Puerto Rican Food Adventures

As some of you may know, I went to Puerto Rico this last weekend for a little R&R. There were 2 things I was super excited about. The first one was tanzning by the pool. The second... food, doi! My knowledge of Puerto Rican cuisine is of course linked into Top Chef - Top Chef Chicago finished off their season in Puerto Rico where I learned a lot about Plantains. I was dying to try some authentic food, so we headed over to Old San Juan the first night. 

Per the suggestion of the young taxi driver (who by the way, was playing a horror movie in his cab) - we went to Cafe Puerto Rico. Cheap, great service, great food, he said. Super! SOLD! 

The restaurant was cozy and dimly lit with a small outdoor seating area. We were seated immediately and instantly ordered a mojito (the only thing I drank the entire time I was there) - I was ravenous so we ordered a Chicken Mofongo to start. Mofongo is mashed fried green plantains. You then form it into a little cup like shape and fill it with deliciousness, in our case, chunks of garlic chicken. Let me tell you, I'm completely sold on the idea. I love fried. And I love garlic. And I love plantains. All the rest is extra. 

We followed with our entrees. This is where I kinda fucked up - I ordered garlic chicken with fried plantains and rice. I mean, it was too much of a good thing. I wish I had ventured a little. Nonetheless, it was really delicious - the chicken was cooked perfectly and was moist.  

Although we were both stuffed, I insisted on ordering dessert. Three Milk Cake. It was essentially a fluffy cake with condensed milk pour over it. Sounds kinda gross but it was sooo good. I couldn't stop eating it. I'm going to be looking up a recipe soon to try it out. I really loved it. I also had their house coffee which helped cut through the sweetness of the cake. Yummers. 

Cut to the last meal in Puerto Rico. We were grabbing lunch before the flight at a place that was too crowded the night of our first dinner. This came highly recommended by everyone we spoke to - Las Raices. We waited about 30 minutes and were seated in a cute and authentic looking restaurants. All the servers were wearing Puerto Rican garbs and we promptly ordered fruity drinks. 

I couldn't get over the Mofongo from the other night, and it was one of their specialities so we ordered a mofongo with skirt steak and chimichurri sauce. Holy crap, was this ever delicious. It was my most favorite thing I put in my mouth that whole vacation (hardy har har) - the steak was cubed and cooked to PERFECTION. Totally moist and flavorful. And the mofongo? Served in a coconut cup. Love it! It was so good, I feel like I'll be hard pressed to search for that same quality in New York. 

For my entree, my friend and I chose the house special (also suggested by multiple hotel employees) - the Kan-Kan Pork Chop. For those of you not familiar, it's kinda similar to the Roast Pork you can get in a Chinatown BBQ shop - really really crisp and salty skin with tender meat underneath it. We got it with a side of yellow rice with beans. This was absolutely mouth-wateringly delicious. My only complaint was it took a lot of effort to eat. I don't know about you, but I'm a lazy eater. Hence my obsession with frozen yogurt. Effortless. I really had to pick up the steak knife and go for it. Was completely worth it though - I just gave up in like 10 minutes and ate all the mofongo.

Personally I love the food in PR. I wasn't really expecting to, but I am going to do some research on similar restaurants in the city. I may have to travel to the boroughs but I would do it to taste those plantains again....

Shake Shake and Momofuku Milk Bar - Part... God I've lost count

So I had a couple of people visiting NY this weekend (Hi Embert!) and as when any tourists are in town, us NYers feel compelled to pretend we actually walk instead of taking cabs everywhere. What was supposed to be a where's where of the city, ending up being somewhat of a "Eat Your Way Downtown" or "Tourists Eat Manhattan" situation.

We started out with Shake Shack - I've eaten at Shack Shake a dozen times but never without a line. I checked the Shack Cam to make sure the line was short and we walked our way over to Madison Sq. Park. Mind you, this was supposed to be a pre-dinner "snack" which by our definition meant splitting our food instead of eating it all ourselves. I ended up with fries, a Shake Shack Burger (which is essentially just a burger with a special "Shack Sauce"), and a diet coke. I gotta say, it's as good as I remember. The patty was juicy and the pun was toasted but still soft. Yummers. It's on the smaller side which is good when you are obese and putting yourself on a diet like me. The fries are the skinny shoe string kind - since I'm a fan of the crispy fry this really works to my advantage. The only thing that sucked was it was so frigid and the heat lamps weren't working. Nuts! Here is a pic of me, Embert, and his gf Janice:














Next stop.. uhhh.. more food? I had to walk them to the east village to visit Momofuku Milk Bar again. I know. Again. Apparently I have more of a sweet tooth than I thought I did. Also, we were supposed to eat dinner in like an hour. Oh, and walking off our burgers at Shake Shack. Oops.

Anyway, we got the crack pie (which I've had before but was a little too cracktastic for me) and I tried the Chocolate Chip and Passion Fruit Cake. At first glance it reminded me of the Carrot Cake that I literally fantasize about. It was actually super delicious -it had this cream cheesey frosting that had a hint of passion fruit tanginess to it. The rest of it was a typical cake - nice and fluffy and covered in chocolate chips. Oh and it was ginormous:


















On that note, apologies for being absent lately. Let's just say I haven't been doing much cooking or eating - I've been a liquid diet.

I'm getting back in the kitchen this week so stay tuned - plus, look for my Top Chef recap tomorrow evening. SO EXCITED.

OVER IT :: Asian-Fusion doesn't do it for me anymore (Shang NYC Restaurant Review)

Last week (Inauguration Night Holler) we took some clients down to the Lower East Side to a new restaurant called Shang. That neighborhood in general has changed quite a bit - from a gritty cafe infested neighborhood to some pretty trendy-meatpacking-eque joins (i.e. Stanton Social).

Shang is no exception to the new revolution of restaurants popping up down there - it's Asian fusion (fused with what, I still don't really know) and well, I was a little let down. The food was decent but honestly, that category is overdone and quite frankly, I think is hard to get right.

Those who know me personally know that I'm not very Asian on a day-to-day basis (don't ask me what that means) but I do take dirty Chinese street food very seriously. I prefer a $5 Roast Duck and BBQ Pork dish in a semi-health-code-violated restaurant in Chinatown to an upscale Chinese place like Chinatown Brasserie. Not to mention that I don't believe in upscale Chinese.. to me that is an oxymoron.. and not a good one.

ANYWAY, we walked up a flight of stairs and one thing I can say is that the space was beautiful. It had that whole dimly lit thing that NY Restaurant-du-jours are crazy about and it was a lot bigger than I expected:























We started out with drinks which were pretty decent but the fact that I can't remember what it was I drank leads me to believe it was nothing out of the ordinary. Since we were dining in a group of 6 and the resto was family-style, we got to try a lot of stuff (schmorg style as I like to call it). The group looked to me to order a couple of things, none of which were real standouts with the exception of Shang's Signature dish - a slow cooked Berkshire Pork Belly. I'm a huge fan of Pork Belly in general but this was really delish - the meat was super tender and the glaze was perfect. I can see why they chose to tout this dish.

We also tried the Singapore Slaw which was really flavorful and the textures were pretty good. It was just the right of amount of crispy for it to be a above and beyond just a normal asian slaw.

The last dish that I thought was pretty good was the Duck Breast - it was cooked perfectly and had a really great chilli-honey glaze that gave it that sweet/sour taste. Pretty good as far as high-end duck dishes go.

Now to the bad news... everything else we ordered tasted amateur - the flavors felt like they had been done 100 times before which normally isn't a problem for me but they weren't done well. It's like on American Idol when Simon tells the contestants not to do Whitney or Mariah.. there is probably no way to sound better than them so you might as well try something new.

With Chef's like Jean-Georges, David Chang, and Anthony Bourdain, why would you even go that route?

The one dish that made me throw up in my mouth was a "Fried Rice" that was wrapped in an egg-crepe. Conceptually it's a wonderful idea. In my mouth, it was a horrible mistake.

Overall Shang is a good place to go and experience the atmosphere... maybe a good dinner spot before going out since you wont leave too full and it's conveniently located at Orchard and Stanton.

Vegan 2.0 : Angelica Kitchen Review

Living in New York within close proximity of the Hipsters AND hailing from the hippy-esque Pitzer College, it was inevitable that Vegan food would inevitably find it's way into my diet at some point. Our cafeteria used to serve us inedible vegan gunk which resembled Elmer's Glue... bad experience. On the other hand, they also had the beautiful Grove House which had the tastiest, moistest (is that a word?) Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies imaginable (need to get that recipe.. will post soon).

My roommate from College came to visit - she loves things like Lentils, Trader Joe's, and legitimately enjoys eating things like brussel sprouts, so of course I took her to Angelica Kitchen to try it out.

I'm not sure if it was because it was particularly cold that day, but as soon as we walked in I felt a was transported into a cozy cabin that just happened to be super vegan. From a quick glance at the menu, Angelica's uses sustainable, plant-based, and seasonal ingredients with no dairy, eggs, animal products, preservatives, or refined-sugar. This may not sound delicious, but as a fellow carnivore, I can honestly say that if I was doing a blind test, I probably wouldn't know the difference.

Seeing as it was cold and I was in a skirt and tights, I opted for their Dashi and Noodles to warm me up. This hearty broth was filled with shiitake mushrooms, kombu (a type of seaweed), fresh ginger, and shoyu, as well as warm soba noodles. The soup was surprisingly filling even though the portion looked relatively small.


I also tried their Cranberte beverage which was cranberry juice (not cocktail... take that Ocean Spray), kukicha tea, and apple cider. It was DELICIOUS and could be served hot or cold ( I chose cold).

My roommate got one of their specials (which really are updated daily - yeah, I DO check) .. although I don't remember exactly what she got, it was a crepe filled with a bunch of delicious vegan-ness and a side of cranberry-esque sauce. I tried it and it was definitely better than my dish - here's a picture of her and her food:

Hey! You can see my Cranberte in there... doesn't that look divine?

The only super annoying thing about Angelica is that they don't accept Credit Cards, only Cash... I hate restaurants that do that. I'm always like.. what Century do you think we're living in?!

Anyway my official ratings for this restaurant are below:

Ambiance: 4/5 stars
Food: 4/5 stars - For Vegan food, this was pretty delicious
Service: 3/5 stars - Waiter was entirely too sarcastic (I really couldn't tell if he was kidding half the time) and another -1 for their lack of a credit card machine
Overall: 3.5 stars

40 Carrots Review - Bringing back the frequent yogurt card

I decided there was a need to review one of my favorite places to eat "brunch" on Sunday... 40 Carrots on the 7th floor of Bloomingdales on 59th and Lex.

Now as reported by one of my food blog favorites Grub Street, there is a cold war launching in Manhattan (links to an amazing comparison of the different shops if you're interested) - yes that's right, I am endorsing this fro-yo pun because I've noticed the trend as well.

Never one to step down from eating frozen yogurt, I've tasted several of the competitors - Pinkberry, Red Mango, Flurt, Yolato, 16 Handles - but none of them even compare to that of 40 Carrots - for a mere $5 dollars, you can order their small (small = roughly the size of my abnormally large head) and for an additional $1 you can choose from a great topping bar.


The restaurant, which used to be located on the ground floor (aka. where the "biggies" shop) has now been completely re-done and moved upstairs to the 7th floor. While the service is still shitty, the Frozen Yogurt portions have doubled and so has the seating. A helpful hint for all single males looking for both Jappy and Waspy future-wives - 40 Carrots is swimming with single seated ladies with nothing to pay attention to but their yogurts.

My favorite yogurt combo is the plain (creamy not icy, perfectly tart and smooth) and coffee (a little on the sweet side but a great contrast to the tangy plain) ... SIDE BY SIDE (no swirl for me) and a huge side of walnuts, all served with a coffee in a plain white mug to head off the shivers.

If you want the best frozen yogurt in the city and are brave enough to handle the Bloomie's shoppers, 40 carrots is DEFINTELY the way to go.

Helpful hints:

- Bloomingdale's Soho also has a frozen yogurt set up on the 2nd floor tucked away behind the purses. They usually only have 2 flavors and about 5 tables, but there usually isn't a wait here.

- Make sure to pick up their frozen yogurt card - 8 stamps gets you a free yogurt! Woohoo!