Favorite Meals of 2009

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

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

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

MERRIMAN'S KAPALUA

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

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


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


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

BURMESE NEW YEAR WATER FESTIVAL

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



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

HONORABLE MENTION: SANSEI KAPALUA

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


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

Ramen

Now that winter is (unfortunately) really here, we have been craving a lot of warm and comforting foods. An easy choice? Ramen.

Without planning on it, we have now had ramen twice in one week, and it could have been three if the lines at the ramen shops hadn't been so long on the snowy and windy Saturday night.

The first time was last week when we went to a Japanese restaurant in our neighborhood that we knew had a lot of ramen (larmen) choices, but we had never tried before. We kept saying that we would, but we always ended up at the sushi place down the street. With the cold weather, it was as good a time as any to try it! A got their special ramen and I got the nabeyaki udon. It was the perfect warm-up food, and by the end, I was so warm that I was sweating in my fleece sweatshirt. It was tasty and it did the job. We'll be back.

Tonight, we met some friends for ramen on another cold night. It's now officially winter (despite having the big snowstorm the previous weekend), and the shortest day of the year, so comfort food was definitely a good plan. I can't wait for the longer days and the day when it's finally still light at 5 pm.

I wonder how many more times we will get ramen before the end of the year! Probably not too many because of the Christmas holiday and the fact that it's almost the end of the year (when did that happen?!). But you never know...

Dinner

Tonight, instead of coming home, forcing myself to work out and eating a small dinner at home, I wanted to go out to eat. We originally set out for Thai since it has been awhile since we have had larb together, but the place was packed (as were many others). So we decided that since we haven't had Indian in awhile, we would try the neighborhood place we liked.

It was really crowded but they had some tables. The food there is usually good, but the service can be hit or miss. I should have known, considering how crowded it was, that today was going to be one of those "miss" days.

We were at dinner for almost 2 hours. We didn't really order a lot - chat papri appetizer, and we split 2 entrees (chana masala, chicken jalfrezi and garlic naan). No special drinks to make or anything. Just very basic and straightforward, so it really shouldn't have taken 2 hours.

The kitchen seemed to be good about getting the appetizers out, but the entrees seemed to be stalling. I'm not sure what was going on but their timing seemed off. There were 3 people serving and taking care of the whole restaurant, but of the 3, 1 guy was hustling, 1 guy was working at a moderate pace and the other 1... I'm not sure what he was doing. He would mostly help set and clear tables, and then help out with the other tables if he felt like it. Needless to say, the food took awhile to come today. We didn't even get the free pappadums that usually come out when you sit down without asking for them, which has never happened before. Everything was just a little off.

But the wait for the food wasn't even the worst part of it. It was the fact that no one was ever around when they needed to be around, and this wasted so much time. It took over 10 minutes before someone even came and took our check once it was ready! But it's not like they just weren't there. They passed by at least 10 times and it was clearly ready to go, but they never took it. Other people had their checks finished during that time, so I don't think they were just ignoring checks. It felt like they were just ignoring us!

The water problem didn't help this perception. We were out of water almost the whole night. A number of times, we asked for water and they forgot. Then there were 2 times that I signaled to the third guy working, the one who helped when he felt like it. He saw me, acknowledged me, looked over, and when I asked for water, he just turned and walked away. I was really turned off by that. He had no problem getting the beers for the men at the next table. Was it a gender thing?

If that wasn't enough, we couldn't finish our food and asked for it to be wrapped up. They never wrapped up the naan, which wouldn't be a big deal if we didn't have to pay for it. I'm not going to pay $5 for naan when we barely ate half of it and had requested to take the rest of it home! They apparently threw it out instead of wrapping it up, so after 15 minutes or more, they finally got us new ones. I wasn't in it for new naan; I really just wanted the rest of what we ordered because we were going to eat it and so it wouldn't go to waste!

One thing after another, and it was just a really disappointing experience. The food itself is good, and it's our favorite Indian place in the neighborhood for the food (there is one I just won't go back to because the food was just bad the last time we went), but I'm not sure I'm going back anytime soon because the service was so bad tonight. Just disappointing. Took a lot of time and was kind of aggravating. That was on top of the girls who left who decided to stand right in front of the open doors smoking, blowing the cigarette smoke into the restaurant, instead of standing about six inches or a foot over in front of the closed windows. So inconsiderate! I know that's not the restaurant's fault, but all in all, just a disappointing night.

Hill Country

Tonight for dinner, A was thinking BBQ so we finally made our way over to Hill Country. We had wanted to try it for awhile, and it was fairly well recommended from some of A's Texas friends, so we decided to give it a shot.

I'm glad we got there early, since we didn't know it was like cafeteria style ordering (wait on line, order, take it back to your table, pay on the way out). The lines weren't that long when we were there, but we were there before 6:30. I can only imagine how bad the lines get at peak time.

I tried the beer can game hen (which the guy recommended because he said it was all white meat, very tender and flavorful) and A got the pitmaster combo (which was beef rib, pork rib, lean brisket and 1/4 market chicken):

The meat was OK. I didn't find the chicken to be all that flavorful. It was definitely moist and tender (for the most part), but it was kind of bland. At one point, I started dunking the chicken into the baked beans sauce and that was really good, but mostly thanks to the baked beans. The verdict on A's combo was that the pork rib was the best of the lot, but he probably would not get the combo again. He thought it was ok, but nothing spectacular.

However, the sides were pretty good. We discussed how next time maybe we should just order all sides (since there were more we didn't try, like chili, that could work for a meal):

We got 5 sides total (clockwise from top left) - potato salad (summer special), campfire baked beans, longhorn cheddar mac and cheese, collard greens with bacon and white shoepeg corn pudding. It was difficult to rank which ones were the best, but they were all good, and when we tried to rank all the stuff we ate tonight in order, all the sides came out above the meat. So, maybe next time, we should stick to the sides!

We were pretty full afterwards, so we walked down to Union Square and to Trader Joe's, and then stopped to pick up some mini cupcakes from the Cupcake Stop truck. Yum. Can't wait to try the Boston cream!

Cobbler

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

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

Delicious!

Summer Weekend

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Earl Grey

I am intrigued by the Earl Grey flavor of Shake Shack custard. Anyone know if it's good?

Bread

Does anyone know if Just Salad has permanently changed their bread from that focaccia type bread (which was so addictive) to wheat bread?? I hope it's not for good!

Nougatine

Since both A and I had the day off today for Memorial Day, we decided to celebrate by going for lunch at Nougatine (the more casual dining room at Jean Georges)!

(Pictured (all descriptions from menu), left to right on each row: tuna tartare with avocado, spicy radish and ginger marinade; warm spring beets and rich yogurt with field mache and lemon oil; red snapper with lily bulb radish salad, white sesame and lavender; pan roasted pink cod with artichokes, peas and carrot vinaigrette; chocolate-ginger parfait with lychee yogurt and crunchy sesame; citrus sponge cake with mint sorbet, honeydew and coconut.)

I love going for lunch prix fixe menus at nice restaurants. It gives you the chance to sample all sorts of dishes, especially if you've never been to the restaurant before, and they're a great deal. I also just like going out for lunch since the lighting is nice, it's a great break in the middle of the day, and it's more relaxed. When I've gone to nice restaurants for lunch, it's almost always been a summer associate lunch at work (although I don't think that's going to happen much this summer), so it was nice to have the opportunity to go with A on a rare weekday day off. (Nougatine also does the prix fixe on Saturday, but I'm not sure which others do. I'd love to know so we can try them!)

The food was excellent. Good flavors, good presentation, good service. (Our poor server had to deal with the table next to us which sat down right before we were leaving, who told her they really would rather sit in the formal dining room and then proceeded to ask her about things on the menu.) I think the most "interesting" flavor to me was probably the chocolate dessert (the ginger made it very interesting - I'm not a huge fan of ginger, but somehow it ended up in all 3 of my dishes, but I only really noticed it as strong with the fish). The tuna tartare was excellent, possibly my favorite of the 6 dishes. I can't wait to go out for lunch again soon!

Falafel

The "first restaurant visited in 2009" honors goes to...



We went there for lunch on Friday and had some really good falafel and chicken shwarma sandwiches. This location used to be House of Pita, and I loved their falafel sandwiches. Pick-a-Pita is good too -- they let you add in all of their salads to the falafel sandwich which makes it so tasty. You can only see the falafel and the cucumber salad in my picture (mmm, with dill) but I also had carrots, tomatoes and onion and tabouli, and also hummus and tahini. Yum.

I just wish it were closer to the office and I could go more often! The falafel sandwich is a great price considering all the delicious food you get!