Christmas Sweetness

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Our kitchen counter is covered with cookies, candies, and snacks received throughout this holiday season. Four days after Christmas, another box of cookies from a craft bakery in North Jerzy arrived via Fedex from a friend who had our address wrong initially.

I calculated that it would take us about 2 ½ months to finish everything on the counter which would take us just in time to start accumulating the Valentine’s cookies and sweets.

My friend Pharaoh walked into a Christmas dinner two weeks ago with a big shopping bag and announced, “Make sure you guys each take a box home with you! My wife has made some treats for you…”  Knowing that his wife is such a gourmet cook that Pharaoh has a professional kitchen installed for her, my eyes perked up expecting greatness.

What I didn’t expect was what was inside the red “Ho Ho Ho” carrier box with Santa dangling on a tag off the handle. The Christmas cookies were indeed bite size pieces of baklava and burma. A nice surprise of something different than the traditional Christmas treats!

Both the Baklava and the burma were delicate and moist with a subtle amount of sweetness. The pistachios in the burma and the walnuts (I think) in the baklava were fresh tasting and contributed nicely to the overall texture of the pieces. The different dough on the pieces was flaky, fresh, and crumbled just right when my teeth sank into it. 

Unlike most of the over-sweetened commercial pieces or those in middle-eastern restaurants catered to the American taste, these were the most delicious baklava and burma pieces I have ever had! 

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“Chinese-izing”

Chinese restaurants in this country are very good at Americanizing their food into dumbed-down grub for the PF Chang crowd. Han in Old City decided to Sichuan peppercorn a collaboration dinner with Chef David Ansill from Ladder 15 and Chef Sam Jacobson from Sycamore for a decisively non PF Chang crowd.

Creamy Jerusalem Artichoke Soup

This amuse bouche was laced with Sichuan chili oil! The flavor, the creaminess of the soup and the heat from the chili oil played so well together. Two extremes in flavor yet harmonized into simulating your taste buds and soothing them at the same time. Each in itself brought out the unique character of the other. A winning soup for a cold winter night.

Salmon Carpaccio, Tangy Tofu Sauce, Chili Oil

There was a lot of tanginess coming from the tofu sauce. It reminded me a lot of the fermented tofu that I used to eat growing up. Along with the chili oil, the sauce would have been great in enhancing the freshness and sweetness of the salmon with an unique twist but unfortunately, a heavy handed pour on top of the meat masked any delicate flavor of the fish instead.

Pig’s Ears, Cabbage, Pickled Turnips

Sour, sweet, crunchy, chewy, jelly’ish, snappy…, an orgy of flavor and texture with a slow spicy heat chaser. This is a dish that tests the chutzpah of an eater and separates the men from the boys. “Ew, pig’s ears…” I heard from another table. Fortunately, none of the people in our communal table had any reservation in polishing off this dish of this slightly off-centered but quite authentic, thinly striped pig’s ears with julienned cabbage and pickled turnips.

Marinated Flat Iron Steak, Baby Arugula, Sichuan Vinaigrette

I have been semi-seriously trying to talk Han into making me a steak using his Sichuan dried spices as a rub before grilling it. He kept telling me that neither his salamander nor oven was working. I do not think he has ever gotten them to work but I was happy to see that he took my suggestion for a steak. It wasn’t coated heavily with spices nor Pittsburgh-ed to a crispy as I would have liked but the steak in front of us was cooked to a perfect medium-rare with a light application of spices. I wished it was crisper on the outside for that definite beef texture. However, on the other hand, it was juicy, tender, and restrained with the Sichuan spices. It was so good that it did not even make its way around the table. Luckily, the waiter brought us another plate mounted high with meat to share.

The baby arugula seemed to have been so lightly blanched like running through a hot shower. I enjoyed the Sichuan dressing which did not carry much spice at all but was just right with the arugula.

A plate of julienned potatoes was served on the side in keeping with the meat and potato theme.

Sweetbreads with Roasted Salsify

Think sweet and sour pork BUT without the cornstarch laden red dye #40 sauce and there are little cubes of deep fried sweet tender sweetbreads instead bits of boney pork with chunks of fat attached. The sweetbreads were battered, fried, then tossed with a light tangy sauce and put on a bed of crunchy Salsify. The sweetbreads were fresh, moist and delicious. The sauce reminded me of a much lighter version of the one usually served with the sweet and sour pork but it was delicate both in taste and execution. This dish was a nice example of using a unique ingredient cooked with traditional Chinese technique, resulting in extraordinarily greatness.

Tea-Smoked Ribs

Tourist Tree and I have done several trips eating through the Texas BBQ Trail sampling some of the best BBQ in the country. We had some good ribs, we had some great ribs.

These tea-smoked ribs had a nice snappy bite through the skin. They were juicy, moist, with the right amount of fat and meat and seasoned just wonderfully. The best was the captivating aroma and the slight dried salty taste of the tea that carried through the nose and the mouth. These guys can stand head to head with some of the better ribs we have had in Texas. Unfortunately, we only got one rib each and there weren’t anymore to go around.

Lasagna of Pork and Tendon with Mushroom “Noodles”

To say this as an intriguing dish is an understatement. The “noodles” were in fact mushrooms sliced razor thin used in place of the pasta for layering. The pork and tendon were diced into small pieces, stewed, and use as the lasagna filling. The flavor of this dish was quite traditional; no surprises here unless you count the distinctive texture of the tendon in the mushy mix and the heat from the chili oil on the plate. I liked the use of the choi sum in the dish which gave it a somewhat interesting if not incompatible interpretation of the dish.

Warm Ginger Cake, Sichuan Peppercorn Ice Cream, Chill Ginger Walnut Syrup

First thing first: This Sichuan peppercorn ice cream made by Franklin Fountain was freaking awesome! You put the frozen ice cream in the mouth. You get this peppercorn induced numbing sensation on the tongue a few seconds after the ice cream melted away. Ah, what a feeling!

The ginger cake was intensely sweet but it did go pretty well with the peppercorn ice cream and its explosive tongue numbing effect, although it reminded me a lot of a traditional dense Christmas pudding.

In his usual F-word laden way to doing things, Han along with Chefs Ansill and Jacobson have successively pulled off a Chinese-izing of American dishes dinner. I like my personal space and do not like sitting at communal tables sharing dishes with strangers; but there are times that things never turn out the way you had expected. We had a lot of fun sharing the dishes and trading food stories with people at our table. Good food, like minds, a basement door that refused to stay shut to keep the gale force freezing air from blowing on our table, and a bit of excessive alcohol had made this night a very enjoyable experience.

http://www.handynasty.net/

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Black & White & Country

Hay bales, country music, fried chicken… Couldn’t possibly have turned this down when The Pub and Kitchen is doing a special Country Delight night.

Black and White is the nickname for two new items on P&K’s recently revised menu.

The Black Pudding ($8.00) is a bar of soap sized block of blood pudding served with a battered fried egg and a ginger cocktail on the side. The pudding had excellent texture and was mildly seasoned. I particularly like the presence of the slightly battered and fried semi-soft egg. A bite of the blood pudding covered with egg yoke was pure enjoyment. The ginger cocktail looked and tasted more like ordinary cocktail sauce. I could not detect any hint of ginger in it nor could I figure out the logic behind this even being on the redwood platter on which the dish was served. Regardless, I did enjoy this dish very much.

The White is the Bone Marrow. It is split in half lengthwise, roasted, and served with a caper vinaigrette on greens and a few slices of crostini. The marrow was done nicely except it was quite a small bone for $9.00. The two pieces on my plate were no longer than 4 inches and there was only a minute amount of marrow on one of the pieces with the way it was cut.  I enjoyed the salad very much with the acid in the dressing helping to cut the heaviness from the bone marrow.

If you have ever had the roasted chicken at P&K, you know it’s worth the 30 minute wait for that moist and succulent meat. I had high expectations of the Buttermilk Fried Chicken specially made just for this night and it did not disappoint me. There were four perfectly fried pieces on this $13.00 plate; all dark meat which suited me just fine since I am not a fan of white meat. The pieces had a crunchy not overly seasoned crust with soft, tender, and juicy meat underneath. A small paper cup of hot sauce came with the plate. It was a perfect companion to sprinkle onto the crusty crust. On the other hand, the corn bread needed some serious work.  While I tried to pick it up with my hand, it completely crumbled like the vampires when they were killed by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was quite tasteless and looked like it needed a few more minutes in the oven. If I hadn’t had the Black and White, I would have ordered another plate of the fried chicken all for myself. 

thepubandkitchen.com

The New York Chocolate Show Pictorial

Tourist Tree with our friend from the north, The Hotdog King of Quebec.

Chocolate fashion you can wear everyday…well maybe not.

Chocolate Christmas tree.

A sculptor from Finland. Never knew chocolate is big in Finland.

Chocolate comes in all sizes and packages.

Couldn’t quite figure out what this creation was about but it was entirely made of chocolate.

Standing in line for espresso…chocolate flavored espresso.

Spices, spices and more spices.

More sampling!

The fruit in the chocolate make it legitimately healthy.

Beautifully hand-crafted presentation box.

Learning about the process from coco plant to edible chocolate.

 Tourist Tree and her coco.

At the “Bon Bon Making” demo. The featured bon bon was a scotch filled bon bon! Yes, each one was like having a shot of scotch with some chocolate chaser.

The line stretched around the corner into two blocks by lunch time.

Some exhibiters did not forget the people in line.  

The Pumpkin Éclair

I have a habit to stop by the Bryn Mawr Farmer’s Market on Saturday after my morning workout for a scone from the Wild Flour Bakery stand as a post-workout snack.

On this particular Saturday, they didn’t bring any scone to sell but lots of bread, pumpkin pies, etc. Amid my disappointment, I saw out of the corner of my eye the biggest éclair I have ever seen in my life. “Is that an éclair?” I asked. “Yes, it is…with a pumpkin cream filling,” came the reply.

Let’s put things in perspective. That’s the éclair on a 6 inch plate in the picture. That’s a quarter next to the plate. The éclair is like one normal size éclair sitting on top of 2 others lying side by side on the bottom like perky cheerleaders forming a pyramid cheer to get your attention.

The pastry was airy yet retained the right amount of elasticity and moisture. The pumpkin crème filling carried a slight hint of spice, was not over-sweetened, and had the consistency of a smooth semi-liquidly pie filling. Eating this éclair was like eating a pumpkin pie that was melting in the mouth! Except for the creamy cheesy (never figured out what it actually was) thing on top that I didn’t care for too much, this creation was over the top outrageous!

Now THAT’s a Cookie!

In the movie Crocodile Dundee, a punk kid pulls a knife on Dundee and his girlfriend while trying to rob them. Dundee looks at the kid, “That’s not a knife….Now THAT’s a knife,” while he pulls out his super-sized HE-MAN hunting knife.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Levain Bakery on the Upper West Side only makes four cookies, chocolate chip walnut, dark chocolate chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and dark chocolate peanut butter chip.
 

The walnut pieces in the chocolate chip walnut cookie give it a nice bite of textural contrast and taste. The dark chocolate chocolate chip is like a dense smooth brownie. The oatmeal raisin is refreshing and lovely. The dark chocolate peanut butter is just a sinful delight. None of the cookies is overly sweetened and each has its own unique character that can make anybody develop an addiction.

My friend said to me, “You gotta try one of these, they are the best cookies I have ever had.” “Sure, I’ll take one of each,” telling the shop girl behind the counter. What I didn’t expect was the weight of the bag when I tried to pick it up. With each cookie weighting in at 6 oz. each, the bag was 1 ½ lbs!  I wasn’t paying attention at its bulk until I looked into the bag staring at the cookies each about the size of a fat hamburger patty…Now THAT’s a cookie! 







Levain Bakery
167 West 74th St.
New York, NY 10023
http://www.levainbakery.com/

Heart and Soul

We celebrated the Día de los Muertos in San Antonio last year. We admired the locals’ makeshift memorials to honor their dearly departed, we watched the parade and became part of the parade….

This year, we celebrated this Day of the Dead holiday at Xochitl with a special “Heart and Soul” menu

A bowl of guacamole and corn chips with our margaritas at the bar when there was a delay with our table. Xochitl used to make this table side with drizzle of truffle oil, but this one was just handed to us across the counter already made, sans the truffle oil. Nevertheless, the guac was still quite good and it did a decent job of holding our hunger pangs in check while awaiting our first course

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

Piel (Skin)

 

A simple dish of chicharrónes, salsa verde, with julianne stripes of apple. The nicely seasoned fried pig skin broke apart with a nice crackle in the mouth with the matchstick sized strips of apple providing a refreshing sweetness contrasting the texture and taste of the skin and the salsa.

 

 

 

 
 
 

 

Higado (Liver)

 

For a while, we thought the restaurant had lost its heart and soul as we waited aimlessly for our next course. Eternity ended when the piping hot foie gras and duck confit empanada with shaved hubbard squash and pomegranate-chipotle salsa finally made its way to our table. Biting through the crunchy crust of the empanada unveiled the soft squishy but succulent foie gras and duck filling. There’s certainly nothing additional needed for this wholesome pocket of goodness but the pomegranate-chipotle salsa with its fastidious spicy kick had surely elevated this dish to a different dimension.

Sangre (Blood)

Morcilla, beets, fennel, and walnut-tequila vinaigrette. The spices in this blood sausage from D’Angelo’s gave a nice fiery kick to the overall flavor of the dish while at the mean time it was nicely balanced by the cooling effect of the snappy biting beets. For extra flavor and dramatic effects, shaved walnuts were sprinkled on top of the morcilla.

 

 

 
 
 
 

Corazon (Heart)

 

 

“If I didn’t know beforehand, I wouldn’t have known that this is heart,” said the Tourist Tree. Although appearing on the slightly overcooked side with the burn on the edges, the earthy flavor of this meat was intoxicating. This beef heart taco was accompanied by foraged mushrooms, garnished with a cilantro sauce and completed with an over the top fried bone marrow that oozed into your mouth like hot jello after biting through the properly battered and seasoned deep fried crust. What seemed to be a simple taco was indeed a complex dish of flavors and textures interplaying for maximum sensation.
 
 

Alma (Soul)

   

The pan de muerto is a traditional sweet soft bread that is eaten during the weeks leading up to the Día de los Muertos. This Xochitl version had a rather dried hard outer crust with a pillow soft inner. I enjoyed eating this not so sweet bread by itself but also by dipping into the unique tasting goat cajeta which was just goat milk and sugar boiled down very very slowly into a very light syrup. This was a dessert I liked very much since nothing on the plate was particularly sweet except the couple pieces of quince paste on the side with its dense fruity sweet intensity.

 

Completely aware of Tourist Tree’s allergies throughout the dinner, our waitress brought her slices of fresh fruit, with a few pieces of quince paste on the side. Tourist Tree was relieved that she did not get the usual allergy sufferer special: sorbet.

 
Except the unexpected eternal wait for our second course during the dinner, everything was enjoyable and delicious for the evening. I was particularly impressed that the kitchen had stepped up and produced a remarkable dinner with items not frequently served on the more sedated regular menu, amid a full house for the evening. We were also impressed that our waitress was totally on the ball with Tourist Tree’s allergy without any reminder at all throughout the dinner and took initiative to make sure that she was able to eat everything put in front of her. It was nice to see the restaurant was still vibrant and putting out quality products despite the earlier departure of the much talented original chef and the renovations that followed which usually spell the doom for any smaller restaurant.
 
http://www.xochitlphilly.com/