restaurants

week 31: momofuku {noodle bar and milk bar}

i am going to say it.
i think. 
yes.
i think i can i think i can.
...
...
ok here i go:

 baohaus baos are better
and i think i prefer top ramen ramen.

 
don't h8.
i enjoyed my
experience a lot!
i really did!
i even brought my childhood friend michael
{who met snooki that day, for what it's worth}
i simply found more tasties and amusement in the other little snackees that weren't front row and center...
like the boozey slushies!!
in limeade {yum!}
arnie palmer {yum!}
and
lychee {as yum as lychee gets!}

and this...
an egg

fact: hard-boiled eggs are the best way to lose friends in the elementary school cafeteria.

until i got real and discovered bosco sticks,
i was on the constant hunt for ways to secretly enjoy my beloved lunchtime egg while hiding that repulsive eggy smell from my little friends.
{in a true fatty fashion, the egg won, and i was soon left alone}

...and how ironic it is that years later i found myself at a communal table faced with:
an egg
and
michael.
and michael's roommate who also does not like the egg. 
only this time, 
instead of being the weird egg girl,
i was the empowered omniscient guru 
because i ordered
the soy sauce egg
it's more a medium-boiled egg
with soy sauce
and scallions
and crunchies!

the eggy smell was masked.
and the taste was good...so good...
it was good enough to convert both michael and his roommate.
it was so simple and salty. just what an egg needs. how nice of the crunch to join us.
i'll take a dozen.
ok let me explain my doodle preference.
i got the 
momofuku ramen
 lotsa meat, an egg, seaweed and what would ultimately be extracted and handed over to michael: mushrooms and fishcakes {ew}

 and michael and his roomie both got
chilled spicy doodles
cold doodles with spinach, sausage, and 
nuts like those nuts you get from the nuts 4 nuts street stands
{and i kept stealing michael's nuts cause they were so good}

they were both very tasty & flavaful
and i've got lotsa 'spect for meester chang
{have you read his story in the momofuku book? you should, it's fascinating}
it's just that...
i'm a mushy noodle kind of girl 
and these bougey ramen places ain't gonna boil the living daylights outta their noodles. 
as they shouldn't. but it's just not in my style these days.
what is japanese for "al dente" anyways? 

 michael had sodium overload.  
he vetoed milk bar.
so i rode home on the molly mobile and went to sleep
and had a dream that we actually went to milk bar
and i had a crack pie.  
and do you want to know something so trippy?
the very next day, by chance, i happened upon milk bar
and got a 
crack pie.
and it was the same crack pie that was in my dream!
and, with the exception of the name, i had no prior knowledge of crack pie! 
:-O
it's more like a thick half-baked chewy cookie
and it kind of reminded me of a seven layer bar.
it was so rich and gooey and sugary!!!
it really was like crack!!
{wait...}
i also got a compost cookie, or whatevs.
and a sample of cereal milk ice cream {cool idea. but i forgot that i never liked the leftover milk from cereal. in fact, i never really liked cereal. it's what you eat with the babysitter.}
and barbecue ice cream never again.
 ....

i had so much fun on my momofuku days!
i really like the silly ideas that the momofuku people think up...
and even though the pork buns weren't as life-changing as i expected,
i was satisfied with my meal.

it's a fun time.
 it's worth the wait.
now i just have to figure out that goofy ko reservation system...

it's ok, i've got 21 weeks to learn...
xoxo
yeh
noodle bar is on 11th and 1st
milk bar is on 13th and 2nd {next to ssam bar... and no, we did not stand outside of ssam bar for twenty minutes wondering why it didn't look like a milk bar until we found the real milk bar}




week 30: xiao ye

if you're drunk and you're in harlem,
you go to lincoln fried chicken.
if you're drunk and you're on the upper west side,
you go to grey's papaya.
if you're drunk and you're in taiwan,
first of all,
call your mother. does she know you're there?
then,
i'd imagine you'd eat something like the booty call food* at 
the soon-to-open
{from the punks that brought you baohaus}
*it's a technical term, coined by owner eddie

please enjoy these pretty pictures from this weekend's six-course preview love fest:
 concubine cucumbers
no,really, that's the name.
they're deliciously sweet and garlicky pickled cucumbers
with a touch of salt 
that i imagine give you way more joy than a concubine.
tofu bricks
and you will shit a brick, these are so good
if you made a marshmallow into a donut
and then extracted the part where marshmallows are a million times too sweet 
and then added chili sauce and peanuts and scallions
you'd get these.
and you'd never want to stop.
poontang potstickers
filled with pat lafrieda meat
imagine:
a dumpling dressed up as fat bastard yelling at a mini me black label burger, saying 
"get in my belly!"
...
these are your wildest dreams come true.
summa the most outrageous dumplings you'll ever have.
in true pat lafrieda fashion, these melt-in-your-mouth puppies don't need any condiments.
just love.
all love.
taiwan most famous pork on rice
the filling of a barbecue pork bun, ground up
over rice
simple & comforting.
like your favorite hamburger helper on asian steroids.
hainan chicken
ginger
christmas-colored sauces
chicken flavored rice
odd. my grandma didn't tell me she got a job cooking at xiao ye...
sweet potato balls
fried sweet taters with sesame seeds
brown suga
sneakily disguised as red bean balls...
a wonderful, happy ending :-)

.....

ahh the satisfaction.
i can't wait for this place to legit open.
i'm going to get, like, a trillion poontang potstickers.
it's going to be amazing.


whoa.
22 restaurants to go.


xoxo


yeh


xiao ye is on orchard and stanton 


p.s. am i naive for not knowing what "poontang" meant?
i googled it.
bad idea.




week 29: the meatball shop


i was not afraid of the boogie man.
i was not afraid of the dark.
rather
my biggest fear as a wee one
was sitting down at the dinner table on spaghetti night
and looking down at my plate
and finding that my poor poor spaghetti
was contaminated by a 
big 
fat 
traumatizing 
meatball.

why? oh why must i eat this, mum? it is ruining my beautifully olive-oiled spaghetti!! 
i cried. i begged for mercy.

protein blah blah blah you wanna grow old and be frail and brittle bullshit bullshit?
{was something like her response}

it was clear:
if i wanted dessert,
that ball was going in my mouth.
boy, was life was tough. 

the struggle continued 
and continued
and my adolescent years proved to be successful in finding ways around the dreaded meatball
but eventually
hype and hipness persuaded me to go to
this is me at the meatball shop
and this is maria's best attempt at taking a picture of her newest celebrity crush,
the owner
{scruffy dude in the back}

what a fun place!
i love all the hustle and bustle of the lower east side
and i love looking at all the stylish kiddies that hang around that area.
there was a bit of a wait for a table, but that adds to the tastiness :-)
above is a picture of the multiple choice dry-erase marker menu on which maria and i kind of blindly picked our balls.

yay balls!!!
they were nothing like my childhood meatballs.
these were really good, and juicy, and rich in flavor
and big
but emphasis on the juicy!
and there was an amount of taste that you don't expect with ground meat.
it just bursted with flavor!
the balls just burst!
and the fact that they weren't corrupting spaghetti 
by being served in non-offensive sliders and heros
calmed my dark-childhood-memory-induced anxiety.

we also got a hero:
beef balls
marinara
&
provolone
on a whole wheat baguette
sometimes the thought of a baguette gets me nervous.
is it going to be hard to bite?
is it going to scratch the inside of my mouth?

you will all be relieved to know that this baguette was soft and doughy
and worked well with the balls
as to not make the sandwich self-destruct upon consumption.

it was like a neater, more highbrow, italian version of the sloppy joe. 

it was a comfy sandwich, indeed. 
one that i've since dreamt about numerous times.


ok, let it be known:
if you go to the meatball shop and do not order dessert, you are an idiot.
their ice cream sammiches are monstrous.
so monstrous that eating one like a sandwich might be impossible. 
but when thur's a scoop of house-made chocolate ice cream sandwiched between two no-bake peanut butter cookies sitting in front of you, it doesn't matter how it gets to your face, you just want it.
{ohhh}

maria got the ginger snap and vanilla combo.
it was fine, you know, if you like ginger snaps.

i'm really glad that my meatball spell has been broken.
although
after having these
i'm not sure i'm going to be able to have any other ones.

.............

23 restaurants to go, boys and girls.


xoxo


yeh




the meatball shop is on stanton and allen in the lower east side
and it's open late!





week 28: zigolinis pizza bar


what? 
i have to keep up with restaurant challenge during my schnitzel month?
apparently so, say's my boss {me}

i'm really going gaga over this napoletana pizza business. 
it's making me obsessive.
like,
i need to try all of them.
and then i want to somehow assemble a meal with one pizza from each of the top contenders and judge which one is the best.
but if my food memory serves me correctly,

has the best crust. 

it's the first crust on a napoletana pie where the middle wasn't soggy
{i was beginning to accept that as a casualty, you know, like separated mustard goo}

it's like pillsbury doughboy all up in that shit,
that's how doughy it is.

the first time i went
-i went two times in a week-
i ordered the margherita
which was like dough-overload.
i was all
where's the rest of the cheese, luigi? 
{yes, the pizza dude's name is luigi and he a-comes from a-italia}

lesson learned,
i returned and got 
pesto
with mozzarella
and
can i have tomaters on that?

much better balance of dough to friends
and luigi yelled at me when i tried to put parmesan on it.
like, what?
 is pesto + parmesan faux pas or something?

evs.
it was delicious and i gobbled it up and didn't have any room for dessert but got it anyways
#storyofmylife
get this:
nutella pizza
same doughboy crust,
nutella,
marshmallows

sugar overload.
i coulda done without the marshmallows and more nutella.
but,
in life,
there's never enough nutella.

if there's a better napoletana crust out there,
i'm going to find it.
but i think it's going to be pretttty difficult.

till then,
i'll just eat a schnitzel.

...24 mi amores!


xoxo


yeh


zigolinis pizza bar is at 46th and 9th