Posted by roxiao on April 5th,2011  Monster-sized biscuit with delicious raspberry jam This past weekend,Amanda helped organize what would turn out to be an epic food tour. The tour,appropriately named “Fatty Food Tour”,started in the Lower East Side at the Doughnut Plant and ended with dinner at 5 Napkin burger in the Upper West Side. We stopped at nine restaurants consisting of old favorites and new buzz-worthy places. The first new spot on the tour was the Clinton St. Baking Company. Amanda and I first heard about this place while watching Throwdown with Bobby Flay where they nearly beat Bobby with their famous blueberry pancakes. Unfortunately they have notoriously long brunch waits so we did the smart thing and got some baked goods for take-out to munch on. We purchased one their famous biscuits and jam,a mixed berry scone,and a blueberry muffin. The biscuit was twice the size of your average buttery biscuit. I kid you not when I say that it was the size of my fist. The jam is sweetly tart with fresh raspberries and it was so good I could’ve taken a spoon to it,sans biscuit. The mixed berry scone was packed with tiny blueberries and cranberries and still warm and moist in the center. The blueberry muffin was pretty good also but paled in comparison with the biscuits and jam combo. The muffin top was nice and crusty like it should be,but the rest of the muffin was dense and cornbread-like both in taste and texture. It worked in this case though because this allows the blueberries to shine. If you’re willing to tough out the wait,I’d recommend this place. And if you order them,tell us how the blueberry pancakes are! But if you’re in a rush,do yourself a favor and pick up a biscuit or two to go  Posted by roxiao on March 22nd,2011  The main dish... beef noodle soup.  Toast... best way to eat bone marrow. Though I often profess my love for pork belly and prime rib,my favorite cut of meat is actually the beef shank. I’ve grown up eating a lot of beef shank and nothing quite matches the chewy toothsome-ness or the deep flavors from the long braise. Beef shanks can be prepared pretty simply like with Lu Niu Rou,which I wrote about previously,and it tastes great on its own. When I’m feeling a bit more adventurous,I like to make a it into a Sichuan style beef noodle soup via a really good recipe in Bon Appetit.   The recipe calls for boneless beef shank,but I got the bone-in beef shank for a reason. After stripping the meat,we took the bones and roasted them in the oven and had the marrow with with some toasted french bread and lemony herb garnish. Unexpected (and delicious) surprise! Read after the break for a reprint of the recipe. [continued...] Posted by roxiao on March 15th,2011  Sweet potato hash with mushrooms,spinach,and topped with a poached egg. Amanda and I have recently been trying to turn over a new leaf and eat healthy. Yeah,it might not seem obvious from our previous posts,but in my defense,most of those were a from a stash of back logged reviews that we meant to get to sooner. Honest. What we made here was inspired by the uova at Morandi and by a freakin’big sweet potato that until a couple hours ago had been staring me in the face. We tried to make the hash a bit more healthy by oven roasting the sweet potatoes first instead of just cooking them with loads of grease in a cast iron. We also used the sweet potato instead of a regular potato because it provides just a bit more in terms of vitamins and nutrients. The recipe is extremely easy…we basically followed this recipe to prepare everything. When the sweet potatoes were finished,we took about half a cup of the sweet potatoes and some finely diced sautéed onions and mashed them just slightly to form a small patty. The patties were seasoned with some salt and pepper and seared very quickly on either side in the cast iron and then topped with the mushrooms and spinach and finally topped with a poached egg. Posted by roxiao on March 14th,2011  Deliciously crispy wings.  Seeing this box makes me so happy. If you’ve ever visited us before,you’d probably know that one of the first questions we ask you is either “Have you ever had BonChon?”or “Have you had BonChon,recently?”Regardless of what your answer is,we’ll most likely end up having BonChon.  The thing that we like the most about BonChon is that it feels like a mix between the best parts of buffalo wings and fried chicken. You have the extremely crispy skin that comes from frying the chicken multiple times but not the heavy breading of battered fried chicken and you have just the right amount of sauce to coat the wing in deliciousness yet not so much that it makes a mess of your fingers. You can order BonChon as wings,legs,a mix of both,or even chicken tenders for the health conscious (weirdos) and they come in Soy Garlic or Spicy. Just a heads up if you’re not used to Korean food,they mean it when they say spicy…so order carefully  | |
