and deep-fried bad stuff.

For lunch I dined at the famed Ippudo. I had the akamaru modern which is described as "a more bold, modern translation of the original pork broth; thin noodles topped with Ippudo's secret "umami dama" miso paste, pork chashu, cabbage, sesame kikurage mushrooms, scallions, and fragrant garlic oil."  It most definitely lived up to all the hype I had been hearing.  And I surprised even myself with my chopstick noodle skills!

After a total mind-blowing Aladdin experience, we got dinner and craft beers at Tink's.  This little lower east side restaurant serves comfort food style tapas.  It was pretty damn incredible for my introduction to the world of tapas, as nontraditional as it may have been.

We had the chocolate pig sliders with cabbage slaw.  These might have been the winner of the evening: braised pork butt, chocolate mole sauce, brioche bun, cabbage slaw.

These are the pretzel crusted chicken fingers served with a chipotle honey dipping sauce and cornichons. Loved them.

This won the most challenging to eat award, making it no less delicious I assure you.  "A lotta buratta"  consisted of buratta, sliced baguettes, tapenade, chili honey oil, balsamic vinegar, and sliced tomato.

I think this was my favorite of the night. The naan pizza was topped with goat cheese, red wine braised figs, bacon and arugula.  Surprise, it was fantastic!

To top the night off right I had my long standing birthday cake flavor: strawberry shortcake.  We went to this little Asian bakery, Panya, and you guessed it...it was delicious!

So there you have it folks, my 30th birthday food fest.  I hope you were able to live vicariously through me a bit here.  If you weren't then I highly recommend you eat at each and every one of these restaurants I visited.

P.S. Did anyone know they sell 32oz beers in Penn Station, and they have 20 different kinds!  That was the real finale of the evening and it was a welcome surprise.

Satisfries Review

Burger King recently came out with a new kind of french fry.  These Satisfries are krinkle cut fries with 40% less fat and 30% less calories than regular fries.  For some reason those stats that they post on the website are compared to McDonald's fries.

Here's a breakdown of the nutrition facts for small fries vs small satisfries.

calories: 340-270

fat: 15-11

sodium: 480-300

carbs: 49-41

Now, we all know this blog has never been about making healthy choices.  What intrigued me most about Satisfries was the fact that it meant Burger King has new fries.  I find their regular fries to be pretty disappointing as fast food french fries go.  They are for certain bottom of the barrel.

Satisfries on the other hand are a huge improvement in the BK fry world.  Everything about Satisfries is better than their regular french fries.  Below you can see a close up of the insides of each fry.  The inside of the Satisfries are less grainy and have a more real potato taste than the regular fry.

An upgrade to Satisfries will set you back a bit price-wise, but I would highly recommend doing it.  Satisfries are an improvement in taste, texture, and apparently nutrition.

Momofuku Blueberry and Cream Cookies

If you've never been to Momofuku Milk Bar, I suggest you make the trip.  Their treats are tasty and unique. They are also awesome because they sell a few of their cookie varieties in packaged mix form.  I got mine from Williams Sonoma.  I actually made one of their cookies a while back here, yikes the horrible photography of 3 years ago!

This time around I made blueberry and cream cookies.  Now I want to let you know that you, should you purchase this mix someday, that this is no simple quick task. These cookies require a number of steps in the preparation of each ingredient.  You can see all the different packages above.

I did my best to follow the seemingly never ending instructions.  You know how I get, but I had a feeling all of these instructions were for actual quality reasons.

And surprise, they came out great!

Wendy's Pretzel Burger Review

I apologize at the start for the font color business.  I'm ready to throw this computer out the window because it refuses to go back to normal.  Every time I copy and paste from a website this happens. Rooooooooooar. Ok now for an awesome burger!

Let me just get right to the point here: go out and eat this burger right now.  It is by far the most delicious fast food burger I've ever had.

Here is the description on the Wendy's website: classic hot and juicy cheeseburger with a sweet and smoky honey mustard sauce, melted cheddar cheese, applewood smoked bacon all on a warm, soft pretzel bun.

I'll break each topping down for you, because you are totally still reading this.  The honey mustard and the cheese sauces could probably stay or leave.  I couldn't really discern them.  

They fail to mention is the red onion, tomatoes, and lettuce.  Red onion instead of white is always a good decision.  Tomatoes I have no interest in, but I've been told they were good.  The lettuce was spring mix, spring mix guys! At a Wendy's! Unbelievable!  The bacon also seemed to be of the premium sort.  It was thick and crispy.

The pretzel bun was really the icing on the cake here.  It was soft and dense and certainly tasted like a pretzel.

I will end this post by giving props to Wendy's for their awesome burger and also for their excellent presentation.  How often does a burger actually look like the advertisement?  Oh and one prop to be given, it's not any more expensive than their other combo meals.

Hope you like it as much as I did!

Alaska Eats

I ate my heart out in Alaska.  I tried to control myself with the taking of food photos.  I put together a slide show of some of the highlights.

Created with flickr slideshow.

Princess Cruise kept us well fed with tasty treats all day long.

P.S. I'm not even going to get into how many times I thought it was appropriate to eat a cheeseburger...

P.P.S. Let's not talk about the french fry availability either....

New York City Walkabout

Sorry I haven't cooked anything in a while, I promise the second half of my vacation will be spent in front of the stove.

Here's what I have been up to...

On Tuesday I went on an incredible adventure around New York City.  We started down in Battery Park.

After a depressing stroll over to the World Trade Center site, we took a serious walk, 2 miles, to The Meatball Shop.  I got a spicy pork hero with pesto sauce.

 Chris got 3 sliders: classic with tomato sauce, pork with mushroom, and jerk chicken with pesto.  We were both very pleased with our choices.  I highly recommend this joint. Hop to it.

Next we headed over to the Highline which is a lovely park/walkway made from old elevated railroad tracks.  If you haven't been, I recommend it.  It was my favorite part of this adventure.

We hopped off the Highline at 23rd street where we stumbled upon the Doughnut Plant. I got a coconut cream which was unbelievably delicious.  Chris got banana pecan which I refused to taste despite his comment that you really can't taste the banana in it.

Our final foodie stop was Eataly.  Here you can purchase mushrooms for $250 a pound, pig shaped cheese, and balsamic vinegar that is so expensive they keep it locked behind glass.  I'd love to check out their roof-top bar some day.

All in all we walked from Battery Park to 53rd Street which is about 10 miles.  When we got home I was exhausted, full, and definitely had no desire to cook a damn thing.

The Melting Pot

I apologize for making you kids wait an extra day for a post, but unfortunately I was hit with a bout of a stomach bug that had me down for the count yesterday.  I won't get into too many details about it, but it was not fun.  Now that that's over, time to eat!

Some of you might recall that I won 100 big ones for photo of the year.  I used this money the only way I know how, feasting!   I had an awesome meal at the Melting Pot and I'm going to re-live the entire experience for you right now.

This was our first course, yea fyi we had a 4 course meal tonight.  We got the Wisconsin trio which was a mix of Fontina, Butterkäse and buttermilk bleu cheeses with white wine, scallions and a hint of sherry annnnnnnnnnnnd it was delicious!  The cheese course comes with 3 kinds of bread, apples, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and apples.

 

Sorry for that awful photo, really should have turned the flash on.  This was course number two, salad time.  I got the California which had mixed baby salad greens, Roma tomatoes, candied pecans and Gorgonzola cheese with raspberry black walnut vinaigrette.  It was tasty enough and also not totally necessary in the grand scheme of the meal.

On to the main course!  I got the land and sea combo which was chicken, shrimp, and filet mignon.  We chose the seasoned court bouillon cooking method.  The main course comes with sides of potatoes, broccoli, and mushrooms.  They also serve up six different dipping sauces....six!!!

And the grand finale..... chocolate and peanut butter fondue!  OOOOOOOOOOOOhhh the gloriousness of  chocolate and peanut butter fondue mere words cannot describe.  Now be amazed at the dippers included in the dessert portion: cheesecake, brownies, red velvet cake, rice krispie treats, graham cracker and Oreo covered marshmallows, strawberries, and bananas!

Dessert was a clear winner for me, but the whole meal and experience itself was great.  This was definitely an extravagant meal, in terms of money.  The four courses takes about 2 and a half hours total so as your evening entertainment I thought it was well worth the money.  We were asked on more than one occasion what we were celebrating, which was nothing, so they definitely know that their restaurant is not something people would frequent often (despite the fact that the people in the booth next to use said they have been "hundreds of times" at 13 different locations).

All in all The Melting Pot comes highly recommended by KTC.  It's a fun night out and some seriously tasty food.  Although it's a pricey affair I felt that the experience was worth the money.

Brewery Ommegang

Sorry kids, I haven't been cooking a whole lot lately.  One reason is I went on a super awesome weekend get away with my family.

We traveled to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and made a pit-stop on the way home at Howe Caverns.  I would highly recommend both of these places.  They impressed and fascinated me.  If you happen to want to take an upstate New York vacation check out these two joints.

Our third event of the weekend was not to be outdone by the majestic sites at the Hall of Fame and Howe Caverns.  We went for a tour, tasting, and lunch at Brewery Ommegang.  I'm not going to tell you the tale of how terrifyingly hungry we were, the foul moods we were in, the crowded space, and the long wait.  I'm going to focus on the positives here.  Because I will say in the end, it was worth it.

I mentioned how scary hungry we all were.  That being said, we started the meal off with 3 orders of Belgian frites.  Since each order came with 2 sauces, we got to try all 6 they had available: garlic aioli, truffle-soy aioli, spicy chili aioli, Abby Ale and cumin ketchup, and my personal favorite, mustard with Witte Ale and honey.

I ordered the chicken and waffle: fried chicken on a Liege waffle with a vanilla and pepper sauce and strawberry jam.  I will let you know that this was most likely the most delicious chicken and waffle I've ever eaten.  Seriously amazing and I ate every last bite of it.

Our bellies were full and our hearts were light again as we went off to our tour and tasting.  We sampled 6 different beers: Abby Ale, Witte, Three Philosophers, BPA, Rare Vos, and Hennepin.

I must say, I had a pretty killer 3 day weekend.  P.S. Cooking will commence soon.

I Got an Award!....And Also Ate Some Tasty Things

Apparently people visit blogs and nominate them for awards.  And apparently someone thought my blog was worthy of an award.  That my friends, is quite exciting.

Check it out kids, I was awarded the Illuminating Blogger Award for illuminating, informative blog content.  CJ over at Food Stories nominated me.  It's a pretty great blog that I recommend you go check out.  Thanks again CJ!  Here is a link to the award site.  

I am expected to include a random fact about myself sooooo here goes: I'm going to Alaska in May and I'm so insanely excited about it.  Seriously counting down the days, 207 to be exact.

Now, what you really came here to see are the crazy delicious things I consumed this weekend.  For lunch on Saturday we hit up this glorious sandwich shop called Juliebelle's in Great Neck.  They have about 100 amazing sandwiches to choose from so I can't say it was easy making a decision.  Drool over their menu here.

Sandwich #1 the Rio Grande: chicken cutlet, guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream, fire roasted peppers, caramelized onions and pepper jack cheese.

Garlic Parmesan fries.  These were so ridiculously good.  I could go on and on about them all day.

Sandwich #2 Hot Chix: chicken cutlet, homemade garlic wing sauce, lettuce, tomato, blue cheese on toasted garlic bread.

As if those sandwiches didn't look and sound good enough I wanted to inform you that their chicken cutlets are coated with panko bread crumbs and Corn Flakes! Amazing!

Don't worry, I cooked some pretty awesome stuff recently so get excited for more posts this week.

The Great Burger-Off

I want to make sure you don't have your hopes up that this was an awesome cooking challenge I competed in or orchestrated.  This was something farrrrr more pathetic.  Chris and I decided, because I had a bunch of 2-for-1 coupons, to do a little fast food burger taste test.

The competitors were: Wendy's Dave's Hot 'n Juicy 1/4 lb, McDonald's Big Mac, and Burger King's Whopper, seen from left to right below.

In case you wanted to compare packaging as well, here's what they look like all locked up.  Burger King won for heaviest bag, seriously that thing was like 5 pounds.  Also let it be know that 1 in 4 really does win.  Out of our 4 tabs, we won 1 McFlurry. Success!

I would also like to let you all know that this was my first time consuming any of these products.  Since I thought I should mark the momentous occasion of my very first Big Mac, I had this lovely photo taken of me.

And now the moment you've all been waiting for... the winner is..... The Whopper!  We both decided that that flame broiled taste, which is probably painted on somehow, made this burger the most delicious.  This probably should come as no surprise, but the winner also happens to be the burger with the highest calories.

UPDATE: since we didn't have mayo on our Whoppers we saved a whopping 160 calories! Making the Whopper the burger with the LEAST calories.  Crazy world kids.  Just goes to show you, say no to the mayo.

The major disappointment and big time loser in this competition was the Big Mac.  Seriously that thing was just a wet, soggy, icky mess.  And shredded lettuce!? Ugh shredded lettuce is just asking for a mess, no thank you.  It was the only burger that I was totally finished with after 2 or 3 bites.

The Wendy's 1/4 lb. was a good competitor, it won best bun and some bonus points for using red onion instead of the harsher tasting white onion the other two used.

Here is a shot of the carnage strewn about the kitchen table.  Notice we got a fry at each place too.   Burger King fries were the hands down loser.  They tasted almost furry.  McDonald's fries are delicious but unfortunately 2 minutes after being out of the bag they were ice cold.  I might have to give Wendy's the crown for best fries, but don't hold me to it.

So yeaaaaaaaaaaaa my Friday night was probably way cooler than yours.