Favorite Meals of 2009

Jumping on the bandwagon, I spent today trying to figure out my favorite meals of 2009. How do I judge? Is it solely food, or do I take into account decor, service, and the overall experience? Should it be a meal that is unforgettable because it was special for more reasons than just the food?

In the end, I decided to pick based on everything, but that the only fair thing to do would be to eliminate the restaurant where we had our wedding dinner from contention, because of course, our wedding dinner was special. The food was fantastic, and I would recommend the Pineapple Grill in Maui to anyone and everyone, but for this category, I just didn't think it would be fair. I could go on and on about the hors d'oeuvres or the delicious salad with goat cheese or our appetizer plate or the amazing dessert spread or how our relatives can't stop talking about the lamb or how the service has been phenomenal every time we've been there and they were a pleasure to work with, but again, in the end, not really a fair fight to include a meal with SUCH sentimental meaning. For the same reason, I would probably exclude where we got engaged from that year, but I wasn't doing this post that year.

So without further delay, I picked two places and one honorable mention for my favorite meals of the year. Two from Maui (both from Kapalua, actually) and one from New York, interestingly enough.

MERRIMAN'S KAPALUA

We have been to Merriman's on each of our visits to Maui this year, and I think our first visit there was one of my favorite meals of the year. It was a very "non-Hawaii" day... cloudy, cool enough that I was wearing a sweater through dinner and got cold after the sunset (when the sun finally showed up). However, the food really shone that night, our server (who we were guessing surfed during the day and was a server by night) was excellent, and we saw whales FROM OUR SEATS in the dining room. It was truly incredible.

The dishes I got were also great, and I was talking about them for days afterwards. The appetizer was a special and it was white shrimp tempura over a pohole fern salad. The shrimp were from somewhere right off Oahu, and the whole dish just worked really well.


For entree (I ended up getting the same entree both times, I liked it so much) was the Big Island butterfish misoyaki with vegetables and a side of macadamia nut brown rice. Again, the whole dish worked together so well, and I was raving about the butterfish for days. I can still remember the taste of it and that makes a meal memorable for me.


Dessert was good too, but I couldn't remember what we got without looking at the pictures, so it wasn't as memorable as those two dishes. Now that I've written this, I could go for some of that right now. Our second visit was good too, but the first was my favorite between the two.

BURMESE NEW YEAR WATER FESTIVAL

In the middle of July, A and I went on a sweltering hot day to a blacktop schoolyard on the Lower East Side for the Burmese New Year Water Festival. (We also went to the Fun Fair in Queens later in the summer.) I had Burmese food before at one of the restaurants in NYC, and later represented an asylum client from Burma (not that that had anything to do with food), so I was definitely interested in trying out more Burmese food. We arrived too late to try the special dessert (they ran out already!) but we had so much other good food that we had to push our dinner reservation back a few hours and all I wanted for days afterwards was Burmese food. I would sit at work thinking about what I wanted for lunch, and it was Burmese food. Too bad for me, because I don't know when else you can get this fish noodle soup or other Burmese food except at these two food fairs in the summer! I can't wait until next year to get my fix (unless someone has other suggestions for places to go). Two of my favorite things from the fair were the fish noodle soup and the tofu salad:



They also had this orchid juice which was so good, different and refreshing. And watching the Water Festival activities was also fun. It was just a really fun afternoon with really good food, and it got me addicted to Burmese food. Memorable.

HONORABLE MENTION: SANSEI KAPALUA

We love Sansei. It's as simple as that. But since we have been there a total of six times in the past 1.5 years (yes, more than once per trip to get to that number), it's hard to single Sansei out as one of my favorite meals of the year because they've all been good (and are kind of blurring in my head right now). But we love Sansei. And the food there is memorable, just not a specific "meal" for me. So to conclude this mouth-watering post, here's the dragonfly roll we tried on our next to last visit to Sansei instead of dessert:


Doesn't all of this look delicious? I know I'm getting hungry... but it's way past bedtime, and I need to be functional to do my other year-end posts later. Happy almost new year!

Shower

What a crazy weekend.

My mom threw a bridal shower for me on Saturday and it was a lot of fun to see all of the family together again. (It was a family and family friends shower.) My aunt and cousin came in from California, and it was really great to see them, along with all of our other relatives. I hope everyone else had a good time too. Everyone who came was so generous, and I feel so lucky. In addition to our usual stocking up of resources when we visit my parents, we now look like we just moved in to our apartment! Getting everything home was an adventure.

And now I have officially used our first shower gifts! I don't remember if the picture below technically has the first or second used gift, because I can't remember if the washcloth was used before the bath towel or after. :)



Thanks to my aunts and cousins for these towels! I love towels! They are so, so, so soft. Yay!

It's so nice to be able to open something and use it. We have been really lucky and getting wedding gifts, but since you're not supposed to use them until after the wedding, they are sitting in a nice tempting pile. But these I can use now! Yay!

After a weekend like this, it's going to be so hard to pull myself into work in the morning!

Cobbler

Tonight we went out for Fathers Day dinner and I had the most delicious dessert. It got me thinking that I really need to learn how to make my own fruit cobbler...

Here is the triple berry fruit cobbler (strawberry, blueberry and raspberry) with oatmeal streusel and vanilla ice cream from Wildwood:

Delicious!

Summer Weekend

This weekend was the first chance we had to relax in a long time. We have had so many places to go the past few weekends, that it was so nice to just have a chance to breathe and catch up on stuff we needed to do.

Saturday we slept in for the first time in ages and it was definitely needed. I did an hour-long (almost, an hour with commercials) stretching and relaxation class from All Star Workouts and that felt amazing afterwards. I definitely need to incorporate more relaxation and have less stress!

For dinner, we went out to Queen of Sheba, an Ethiopian place in our neighborhood that we love. We just love Ethiopian food, the spices, the flavors, the emphasis on good vegetarian dishes. We shared an appetizer of timatim fitfit (tomatoes, peppers, onions and injera, the dish in the left picture) and for entrees, the vegetarian sampler platter and the doro tibs (chicken). Everything was delicious (as usual). I love the vegetarian sampler plate for the variety and because we don't know which one is our favorite! The samplers at the Ethiopian restaurants in HK seem to have more choices than some other places, and we definitely appreciate that.

Today we rested in the morning (ahh, sweet sleep) and then headed out for a late brunch. We didn't have a destination in mind, but had been thinking about going to Kyotofu, so there we went! I'm not sure if we have been back there since our New Years fiesta (I think we have tried to go, but the waits and lines were always so long!), so we were looking forward to a good mix of savory and sweet foods.

Brunch entrees at Kyotofu come with a complimentary cocktail - yay! We each got a bellini to start with, and waited for our entrees (the photos in the top row of the collage - yes, I went collage-happy for this entry) to come.

I got the chicken and tofu tsukune burger, which has teriyaki with shiso and cucumber, and also came with a side of crispy lotus root chips. The lotus root chips tasted just like potato chips. The burger was excellent, as I expected it would be since we had the sliders of the same at New Years and they were delicious, one of my favorites of the whole night. A got the brioche french toast which came with little berkshire sausages and also coffee shochu syrup. It was pretty good.

For dessert, we split the dessert omakase, which came with the signature sweet tofu, the strawberry-rhubarb cobbler and the miso chocolate cake. My favorite of the desserts was the cobbler, and A's favorite was the tofu. With the check, they also gave a little treat of chocolate cakes, but when we inquired about what treats the table next to us had tried, we also got to try these genmai financiers! That was perfect, since I loooove genmai flavors. The cookies were SO GOOD. I may go back and buy a bag of those, they were that good.

After our delicious lunch, we headed off for a walk to enjoy the beautiful weather. It was 80 degrees and sunny, and just perfect weather for a walk. (What a contrast to Friday when it was 50s, raining, and felt like summer was never going to arrive!) We started out walking around HK and Williams-Sonoma, but then found ourselves in Central Park. We started out by Columbus Circle, exited by the Met on the East Side, and then went back through the park until we came out on the southern edge of the AMNH. That walk is why I'm quite tired right now. But it felt so good to walk for hours.

Then it was time for dinner! We thought about going to the UWS branch of Shake Shack (we have only gone to the one in Madison Square Park), but the line was out onto the sidewalk. Instead, we headed over to Earthen Oven and had some delicious Indian food!

Like the collage? :) I just had so many fun pictures from today, and the only way to fit them all in well was to make collages.

They started us out with pappadums, and the chutneys were so flavorful. We got an appetizer of chicken samosas (one of my favorites) and then for entrees moved onto saffron chicken tikka and chana pindi. Oh - can't forget the garlic nan! Everything was so flavorful and we were really happy we chose to go there tonight. Another good restaurant to add to the list of places we can go to near the park!

In summary, it was a really nice weekend (for the most part). Really short and I can't believe it's over, but it was nice to have a break for a weekend where we could just relax and get some stuff done. Need one of those weekends every once in awhile. I'm off to stretch before bedtime!

Weekend Time

Heading into Memorial Day weekend, a few random notes:

1. I have been so exhausted lately, and I don't understand it. Most days, it feels like the "focus" part of my brain has just vanished, and I don't know what happened to it. What happened? Is this like second-stage burn-out or something?

2. I saw a gorgeous sunset today, made more gorgeous because of the clouds. I love sunsets for their colors, but the clouds made this one. See?

You really need the panorama and large sizes to do it justice, but the stitching isn't so good on my mini-camera panoramas, so I'm not posting those.

3. It's Fleet Week here in NYC and everywhere you look there are men and women in uniform. (I also spend most of my time in midtown, so that's probably why.) I ran past the piers this evening, and the place is locked up like a fortress.

4. I don't think I have ever had "vinegar peppers" until tonight.

5. I ended up walking 1.5 miles at lunch today (round trip) because I either couldn't find the places I was looking for, didn't like the options, or didn't know what I wanted. I ended up going to Zaiya, which is never a bad option, but not where I intended to go!

6. Bryant Park looked wonderful today with the sun shining through the green trees. I love that it was in the 80s today. Summer is really coming!

7. Since it's so warm, it's quite hard to believe that just last week I was wearing a fleece jacket on top of two shirts to go to the food fair. This weather is insane. But just bring on summer! Woohoo!

8. One of these days, I think I'll just sit and watch the sunset instead of only seeing it on my evening runs. Of course, this would require me to be in shape and have the luxury to not have to run at the time. Someday.

9. All afternoon, I had the song that plays on the Cafe Boulud website in my head. I don't know why. Yesterday it was Kris's studio version of "No Boundaries" and today it's some French (I think) song. I don't even speak French!

10. So excited for a 3 day weekend! Even if it's not a full vacation and I have to do some work over it, I'm still excited for an extra day, warm weather and more time!

Food Fair

This weekend was the Ninth Avenue International Food Fair. I went to the fair a lot as a kid. I remember doing sand art (which is still back at my parents' place), buying big t-shirts (it was the 80s/early 90s...) and trying all different types of food (I remember for some reason there being Greek food and empanadas). Ever since we moved to the area, we have been making an effort to go every year, especially to support the local businesses.

I don't know if it was always this way, but I think "professional street fair vendors" made up more than half the vendors at the fair. It's been like this the past few years, but I don't know if it was like this when I was younger. By "professional" vendors, I mean the people who show up at every midtown street fair over the summer (e.g., the mozzarepa people, the soap stand, the crepe stand, the reggae stand, the $1 Thai food stand, etc.), who also show up over and over again along the fair route. Of course they have as much right as anyone else to be there, but for this fair, we usually try to go to the stands run by the restaurants on the avenue.

Since it's late and I should be sleeping, just a quick recap of some highs (since there really weren't very many lows):


My favorite food at the fair this year was the spanakopita from Poseidon Bakery. The bakery is close to our apartment and has both sweet and savory Greek pastries. I love spanakopita. Their version is filled with spinach, leeks, onions, dill and feta cheese. (I unfortunately forgot to take pictures of the inside once we bit into it, but it looked delicious too!) I wanted another one, but there was so much else to try. Anyway, there's A holding the spanakopita before we devoured it.
My second favorite would probably be the pierogies from Millie's Pierogies. They drive their truck down from Massachusetts for the fair every year (at least since we've been back here), and they sell the pierogies in combinations of 3. This time we got kielbasa, cabbage, and potato & cheese. They were really good! (Is it obvious yet that I love starch with filling inside?)

Favorite dessert (although I guess we didn't get that many desserts because we were full) was clearly Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies. Last year, they had their truck parked outside Delta Grill, and when we didn't see the truck from down the block this year, we were worried they didn't come! No reason for alarm, instead they just dropped off a cute little trailer with the pies. Yum, key lime pie. One of A's favorites. And this one is a really good version. I'm not sure how it compares with Lahaina Grill's Iao Valley Lime Tart (one of my most favorite desserts ever) but it's definitely good.

So that's the quick summary of the food fair! We tried a lot - spanakopita, crab cake sandwich, key lime pie, pierogies, pupusas (need to go back to Red Hook, I want huaraches!), lemonade, hummus, and pineapple fried rice. I finished it off during Survivor with some pico de gallo/salsa from Chipotle since the only problem with street fair food is that it makes me want fresh vegetables! I wonder who will be at the fair next year.

Weekend in Review

I can't remember the last time I did one of those "weekend in review" or "weekend update" posts. I think it's been a really long time.

Anyway, this weekend was really busy. On Saturday, I started off doing some work, and then we went down to meet my parents to look at wedding rings. We surprised ourselves (well, mostly me) that we found them on our first trip. Another thing to cross off the to-do list!

We also went out for an early Mothers Day dinner with my mom since we couldn't go out on Sunday (read below). Dinner was pretty good at Dos Caminos, and of course, the guacamole was the best part (other than the company)!


Sunday started on a good note because we went to go see Star Trek. Yay for the start of the summer movie season! (I guess Wolverine really started it, but Star Trek started my summer movie season!) I loved the movie. I totally want to see it again. And not only were we really lucky to get a nice empty theater (brunchtime on Mothers Day, of course it was empty!), but we got matinee pricing and got tickets for only $6. Yay! I can't wait for the sequel... in 2 years or so.

We also went to a wedding of some distantly related cousin. I love weddings, even if I'm not sure exactly who the people are who are getting married. I guess we need to figure it out soon for our own! But I do love going to weddings. And it's also nice seeing extended family.

Here we are, all dressed up at the wedding:


And here's the bride and groom during the toasting:

There were some really memorable stories from the wedding: the groomsman who didn't want to toast A during the table toasting because A didn't have alcohol in his glass at the time and you could only toast with alcohol, the friends who went through 4 bottles and 1 handle of Johnnie Walker Black Label and kept doing shots even though people were passing out, playing with my really cute little cousin (1.5 years old) who was fascinated by video games, and many more!

Now if only it weren't 2:20 am with work in the morning...

Smoke and Mac

The secondhand smoke being pumped into our bathroom makes me sick.

Literally and mentally.

So, instead, I will watch No Reservations (Chicago episode) and dream about this:

Yum. Mac & joe from Schnipper's. Delicious.

NYE Snapshots

Some snapshots of New Years Eve in Times Square:


(20-09 glasses)

(happy 2009 from pepsi!)


(people sitting on the curb in times square at 10:30 am - I think they're crazy...)

(ball drop site)

(the crowd at 1:30 pm)

(are they really going to wait there like that for 10.5 more hours?)

(lots of people pushing and shoving just to get into the holding pens to wait like this...)

(more pepsi sponsored new years)

happy new year!!!

Salmon Cake

I'm renaming the "Randomly Chosen Screensaver Picture" label to "Snapshots."

It may still be randomly chosen by the screensaver, but I like the name Snapshots better.

So, for this snapshot from my life...

July 2008. At sea somewhere in the northern Pacific Ocean. This was my lunch entree. I think it was a salmon cake tower on top of pad thai. I remember it being very good. All the food on this Holland America cruise was really good. I want to go on a cruise again. And I love looking at old pictures.

Overpass

I'm completely exhausted from walking all day (and it's almost 2 am), but I'm trying to post more consistently, so here's another random photo of the day.

It's from Hyde Park in Chicago near the University of Chicago. I used to see this overpass every day that I drove back from school, but I don't even remember taking these pictures. (According to the data, it's from May 2004.) Looking through the set of pictures, I also don't remember the area by the law school being so green! The last couple of times I've been in Chicago, it's been cloudy and gray.

I try to take photos of the "everyday" life we're living, but sometimes there are little details that you never have pictures of because you never think about taking something so ordinary. Yet, years later, looking at the pictures, it brings back the everyday, the ordinary, the routine. Looking at something familiar is kind of nice sometimes, even if it's just an overpass from a familiar drive.

Pom Wonderful

Today was day one of Red Mango's Pom Wonderful flavor. Of course we weren't going to miss it!

It was really, really good. We had the pomegranate flavor at tangysweet in DC over the summer, and were wondering how long it would take before it landed at Red Mango and Pinkberry. It's not an overwhelming flavor, but I liked that it wasn't. Yum.

Victoria

Last summer, we went on a cruise to Alaska. The last port before disembarkation was Victoria. I hadn't been to many places in Canada prior to the Victoria stop -- none of the major cities, only a few cities on the eastern coast of Canada (on other cruises).

I really liked Victoria. Unfortunately this was an evening stop and (a) many places were already closed, like the museums and aquariums, (b) it was our last night on the cruise and there was major packing to be done and (c) we had to get back to the photo center on the ship to pick up the photos we ordered before they closed. Therefore, I didn't get to do much in Victoria other than some walking around, photography (golden hour, amazing light), and general soaking in of the city. I think some of my relatives went to a pub and had beers, but I guess they didn't have anything to do back on the ship. All this means is I'll have to go back!

I would love to go on a cruise right now. They are so incredibly relaxing. People do everything for you and are always willing to help. The food (at least on ours) was fantastic (and all included!). You can catch up on sleep (I napped a LOT). There's just something nice about being at sea and resting. I could really use this now (as I'm working...).

Mmm... maybe I'll daydream about cruises to the Mexican Riviera. Sigh.

Berlin

Mmm... from Hallo Berlin in May. We really should get back there sometime. Good food, good beer.

My Vote

Not that there was any surprise about New York, but I'm proud that my vote was part of a historic election. I voted for the first African American majority party nominee, and hopefully the first African American president.

Vote II

Don't forget to vote on Tuesday! Vote early to avoid long lines (if possible) and whatever you do, don't get off the line!

Cupcakes II

The delicious Halloween cupcake from the Treats Truck. I highly recommend it. Hmm, what to try next week...

Yum

I love huaraches.



(from our excursion to Red Hook today)

Congrats

I'm uploading some old pictures to Picasa, and came across this old one from the 9th Ave Food Fair last May. It seemed to fit for tonight's special occasion!

Hello from Seattle

Hello from Seattle!

We got to Seattle yesterday and the weather was absolutely gorgeous all day. The skies were blue, not a cloud in the sky - where was this gray Seattle I'd always heard so much about? (Not that I wanted to see clouds, we have enough of those at home during the summer!) It was back today - completely overcast in the morning - and all the news stations were saying AM fog but that it would burn off by noon, and then when it didn't, someone in the hotel said it would burn off by 4 pm. It did, while we were at the gym. Decided not to go to visit the Space Needle in the cloudiness since the hotel is a good 40 minute bus ride away from downtown and we had a dinner to go to tonight.

It's been a nice couple of days break so far. Did some sightseeing and took a lot of photos at the Pike Place Market. Since the weather was so great yesterday, we also took a nice boat cruise around Elliott Bay. It was a great day to be on a boat, just relaxing, taking in the sights and listening to some stories and history. Relaxed a lot today and finished reading Harry Potter 7. (Quite content and I think it's the best one of the series). Good family time. Excellent shrimp rolls and good salmon and nice clean air.

Need to be up early in the morning. Good night!