Sushi! Sushi! Sushi!

I'm a picky person when it comes to fish. If it smells fishy.. keep it away from me.  That's why I usually stay away from cooked fish dishes just because it's so hard to find fish that is cooked well and doesn't have that ocean pee smell.. Raw fish, however, is in my top 5 favorite foods.  Good sashimi does not smell fishy at all, but fresh and clean.  Sashimi is the best way to have fish in my opinion.  Each fish has a distinct flavor and texture, the rich and buttery, yet very distinct, flavors of salmon and toro, the slight metallic flavor of red tuna, the chewy texture of octopus and squid.  I'm no sushi master, but I know what fish I like.

Usually "all you can eat" sushi restaurants don't have great quality fish, (learned from experience) probably due to the quantity of fish they must serve for a set price.  Sushi Palace in Orange is a pleasant change from the other sushi factories there are available out there.  The fish is fresh and their kitchen dishes aren't half bad either. I had a belly-busting satisfactory dinner there the other night with one of my friends. Embarrassed to say we only got to 2 plates of sushi and a couple side dishes.  OH! and another thing. I cannot eat sushi without the ginger.. just doesn't taste right.  Gotta cleanse the palate between each piece :)

Sushi Palace

538 Boston Post Rd

Orange, CT 06477

Chicago Weekend

yaaay I finally got a chance to go to Chicago for a weekend! I got to see my J :) Didn't do anything too crazy. just wanted to spend time with each other (i know aww so cute) but what we did do was watch 21 jump street (*drool* channing tatum and jonah hill) hilarious movie btw.. and eat some really good food. And here are my chi-town food adventures..

We surprising didn't sleep into the afternoon on saturday but woke up decently early (mainly because my alarm that i forgot to turn off went off at around 7:20am) so we went to this breakfast joint called Yolk which ironically, i loved the restaurant, hate actual egg yolks... Apparently their eggs benedicts were known for being de-lish so decided to go with their... Pot Roast Eggs Benedict! jealous? you should be. Now i understand that eggs benedicts is mainly about the yolk.. poached egg and hollandaise sauce.. blah blah.. but i don't like yolk (like i said.. ironic in this restaurant) so i got mine with egg whites and hollandaise sauce on the side. i know i'm totally ruining eggs benedict..

Pot Roast Eggs Benedict

The pot roast was tender and juicy.. egg whites cooked perfectly and not rubbery.. potatoes a little undercooked but i'm ok with that as long as i have ketchup and tabasco sauce. With a side of fresh fruit, this meal everything i was craving and a great start to my day with J :D J got a customized omelette (but basically a western) with ham onions peppers and mushrooms.

Western Omelette

very tasty.. surprised the inside was cooked because it was a very large omelette. looked more like a football. ended up eating only half and took the other half plus potatoes home for a rainy day.

Yolk

355 E Ohio Street

Chicago, IL 60611

So i love my vietnamese food.. maybe that's why i joined VSC instead of KSA during college. i already had access to korean food at home.. but what about my banh mis and phos? anyways we decided we were craving some pho so we went to the viet-town of chicago (more like viet-corner.. but that's ok) and went to Tank Noodle. Lots of tables squished together, sometimes even sharing tables with people you don't know.. but i'm ok with that as long as i get fed. J got Phở Tái, Chin, Gân, noodle soup with beef, brisket, and tendon and i got Bún Heo Nướng, rice vermicelli with sliced grilled pork, vegetables, and peanut. I was craving fish sauce for some strange reason. You can never go wrong with vietnamese food. de-lish.

Bún Heo Nướng

Phở Tái, Chin, Gân

Tank Noodle Restaurant

4953-55 N.Broadway

Chicago, IL 60640 

So dinner we had already made plans early on because we wanted to try this steakhouse, Gibson's. We made reservations when i first bought my plane tickets to chicago. their chicago location were booked up! so we decided to try their oakbrook site. This is probably where i would brag the most about the food but the pictures are not that great because i didn't want to have flash go off in this nice restaurant. This restaurant atmosphere was a bit confusing though. half the people dressing really classy with bottles of wine (ourselves included), other half dressed semi-casual/casual... and then the table next to us seated a couple in sweats, watching a basketball game with sound ON on their cell phone... distracting and rude! Another distracting aspect at this restaurant was birthdays. apparently birthdays are a to-do at Gibson's on weekends. they have so many birthday requests that they don't sing you the song. a group of waiters stand next to your table and shout "Happy! Happy! Happy Birthday to You!!" and then walk away. definitely kept you on your toes.. enough about the atmosphere. on with the food.

what's a fancy restaurant without oysters? and there was this sauce. could not place the exact flavor. like a citrus-y shaved ice that you put on the oyster. oh divine!! cocktail sauce and tabasco will no longer be enough for me.. :(

Oysters on the Half Shell

And now onto the steaks! before you order, the waiter brings you a platter with all the different steak options to show you the marbling, size, cut, etc. (each steak had the option of peppercorn crust, garlic herb, blue cheese something or another.. don't remember the rest) their special that night was the 16 oz. bone-in filet with king crab bearnaise sauce which i added peppercorn crust and J got the 22 oz. "chicago cut" with peppercorn crust. can't have steak without sides. double baked potato, 1/2 order of sauteed mushrooms, and 1/2 order of creamed corn (because we were indecisive and our waiter was awesome). paired very nicely with a waiter-recommended bottle of Mionetto il Moscato sparkling wine and a french martini (guess who had which drink ;) both sound girly right? XP)

Bone-In Filet (16oz) with King Crab Bearnaise Sauce

W.R.'s Chicago-Cut (22oz)

i know these pictures just look like black bricks.. just trust me they were awesome.


our eyes definitely bigger than our stomachs.. we had a very big doggie bag when we left.. we both ate about half of our steaks and a fraction of the sides. (i sliced up my leftover filet the next morning to have with eggs. yum) no room for desserts, though i did see plates with 1/4 slice of a humongous cake floating around so i must come back for that. this was a very extravagant dinner but i'm going to justify it by saying it landed on the day of our 26 month anniversary.................

Gibson's Bar and Steakhouse

2105 South Spring Road

Oak Brook, IL 60523

So lunch the next day, just walking around downtown chicago we walk by a place called the Purple Pig. J had heard of this place before! 4 stars on yelp with over 1000 reviews? sounds good to me. usually there is a 2-3 hour wait to eat here but apparently not for a 1pm lunch on a sunday. as a tapas place, the dishes are small and meant to be shared. we ended up getting:

Salt-Roasted Beets with Whipped Goat Cheese & Pistachio Vinaigrette

cool and refreshing with a tang from the goat cheese and perfect amount of saltiness from the pistachios. the chef is a genius with this dish!

Olive Oil-Poached Tuna with Greek Lima Beans

citrus-y and herb-tastic! tuna not too crumbly and nice big lima beans to balance the fish.

Roasted Bone Marrow with Herbs 

served with toasted bread, this smear was different and amazing. scoop out the bone marrow, smear it on the bread, sprinkle a little sea salt and top with light vinaigrette salad to balance the fattiness. yummy :)

Eggplant Parmesan Balls 

you would think something so simple wouldn't taste that must better than any other eggplant parmesan.. oh but it did! little nuggets of happiness :) J ate one before i could take the picture.

Milk Braised Pork Shoulder with Mashed Potatoes 

so tender and juicy! the meat just falls apart! on a bed of creamy mashed potatoes. a perfect comfort food.

Wild Striped Sea Bass with Artichoke

so good! crispy crust with flaky insides. paired perfectly with the tomato-based marinated artichokes. (sorry for blurry picture.. was anxious to try this last dish since all the past ones were so good)

Amazing food-gasm experience. I have nothing bad to say about this place. except for they should invest in more than 1 single user bathroom. maybe 1 for each gender at least?

the purple pig was the best way (if there is any good way) to end my weekend in chicago with my J (too much rhyming there.. not intentional)

The Purple Pig

500 North Michigan Avenue

Chicago, IL 60611

Now i am back in the fruit :(

Thali Too : Restaurant Review

Another adventure of MU.  So we had created a list of basically all the different types of foods we could think of based on cooking styles, ethnicity, and culture so that we could eventually hit them all.  One of the obvious ones was Indian cuisine so we decided to try this little restaurant in an alleyway of Yale University and come to find out, it's a vegetarian restaurant!  Now.. I consider myself a devout carnivore, but these are adventures! Stepping outside our comfort zone. Also, a vegetarian restaurant was also listed for places that we had to try.  So why not kill two birds with one stone?  A vegetarian Indian restaurant. sweet!

So we get to this restaurant for dinner, and after playing some musical tables because of indecisive me, we ended up at a table right across from the ceiling-to-floor patio doors which were open to the 70 degree weather outside.  Everything on the menu was very reasonably priced, with plenty of variety (vegan, non/spicy, app/snack/entree, etc.)  We both started with drinks called "lassi" which is a traditional Indian beverage made by blending yogurt with water, salt, and spices until frothy.  Can also be mixed with fruit purees.  I had the original and M had the banana.  So yummy! When M spilled her cup of lassi on herself mid-meal, she told me she was more disappointed that she couldn't drink the rest of her lassi rather than having a yogurt-based spill all over her lap. Now that's what you call tasty. :)

For an appetizer I got Masala Papad, which is basically a salsa pizza in my mind.  Spicy, yummy, overall satisfying.

For our entrees, I ended up getting Baigan Bhurtha, a smashed eggplant and veggie based dish served with rice.  The tastes of peas overpowered the eggplant flavor I was looking for.  M got Haldiram Chole Bathuraa, a spicy chick pea dish served with deep fried naan bread.  Honestly, I liked M's dish better, I kept stealing her food throughout the meal.  Very intimidating when your food comes out and it looks like you have two huge basketballs on your plate.  Deep frying naan apparently does that.  

Tasty foods but I wouldn't count on going vegetarian anytime soon.  Until next time :)

Thali Too, 65 Broadway, New Haven, CT, 06511 203.776.1600

Amish Friendship Bread

Another exciting and tasty adventure of MU. Amish friendship bread was definitely a different baking experience than the prepackaged baking kits you can get at any grocery store.  The idea of the Amish friendship bread is that you cannot start it yourself, but must get the mixture from a friend.  (I'm sure you could buy the starter kit but what's the fun in that?)  So when marissa had received it from one of her family friends, she then passed on to me.  When you receive the starter kit from your friend it should look like this..

a plastic bag filled with mushy stuff that smells slightly like vinegar and alcohol with the date it was started, day 6, and day 10.  You should be getting your bag close to day 1.  You leave the bag out.  Do not refrigerate.  On day 6, you add 1 cup of flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk.  On all other days, you mush the bag around, giving it some love.  Once you hit day 10, it means the mixture is ready to become bread!  It's slightly inconvenient that you can only make the bread every 10 days and only on day 10 (though i'm not sure what happens if you let it sit too long) but it is so worth it in the end.

Before you starting baking your delicious bread, you want to spread the love and friendship around first right?? Here is how friendship bread is done :)

First you empty the contents of your 10 day-old mixture into a large plastic/glass/ceramic bowl.  (BIG NOTE: you are not supposed to use any metal utensils or bowl. don't know why but all recipes explicitly state it...)  To that smelly bowl you add 1.5 cups of flour, 1.5 cups of sugar, and 1.5 cups of milk. Mix together.  Label 4 gallon-size ziplocks with the current date as day 1, and the subsequent dates of day 6 and day 10.  

Fill each of the bags with 1 cup of the mixture, making sure you try and get as much air out of it as possible.  

Now these 4 bags are ready to distribute to your friends! 

Now preheat the oven to 325 degrees C.  With the remaining mixture in your bowl, add the following: 

3 eggs

1 cup oil

1/3 cup milk

1/2 tsp salt

1.5 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup sugar

2 cup flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1 large box (6 serving size) instant vanilla pudding

1/2 tsp vanilla

It does not have to be in any particular order.. just get it all in the bowl and mix it all up.

Grease the bottom and sides of two 9x5in loaf pans.  In a small bowl,  mix 1/2 cup sugar and 1.5 tsp of cinnamon.

Dust the sides and bottom of the pan with half of the cinnamon sugar mixture.

(sorry i only have picture of one of the pans.. you will also notice this pan is made of metal.. oops!)

Split the batter evenly in the 2 pans and then sprinkle them with the remaining cinnamon sugar.

Place them in the oven for approximately 1 hour (until toothpick comes out clean)

Let them cool in the pans until they come out easily.  Slice and enjoy! 

I pretty much ate half a loaf by myself.. my dad eating the other half... it's so good! This was marissa's batch that she had gotten from her friend and I had just stolen a loaf of hers.. so I took one of the 4 bags she made from this batch.  I am currently on day 4 of my bag and if anyone would like to get a bag after the 15th, the day i split and bake my batch (which lucky enough happens to be my mom's birthday! <3) let me know :) It's all about spreading the love and spreading the friendship and eating yummy bread together.

The Adventures of MU

And that's mu like mew not moo... I guess you could like it it as the adventures of a tiny cute floating pokemon... 

One of my best friends, Marissa, and I (Marissa Urey... MU.. get it?) realized that we hadn't really tried too many of the local restaurants since we both moved to Orange ~15 years ago.  So because we were both home from college and had jobs/money to spend on going out to eat, we decided to have food adventures every week or so to try the local cuisine.  We agreed to try and go off the beaten path, try the hole-in-the-wall joints, expand our palate.  This hasn't really happened to the extent we were hoping as of yet, but the places we have tried so far have been an adventure.  The adventures of MU had started way before the life of your kangaroo had begun.. so I'll just catch you up on some of the places mu has been to. Caseus Cheese Shop, Basil, Skappo, and Mamouns's Falafel Restaurant in New Haven, and Plan B Burger Joint in Milford just to name a few.. but this story will be about our latest adventure.  Anna Liffey's in New Haven, an Irish pub that's actually right next to one of my good high school friend's pizza restaurant (who by the way is celebrating his birthday today actually).  We started with the spicy chicken egg rolls because it sounded amazing.. and we were right. 

The egg rolls were nice and crispy and the insides had a slight kick which was yummy.  The dip was a delicious peanut-based spicy chili sauce which went great with the egg rolls.  It was so good that I ended up eating the bed of lettuce with the sauce on it.  For our main entrees we decided to split another appetizer and one entree.  We figured we're at an Irish pub so we should get something semi-Irish.  Shepard's Pie atop french fries with cheese? 

The shepard's pie was amazing, the little amount we did get on top the field of potatoes.  They definitely need to work on the shepard's pie to french fry ratio.. otherwise very yummy and heart attack inducing dish.  For our main entree, we went really Irish and ordered the Irish chicken and vegetable stew with mashed potatoes and Irish brown bread.

The brown bread was oh so yummy and the mashed potatoes in the middle were good. That's where it ends.  The soup was so tasteless!  It tasted like they boiled some vegetables and chicken in water... no salt no pepper no nothing.  This was one of the few times I actually used the salt and pepper shakers on the table because otherwise I would not have eaten after the first spoonful.  Even then, most of the soup I ate was from it being stuck on the mashed potatoes and the bread.  Overall, the soup very blah.  The meal started out great with the egg rolls and then just went downhill from there.  I'm not sure if I would come here again because if the Chinese food dish is better than the Irish food at an Irish pub, that's not right.