Sunday, March 22, 2015

Brussel Sprout & Shallot Flatbread

This is a very simple one but very delicious if you are into brussel sprouts. I had bought more of those than I really needed for a recipe and found myself at a loss for ideas of what to do with them until I realized that I could make a flatbread with the pizza dough recipe I had found in the blog Kayotic Kitchen. I had some shallots and Parmesan cheese which I thought would compliment the sprouts nicely so I set about the task of putting these ingredients together.

Brussel Sprout & Shallot Flat Bread
1 TBSP Olive oil
20 Brussel sprouts cut in half (about 3/4lb)
2 medium shallots
1 Cup shredded Parmesan cheese
 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a skillet pan saute the sprouts and the shallots together until the shallots get nice and soft and aromatic. Set them aside and roll out your dough onto a baking sheet, making sure to poke holes into it with a fork so to prevent it from rising when it is baked. Coat the dough with some olive oil, then put the sprout and shallots on it spreading them evenly throughout the surface of the dough. Sprinkle the parmesan cheese evenly over the vegetables and dough. Place the whole darn thing in the oven until the dough starts to turn nice an golden at the edges and the cheese has melted (approximately 20- 25 minutes). Enjoy and accompany with your favorite wine.










Saturday, February 21, 2015

Talde - Bucket List Check

Once again my cohorts J & J invited me to go out and check off another one of my bucket list restaurants. Talde is one of three restaurants owned by Dale Talde of Bravo's "Top Chef" fame, which is where I first became familiar with him. Although the restaurant is relatively close to where I live, it took the invitation from my cohorts to actually get my ass out the door tempted by the promise of Kung Pao Chicken Wings and Waffles (part of their weekend brunch menu) which had been calling my name for too many months until finally I succumbed.

This place definitely lived up to the hype. I recommend getting there as early as possible which we did (and I was grateful for since the place started getting packed not too long after we were seated). Well of course I started out with something wonderful to drink with booze in it, because let's face it, a brunch without a little booze and good conversation is just breakfast. I had the Very Excellent Bellini, which was very excellent indeed, packed with all sorts of nice tropical fruit goodness, and prosecco adding even more wonderful notes to it. Then J & J and I proceeded to try to make decisions about what to have. We knew for sure that we wanted to get the Kung Pao Chicken Wings and Waffles with the coconut brown butter syrup. We also decided to get the Pretzel Pork and Chive Dumplings, the Sausage, Egg & Cheese Fired Rice and the Corn Pancakes. To say we had plenty to eat would be an understatement. The chicken wings were the right kind of spicy and flavorful and definitely packed with all the good Asian inspired flavor you would expect. The coconut brown butter syrup is something I wish they would bottle but perhaps it is best that they don't because it would become my number one abused substance. The fried rice was a great twist on an old time favorite. The dumplings were great because of the crispy dough layer, and packed full of flavor. The corn pancakes were perhaps the more understated of all the things we ordered but we made generous use of the coconut syrup with these as well which helped to kick them up a notch.

 The Menu

 The Dumplings

 Kung Pao Chicken WIngs and Waffles... 
and coconut brown butter syrup...droool!

 My partners in crime

 Sausage, Egg and Cheese Fried Rice

 The Very Excellent Bellini

 Half way through eating our feast.

 


I definitely am glad I got to check this one off my list and hope to come back to it again soon. If you are planning on coming to NYC on a food pilgrimage, this restaurant should definitely be on your itinerary.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Ippudo - Bucket List Check

Happy 2015!!! Although the year got started with a few sad events in the midst, I did manage to end 2014 on a high note with my little munchkin. OK so it was not a blow out party, but it was  wonderful because it was calm which is exactly what this girl needed after the hectic year 2014 turned out to be.

Right before the year ended I did manage to check another name from off from my restaurant bucket list. Thanks to my friends J and J (Names are withheld to protect the innocent) who are two of my five partners in crime when it comes to these sort of endeavors, we managed to get into Ippudo after a one and a half hour wait. Ippudo was part of a list of noodle restaurants around the city that were noted in Tasting Table's Ten Great Bowls of Ramen We Are Craving Right Now List (although one of my favorites Nauruto Ramen was not part of the list much to my dismay). This place was well worth the wait especially because December 30th turned out to be one of the chilliest days we've had so far this winter, so a hot bowl of ramen was just the thing to chase the chill away. For an appetizer we had the Hirata buns, which are about as wonderful as Baohaus' Chairman Bao (but not quite enough to make me want to stop my illicit love affair with this little bundle of deliciousness). For our main course us ladies went with the Akamaru Modern while our other cohort went up a notch ordering the Akamaru Chasu (which is the Akamaru Modern with extra pork chasu). All I have to say is that this was probably one of the most wonderful and satisfying experiences I have had eating ramen. Now I am looking forward to checking out the rest of the other places on that list and hope that they are all as wonderful as Ippudo was. Here are some pictures I managed to take.

 Bowls adorn the entry to our noodle heaven

 My partners in crime

 Hirata buns

 Hirata bun food porn

 Akamaru Chasu

Akamaru Modern