New Jersey at night

Tags

New Jersey, postaday2016, restaurants

   
    
 
I never meant to make a city by night series but somehow I managed to do it with Boston, New York and now West Orange. LOL. Last night my husband and I went out to this huge dining venue in West Orange N.J with our friends who had also invited us to spend the night at their beautiful home. They surprised with an amazing treat, an all you can eat lobster buffet. I for one am not a fan of the buffet, but this one was no ordinary buffet, this was buffet as it was originally intended, all the food served in beautiful silverware vessels, conscientiously replaced very quickly and served to you by a professional waitstaff, always on hand to take away your plate when you had finished so you can get up to be served once again. There was no judgement to be had, you can be as gluttonous as you like, you were served with politeness and a smile.

The buffet had something for everyone, the assortment of vegetables was so appetizing, there were hearts of palm, asparagus, marinated vegetables, grilled vegetables and etc. There was prime rib, carved sur place for you and served with jus in a silver dish, there were so many varieties of pasta and rice dishes and don’t get me started on dessert.  I didn’t know where to start with the dessert area, there were crime brûlée, creme caramel, tarte aux pommes and chocolate desserts galore.

   
 
We laughed and ate like kings, when we got back to their place, we played a very interesting card game, Cards Against Humanity, again we laughed and laughed. The game reminded me of Mad Libs if you will, it was funny, naughty and outrageous all at once.

We had such a great time, I look forward to doing it again with our friends, they are so sweet and fun.

Dinner at the Hunt and Fish Club

Tags

company, food, postaday2015, restaurants

  

Last night my husband and I went to dinner with such a lovely couple John and Nadia, they were so open and friendly, the conversation  flowed so easily that time flew by as we laughed, listened, spoke and of course tasted a variety of delicious dishes.

I loved the decor, I have always been a fan of Art Deco and this restaurant was so elegant in its clean lines, yet not pretentious in the least. The food was wonderful and the service quite professional.

My husband made excellent choices for the first courses that we all shared; we had oysters from both coasts, a ceviche of scallops, a tuna tartare, a jumbo lump crabcake and roasted marrow bones to start, a pretty impressive array of tastes, textures and flavor, don’t you think.

The main courses did not disappoint either; my husband and I shared a bone-in sirloin steak which was one of the best steaks that I have had the pleasure of eating in a long time, Nadia had a gorgeous lobster and John enjoyed a Japanese cut of steak that was sinfully rich and luxious in its marbled beefy flavor, it was like nothing that I had ever eaten before, who knew that the Japanese could be so clever in their beef stewardship. The side dishes were probably my favorites, between the creamed spinach and the tater tots, I can’t leave out the grilled asparagus, I can’t say which was my favorite because they were all absolutely delicious.

Moving onto dessert; I adored the lemon cheesecake, I confess that I ate most of it, I wasn’t very good at sharing by this point. The others had more than enough other desserts to try so I am sure that it wasn’t missed, they had a lemon parfait that was beautiful in its presentation and Nadia said that it was to die for, so I felt better.  There was also the panna cotta, the chocolate mousse and some berry concoction, I forget because I was buried in my cheesecake. We had cappuccinos as a finishing touch to all of this decadence.

It was so much fun, eating and learning about these two very charming and interesting people and their lives, it was a great night and I look forward to seeing them again in the near future.

An invitation to Passion Fish

Tags

dessert, postaday2014, restaurants, seafood

The title to this post must have raised a few eyebrows, I would imagine. Passion Fish is a lovely restaurant in Reston, Virginia that we were invited to this evening by my husband’s newest friend Charlene. I had never met her before, just knew her from all of the telephone conversations that my husband has with her since she was introduced to him within their business circle of colleagues. The construction world is amazingly small; there are six degrees that separate everyone from someone that you know.

I can see why my husband calls her his friend; she is genuine, very, very smart, very savvy and very good company and conversationalist. The hours sped by very quickly this evening; before we knew it, it was past 9:30, I could have sworn that it was only 7:00, that was how quickly the evening went.

The restaurant specialized in seafood; raw bar, sushi and cuisine as well. My husband and I shared two appetizers while we were waiting; we got there quite early; the Loco roll, a spicy tuna, shrimp and avocado roll with a spicy aioli mayonnaise on top ad Vietnamese spring rolls. These two were quite good, but when Charlene arrived, she ordered the Kung Pao Calamari and that was delicious; a spicy interpretation of fried calamari and it was very well executed and presented. The main courses were very good as well; I had the Ciopinno, an Italian fish stew and my husband and Charlene each had the tempura batter soft shell crab. We were actually pretty quiet around this time, savoring our meal as we all should no matter where we are, it is infinitely better for the digestion.

The star of the restaurant show for me was dessert; they had Key Lime tart and meringue; I had never had Key Lime pie before, despite having heard of it for eons. You have to be careful because there are some places that do not do the right thing and substitute regular limes in place of the real mccoy, the actual Key Lime. This is a crucial distinction because the Key Lime is smoother than the regular lime, you would never make guacamole with Key Limes because you wouldn’t get the tartness needed to cut the fat of the avocado, but it is decidedly the smooth and delicate citrusy taste of the Key Lime that you want in your tart. My tart was so light, just sweet enough with the taste of Key Lime enveloping my taste buds. It was a dessert that I had waited way too long for, but never again. The next time that I see Key Lime tart on the menu, if I have room, that is definitely the dessert that I will be savoring once again.

Charlene ordered the Chocolate Mousse Crumble; I have to say that I had been intrigued by her dessert before I had seen the Key Lime tart; anything with chocolate always grabs my attention. Her dessert had the chocolate mousse hiding inside a ball of hardshell chocolate atop a raspberry coulis and a praline creme anglaise. Charlene said that her’s was delicious and then she did something that put me in awe of her; she left the dessert half eaten, she had eaten just enough to satisfy her desire and not a bite more. Tell me that isn’t amazing, I thought that it was amazing. Here are the pictures of our desserts:

Aren’t they small pieces of culinary art? I thought so.

We had a great evening with Charlene and I hope that we get to do this again soon.

Eating down memory lane

Tags

memories, postaday2014, restaurants

My mother and I had such a lovely time last night. My hubby was busy with his many business meetings in the city and so my mother and I were left to our own devices. When I was younger; my parents, my sister and myself were introduced to a fantastic Thai restaurant called Jaiya in Elmhurst Queens by a good family friend. We discovered Siam spring rolls, a little different from the Vietnamese spring rolls that we adored, but the difference didn’t diminish how much we enjoyed them. Another dish that became an instant favorite was called Naked Shrimp; shrimp grilled and served as a refreshing salad served with a piquant citrus dressing, but the ultimate dish that enthralled us was blue crabs with Jaiya’s special sauce. We started this love affair with Jaiya in the late 1970’s and I think that we actually took its existence for granted because when we found our beloved Jaiya closed back in 2003, right around the time we lost my father, we couldn’t believe it. We were so sad during that time, having Jaiya no longer around seemed like an added blow to our devastating loss, my father adored the crabs with special sauce even though he was frustrated by the fact that he couldn’t quite figure out how to replicate it.

Jaiya had moved out to Long Island, however we soon found out that they had a restaurant in downtown Manhattan. At first we were excited, but after quite a few tries, we were disappointed by the difference in quality from the old restaurant. My mother and I had resigned ourselves to never eating those delectable crabs ever again. Those were not happy thoughts, I assure you.

So when my mother mentioned that Jaiya had opened a new location on the upper Eastside we were a little skeptical after having been so disappointed by the other location. We were nervous about being let down once again. So before leaping into another pit of dashed culinary hopes, my mother asked me to research and lo and behold, Jaiya has a wonderful and appetizing website. We perused their menu and found that they in fact offered the same appetizers as the old Jaiya and (Bonus!) crabs with special sauce. My mother was a little skeptical because instead of offering the eastern blue crab, we saw that it was the Dungeness crab, native to the Northwest. So to assuage her worries I researched the difference between both crabs and we both learned something. The blue crab is sweeter and smaller, but the dungeness holds up well to the least amount of handling since their delicate flavor is what you want to appreciate, however they do lend themselves exceptionally well to the introduction of sauces.

So all of this research settled it, we were off on a mission to see if we could recapture our culinary memories at the newest Jaiya location. We got there at 6:30 and were immediately seated. The decor was nice and the service very professional, courteous and swift. My mother ordered Larb and I ordered Dancing Shrimp as appetizers and we were both really happy with our choices. I have made Larb for my mother before and so has my sister, I introduced them to the dish and Jaiya’s version, while a little different than mine, was very well executed, my mother finished it all. My Dancing Shrimp was excellent, this dish was different from the Naked Shrimp in that it was served “raw” the shrimp had been cooked by the citrus dressing, it was delicate, full of intense flavors. Yummy!

And then they came, our crabs with special sauce, and we were not disappointed. At one point my mother said that she was grateful for the very dim lighting because we were making pigs of ourselves. The crabs are served in the sauce, broken up and there is no other way to eat them but with your fingers and sucking all of the sweet meat out of the broken leg pieces and sucking the sauce off of the shell. Basically it is a sucking frenzy but I didn’t care, it was unbelievably delicious and brought me back to those wonderful memories of us eating together in Elmhurst Queens all those years ago.

Farewell Miami

Tags

farewell, Miami, nightlife, pictures, postaday2013, restaurants

I figured I’d post a few last pictures of Miami since my hubby and I will be in transit for much of the afternoon. It has been very nice to visit Miami these past few trips but if our baby girl weren’t here, I would probably not come back. Miami is far too hot and humid for my personal comfort and it isn’t a walkable city so that is a big negative in my book of preferences, I also don’t feel as safe here as I do in New York or in Boston. There is way too much poverty and you feel the desperation in the air, not of course where we were staying near the bay but not too much further inwards towards the Brickell area, where we walked for a little bit, my hubby told the baby girl and I to stay towards the left of him or to stay near his right. The state of affairs in Miami is a result of a lack of public policy and Florida is a very republican state, its governor Rick Scott was one of the first to refuse to expand Medicaid to accommodate the new Affordable Care Act or Obamacare and he also signed into law very restrictive voter identification laws.

So politically Miami isn’t quite my cup of tea, but for young people, rich people, fun loving and party going people, then Miami can be a lot of fun. The night life is amazing, there are tons of restaurants featuring every cuisine imaginable and the night clubs seem to be so much fun with their rich latin music and their very sexy dance moves. I would categorize Miami as a very young and hip city, I am youngish, but I am definitely not hip and I am pretty sure that I was never hip even when I was young and single. I just don’t roll that way.lol. Our baby girl loves it here at the University and that is all that counts for me, she is definitely of the young and hip crowd, unlike her fuddy-duddy Maman. 🙂

Sweet sixteen

Tags

food, Italian sailor, postaday2013, Restaurant, restaurants, style, sweet sixteen, Venice

When you were 16, what did you think your life would look like? Does it look like that? Is that a good thing?

My best memory of my sixteenth year was the day of my birthday. We were in Venice, Italy and my parents, my little sister and I spent the day roaming the city, taking a gondola ride and that night we had the most delicious meal at a small Italian restaurant. I remember the restaurant well because it was empty, except for the female waiters and us, I remember feeling a little ill at ease because the waiters seemed at a loss as to what to do with us, we were there to eat so early. I thought at one point that the ladies were going to come over and feed us, they wanted to serve us so badly and keep occupied. If ever you eat out in Italy, don’t go until eight or nine at night; don’t go at seven, the waiters won’t know what to do with you. It was a fantastic meal, I know that. I remember the first course because it was a seafood salad served in a gorgeous seashell standing up on the plate. I know that it was sublime but that is all that I remember of the restaurant. I remember leaving the restaurant. On the way out as I was following my parents, I felt eyes following me and I turned around and there was a handsome Italian sailor smiling at me, my mother rained on my parade when she took my hand and pulled me with her in the opposite direction. I got a chance to smile and wave at him and he blew me a kiss. I remember what I was wearing, I was wearing red sandals and a very pretty white dress with a red belt around the waist, the neck line had beautiful embroidery all around it. I felt quite pretty that day. Overall I would rate it as one of my favorite birthday memories.

As to the question of what I dreamed of becoming when I grew up, I am pretty sure that I was still planning to go into medicine at that time. I had always wanted to be a surgeon, ever since I was a little girl and that hadn’t changed until the year where I developed an essential tremor in my hands, at sixteen. The same year that I took chemistry and hated it and the same year that I became ultra-rebellious. I stopped planning for a career in surgery and I felt a little unmoored for that whole year. I didn’t get back on track until my senior year of high school. I had a lot of anger during my junior year in high school for a lot of reasons.

I’ll get back to this story some other time, I have a headache right now and it has been plaguing me for two days now. This story needs to be told headache free. On a happy note, Venice is truly a city to visit. I absolutely loved it!

 

 

Meeting really lovely new people

Tags

business, colleagues, food, postaday2012, restaurants, tasting menus

Today I came to Boston to be with my hubby, on the way out to Boston we dropped the baby girl off at her school because tomorrow and Friday are her finals. My hubby dropped me off at the hotel and off to work he went. We left at 4:30 this morning so when we got to the hotel, I was tired, I thought that I would get breakfast and then go to sleep, I did the breakfast part but the sleep didn’t happen. I spent most of the day reading, writing a little bit and walking around for a little while, waiting for my hubby to come “home”.

The reason why I was here with my hubby was that my hubby had been invited to a special dinner by his colleagues and all the wives were included in the invitation. The invitation to dinner was at the French restaurant L’Espalier located at the Mandarin Hotel on Boylston Street. It turned out to be a party of twelve at the table and the whole evening was one of the most enjoyable that I have had in a while.

Each one of my dinner companions, whom I have never met before, were interesting, kind and engaging. The wives and I connected immediately; talking non stop about a variety of subjects; food, recipes, cooking techniques, gardening, traveling and cultural influences.

The restaurant, L’Espalier, offered not only a prix fixe menu but also different tasting menus with wine pairings. Everyone at the table decided to try the tasting menu and no one was disappointed. The wine was certainly flowing all around me, it is so gratifying that I don’t miss wine what so ever, I was very happy with my sparkling water. The ladies by the end of the meal were laughing because they all had three or four glasses in front of them filled with different wines from different dishes.

The food was excellent and the portions, even after all the courses, were in sum, just the correct amount of food. We all started with these small amuse bouche; cream puffs filled with various savory whipped creams and savory petit fours. We were then served a sublime bite of fluke sashimi, it was covered with crispy flakes of something and dotted with a reduction of something, making all together a flavor profile that was more than just the sum of its parts. Every nuance of flavor came together and made complete culinary sense. The fluke sang in my mouth.

That was followed by trays of WellFleet oysters dotted with caviar and when that was gone a small sampling of American caviar was presented with all of its accoutrements and my hubby took it on himself to make little bites of caviar covered blinis with creme for everyone.

The next tasting course was butter poached lobster with mussels and a foamy holland aisle sauce. There were elements to this dish that worked so well together and I lack the imaginative vocabulary to adequately describe how wonderful it felt in my mouth while I was eating my tiny dish of lobster. I do know that the table was oohing while we were eating, all in a good way.

The next course was an introduction to what foie gras au torchon means; duck liver terrine wrapped tightly in a cylinder, presented with Sauternes gelee and a fruit chutney. One of my favorites as usual; I could eat foie gras in any way imaginable, I love it that much.

Our two other courses were very nice; one was a grey sole and the next was a deconstructed cassoulet. A small presentation of cheeses followed by a caramel pot de creme that had a zucchini and carrot spiced cake on the inside with a scoop of burnt orange ice cream on the side. In the midst of all of this creative, flavorful and intriguing tasting and eating, the conversation flowed with such ease that before I knew it, it was 9:00 o’clock.

I am so happy that I got this chance to meet such lovely people. This evening was truly a wonderful experience.

Day two of the New York experience

Tags

cuisine, New York, postaday2012, restaurants, Thai food, wedding anniversary

This weekend has turned out so wonderfully. This morning we woke up nice and leisurely, 10:00 a.m, nowhere to rush to and no one to rush for, we had the luxury of being able to claim the time for ourselves. This precipitated a slow walk down to Macy’s to see about a watch repair, on the way I called my sister to see if we could come over to visit after lunch, she had invited our mother and our mother’s best friend over for lunch, it was short notice but my sister of course said “yes, I was about to call you to come over” so that was all set.

We had a great late breakfast at the Tick Tock diner, a classic old fashioned diner that still exists in New York. We both had two eggs over easy, sausage and rye toast, easily my favorite breakfast when I am away from home. I have a very specific way of eating my eggs and sausage; first I cut a bit of sausage and cut a piece of the white to eat them together, the whites of the egg are bland so the salty, smoky sausage provides the pep that the egg whites so desperately need, I then take the smallest half of the rye toast and break open the yolk and use that piece to mop up the golden essence of the egg, once I am done soaking up the runny golden yolk, I lift the egg onto the other half of the toast and I eat it as an open-faced sandwich. I do all of this once more time with the second egg, I know that it sounds way too methodical and extremely thought out just for eggs but I have been eating them this way for years and I don’t remember what pushed me to eat them this way faithfully each and every time.

After breakfast we went to Toys-R-Us to get something for our niece and nephew, my hubby picked out two remote controlled helicopters. My hubby picked well because when we got to my sister’s the kids were so excited to see us and the Toys-R-Us bag, my brother-in-law was actually quite happy with the presents as well. My sister has three kids just as I do (ha,ha). We had a great visit, all of us talking and laughing while they were eating a nice lunch of a vegetable frittata and a green salad. My hubby and I were more than happy to join them for dessert, my mother had gone to a wonderful French patisserie near her house and picked out chocolate eclairs, Paris Brest in miniature, the same with the Sainte Honore, bread pudding and a chocolate praline hazelnut cake. These little cakes were the perfect size, small smackerals of refined creamy and luscious puff pastry. We all visited for a few hours and then we came back into the city.

Tonight’s dinner plans were for Thai cuisine; a Thai fusion restaurant downtown on 6th Avenue between 11th and 12th streets. Downtown New York is very different from midtown, the night life begins much later downtown than in midtown and the ambience of downtown is much more laid back and bohemian. Our restaurant was called Kin Shop and it was very good. We started with a dish that I make at home called laab, it’s made with ground pork normally, here we had it with minced duck which we both were very excited about, it was delicious but a little too spicy. Laab is a salad made with sauteed ground meat with garlic, chives, cilantro and mint, fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, crushed red pepper flakes and you serve it with lettuce leaves. It is fun to eat and I like to make it at home because I control the spice. We also had fried pork belly and oysters, very flavorful, not too spicy and a good contrast in texture and flavor. We weren’t disappointed with our main courses; I had roasted beef marrow served with toasted flatbread and my husband had sliced breast of duck, medium rare, served with toasted flatbread and a curried sauce. Both dishes were light, very flavorful yet simple. Delicious because of the ingredients not in spite of anything complicated done to them. It was another home run for dinner.

Overall this weekend was a superb getaway with my hubby to celebrate our marriage to each other and the fact that he planned this all as a surprise is testament to how lucky I am with my hubby.

Doing our parental duty this weekend

Tags

College, food, restaurants, scripted activities, soft shell crab, travel, vacation

When the baby girl calls, my hubby and I answer asking, “what can we do for you and where would you like to eat?” We both remember being away for the first time from our parents, granted it was eons ago, but we still remember. So when the baby girl calls several times during the week, asking if we are coming for Parents Weekend and if instead of doing the scripted activities, we could come and take her out for sushi, bring her the horseback riding stuff that was left behind in her vast room and perhaps go walk around the mall and visit a few stores, how could we say no?

We are lucky that her college is only an hour and twenty minutes from our house so a round trip isn’t too much driving. My hubby found a really nice sushi place where they even had an all you can eat sushi buffet for 15 dollars. We didn’t do the buffet, I can’t picture buffet and sushi together in a good way. We ordered from the menu, my baby girl and I shared four rolls between us, a monster roll, a dragon roll, a caterpillar roll and a Philadelphia roll. They all share avocado in common, rice, nori, the philadelphia roll is the only one that had cream cheese and smoked salmon, the other three had smoked eel, spicy tuna and Maura tuna. My hubby had scallops tempura and a spider roll, this one has soft shell crab tempura, avocado, cucumber, rice and nori. So lunch was a hit.

The mall was another homerun, the baby girl found her favorite store, found the things she needed really quickly and before it ever became too painful, we were done with the mall. So after good food and good shopping, we dropped off the baby girl in front of her dorm and we were back home to Rex and Jack in time for their early evening walk since our baby boy was over earlier to feed them.

As parents we are feeling very productive today, don’t worry, we never let that go to our heads. We are parents after all to young adults, what do we know?

What are your three favorite places locally when dining out?

Tags

dining out, local eateries, postaday2012, restaurants

On our Friday movie and dinner outings, I love going to Arby’s for their regular roast beef sandwich with black pepper and horsey sauce, washed down with a 30 ounce chocolate milk shake. I really love that date night with my hubby and with or without kids. Any occasion to go eat gourmet sushi is welcome and we found a lovely place in Great Barrington called Bizen. It is not only a fantastic sushi place but serves as a tea ceremonial salon and a Japanese pottery art gallery. It is an amazing find. For my special treat, we found a very exiting and charming farm to table French restaurant in Northampton called Les Gras. We have been there several times for Mother’s day and my birthday.