Scarpetta Las Vegas Visited 6/26/2013 5 Forks

Scarpetta Cosmopolitan Hotel, 3708 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, NV 89109

Full disclosure - this was a work meal and we got the total hook up because they knew we were coming in advance with some well respected chefs that we are planning on working with, so I know we were treated way better than if I had just walked into the restaurant as a regular person.  I'm going to keep this review short and sweet, mainly because I reviewed the NYC location before and the menu is exactly the same.  Plus given the special treatment we got here, I don't think it's exactly a fair and unbiased opinion but regardless it was an amazing meal that merits at least a short review.

You know a meal is going to be outrageous when they basically tell you that you don't have to order anything.  They literally started bringing food out at a constant stream as soon as we sat down.  We ended up getting a sampling of almost everything on the menu - for appetizers we got softshell crab, polenta, and raw tuna - all delicious -  and then we were served a ridiculous amount of pasta.  We got a sampling of almost every single pasta on the menu:  we each got our own serving of Scarpetta's famous spaghetti and then out came plates of sheep milk ricotta agnolotti with shaved truffles, duck and foie gras ravioli, short rib agnolotti, and pici with lobster to share.  Every dish was simply divine and I loved the fact that we could try a sampling of all of them without having a full serving of each.  The last time I was at Scarpetta in NYC, we ended up choosing our pasta dishes and eating an entire plate of duck and foie gras ravioli or short rib agnolotti, while delicious, was a bit too much to deal with.  Those type of heavy pasta really only require 2-3 bites before you feel overwhelmed.  I know I've gripped before out paying a lot of money for what seems like a basic pasta like spaghetti but the spaghetti here was definitely beyond anything I could ever make at home - totally worth it.  At this point, I was so full I needed to be wheeled out in a chair.  I thought we were done but then the waiter comes out and then asks to take our entree order.  Oh my.  I just couldn't bring myself to order anything heavy so I opted for the black cod and for one of the first times I can remember, I couldn't finish a dish that I loved.  The cod was perfectly cooked - flaky and moist - so it really killed me that I couldn't finish the dish.  Just when I thought dinner was over, they then wheeled out 5 different desserts.  I was so deliriously full that I can barely remember what we had but our table polished off almost every plate totally clean.

This was one of the most decadent meals I've had in a long time and the quality of each dish was superb.  I definitely think a lot of it had to do with telling them in advance of our arrival and who was at our table but this is not to say that we wouldn't have experienced great food and service if we didn't have such special treatment.  So this 5 forks rating is slightly biased but I did want to highlight what has been one of the most killer meals I've had in a while. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Carnevino Visited 6/25/2013 2 Forks

Carnevino  Palazzo Hotel, 3325 Las Vegas Blvd So, Las Vegas

Ahh, Vegas.  It's just one of those cities that you have to check out at least once in your life and that's probably all you need.  I was actually there for work, but I was strangely excited because I hadn't been in there in probably 10 years and I was curious to see how it's changed.  From a food perspective, I know that most people outside of NYC, LA, SF, and Chicago would probably salivate at all the celebrity driven restaurants there but I would say that almost every restaurant there you can find in NYC or another big city (i.e. Scarpetta, Blue Ribbon, Craft, etc). 

Usually before a trip I scout out where the good places are to eat but I didn't have time to do it this time.  I had gotten off the 5 hour flight and gone straight to the lounge to work for another 7 hours, so by the time I got back to my hotel to shower and rest a bit, I was totally exhausted.  I knew that for a great affordable eating experience I should have gone off the Strip, but at 8:30 Vegas time (11:30pm EST) I just couldn't muster up the energy to stray too far from the hotel.  So I ended up suggesting Carnevino because that was the one restaurant that didn't exist in NYC (even though it's a Mario Batali restaurant and he owns several places in NYC) and I was going to go there back in December when I was supposed to have come for work so I figured if I was going to go before there must have been a good reason why I chose it in the first place.  It's located inside the Palazzo Hotel which is attached to the Venetian.  Luckily, we were able to walk right in without a reservation but then Neel and I got seated in this weird area of the restaurant that was kind of like a hallway and away from the main area. 

We sat down and as soon as we got the menu I knew that the food here was going to be too much for what I wanted.  The menu was twice the size of my head.  Whenever a menu is that large, you know the portions are going to be large with huge prices to match.  The menu is largely focused on different cuts of meat but there were also several relatively affordable pasta dishes to be had as well.  We were starving so we started with the Big Eye Tuna Crudo ($25) and I got the 16 oz bone-in New York Strip ($61) and Neel got the lamb chops ($63) and we also got a side of beets ($9) just so there was some vegetable on the table.  Yes, you are reading those prices correctly and luckily I was traveling for work, otherwise I probably would have totally freaked out at those prices.  The meal started with some warm bread that was quite good and it was served with unsalted butter and whipped lardo - so literally a bowl of fat.  It was delicious but with every bite you could feel your cholesterol going up 10 points.  After a bit of a wait, our tuna came out.  The waiter apologized for the wait because the chef didn't like the 1st batch he made and re-made another one.  Umm, he probably should have tasted this one because it wasn't that great either.  It was 5 slices of raw tuna with a chopped cucumber celery  salad on top.   The tuna was way over salted and tasted a bit fishy (yes, I know it's fish but super fresh tuna has a very clean taste to it).  Compared to the tuna I had at sushi the other night, this didn't seem that great, especially for $25.  Plus the fact that I hate celery, so the "refreshing" salad on top didn't really do it for me either.  Then meat dishes came out.  The waiter had told us before that the plating was just the meat - nothing else (no sides).  So even though I knew it, to have a gigantic piece of meat on a white plate with nothing else was so underwhelming.  The presentation was just sad.  But I was willing to overlook it for the perfect cut of meat.  The waiter had also told us that their meats run more on the rare side, so I was super excited to cut into my strip and see lots of red.  Unfortunately I only saw a bit of red as it was definitely more of the medium than rare side.  The meat itself was fine, nothing mind blowing.  It was a bit too salty for me and when I added the steak sauce to it, it just made it even saltier.  For $61, I expect tears of joy with each bite but instead it was just meh.  Meanwhile Neel's lamb chops were a sight to be seen.  It was 3 gigantic chops that were the size of a house.  The waiter had said that they keep the fat on (or they could cut it off if we like) and boy did they keep the fat on.  One chop must have been 80% fat.  I know Neel was digging into that chop like it was his job but every time I looked over it looked like he hadn't eaten anything.  I only took a few bites of the beets because I felt like I had to and it was fine, again nothing to write home about.

All in all, the food here was way over seasoned and too big.  I felt like they didn't let the natural flavors of the food come out.  Everything tasted much heavier than it needed to be.  Yes I know that steak is a rich heavy dish, but to me a good steak should still melt in your mouth and have a clean taste to it.  Another reason for the low rating was the price.  I know it's Vegas and everything is big, shiny and expensive but good lord for $100/pp I could have had a larger than life meal in NYC and have been x10 happier.  Lesson learned for dinner next time I'm in Vegas for work: eat off the Strip!
Total bill:  $200 for 2 with tax and tip

Photo Credit: Yelp

Ushiwakamaru Visited 6/25/2013 4.5 Forks

Ushiwakamaru 136 W Houston St., (between Sullivan St & Mac Dougal St), New York, NY 10012

I was so so close to giving Ushiwakamaru the coveted 5 Forks except that it wasn't exactly a perfect experience and the one thing that annoyed me happened at the end of my meal which kind of ends up tainting your whole thinking.  But I will say in terms of quality of food, totally 5 Forks.  AMAZING sushi for fairly reasonable prices (it's not cheap but not insanely expensive).

I had been wanting to try this place for a while, so when VA wanted to take me somewhere for my b-day, I had to jump on the sushi band wagon because it's been a while since I've been to a proper sushi place and I knew she would also really appreciate it.  We didn't have reservations, but we were there on random Tuesday night around 7pm.  The host told us that she would need the table back at 8:30pm, which was fine.  The decor here is simple and clean; it's one floor below ground level and it's basically a small room with a sushi bar and several tables.  It wasn't exactly no frills, but there were very few frills.  The menu is classic Japanese - you won't find any crazy rolls with mango or cream cheese or other things I never understood why people wanted with their raw fish.  We started with the miso black cod to share and then also shared the fatty tuna and scallion roll, amberjack and scallion roll, and spicy tuna roll.  VA got the softshell crab for an entree and I got the nigiri entree.  Even though we told the waitress that we wanted to share the black cod to start and that VA would have the softshell crab as an entree the softshell crab still came out first along with my garden salad.  No biggie, but it's the small things like this that eat away at a 5 fork rating.  I didn't try the softshell crab but it looked great.  The garden salad was nice in that it had some mixed greens in there and wasn't your usual bowl of iceberg lettuce that you usually get with a garden salad in sushi places.  The only thing was that it didn't come with the delicious ginger carrot dressing I usually love with sushi garden salads, instead it was a regular kind of balsamic type dressing.   I mean I'm not complaining about it, but ginger dressing is damn good and you rarely get it outside of a sushi joint.

Then we waited and waited a bit and after a while our black cod finally came out.  Oh my gosh, it was literally melting in my mouth.  So incredibly soft and flaky with that delicious miso glaze on top of it.  Since it was an appetizer, there wasn't much of it but we polished that dish off fairly quickly.  Then we waited and waited again.  I understand that it was busy but given that we were under a somewhat short timeframe, it would have been nice if our food didn't take such a long time.  But again, when the sushi came out, it was totally worth the wait.  They brought out the spicy tuna and fatty tuna with scallion roll and the 1st part of my nigiri sushi which had salmon, medium fatty tuna, spot shrimp, fluke, and a soy cured tuna - the waitress told me not to put the 3 last in soy sauce (which I of course totally forgot to do).  The quality of the fish was simply amazing.  It tasted just like it had some straight out of the water or from one of the sushi bars I ate at in Tokyo by the fish market.  Simply perfection.  If you think you had good sushi before, I urge you to try the fish here and compare.  For me, even if there's a fish that I don't love (I'm looking at you Spanish Mackerel), but if it's incredibly fresh, I will manage to still like it because of its high quality.  Since our table was pretty small, we had to finish a few things before they could bring the amberjack and scallion roll and the 2nd part of my nigiri which was an egg custard, uni, salmon roe, eel and a half roll of tuna and scallion.  Again, delicious and amazing.  The uni was soft and creamy and the roe was nice and salty.  While it didn't feel like I ate a ton of food, I was pretty full at the end of our meal and when we asked for the check we looked at our watch and it was 8:28pm, perfect timing!  But then as we were literally signing the check the hostess comes over and says "Excuse me, but I need your table at 8:30.  Are you done eating?".  Now one of my biggest pet peeves ever in the restaurant world is when a host gives you a table knowing that there is a reservation right after it and then bugging you to leave your table.  I don't mind being told in the beginning that someone has our table and I try to be very conscious about it because I know what it feels like to make a reservation and then have to wait for it, but we were literally signing the check.  It just felt like in bad taste.  If that hadn't happened, I probably could have written off the long wait in between dishes and given this place 5 forks, but the service in the end added up and I had to knock half a fork.  But please don't let that stop you from giving this place your full attention.  Total bill:  I'm not really sure since it was VA's treat but I think it was around $90 without tip - which is a pretty reasonable meal for high end sushi.

Photo Credit: Yelp   

Red Rooster Visited 6/23/2013 3.5 Forks

Red Rooster  310 Lenox Ave., (between 126th St & 125th St), New York, NY 10027 

Red Rooster had been on my list of places to try for a while and even more so after I read his Memoir, Yes Chef.  But since it's was up on 125th street, it's kind of a tough sell for lots of my downtown or Brooklyn living friends.  Holly and I thought that it would be a fun Sunday afternoon activity and it looked like on their website they had a Gospel Brunch which sounded neat.  Honestly, the trek up there really wasn't that bad, only about 35 minutes from the 2/3 stop at 14th street and it's right off the 125th stop.  I had read that Gospel Brunch was some $40 extravaganza and was usually very crowded, so I was totally ready to shell out some big bucks and wait in line.  So much to my surprise, we got seated immediately and the menu was a regular a la carte menu.  The only gospel part to the meal was that there was a live band in corner singing blues/soul music.  Not sure when they changed the format, but I was a bit relieved and disappointed at the same time. 

My first impression of the space was that it was really beautiful.  It was spacious, bright and a bit more formal than I expected but overall it was a really pleasant place to eat.  The crowd was pretty diverse with a mix of locals, families and tourists.  The menu was a combination of typical brunch items such as omelettes and more soul food like mac and cheese and fried chicken.  I was tempted to order an egg dish but I figured I came all the way up here and I should go for something that they were more well known for.  So I opted for the mac and greens ($16), Holly got the shrimp po'boy ($16) and we split the corn bread ($4) and the shrimp and grits ($8).  I suspected that I was going to have a super high calorie meal but once I saw the food, my fears were confirmed.  The cornbread came out and it looked much more like thick pound cake than cornbread.  It was sweet and good but it didn't have that kind of grainy texture (and I say that positively) that you usually get with cornbread.  It tasted like it already had butter on it, but of course I had to put more butter on it.  I think my heart may have stopped beating at some point.  Very shortly there after, our entrees came out.  The mac and greens was a hot skillet of shell pasta with gouda, gruyere, and NY white cheddar cheese mixed with some sauteed collard greens and then served with a side bowl of arugula topped with what looked like okra and pickled cauliflower.  It's really hard to go wrong with mac and cheese and this one didn't disappoint.  It didn't have that super gooey consistency look and feel but that as actually fine.  It was a solid dish and I really liked the shell pasta as it made it seem more hearty.  It was just incredibly heavy and rich that I could only finish about 1/4 of the dish and had to stop.  I tried to be healthy and eat as much of the salad as possible but honestly it wasn't dressed at all and an entire bowl of arugula topped with pickled vegetables was too bitter for me.   Of course ordering a side of creamy grits didn't help my health cause.  The grits were extremely creamy and rich and heavy as well.  There were only a few bites of small shrimp, so that was a bit disappointing.  I didn't try Holly's dish but she said she really enjoyed her sandwich and commented that the bread tasted like it was on a buttery roll which add more to the deliciousness.  She also noticed that her salad (which was mostly spinach) had little to no dressing as well.  Weird, usually most restaurants have a problem with over dressing their salads, but it seemed like here they don't like dressing their greens at all. 

All in all, it was a pleasant brunch at Red Rooster and it was made even more pleasant by the super nice and friendly waitstaff.  While I can't fault them for the richness of the food (I mean, I did order mac and cheese and grits - so what was I thinking?) but it would have been nice if my salad tasted better to help cut all the fat I was eating.  Total bill with tax, tip and drinks:  $42/pp 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Xixa Visited 6/22/2013 4 Forks

Xixa 241 S 4th St., (between Driggs Ave & Roebling St), Brooklyn, NY 11211

I had heard about Xixa from a friend at work and she had said that it was by the same people as Traif which I LOVE, so I was totally excited to see how Xixa would stack up.  It's a similar format to Traif in that it's lots of small plates but the theme here is more towards Mexican fusion vs. American cretive.  There are so many options that being here with just one other person made it a bit overwhelming.  Our waitress recommended roughly 5-6 dishes for the two of us, which I would tend to agree (although I think we honestly could have done without one of our dishes and would have been fine).  Aarti and I ordered the stuffed squash blossoms, fundido, steak tacos, scallop ceviche, and the Thai esquites.  We figured we could always order more if we were still hungry and we wanted to leave room for dessert.

Since it was tapas style there wasn't a real logical order to the dishes come out, but Aarti and I did comment later how they probably should have started with the fundido first since that typically is like an appetizer in many restaurants.  Instead the first dish that came out was the lightly fried squash blossoms.  They were stuffed with goat cheese and served with butternut squash and squash seed-cascabel pipian.  It was a wonderful dish that had a perfect blend of goat cheese and fried squash blossom.  Delicious.  Next came the Thai esquites which was sweet corn kernels in a spicy tom yum broth, red curry aioli and topped with cotija cheese.   It was like a deconstructed Mexican corn on the cob with a spicy Thai twist which I thought seemed very unique.  I always love a good corn dish in the summer time but I honestly could have done without the tom yum broth, it was a bit too watery.  Next came the scallop ceviche and of the main entrees this was probably my favorite dish.   It was a classically clean raw scallop dish and I could have had another 3 dishes and not gotten sick of it.  Perfect summer dish.  Next came the steak tacos - it wasn't really a steak taco how you and I know it.  Instead it is served with recado negro tortillas, a huge bone marrow, and a side of steak tartare and then you had to put your "taco" together.  I didn't find the tortilla very soft - in fact it was a bit too tough for me but the rest of the dish was quite interesting.  The marrow was very fatty, as it should be, and while I usually am not a huge fan of steak tartare, I rather enjoyed it here when it was mixed in with the bone marrow.  A very unique dish that I totally appreciated for its complexity.   Lastly, we got the fundido, which is usually just a vat of yummy hot melted cheese, but the cheese here seemed to have coagulated by the time it got to our table.  I wasn't sure if the dish had been sitting out and that's why it had that texture or if they just used cheese that didn't melt well, but I've definitely had much better fundido elsewhere.  I will say that I loved the fact that they acknowledged that Aarti was a vegetarian and put mushrooms in there instead of the chorizo it usually comes with.  The dish was just too heavy and oily and only had about 4-5 bites of it.  Luckily, since we couldn't finish it we had plenty of room for dessert and I was so glad we did.  All of the desserts sounded great but I am a sucker for really good churros and they had a salty churros served with passion fruit and a strawberry-jalapeno sorbet.  OMG, amazing.  The churros was perfectly fried and the sorbet was sweet and refreshing with just the right amount of heat from the jalapeno.  Aarti and I agreed that this was the winner of the night.

All in all, I loved what Xixa had to offer and given the tapas format, I think it's much better for larger groups to enjoy.  But they do have a chef's choice for $40/pp and they bring out 9 different dishes for you and your table to enjoy.  It sounded like a great idea and I would totally do that next time but it was still fun to be able to choose our own adventure the first time around.  Since it was a belated birthday dinner fro Aarti, I don't know the exact bill but I think it was around $100 including tax, tip and drinks. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Speedy Romeo Visited 6/21/2013 3.5 Forks

Speedy Romeo 376 Classon Ave., (between Greene Ave & Lafayette Ave), Brooklyn, NY 11238

I would have never put Speedy Romeo on my list if it wasn't for a major shout out by  one of my favorite food blogs, Immaculate Infatuation.  It's definitely not in a part of Brooklyn that I would normally think of and had a buddy who was game to give it a try.  Cicily and I were looking for something low key that was close to both of us...ok, this place isn't really near me at all, but it was easy to get to from work, close to Fort Greene and I was curious about it.  It is right next to the G train, so in reality it wasn't that hard to get home afterwards.

Speedy Romeo is on the border of Clinton Hill and Bed Stuy and to be honest there weren't a ton of other restaurants near it.  In fact, this place was definitely hopping and seemed like one of the few neighborhood joints in the area.  They don't have a liquor license, but they do serve wine, so the only summer cocktail they had was a strawberry puree with white wine ($10).  It was tasty and sweet, but it didn't really feel like there was much booze in it.  Just something to think about if you want a nice cocktail/beer at dinner.   As for the menu, it's got a ton of specialty thin crust pizzas (similar to Roberta's) and then they also have what I heard was a killer steak, burger, pork chop and whole fish.  We started with the crab cake appetizer ($16) which was served with a celery root remoulade and citrus salad.  It was a pretty decent size crab cake but the best part about it was that it was almost all crab meat, no filler - that impressed both me and Cicily (we're both tough to please when it comes to seafood).  At $16, it is a bit pricey but I would have been a lot more pissed off if it was more filler than crabmeat, so I wasn't so upset.  I was torn between ordering a pizza or a burger.  I figured a pizza was only slightly healthier, so I went for The Kind Brother ($16) and Cicily got The Saint Louie ($16).  The Kind Brother consists of large whole wild mushrooms, smoked mozzarella, sage and an almost-raw egg cracked on top.  Although it was a very thin wood oven crust, I was surprised at how well all the ingredients held up on it.  It was a solid pizza but the crust was a bit too wood oven flavored and hard for me and after 2 slices the flavor of the smoked mozzarella made the dish seem a bit heavy too.  I loved the raw egg touch, it's something you don't really see much in pizzas.  The Saint Louie was provel cheese, italian sausage, pepperoni, and pickled chilis.  Cicily commented that she also liked all the ingredients and inside parts of the pizza but wasn't a huge fan of the crust either.  Somehow, we managed to leave room for dessert and we got the chocolate cake ($9) which was actually more of a deconstructed s'more.  It was a very thick cake (seemed like it was a flourless base) covered in a melted marshmallow topping that had been nicely brunt on top and then had a bunch of chopped up grammar cracker crust surrounding it.  It was super decadent and rich in flavor.  As someone who doesn't love chocolate, I was strangely drawn to it.   While it may sound like we didn't enjoy our pizzas, it's quite contrary, we did, but given the location, neither of us were really sure if we would go super out of our way again.  But If I lived nearby, I would put it on rotation.   Total bill: $62/pp with tax and tip.

Photo Credit: Yelp

GRK Visited 6/18/2013 3 Forks

GRK 111 Fulton St., (between William St & Dutch St), New York, NY 10038

As I stated before recently, I am a huge fan of Greek food and luckily so is my friend Allison.  So she kindly took me out to GRK for a belated birthday lunch after I came back from all my travels.  I was totally excited to try it out and plus it was a beautiful day outside, so it was nice to get out of the building for lunch.

We got there a bit before noon, which was the perfect time because by the time we got our order the line was literally out the door.  So definitely try to go early if you can.  GRK is more of a fast food/lunch place vs. a real restaurant.  They have a short menu but it hits the Greek classics:  gyro sandwiches (chicken, pork or beef/lamb), platters, salads, and  tzatziki samplers.  What's also neat is that they also serve greek yogurt.  How on trend.  They have either regular yogurt or frozen yogurt.  We didn't really have time or space in our stomachs to get yogurt on top of our lunch, but if I worked closer to here, I could definitely see myself coming here for yogurt runs often.  Back to the food, I opted for the Greek Salad ($9.64) and Allison got the Chicken platter ($9.78) and we split a tzatziki sampler ($4.59).  I was super excited for the salad because I had been eating all this rich Chinese food lately and even though the menu accurately described the salad (Vine ripened tomatoes, red onions, green peppers, cucumbers and Kalamata olives. Tossed lightly with extra virgin olive oil, Kalamata vinegar and garnished with authentic Greek feta cheese) I was surprised that there was no lettuce in it.  The bowl was mainly huge chunks of tomatoes and cucumbers, which would have normally been fine but they were a bit poorly cut and I had re-cut them into smaller pieces.  The dressing and feta cheese were fine but it just didn't have that fresh Greek taste to it.  It was totally fine for a work time lunch meal but if I had that for dinner at a sit down place I would have been disappointed.  Allison's food looked like a winner with lots of gyro style chicken (I tried a bite and it was pretty tasty), aegean slaw (which was basically cabbage, carrots, onions in a vinaigrette) and rice with a tzatziki.  Considering it's almost the same price the salad, I would recommend getting the platter as it has more flavor and food to it.  The tzatziki sampler is a trio of dips (GRK - which is scallion, cucumber, mint and lemon; kaftero - which is habanero peppers, herbs, and sprices; and prassino - which is basil, cucumber and garlic) and a huge bag of warm pita.  I love the idea of the sampler and since we finished every single dip, clearly we enjoyed them, but similar to my Greek Salad, I've had better dips before in my life.  They all needed a bit more garlic and seasoning to them as they seemed a bit too mild.

Although this place is no Boukies, I don't think that's what it set out to be.  It's caters to a working lunch crowd and for that purpose, it gets the job done.  It's not super far from the Towers, but it's probably not a place that I would run to on a regular work day, more so on a lazy Thursday or Friday.  Total bill with 2 soda:  $30

Photo Credit: Yelp

Brooklyn Seoul Visited 6/18/2013 3.5 Forks

Brooklyn Seoul 749 Metropolitan Ave., (between Hunbldt St & Graham Ave), New York, NY 11211

Similar to Greek food, I find Korean food to be underrated.  I've never really had a bad Korean experience and the food has so much flavor to it but unless you're in Koreatown there aren't a ton of Korean places.  But it has gotten a recent bump in popularity with places like Korilla and Kogi that mix Mexican and Korean food.  So I was pleasantly surprised to see a mom and pop place open right off the Graham Ave L train that played off this concept.  Their menu is a mix of regular Korean dishes like Bimbimbop, Bao Buns, Dumplings, and Bulgogi boxes and fusion food like tacos and burritos stuffed with kimchi, kalbi, or pork belly.  Yum!

To be honest, this place is really more of a take-out or delivery place.  You can sit down but the place doesn't have a lot of decor or atmosphere.  I was starving so I ordered the BK Seoul Mixed Rice Bimbimbop ($9.99).  It comes with a base of white rice mixed with bulbogi beef, lettuce, broccoli, soy bean sprouts, mushrooms, carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, radish and topped with a fried egg.  It also comes with small sides of kimchi and chilli sauce - I dumped them in and mixed it all together.  I usually like my bimbimbop in a sizzling bowl but hey, this is take-out, I'm not going to expect that level of sophistication.  I was surprised at how huge the portion was and it was incredibly filling.  I was pretty surprised at how flavorful it was and fresh the ingredients were.  I kind of went in with ok expectations based on some mixed reviews on Yelp but I really had a pretty positive experience.  I will say that the one thing that I did see that was a bit discouraging was a call I overheard at the counter.  Someone had called clearly asking for an update on their delivery and the person at the counter checked on their order.  After about 10-15 minutes she told them that they actually didn't deliver to their neighborhood!  Obviously the person on the other line was pissed and the restaurant did say they would refund their money but to have placed an order and then wait what was probably a good amount of time only to find that they don't deliver to your place is pretty bad customer service.  I guess at least they were apologetic about it.  In any case, my own take out experience was totally fine and I plan on going back to try a bunch of other things on the menu. 

Photo Credit: Yelp

Taiwan 2013 - Banquet Eats - 2.5-4 Forks

So to be totally honest, this post is going to be a bit lacking compared to other posts because (1) there were just so many courses to each meal that I can't remember in detail what I ate (2) a few of these places don't have English names so I can't tell you what the names of the restaurants are and (3) I wasn't able to take pictures of most of the courses so I don't have too much to show.

But in any case, usually when you go to Asia and someone wants to take you out to a nice dinner, chances are they will take you to a place that serves banquet style food.  This usually comprises of 10+ courses served on a lazy susan.  You are literally eating for at least 2 hours and it's considered rude if you don't at least try every single dish.   Most of the places I ate at started with a cold jellyfish and cold meat appetizer, a steamed whole fish, shrimp with the head on, eel dish, whole crab cracked in half, sliced beef tendon, pig knuckle or some kind of pork dish, sauteed green, at least 1 or two different types of soup and then ending in a sweet bean dessert soup and fruit.  The food is extremely local, authentic and not something you'll get in the States.  You won't find any of the low mein, orange chicken, or beef with broccoli crap here.

This picture was from my 2nd night in Taiwan and while it may not look like it, it was a fairly large piece of delicious fish (I believe it was a tilapia or something similar).  Sorry but I don't know what the name of the place was.

This picture below was from a dinner at a restaurant (4 Forks) literally around the corner from my grandpa's apt.  What was glorious about this meal was that we had 2 whole succulent peking ducks.  Truly decadent and delicious.  There really isn't anything like a warm freshly sliced peking duck served with the fluffy buns, hoisin sauce, scallion and cucumber.  I must have had 3-4 buns stuffed full of duck meat and crispy skin.  Also at this meal were fantastic pork spare ribs, scallion pancakes, and amazing jumbo shrimp with mayo (I know, it sounds kind of gross, but trust me, it was addictive)

For my grandpa's actual 100th birthday we ate at Hung Kan Restaurant (3 Forks - great food, bad service)  which apparently is one of the more famous and well known restaurants in Taiwan.  It's a huge restaurant full of giant private rooms for banquets and weddings.  The food was great but the service left much to be desired.   My cousin asked for a fork for her 4 year old and they said they didn't have any and gave her a giant serving fork.  Umm, yeah a 4 year old can't be eating with that.  Then when they served the cake, again, no forks and they looked at us like we were crazy for asking.  Just rude.

This was a special peach bun served at the birthday party - it represents longevity and had bean paste inside.  Honestly, not my favorite thing but it was right for the occasion.

On my birthday, we were treated to lunch at Hwa-Young (2.5 Forks) which I was told was a dim sum place, so I was super excited.  Sadly of all of the big eats places I went to, this one really wasn't that great.   The dim sum was just ok, I've actually had much better in DC and in NYC.   I will say that the shrimp with head on was delicious because it had been soaking in a sherry wine and the spring rolls were tasty, but the rest of the dishes were really mediocre.  Compared to how many other awesome dim sum places there are in the city, this one was disappointing.  Plus the service was also pretty slow and unresponsive. 

My very last meal in Taiwan was at Peng's Agora Garden (4 Forks).  Talk about super swanky.  This place also has private rooms but they only have 1 giant table in there (I think the lazy susan was about 3 feet long across) and you have your own private bathroom and several dedicated servers who work just for you.  Compared to the previous 2 places we went to, the service here was fabulous.  The two dishes I want to call out are this very thin bun with amazing thin crackling pieces of pork and pork skin.  Delicious!
 

And the other dish was this piece of super tender pork rib coated in this crunchy outside.   I have never had a dish like this and thought it was wonderful (sorry the picture kind of makes it look gross but I swear it was great).

Banquet eats are always an honor and ridiculously overwhelming.  I mean the food is (usually) always delicious but to be eating 10+ course meals this often got to be very tiring.  But I will say it's food like this that make me not want to eat Chinese food on my own in NYC.  People always ask me if I eat a lot of Chinese food in NYC and I don't and it's because of amazing authentic experiences like these that make eating General Tsao's Chicken and Shrimp fried rice so hard.

Taiwan 2013 - Non Banquet Eats Part 2 - 3-4 Forks

Howard Hotel -  3 Forks - No. 160, Section 3, Rén'ài Rd, Daan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 106

I'll be honest, but I'm a sucker for a good buffet.  I know they are usually kind of gross with food made in bulk just sitting out in the open for people to pick over, but there's just something appealing about having a large variety of food at your disposal.  My mom and my aunt and uncle met a family friend at the Howard Hotel which I guess is one of the nicer hotels in Taipei.  On the first floor is the Rainbow Terrace which serves an Asian buffet for ~$20/pp for lunch.  I've been to a bunch of buffets in my life but none of them were really Asian themed, so this was a treat.  They had Indian food (chicken and fish curry), Thai food (lettuce cups, papaya salad, satays, etc), Chinese food (peking duck, fish soups, jellyfish, etc), a cold seafood bar of shrimp, New Zealand style green mussels, octopus, and crab, a fruit bar and an ice cream bar.  The only thing that was missing was the one cuisine I was most looking forward to:  Japanese.

I ended up trying almost everything in the buffet but I started with the cold seafood bar.  The shrimp was great, very plumb and sweet.  Unfortunately, the crab (which I was most looking forward to) was awful.  I don't know if something was off about it or it was a kind of crab I wasn't used to, but it was inedible.  The mussels were good but I prefer my mussels warm and even though I knew they were cooked, there's something about eating ice cold mussels that didn't really do it for me.  All the other hot dishes were pretty good and very filling.  The best part of a buffet is if you don't like it, you don't have to finish it!  But there wasn't really anything except for the crab that I didn't finish.  For $20, it's definitely worth checking out, although $20 is really a lot of money to spend on on meal in Taiwan.  In the end, it's still a buffet, so the quality isn't going to be stellar but I enjoyed that it offered a different variety of food that you don't normally get all in one place.

Mazendo - 3.5 Forks -  No. 24, Lane 280, Guāngfù South Rd, Daan District, Taipei City, Taiwan 106

Another dish that Taiwan is famous for is their spicy beef noodle soup.  I remember from my youth of going to real divey mom and pop places for this dish.  But times have changed and my mom and I were walking down this somewhat trendy street that had this very sleek modern looking noodle soup restaurant.  Despite its youthful looking decor, the menu is still pretty old school with no pictures, just a piece of paper with various dishes listed in Chinese.  My mom and I each opted for the spicy beef noodle soup ($4/bowl) and an order of pea shoot tops ($2) which is one of my favorite vegetables.  The noodle soups came out pretty quickly and it looked bright red from tons of red chili oil and I was worried that my tongue was going to burn off.  Either my tolerance for spiciness has vastly improved or this really wasn't that spicy.  The chunks of beef were super super tender and had the perfect balance of meat and fat to it (it looked like a chuck cut).  My one gripe about this dish was that there wasn't enough noodles to it.  I slurpped down most of dish but was left with tons of broth and nothing to go with it.  I would have also liked it to be a notch spicier/more flavorful but overall, it was a great mid-afternoon snack.  The pea shoot tops were sauteed in garlic and it was great.  It was the perfect size because usually in most Chinese places in the US they give you a dish the size of a house and it costs $15+.  For $2, it was the perfect size for 2 people.  I had walked past this place another night and there was a long line of young kids waiting to get in, so it looks to be pretty popular with the younger crowd.  Price, decor and food wise, it's definitely worth checking out if you're in the 'hood.

Suabu -  4 Forks - No. 440, Guangfu S. Road, Da-an District, Taipei City, 10695

One of the few places I remember from my last visit to Taiwan was this awesome hot pot place right across the street from my grandpa's apt.  I love hot pot, but rarely eat it in the US because you generally need a big group for it.  But here they give you individual servings and you have a choice of picking from a variety of combinations or ordering a la carte.  By default you get the below bowl of basic items - cabbage, tofu, fish cake, tomato, pumpkin and enoki mushrooms.

For my main entree, I opted for the beef and seafood combo ($11) which comes with about 6 very thinly sliced pieces of red meat, squid, shrimp, mussels, clams, a good size fillet of salmon and a fillet of white fish.  You also get a choice of rice or noodles.  We got an order of these vermicelli-like see through noodles, which is a great type of noodle to use in hot pot.  All this food combined with the standard veggie plate you get is a ton of food. 

They have a sauce station in the back where you make your own dipping sauce.  I got your basic light
soy sauce, garlic, cilantro and scallion.  The broth was a standard chicken broth and you essentially dip each item into the hot broth and wait for it to cook.  Everything was great and even though it was 1,000 degrees outside, hot pot remains one of my favorite types of food because it's so easy/healthy/tasty.  The noodles are best put in last after your broth has a bit of flavor from all the other ingredients you've had soaking in there.  If you still have room, they also have a freezer full of ice cream that's included in the price of your meal.  I just wish I got there earlier because we only had an hour to eat and felt a bit pressure to eat quickly but that was our own fault for walking in at 9:30pm when we knew they closed at 10:30pm.

Taiwan 2013 - Non Banquet Eats Part 1 - 3-4 Forks

So instead of listing every single place I ate in Taiwan by date, I'm going to lump them into two different categories:  Banquet and Non-Banquet style restaurants.  The main reason I'm doing this is, well frankly, I was eating so much food there that it became overwhelming and I just can't post about everything.  Plus a lot of the places I ate at don't have English names, so some of the entries are going to be a bit skimpy.

My first stop was Din Tai Fung (3 Forks).  This is one most well known chain restaurants in Taiwan (and maybe even Asia).  It's been written about in tons of food blogs and was mentioned in a recent episode of The Layover with Anthony Bourdain.  So of course I had to go and try it.  There are tons of locations but the closest one to my grandfather's place was in the Taipei 101 building.  It's located on the bottom level near the food court.  When we got there, the wait was about 30 minutes but the good thing is that they let you place your order first so that when you sit there is minimal wait time for your food.  My mom and I ordered the famous pork soup dumplings, shrimp and melon soup dumplings, and wonton soup.

They are famous for having 18 perfect folds in their dumplings and when you walk into the restaurant you see a huge glass room where there are tons of very efficient works folding each dumpling.  The dumplings were good but they didn't really bring me to tears like they did for Anthony Bourdain.  The wonton soup was also ok with 5 plumb wontons in a hot broth with noodles, but also not mind blowing.  The fact that the place was also so clearly a tourist trap also kind of put a damper on things for me.  Now don't get me wrong, the food was good but I was ready to have some kind of religious experience based on all the reviews and I just didn't.  Price-wise our entire meal was $25, which you think is pretty cheap but considering how many other super cheap dumpling places there are in Taiwan (like $.25/dumpling) this place was definitely on the pricer side.

The other thing about our meal at Din Tai Fung was that it wasn't very filling.  We were still hungry so we ended up scouring the food court for other food options.  We kept coming back to this one place that had this sizzling plate of giant squid (3 Forks).  Lots of other people in the food court had gotten food from here so we figured it was worth a try.

For $5, you get this entire hot plate of squid, chicken, bean sprouts, a green veggie, fried egg, white rice and miso soup.  This was definitely more than enough food for 2 people.  The squid was good, not too chewy or difficult to eat.  Maybe it was because I had already eaten but the meal wasn't nearly as dramatic as I thought it was going to be.  The rest of the meal was fine, it tasted a bit like stir fry with some sauce to it.

You'd think after eating these 2 meals that I would be too full to eat a multi course dinner.  But oh no, this is Taiwan.  You literally eat until you burst there.  For dinner, I took my grandfather to one of his favorite restaurants (I don't know the English translation but this meal was 4 Forks).  They only have multi-course prix fixe meals, no ordering a la carte.  My mom and grandpa got the $40 version with shark fin soup (what they are known for) and I got the $30 version with lobster and fish.  The food here is all extremely authentic and much more local.  Both sets of meals came with fish, rice (fried or in a banana leaf), sauteed green veggies and a fungus dessert soup.  The only difference is that the $40 set had shark fin and abalone.

Yes, I know shark fin soup is cruel and is actually banned in some countries, but it's still considered a Chinese delicacy.  It's really not that bad of a soup (the fin has a bit of jelly and a bit of crunch to it) and is served with tart vinegar.  I wouldn't make a habit of eating it but I do have it every now and then if I'm in an authentic Chinese restaurant. 

The steam fish (I think it was cod) filets were great and served with a lot of garlic which always makes food taste better.

The lobster was served cut in half, not like how it's usually served in its full state in the US.  The tail was a bit smaller and not as meaty than Main lobsters but it was still sweet and again was covered in garlic. 

The steam sticky rice wrapped in a banana leaf is one of my favorite ways to eat sticky rice.  The rice has a lot of flavor to it and has bits of mushroom and chicken (or sometimes sausage) cooked inside of it.  Unlike Din Tai Fung, this place only had locals and the staff was very friendly and looked like they took real family pride in their restaurant.  The total bill was $110 for 3 people, which considering how much food we got was still a great deal.

One of the things Taiwan is most famous for is their night markets.  There are tons of them all over the city and it's one of the most fun things to do there.  One of biggest markets is the Shilin Night Market.  It's blocks and blocks of street food, cheap clothes and souvenirs, and foot massages.  In the back there is an inside food court that serves up similar foods on the street.  My uncle, aunt, mom and I had our first meal of the night at the first tappanyaki place (3 Forks) when you walk into the food court.

Tappanyanki is essentially the same thing as habachi or cooking on a hot flat top.  My mom and I split the seafood combo (~$12 total) which had sauteed bean sprouts, cabbage, shrimp, cod and crab.  It was good but frankly it was super salty and you can taste TONS of butter in it, which is surprising because Chinese people typically don't use a lot of butter.  The crab part was a bit disappointing because the meat was small and after seeing the chef cook the delicious chicken thigh in front of me, I would have preferred the that instead.

 One of the stalls in the food court offering fried crab and delicious looking shrimp.

 Crispy squid on a stick - I didn't eat it but I thought it was an interesting picture.

Two of the most famous Taiwanese street foods are the stinky tofu and oyster pancake.  The stinky tofu (above) is appropriately named because it seriously smells.  It mostly smells like stinky feet but the smell comes from the fermentation and vinegar used in the dish.  I didn't want to try it but I felt like since I was here, I had to.  In all honesty, if you plug your nose and don't let the smell get to you, it doesn't taste that bad.  This version was fried (there's also non-fried tofu) and if I blocked the smell out of my mind, it tasted like a piece of fried tofu with sauce on it.  But the smell is super potent, so I can see how difficult it can be to separate the two.

Next I tried the oyster pancake.  I recently had one while I was dining in Flushing so I knew what to expect but my mom claimed that the oysters here were small and sweeter.  They were indeed smaller but I'm not sure if they were really sweeter.  I really wanted to like this dish, but it was too heavy on the corn starch and too light on the egg for me to really like this dish very much. 

We then ended the meal with another Taiwan favorite: shaved ice with mango ($4).  It's the perfect dish to have on a hot night.  The mangoes so incredibly sweet and juicy and the ice is a sweet combination of ice with mango flavoring to it.  Your mouth is just freezing with mango goodness.  I wish I could eat this stuff everyday here in the U.S.

The above and below photos are just shots of all the crazy chicken/pig products on a stick that are offered in the market.  I am totally an adventurous eater but there's something about raw meat sitting out in the heat for longs period of times just doesn't really appeal to me.

Hawaii Day 9 Visited 5/26/2013 2.5 Forks

Downbeat Diner 42 N Hotel St., Honolulu, HI 96817

I realized that I totally forgot to write up this review almost 2 weeks after I visited...I guess that should be indicative of my meal there.  To be totally fair, my review is less about the actual restaurant but about my one dish.  On our last day in Hawaii, Deanna and I left our hotel early and decided to try a hipster diner in Chinatown.  Usually I am a huge fan of most city's Chinatown section because of the cheap food and just fun crazy atmosphere.  I guess since almost all of the island is full of Chinese people, Chinatown is not that big of a deal here since Honolulu's Chinatown was kind of depressing not super interesting.  In fact there were lots of homeless people and it was only a couple blocks wide.  But in the middle of all of it, is this hipster vegan friendly diner called The Downbeat Diner.  It's got this very rock and roll feeling (maybe because there is a local rock club across the street) and of all the restaurants we've been to, this one had almost no Asian locals there despite it's location.  The menu here has lots of salads, sandwiches (with lots of vegan/fake meat options), burgers, and bar appetizers such as fries, mozzarella sticks, and jalapeno poppers.  For breakfast, they have an array of egg dishes and a variety of their local breakfast favorite "loco mocos".  I figured on my last day in Hawaii I should finally try a loco moco even though it didn't sound too appealing.   I got the original version which was a beef patty, over brown rice with 2 fried eggs covered in gravy ($8).  There were other versions that came grilled chicken or chili or the mega version which had 2 of everything (2 patties, 2 scoops of rice, 4 fried eggs, etc).  Deanna got the pesto chicken sandwich with vegan chicken with fries ($8).

I guess the best way to describe the dish is that it's like steak and eggs meets biscuits and gravy.  Even though I ate the whole thing, I really didn't want to.  The patty was like a hamburger but it was cooked medium-well which I normally don't like.  It was super salty and the gravy on top was just too much to deal with.  The brown rice was fine but just didn't go well with the overall concept of meat and eggs to me.  I guess this is really a local acquired taste.  I did try Deanna's pesto sandwich and it was pretty good, even the vegan chicken part.  I probably would have liked my meal better if I had stuck with a basic egg/pancake or burger but I wanted to try something new.  This definitely looks like it would be a fun place late night but I didn't have time for it.

Boukies Visited 5/31/2013 4.5 Forks

Boukies 29 E 2nd St., (at 1st St), New York, NY 10003

I've said it before but I'll say it again, but Greek food is so underrated.  I usually steer toward Thai/Asian when I go out and lately a bunch of Italian, but really good Greek food ranks right up there in terms of really really delicious food plus most of it is super healthy and good for you.  Lav and I were going to meet up with our friend Prem in the East Village, so I wanted to find a place that was within walking distance to B Bar (yuck), catered to vegetarians and had reservations at the last minute.  Boukies fit all of those requirements.  I should have known that the food would be good because it's from the same people at Pylos which is one of my East Village favorites.

Since it was a brutally hot day, Lav and I started with the Greek Salad ($12) since it would be nice and refreshing.  We also got the Flaounes me Feta kai Meli ($10), the Gigantes Ypirotiki me Spanaki kai Feta ($10), the spanakorizo ($7) and I ordered the Thrimatismeno Arni se Pita ($14).  What do all those words mean?  I'll explain as I describe each dish.  But first the Greek Salad.  It was awesome.  So so fresh with the perfect dressing and the ripest tomatoes I've had in a long time.  It had these fantastic large pieces of feta and crisp slices of cucumber.  It was also gigantic and I could see myself eating it as my main meal for lunch or an early dinner.  It was the perfect salad on a hot day.  Next came the Flaounes dish which was Boukie's signature phyllo flutes and filled with warm feta and drizzled with greek honey and black pepper.  Lav mentioned that I should have taken a bite while it was hot (and she was right) but even though I bit it after it had cooled down a bit, it was still a perfect combination of sweetness from the honey, crispiness from the phyllo dough and tang from the feta.  It was super unique and quite tasty.  The Gigantes was braised giant beans with spinach and feta and paired nicely with the bread we had.  It's totally fine to eat on its own but it almost tasted better as kind of a spread.   The spanakorizo was essentially a side order of Greek pilaf (almost like an orzo) with spinach, feta and lemon.  Again a nice refreshing dish but given how full we were from the other dishes, Lav and I both agreed that if we had to vote one dish off the island, this would probably be it.  Meanwhile, I ordered the Thrimatismeno or pulled lamb sandwiches for myself.  After seeing the size of the salad, I was a bit worried that it was going to be too much food, but it was actually a cute mini pita cut in half and then stuffed with lamb and served with a yogurt dill sauce.  I thought that the lamb was a little bit on the dry side and could have used a bit more flavor to it.  I was constantly dipping it into the yogurt sauce to give it some extra flavor and moisture.  When a lamb sandwich is done right, it usually has a LOT of flavor and moisture and this one didn't quite hit the mark but none the less I still ate the entire dish, so clearly I liked it enough!   Even though we were totally stuffed we always leave room for dessert.  We opted for the Santorini oozing lava cake ($8) which was this moist and decadent chocolate cake with wine soaked sour cherries.  As someone who isn't a huge lover of chocolate, I enjoyed this dessert a lot since it wasn't overly sweet or sugary. 

What I also loved about this place was the service.  I got to the restaurant first and normally most restaurants won't seat you until your whole party is there, but they were kind enough to let me sit at the table and grab some water while I waited.  Plus the waitress was very sweet and gave us a great recommendation on a light summery white wine ($46 for the bottle).  I also loved that it was very reasonably priced with all of the dishes we ordered being under $15.  All in all, it was a fantastic meal and it reminds again how wonderful Greek food is and how I should seek it out more often.  Total bill: $84/pp with tax, tip and lots of wine

Photo Credit: Yelp

Feluccio Visited 5/30/2013 3 Forks

Feluccio 364 Prospect Ave., (between 7th Ave & Jackson Pl), Brooklyn, NY 11215

In all the years I had lived in Park Slope, I actually never really ventured much past 15th street, so when my friend Greg asked if I wanted to check out this mom and pop place near 17th street, I was intrigued (plus the fact that he had an expiring Groupon).  While I'm usually a bit weary of restaurants that participate in Groupon deals, I figured it was worth it to try at least once.  While Park Slope and its surrounding neighborhoods are some of the most populated parts of Brooklyn, this part of Brooklyn still seems to be more quiet and has some of the original Brooklyn feel to it.  The decor is pretty basic and not very flashy which matched the attitude of the waitstaff. 

I arrived at Feluccio around 8pm on a Thursday and there were only 2 tables that were occupied.  I sat at the bar waiting for Greg and it was one of those super humid days where I looked like a crazy, hot sweaty mess, so I was hoping the waiter/bartender would take one look at me and offer me a glass of water without me asking.  Uh - so I apparently I did have to ask.  Twice.  I was a bit annoyed by that considering there was practically no one in the restaurant. 

In terms of ordering, the Groupon Greg had required the following:  an appetizer or a salad, an 18" pizza and 2 glasses of wine.  So we opted for the feluccio salad ($10.95), the Diavola Pizza ($21) and two glasses of Chianti.  Plus we got an additional order of the calamari fritti ($10.95) on top of the Groupon.  I was pleasantly surprised by the calamari as it was lightly battered and it was pretty tasty.  I hate fried calamari that is so deep fried that all you can taste it fried batter, but this one was light on the batter and you could actually taste the actual bits of calamari underneath.  Next came the salad which consisted of a mesculin salad, goat cheese, olives and sundried tomatoes with balsamic vinaigrette.  The salad was fine but I definitely don't think it was worth $10.95 given the size of the salad and it was also a bit too overdressed for me.  Usually I love dressing on my salad but this was literally soaking in it.  What surprised me the most here was the pizza.  It was a lovely thin crust pizza served with fresh mozzarella, spicy salami and parmigiano - the salami was definitely spicy and had such a serious kick (for me at least) that I could only really have 2 slices and had to call it quits.  In terms of wine,  I should mention that the waiter gave us VERY generous pours of red wine and to me that more than made up for the fact that I didn't really love the actual wine. 

All in all, it was a perfectly ok meal but it's not a place I would run back to since I don't live anywhere near it.  It's definitely not a destination restaurant, but if I did live within walking distance, then I could see myself going on a low key night and just wanted some decent Italian food.  Total bill (excluding the groupon): $47 for 2 people including tax and tip and extra wine and food we ordered.

Photo Credit: Yelp

Hawaii Day 8 Visited 5/25/2013 4.5 Forks and 4 Forks

KCC Farmer's Market - Kapiolani Community College, 4303 Diamond Head Rd, Honolulu, HI 96816

Now this is the shit I am talking about.  I love a good a farmer's market and it's even better when there are food stalls along side with it.  This is like the Union Square's Farmer's market plus the Smorgasborg Flea market all in one but on a slightly smaller scale.  We stumbled upon this place totally by accident on our way to Diamond Head.  I had just finished hiking to the top and we had a 2pm paddleboarding class, so we decided to check this place out for lunch since it was nearby.  Even though it's crazy crowded (and it was made even worse by the fact that Japanese tour buses were dropping tourists off by the bus load), I totally loved it.  Lots of great local fruits and veggies stands and other knick knacks like honey and flowers.

After I walked the entire market, I had to make the tough decision on what to actually eat for lunch.  The one surprising thing was that a lot of the food was pretty heavy.  I was kind of hoping for something light like a poke or local salad but there didn't seem to by any stalls that offered it.  So I landed on The Pig and the Lady, a Vietnamese place that offered lots of delicious soudning options and I chose the pho french dip ($11).  It was a totally and utterly amazing sandwich, one of the best ones I've had in a long time.  It was made with 12 hr roasted brisket, sauteed bean sprouts, thai basil chimmichurri, and pho au jus all on a super soft and pillow-y french bread.  Everything worked perfectly together and each bite had all the different ingredients dancing in my mouth.  The 2 ladies next me split the sandwich while I wolfed the entire thing down myself.   Deanna also ordered lunch here and got the vegetarian curry.

I know the picture doesn't really do a lot of justice to it but it was actually very good as well.  All the vegetables came straight from the farmer's market.  In fact, I saw one of the workers run to one of the vendors next door to buy some spring onion and put it directly into some of the dishes.  Talk about fresh.  Even though I was sweating and it wasn't a restaurant, this was one of my favorite dishes on vacation.  It proves that you don't have to go to a 5 star fancy places (or even a physical space) to have really good, quality food.

Cafe Sistina - 1314 S King St., Honolulu, HI 96814

For our last real dinner in Oahu we decided to go somewhere that had good veggie options so that both Deanna and I could enjoy our meal.  My friend Van had recommended this place as a great Italian place away from the hustle and bustle of the beach area.  At first I was a bit reluctant to have Italian food but I was glad I went.  I do have to comment on the decor of this place.  It's uber cheesey with tons of "fresco" artwork on the wall done to replicate the artwork in the Sistine Chapel.  It's a cute concept but it was just way too much.

We started with organic baby greens salad ($9.75) and it was a nice but huge starter salad.  It came with fresh tomatoes, cremini mushrooms, bell peppers, sweet onions, cucmbers and very lightly dressed with mango vinaigrette.  I would have preferred to have had a bit more dressing on it but otherwise it was a nice basic salad.  For entrees, I was torn because I really just couldn't stomach anymore heavy cream pasta and almost everything on this menu had some kind of heavy sauce or cream.  But I was also craving really fresh good seafood, so I asked our waitress for a recommendation.  She mentioned that the scampi alla vodka ($17.25) was a great choice, but I was a bit weary because of the heavy vodka sauce but she mentioned that it had more clam juice than anything else to give it flavor.  When the dish came out, I was a bit skeptical because it was huge and looked really heavy.

Bu it was actually incredibly delicious and not as heavy as it looks.  The spinach fettuccine was great and perfectly al dente, the shrimp was amazing and had that nice crisp and bite that truly fresh shrimp has.  There was a bunch of capers that added some saltiness to the dish but it wasn't overwhelming and the waitress was right when she said that the sauce as more heavily flavored with clam juice but it was just the right amount and it didn't make the sauce taste fishy or weird.  It was exactly what I wanted in a seafood pasta.  Deanna got an angel hair pasta with fresh pesto and she loved it as well.

And yes, it looks like enough pasta for an army but it was very very thin and it was just very spread out on a large plate.  That would be my one complaint about this place:  that even the food is great, they need to work a little bit on presentation.  It kind of looks like they just slopped the delicious pasta on a dish and it just doesn't look at appetizing as it should.  The waitstaff here (like most of the people in Hawaii) was super friendly and nice too.  It may sound strange to have had our final dinner at a totally non-Hawaiian restaurant, the didn't really matter because the food was great and that's all that matters.  Total bill:  $48/pp with tax and tip.

Hawaii Day 7 5/24/2/13 3 Forks and 3.5 Forks

Mac 24/7 Hilton Waikiki Beach Hotel, 2500 Kuhio Ave., Honolulu, HI 96815

When I'm on vacation, I generally try to avoid restaurants in hotels just because I like to get away from the hotel and because they're generally more expensive.  But in the Waikiki area almost every building is a hotel or resort and it's difficult to avoid eating some meal at some hotel.  One of Deanna's friend had mentioned that Mac 24/7 at the Hilton had great food and since it was right across the street, we gave it a go.

The vibe here is more of a cool, fun, modern diner and I had read that it was on the Travel Network's Man vs. Food for the pancake challenge.  When we sat down, the table of Japanese tourists next to us got the Mac Daddy pancake and they literally worked on it for an hour and they barely made a dent in ti.  I was not ready to dive head first into a pancake the size of a car, but I did end up getting a meal that also almost left me comatose.  Most of the hotels we had been staying at so far offered free breakfast but most of the food was your standard, eggs, bacon, fruit kind of thing.  I decided to get the most "local" breakfast on the menu which was the kalbi, rice and 2 eggs overeasy ($15).  I had an idea what kalbi was but I wasn't expecting 3 giant strips of meat.  Kalbi is essentially a Korean beef short rib and it was quite tasty here. It was super thin (which made it slightly easier to deal with than if it were a filet cut) and had the great marinated taste of a bulgoi.  I normally don't get sunny side up eggs but they were fried perfectly here with a perfect runny yolk inside.  My only gripe was the rice.  It was dry and could have been moister and stickier.  While I enjoyed my meal, it was kind of hard to start off my day with essentially 3 large strips of meat and white rice.  I should also mention that Deanna got the Mac Attack ($16) which was pancakes, eggs, potatoes and your choice of bacon or sausage.  There was a mis-communication about the meat and they brought out a plate with bacon on it.  Deanna told her that she didn't eat meat and if they could make a new batch, which they said sure.  They came back in 2 minutes with a "new" dish without bacon, so it's pretty clear they just took the bacon off the plate which wasn't exactly what Deanna wanted.  I took a quick bite of her pancake and it was nice and fluffy  but I definitely wouldn't be able to eat an entire plate full of it.  I should note that the waitstaff, while very nice, is soooo slow.  Even the table next to us made a comment about it, but I guess that's island life. :)  Total bill:  $18/pp.

Sansei Seafood Restaurant and Sushi Bar Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort & Spa, 2552 Kalakaua Ave., Honolulu, HI 96815

Sansei came highly recommend on both Big Island and Oahu, so when we didn't get a chance to go on the Big Island we had to go when we were on Oahu.  We both had friends who had separately raved about this place and both said it was some of the best sushi they had anywhere.  While we were looking up the address to this place we noticed that they had a Friday Happy Hour special - 50% off!  Perfect!  My two favorite things, sushi and a discount. :)  But the catch here was that it started at 10PM.  It was a late night happy hour that ran from 10-1AM and also had free karaoke.  In order to not go totally crazy and be starving, we did grab a drink and a quick snack at Roy's.  I didn't review it here simply because we just split salad but I will say that the salad there was delicious and I would totally go back there for a full meal.

We got to Sansei around 9:45pm and there was already a line of 70 people there!  Crazy.  People walking by were giving us looks and asking what we were waiting in line for.  Luckily the line moved pretty quickly and I kid you not, we were the LAST people to get a table.  It was essentially first come first seat (I guess the wait staff just didn't want to deal with all these crazy people at night), but there was a 2 top outside (away from the karaoke) and we got the last one, otherwise the hostess had said to check back around midnight.  Yeah - I'm a city gal and don't mind eating late but having dinner at midnight was not what I wanted. 

So I probably should have known that a 50% discount does come with some strings attached.  While there was a 3 page menu (with everything on the menu 50% off) but it was about half the size of the regular menu.  So there were tons rolls that we had seen on their website that wasn't available for this happy hour deal which was a bummer.  I guess that does make sense but still a bit disappointing none the less.  But I made the best of the situation and ordered more than I probably needed to.  I ordered the sashimi trio appetizer (regularly $18), the caterpillar roll (regularly $15), and the Alaskan roll (regularly $12).  I thought that the prices seemed a bit over inflated and maybe they jacked up the prices just for happy hour but then again it's also a sushi restaurant in a hotel right on Waikiki beach, so that all lends to higher prices. 

The sashimi was fantastic - 3 pieces of salmon, 3 pieces of tuna and 3 pieces of yellowtail.  It's a classic but always a goodie if the fish is fresh - which is was here.  The caterpillar roll consisted of fresh unagi rolled inside out and wrapped with creamy avocado, topped with masago and unagi glaze.  This was my favorite roll of the night mostly because the avocado was super ripe and creamy and the eel was great.  It was very filling and was totally worth the half price and even the full price because there were 8 pieces of it.  Next I tried the Alaskan roll which was a "flower roll" which was slices of raw salmon and shiso wrapped around a mini rice ball, topped with seasoned salmon roe and fresh lemon in a "flower" shape.  This was essentially like an inside out roll with the rice on the inside and the fish on the outside.  The salmon was very fresh on the outside and I loved the plethora of the salmon roe on top of it.  It was just difficult to eat with the fish wrapped on the outside because it was so slippery and it kept slipping out of my chopsticks.  I also wasn't a huge fan of the shiso leaf inside.  I've never been a lover of shiso and this just confirmed my belief of it.  I should have totally stopped here with my food but I felt like I could do one more roll, so I ordered the scallop and cucumber roll (regularly $6.50) which had fresh, minced scallops with cucumber and masago aioli.  It had all the components of a great roll but it was way to big and had too much of rice inside.  Given the fact that I was already pretty full, I just couldn't deal with all the rice so I had to poke it out of the roll which kind of destroyed the roll in general.  But the scallop was fresh and delicious, so if this roll was half the size it would have been perfect. 

Given the reduced size of the menu, they cut a lot of the veggie rolls so Deanna ended up ordering the tempura onion rings, a cucumber avocado asparagus roll and another kind of pickled veggie roll.  I only tried the tempura onion rings and they were pretty good and crispy.  They could have been a bit smaller and thinner but overall they weren't soggy.  

While I am not a huge fan of karaoke, the whole karaoke experience at night with what looked like mostly locals was a lot of fun.  People were really belting it out and enjoying themselves and their enthusiasm was definitely infectious.  I also wanted to give props to our waitress.  She was super friendly and awesome.  She gave us some great tips of local, off the beaten path bars that we did end up going to and they were great.  While I can't say that the sushi here was the best I've ever had but I will give it the benefit of the doubt because we went during a crazy late night happy hour.  Total bill for just my portion was $40 with 2 beers. 

Photo Credit: Yelp