The Spotted Pig

So ya’ll know about the book… WHICH IS AMAZING, I got it as soon as it got out. GET IT.

Now let’s talk about her food.. it was a beautiful Saturday so after walking all the way from the edge of FiDi…. all the way to almost Times Sq..

First by the waters… and then we decided to walk on the HighLine since I’ve never been…. We walked all the way to the end… and then went down to Gastro Market for a few beers. Ahhh beergardens.

I don’t remember what they were except they were in caskets and red ales.

We ended up walking to the The Spotted Pig RIGHT before the big dinner rush. Phew. Last two seats at the bar. Booyeah!

I was surprised at how little pork items were actually ON the menu. Come on.. Spotted Pig? We need a full on all out pigged out menu….

Pork Rillette with Pickles & Mustard

What could go wrong with pork topped off with lardo?!.. You don’t even need the grainy mustard on the side….. just a huge scoop of the lardo and pork from the rillette on top of the perfectly grilled crostini… toasty fresh… and you’re good.  The pickled gherkins and pearl onions were a nice touch…

Crispy Pig’s Ear Salad with Lemon Caper Dressing

This was the first thing I saw on the menu and I KNEW I had to get it.  I was surprised that it was a whole pig’s ear… unless it’s connected to the head still, I’m used to eating it cut into thin strips.  The pig’s ear was crispy, not greasy at all, and paired lovely with the refreshing salad of mixed greens, endive and italian parsley underneath.

Grilled Skirt Steak with Roasted Beets & Horseradish Cream

J shared this with me. AMAZING horseradish butter and simple braised beets and beet greens. Delicious. We weren’t asked how we wanted it to be cooked but it was cooked to a beautiful medium rare, on the rare side. YUM. Buttery meat.

Prosciutto & Ricotta Tart with Marjoram

This was an appetizer but I got it as my main to share with J.  A flakey crisp tart topped with prosciutto, risotto, greens and shavings of parm. DELICIOUS.

And of course, a very much needed – and always necessary side dish

Roasted Brussels Sprouts

These literally melted in your mouth.  Most definitely NOT good for you but sooooo delicious.

I kinda wish we got the burger as well, it’s supposed to be awesome and I saw a TON of people order it.

Afterwards we ended up at Proletariat for beers….. and PRETZEL BREAD

The stout cheese dip was meh….. it was all about the curry mustard sauce!!!!

Met up with a few friends and ended up at Dive Bar Lucy’s..

Great times.

Heading Home…… to NYC… FIRST CLASS BITCHES… MIA to LGA

First class bitches. Yeah I basically slept the whole way back to pick up our luggage and to the airport cuz of the margaritas….

We had some beers at the Sam Adams at the MIA Airport

And I was ready… in LGA I couldn’t find ANY word search books at the airport…. here I found a good one :]

Gorgeous sunset

You’re gona love my [warm] nuts

Champagne and Red Wine

Dinner was Salad, Salmon w/ Rice and Broccolini… and a yummy Cheesecake

J finished his.. but I didn’t like my salmon, WAYYYY overcooked and dry..  but I inhaled everything else. DUH. Loved the rice… so chewy.. the salad was overdressed… but still, I love my veggies…. cheesecake was creamy and sweet and delish! I think the sauce it came with was some crazy butter sauce which I dared not touch. I just watched Modern Family and giggled and ate rice.

#ALWAYSHUNGRY

I love you Miami see you soon, very soon.

Miami Day 2 Beach, Yardbird & Nikki Beach Club

After a nice relaxing, semi-early, night in…. uhhhh…. actually okay, fine, not so “early” :] We woke up around 1030 for our FREE BREAKFAST

Dressed for the beach and ready to tan and swim after brekky… OFF WE GO…

How did we somehow get upgraded to an insane room AND get free brekky?!?!?!

One of our first plates of many….

And an omelette bar <3 UGH love

And then we were off to the beach. I swear we were the youngest/sexiest ones there. Check out my hot beach date.

My view for the whole day.

Is that a flying dino?

OH also decided to turn Mormon after finding this book in our hotel room….

HA. Just kidding. PS. This bikini is dedicated to Elliot Wronski :]

Our hotel.

Booze since 11am…

We later got ready, chilled on our balcony…..

 

And then headed to LUCKY STRIKE to watch the HEATS game. YAY Basketball.

J with his sexy cousin G and her fiance S [from the group Stellar Revival] 

Yeah, the band is pretty killer…. go to some shows in their next tour.. if it’s east coast I’ll probably be there :] Def any Boston or NYC shows :D

Live:

Ok i keep trying to put up the link to The Crazy Ones on here.. but it’s just the lyrics to Saving Grace…

Something about some punk and rock that just gets a girl going….

I’ll hopefully go help out at a few East Coast shows on their next tour so look out for me :D *grin* and also check out the drummer’s food blog — The Hungry Dummer .

We played a game of pool [worst game ever] but me and J won <3 WOOT. Nerds unite!!!!

G asked where I wanted to eat in Miami and I said YARDBIRD and her and S had JUST had brunch there… but then they decided to take us there after the game…. AWESOME.

Sadly no Chef Jeff McInnis here :[  HASH TAG #topchefcrush

Of course when I saw this I had to get it.  G and S warned that it was a lot of food but I was up to the challenge…

G ordered milk. I think I love her.

The cute soon-to-be-married-couple <3

Kale Salad for J and I

And our Chicken n Waffles n Watermelon!!!… we DEVOURED, DEMOLISHED, KILLLLLLED this <3 Hahahaha…… we’re fatties

Altho I did lose a watermelon in the feed fest. So I pour a little bit out to my homie watermelon…

My Feedback:

And then G and S kindly dropped us off at Nikki Beach Club…

Yeah the mojitos were overly sweet and sucked… I had lots of champagne and lots of douchebag Jersey Shore guys here….. probably never coming back to  Nikki Beach Club… but it was definitely an experience and fun..

Ended up going back and having fun enjoying Eden Roc late late night ;D

PS. Best line of my night to a guy “Catch me if you can, POKEMON” and I LITERALLY ran away”

PPS. I also had a guy ask me: “If I took you away tonight do you think your bf would mind?” UHHH YES. FUCKA.

I’ve been cooking a lot more lately….

My trips to NYC has been inspiring me to cook more lately.  I’ve been able to experiment more and more with different foods.  I’m sure I’ve mentioned some of these from previous trips:

The dangerous habanero chicken pizza… which was delicious but deadly.

My famous meatballs…

My Short Ribs over Mushrooms and Chard

But here are some more recent things I’ve made in NYC

OK this isn’t really “made” but J and I decided to have a simple wine, cheese and meats night…. with steamed artichokes and baked Yam fries..

Iberico, Chorizo, Duck Salumi and Coppa

So many cheeses…

Half of these are chili/cinnamon rubbed, the other half are truffle butter rubbed..

And then the next night I made a warm grilled brussel sprouts salad with different peppers and veggies… topped with habanero vindaloo chicken…

And some Kale Chips and Fresh Avocado

STOP BEING USELESS
AND START BEING A CHEESEBURGER

So these were the peppers…

That cause me to split my finger open…

and go to the ER :[ WAAA

And then the day before Miami.. uh... night before, we had a a dinner party

I forgot to take pics of the panko pan fried quail I made [marinated in Honey , Orange, Habanero] which each person got a whole quail, cut in half on top of mixed greens as an App]

and I made Duck Breast “Confit style”

Jonathan brought Capri Sun BEER!!!!!!! <3

Oh back to the duck… slow cooked for like 2-3 hours… and then popped into oven with some balsamic vinegar, red wine, pear, raspberries, shallots and fig jam,

See… demolished the salad already… I served with truffled broccolini and mushrooms and baked chili/cinnamon yam fries.

And then the night after we got back from Miami I made bunny curry. YES. Rabbit Curry. And it was actually NOT overpowering on the bunny as some people said it would be.  You could taste the bunny cuz I left them in big chunks…the legs were kept whole, etc…..  just celery, carrots, potatoes, yams, onions, a whole rabbit [I butchered a rabbit for the first time] 

Some steamed okra on the side…

And then I put it all on a bed of mixed greens, freshly made sushi rice, topped off with rabbit meat and curry sauce. DELISH!

OK, now that we’re caught up on that I feel a bit better and will continue onto more NYC eats and Miami posts.

Best Worst Idea sort of Pizza on a Sunday Night: Habaneros Part 1 of 4

… we had leftovers of pizza dough from the last time I was in town so after getting some fresh vegetables at a local market in Brooklyn.. [after J's weekly Bocce game]

so after tons of crap beer and a delicious brunch at Colonie before the game [which I'll blog about later] we set out to make another pizza… and Tuscan Kale chips [the non-curly kind]

Kale chips, successful. Just EVOO and sea salt baked in a tray til almost burnt and crisp.

[sorry no picture]

The pizza was another story.  Successful, but the best worst idea.

Stroke stroke stroke

I took the biggest habanero and minced it up with a few garlic cloves… chopped up a chicken breast and threw it in a skillet.

Within a few minutes.. I know how to make pepper bombs. J was just asking me what wine to drink when he started coughing and I started gagging.

“On the floor the air is fresher” no it wasn’t.

We opened his giant window in his living room and screamed out the window.  We opened his apt door and ran screaming into the hallway gagging.

Half hour later when we were ready to assemble the pizza, his roommate and roommate’s gf came home saying they were gagging off the elevator hahahaha… we said it wasn’t even that bad anymore.

So much pain, but so much to gain.

Super spicy habanero garlic chicken [oh we also diced in a thai chili pepper, green one for color] on a Margherita pizza on whole wheat crust.

Worth it.

Oh and we ended up finding a good wine to go with the pizza :]

Village Yokocho… and more beer…

Friday Night means one thing: NO ALARM CLOCK – hottest words EVA. But that talks for later….. Friday night and J comes home and we decide that Japanese is what’s up.

Time for some yakitori. MMMM St. Marks time.  Which means Village Yokocho.

First thing we did was order a giant pitcher of beer. SO MUCH FOAM.

UMM… I couldn’t resist.

Takoyaki.

Asparagus. Scallions.  Green Pepper.  Mushroom.

Different parts of chicken and beef … and balls :] Oh chicken balls…. ground chicken balls not their “BALLS” durrrr…. that’s at a different place<3

Somehow all the sticks were on my plate. HAHA. Way for J to make me the fattie.

Not enough, we want MORE!!!!!!!!

We need more and more chicken skin…..

MORE chicken skin, alls, shishito peppers and then some…. OH cartiledge

After a delicious dinner.. we headed to the secret yet so known, Angel’s Share but the wait was too long and didn’t seem worth it.  The bathroom was gross and it was freezing in there… So we left….

… and headed to the sure thing: Proletariat

Happy Happy Joy Joy

范家 Fun Time: Restaurant Jun [pictures]

After the fun 范家 Party Bus for the day… we went to a REAL lunch at Jun

Mango Beer..

SASHIMI

Deep Fried Lobster Sandwich

Adventures of Serina and Tiffie Ninjas….

She got me this gorgeous Hello Kitty Swarovski Ring <3

I brought her to get her ears pierced a a Birthday present <3

Met Bar

Worst Sole EVER

Cubano

My Athens Burger

I think she got the LA Burger

Brunch at Bullfinchs

I made dinner for everyone

Fugakyu for Girls’ Nite

We wanted a boat

Szechuan Chili Beef a la Mama

I made Breakfast for me and Serina

Sisters <3

Legal Seafoods

Black Friday Shopping

Best Purchase

Love you S <3 Miss youuuuu!!!!

Last Trip to DC in a Nutshell.. including the Jameson Ball at Brixton

JAMESON BALL at the Brixton

Hello Kitty Pho

Empanada

My favorite place

Mandu

More Happy Pho with veggies

I had a meatball night with the boys

And had a meatball salad for lunch the next morning

Bye Bye DC, see you.. hopefully soon….

Mellow Mushroom…. for pizzzzaaaaaa

Decided I wanted pizza so me W and L headed down to the Mellow Mushroom for some pizza….

A delicious salad. I LOVEEEE Alfalfa

All wee delicious except for my weird hawaiian pizza on the bottom right that made me sad and we didn’t eat it.  The top was the best.. L’s gluten-free pizza YUM

A delicious beer, DUH

And for dessert we got from froyo — Thanks L for the yogurt <3