birthday feast

this year for miss phd's birthday, i decided to do something different. after years of buying her purses, clothes, jewelry, and the occasional cookbook, it was time to do something creative and fun. so, i set out to present her with a home-cooked meal. with 5 courses, complete with wine pairings! (the lucky boyfriends got to come along for the ride - although destructor really did help me a lot in the kitchen)

i spent an evening earlier in the week perusing my collection of menus (from various cookbooks, NYT dining section snippings, stolen recipes from the new school of cooking's website), and then on saturday, after 4 hours of prep (plus 2 more hours of cook time), I presented the following:



1st course: seared shrimp in a mint/lemon marinade, topped with freshly made mint pesto. i loved the pesto from this recipe. i didn't like the shrimp; it wasn't my best and i should have grilled it like the recipe said, but for the sake of time i modified.

i paired the shrimp and the salad (below) with a sauvignon blanc from wally's wine. some guy recommended it when i said "shrimp". i don't really like white so i just went with whatever he suggested, and it wasn't bad at all.


this is my 2nd course. a salad with watercress, mozzarella (which i uh, made fresh that day, using organic ingredients from the farm called trader joe's), endive and pears. tossed with a simple oil and lemon vinaigrette. the recipe called for grilled peaches but of course it turned out that peaches were not in season.

this is one of my favorite dishes. for my 3rd course, i made a simple fettucine pasta with peas in a cream sauce, topped with prosciutto. it's from my wolfgang puck book. i don't think this dish needs any explaining. what doesn't taste good with cream?


now we've moved onto the red wine. woohoo! per wally's recommendation this is a bookster pinot noir. it was really good and the smell was intoxicating. it smelled really sweet - almost vanilla like/syrupy. i was really trying to look for a bottle of joseph swan's pinot noir since that is miss phd's fave but i checked bristol farms and wally's with no luck. so this had to do.


and now for the 4th course. i have to say i'm pretty happy about how these turned out. i made a meatball tasting plate. there were 2 kinds: a tuna and pancetta meatball and a pork meatball with fennel, cumin and other spices, topped with a greek yogurt/cumin dressing and a mint/lemon dressing. i served 2 of each on long skinny plates. i love presentation. destructor was so great and helped me form and cook these meatballs while everyone was finishing up the pasta. i could not have done it without him (one because of the difficulty of timing everything and two because by then i was probably on my 4th glass of wine!) however, he was not allowed to plate these. yes, i am exec chef, he is sous-chef.

here is a close up of the pork meatball. you can't see too much of the meatball itself, but really the yogurt and mint toppings were the stars of the dish. i am going to top everything with these two things now. it was so delicious. both meatballs turned out really well - perfectly salted and tasty, but i do like the pork one better. i would also add more pancetta next time to my tuna meatball.

so...this is my "5th course": dessert. everyone who knows me knows i don't do dessert. i don't really like dessert and i can't bake to save my life. actually i think i just refuse to bake, because i don't like to measure and i don't like flour. so..i cheated a little. i didn't "make" anything, but instead assembled a platter of greek yogurt topped with honey, fresh strawberries, and chocolate (ritter sport - the kind with biscuits in the middle. the best!)


dessert was paired with a delicious black muscat from kalyra winery in santa ynez. served in my vintage rose decanter circa 1930s. (i have a thing for glasses/bottles/dishes) pictured above is the result of this crazy 5-course meal. well, not really - you should have seen the kitchen!

happy birthday miss phd!

morimoto nyc

destructor and i braved a windy (and cold) saturday night to eat at morimoto. we arrived by cab in front of a large white-ish (?) building front, and were greeted with warm, shiny objects when we entered. everything was bright, polished, and pretty. the space was large - really large compared to that of all my dining experiences at new york restaurants.



the hostess politely told us that our table would be ready in just a few moments, so we went downstairs to the bar area to wait. i enjoyed a nice cold "morimotini". i can't remember if this was vodka or sake, but it was really good, with just a hint of cucumber. as we waited and eyed the scenesters at the bar (this was definitely a trendy place), destructor decided he would really rather wait for a sushi bar seat than a table. so we requested this, and at least two different servers came to check up on us every 10 minutes and were extremely polite in telling us the seats weren't ready yet. to kill time, we take individual trips to the bathrooms, which we'd heard were very high tech. not only was the decor beautiful, but the toilets were definitely japanese robots. i didn't experiment with any of the 10 buttons on the panel - this kind of stuff weirds me out. but the toilet seat was really nice and toasty.

finally, we were fetched and led up to the main floor to be seated at the sushi bar. the moment we sat down our server apologized profusely for the "long wait" (about 40 minutes), even though it was really our own doing since our table was ready moments after we had arrived but we insisted on the sushi bar (best view in the house). after she went away, the manager promptly came over and apologized as well and said he would send out something for us.

at this point i felt really really nice and spoiled. the service here was amazing. i've never experienced this in LA. in LA, if you wait an extra 30 minutes at pizzeria/osteria mozza despite having made a reservation, the restaurant could care less.

anyway, so they brought out a tuna pizza for us, which was basically tuna sashimi placed over a thin, crispy wafer-like object. it was okay, but not my favorite. we ordered other appetizers: kobe beef carpaccio, rock shrimp tempura, and sushi (boring! this last item destructor's choice: he wanted to "see how good the actual sushi was here"). my favorite was the kobe beef carpaccio. beef carpaccio has always weirded me out just a little bit - because i don't eat much beef...much less eat it completely raw. but this was amazing. we watched the chefs behind the counter prepare this over and over again (very popular dish, we were told by our server), pouring hot sesame oil over the plate. unfortunately it was topped with cilantro but luckily we were able to pick around it.

the rock shrimp tempura was good; but sadly, a little bit like eating orange chicken, only with shrimp.

i ordered some sort of sake to accompany my entree but i can't remember what it was. when the server said that one of the specials that night was blowfish, i had to order it ($50?? - expensive little fish!) where else am i going to try this without feeling dicey? it was served in 3 ways: sashimi for the main part, slivers for the skin (and some other part, probably. i wasn't paying attention to what she said, but it was a little crunchy/chewy), and fried with a yummy batter for the cheeks.

destructor got the "surf and turf", which came with kobe beef, and a creative hamachi with avocado and yuzu bowl. mmmmm! also, i have to say my favorite part of his dish were his potatoes. i can't help it since potatoes are my favorite food. they were infused with something like fennel - but maybe they also added crack to them because there was some kind of flavor i just couldn't put my finger on.

for dessert (yes! we saved room) we ordered the blood orange panna cotta. it came in a cute little miso soup dish: when you open it the inside of the lid holds the panna cotta and the bowl held a curious noodle-like substance that was orange flavored. the texture was a little strange - a little bit chewy/gelatinous, but you slurp it like a noodle. to be honest, it kind of looked like a brain. on top was mango sorbet. the panna cotta itself was to die for.

overall our meal was fantastic. the restaurant is beautiful and the ambience is great. when we first arrived i was a little skeptical because it seemed really trendy and sceney (and it is) - usually i equate this to sub-par food. but here, it was not the case. it was a great dining experience.

shoes in new york

stay tuned. more food to come.

cupcakes and other evil dessert items

i have never been a dessert person. i just simply didn't care for it, really.

until now. i can't figure out why, but lately, i've had the strangest cravings for sweets. whenever i walk by beard papa on my way to nijiya, i devour a cream puff. i find myself buying random cookies: for example i grabbed 3 mini bags of various cookies (which cost $3 EACH!) while standing in line at beard papa. destructor has fallen into the same evil trap lately as well, buying things like panda shaped shortbread cookies on a whim.

so of course we eat dozens of cupcakes during our trip to new york this past weekend. why? whyyyy did i eat so many cupckes?

my favorite by far were the cupcakes from sugar sweet sunshine (label pictured above - obviously the photo was an afterthought post cupcake binge). not only was the frosting made with butter cream (which seems to be the default in nyc?), but there was an almond buttercream topping that is absolutely amazing.

the most memorable one out of this batch was the pistachio cupcake in the top right corner. this is one of the ones with almond butter cream. delicious!!

here is a close up of my beloved pistachio cupcake.

so what about magnolia? of course we went there. i keep hearing about it, so i had to go and find out for myself. at 10pm on a sunday, it probably wasn't busy by new york standards, but we still had to wait in line to pay for our goods, and people came in steadily as we waited.


yum. they were great, but again in my opinion, not as good as the sss cupcakes!


on a separate note, my friend b made some awesome pastries for valentine's day a few weeks ago. she made sampler boxes for all of her friends, and i was lucky enough to get one. she's awesome because i'm sure she stayed up all night making these, but still put them in a beautiful red box for everyone. the treats were so gorgeous and tasty i had to post them:

chocolate cupcakes, a pastry filled with chocolate (i tried to eat only half of this and save the other half for destructor, but i failed), and tiny little heard-shaped cream puffs! the best part was that the cream filling was almond flavored!

i want more! thanks b!

praha :: day 6 - the rest

after lunch we stop by the st nicholas church right down the street. everything inside is absolutely decadent and stunning, with all walls covered covered in detailed gold statues and other details.

after that it's a brisk walk across the charles bridge (this is the first time we walk over it during the day), which is sunny for once. we then turn north and make our way towards the old jewish quarter. the museum and cemetery closes right at 4pm and it's nearly 3:30. when we get there we all realize we have only enough money to get one person inside (with all our money combined) because we had been rushing and did not stop to exchange any money! thanks to belvedere, who graciously donated his money to me so i could go inside because i was the one who really wanted to see the old cemetery.



although i walk through the cemetery fairly quickly, it is definitely worth it. i pass up the actual museum portion in the interest of time, especially since destructor and belvedere are literally sitting outside in the cold on a bench waiting for me. the windy path through the cemetery is surrounded by a heavy sort of quietness. i wish there was someone else here with me to take it all in.

after the jewish quarter we stroll to the stare mesto neighborhood next door. i look for the "house of the black madonna", allegedly a well-known architectural structure to see. we actually pass this building a few times looking for it - we finally look up to see the word "kubista". very anticlimactic.

although we are dead tired from our ambitious day, i insist on looking for the "h&m with the roberto cavalli stuff in the window". i had seen this window display almost every single day i was in praha, but i put off shopping there until the last day. we pass by two different h&m's several times but i am sure they are not the ones i'm looking for because there is no cavalli stuff in the window. anyway, the story of my despair as i realize the roberto cavalli for h&m special had just ended is enough for an entire other entry.






dinner is interesting but not that exciting. we walk around in search of restaurants nearby, but we are a big group and most places can't seat us. finally we end up at a mexican restaurant. here are some blurry pictures. my pictures turn out crappy when i am unexcited about the food. the only interesting thing is the big skewer of food one of my friends get. i think it's a prague thing. i get a veggie burrito, which is surprisingly pleasant tasting (not authentic at all of course, but decent).

after dinner we run into tesco next door and i pick up several bottles of beer to bring back with me. i grab three bottles of the vel-kozel. yay!