Homemade Steak Tacos

I know we *just* had tacos, but someone wasn't happy about the fact that we didn't have the *steak* tacos, so we made some carne asada at home.

I'm not the saucier in the household, so I let my saucier do his magic... which created toxic fumes that sent us into fits of coughing and crying.

The end result was delicious of course! But DO NOT attempt this at home boys and girls if you are sensitive to the burn.

We ended up using none of the jalapeño, and even added some eggs and avocado so that we can sleep at night.

I buried my meat in soothing add ons. The only thing that could have made this homemade taco better would have been a Doritos shell, but I have yet to find one!

Fra Diavolo and Watermelon and White Peach Smoothie

So Thai food for lunch was a bit much. We ended up having dinner a little late...

I made a quick fra diavolo with angel hair pasta. I seriously thought that there were more ingredients to this sauce than tomatoes, garlic, oil, and chili flakes, but there really aren't. It's the little black dress of pasta sauces.

We ended up not adding seafood because the whole foods guy was being a space cadet.

As a result, we needed some meat (you know... to make this a complete meal)

Some chorizo with 60-days aged Zamarano (nutty hard cheese made from raw sheep milk) was just what we needed.

I also made some potato and leek soup, but it's ugly because I was too lazy to puree and strain it... so you don't get a picture. It's another insanely simple recipe - just boiled potatoes and leek with some salt.

In the meantime...

My boo made us some pureed watermelon with white peaches. In the process, he discovered that Magic Bullets were indeed a little magical. Only top notch ingredients went into this drink. He smacked watermelons for a good five minutes to pick out the perfect melon, and I still had white peaches left over from sunny California. He then poured in some ginger ale and put a peach wedge on top. It was delicious!

I'm thinking that we should freeze this drink and have it in a wine glass outside in the 100 degree heat... or even spice (spike?) it up a little ;)

Sripaphrai

Sipaphrai is the only reason that I go to Woodside. It's the best Thai food I've ever had. Food is one of the reasons why Thailand is near the top of my list of places to visit.

Beef tendon in light soup. The light soup is savory and yet light (not just in color). The tendon is SO TENDER. It melts in your mouth but is not mushy. It has the right amount of bounciness but is not sticky. It makes me drool just writing about it.

C-14. It's just ground pork with chilis and basil, but it's so good. It used to be light-your-arse-on-fire hot but they've toned it down a bit. It's not necessarily an improvement though. This dish was the reason we came back after the first trek to Woodside.

Pad thai. I usually get the drunken noodles, pad see ew, or rad na, but I just wasn't in the mood for wide noodles today. The pad thai nothing too special.

Soft shell crabs! I don't know how they get soft shell crabs year round, but at least *right now* they're still somewhat in season. We usually get the one with green curry sauce, but we decided to go with basil this time. Still great. The sauce isn't as good, but because it's sitting in sauce, it softens the crust and doesn't cut your mouth as much.

I usually get dessert, but we were so stuffed!

Gyu-Kaku

Gyu-Kaku in East Village is my favorite Asian BBQ joint. Despite Takashi having better cuts, and crazy places in Queens being cheaper per pound, Gyu-Kaku has the best balance between value and taste.

And Happy Hour rocks my socks. Always.

Coco-Mo - A hybrid between a pina colada and a mojito - two of my favorite drinks. It's light and girly and goes well with smoked meat.

Chuck kalbi, Harami hanger steak, Brisket, Ribeye... yum yum yum. They now have 3 sauces (in less attractive plastic bottles that are hard to pour vs. the old ceramic teapots... but what can you do) spicy, regular (?), and ponzu. My fav is the spicy. It's more tangy than spicy.

The super thin cuts of marinated meat allow for maximum flavor and optimal cooking time.

I love their bibimbap with lots of that red spice. They mix it at the table and leave it in a hot bowl so that a nice crunchy crust forms around the edge.

Umm.. this is what I wanted for dessert, but it was no longer on the menu. So, we had to trek to the Sunrise Mart in St. Marks hoping to find something similar.

This will have to do!! It turned out to be possibly even better than the red bean-filled fish for this 100 degree heat. I wolfed one down right after we checked out. The rest made it home surprisingly well during the 30 minutes or so of scorched earth. It was a great way to end a heavy meal.

Lunch at Bubby's

Matzo ball soup & Lamb meatball sandwich with broccoli rabe and pine nuts.

Consistent as always

Bread was a little hard, and it was way too much food. I didn't get to have my pie!! Next time I will order less...

Guapos Taco Truck

At some point while I was busy playing games, my friends went to Village Whiskey and really loved the burgers. I trust their taste so I would risk my reputation to recommend them.

I really wanted to try the taco truck, so I dragged everyone to the little nook near some other food stuffs where we found this

It was decorated with tiny bottle caps, and the menu was made of this tiny little cylinders that you stick into a honeycomb board that light up... and it was all indoors away from the heat.

Here are the tacos I tried. All of them were very good. I give them all 9/10 (but I haven't had a legit taco for a while and I've been craving them)

Lengua (Tongue) - SO TENDER!! It was a little salty, but they were selling margaritas nearby. Go figure.

Carnitas (pulled pork with pineapple salsa and radishes). It was great... but it was *even better* with this:

It was bit of a weak sauce, but it went well with the tacos.

Shrimp and Chorizo - It was good. the chorizo was a little on the salty side

Fish tacos - I've had better fish tacos, but it was very good compared to the other tacos from this truck. It was a little had to eat with the giant avocado wedges.

I didn't have the steak and chicken tacos, but here are pictures of them respectively:

At this point, we were out of time, and the gorgeous new plushy red carpet everywhere finally did me in. My shoe straps were about to make me bleed, so we rolled out.

Azure by Allegretti

Atlantic City - Revel day 1, we went to Azure by Allegretti. We arrived a little late and caught the 10pm reservation.

Food: As good as AC has to offer
Service: Questionable
Decor: Excellent

I haven't been back to Atlantic City in 3 years because they have no food - not for the amount of cash people were carrying into the casinos anyway. The opening of the new Revel Hotel & Casino has changed that. They are offering 3 fine dining restaurants by well known chefs, and plenty of smaller good places offering great bites (more on that later).

We picked Azure because of the timing, and the American Cut menu looked no where close to the Marc Forgione menu in Manhattan.

Here are the dishes that I tried:


Free Range Chicken with spinach, mashed potatoes, and prosciutto wrapped figs

7/10. Skin was crispy. Maybe it was battered and fried separately? The figs were good and you can't go very wrong with spinach and mashed potatoes, but the meat (especially the white meat) could have been a little more moist and a little more flavorful. There are plenty of better chicken dishes elsewhere, but if you were in a chicken mood, it was satiating.



Branzino with Anchovy sauce (and I think I tasted some fennel in the sauce)

8/10. Branzino usually piss me off. They tend to be too dry, or the skin wouldn't be crispy enough or were so crisp that it cut me. In that sense, the fish was perfect. I kind of ignored the yukon potatoes and the ratatouille-like pile in the back. The sauce went really well with the fish! The only complaint was that there were tiny bones near the top of the fish (as in when the fish is swimming... a.k.a. dorsal) But it also helped hold the branzino together.



Whole Prawns with Basil Garlic Sauce

7/10. There was nothing wrong with these prawns, but there was nothing special about them either. They were great prawns - I really enjoyed the head. The sauce was *really* strong. If you plan on going partying afterwards, you might want to take one of those Listerine strips.



Homemade Spaghetti in Red Sauce

9/10. Nice bouncy el dente pasta - check. Sauce sticks nicely to pasta but not my throat - check. Delicious balance of sweet/tangy/salty from the tomato based sauce - check. What else can you ask for from red pasta?



Veal Ragu with Paccheri

8.5/10. My first thought was... why paccheri? I love my ragu with something more open and flowy... like pappardelle. But the sauce was intense and rich. The beans were a little strange, but the oyster mushrooms added great flavor. The richness and the saltiness of the sauce were offset well by the slightly thicker texture of the paccheri.



Since I want to end on a happy note, I will talk about the service before I talk about the bread and wine.

Maybe Atlantic City is not used to such nice restaurants. We had a clear view of the kitchen, and there were dishes sitting on the counter for a *long time*. That was pretty much the theme for the rest of the night. It took ages for someone to give us water and menus. When the menus arrived, we got 2 different versions, and they had to figure out which one was right. Then we got bread over 30 minutes after we sat down. The only thing that kept us from starving to death was the distracting starving people accidentally spilling water all over each other.

Decor: It looked a little Missoni but with more primary colors. The wavy bold bands of mosaic tile were on everything from vases to the bathroom walls. Gorgeous.

Bread and Wine:

Even the bread and olive oil were great! The bread was some kind of oat and sprouted grain, and the olive oil was nice and full-bodied. Too bad it took about 30 minutes for people to bring it...

We had a nice sparkling rose with the entrees. It was nothing special, but it was pretty

It was so late that we never got to dessert!! But what happened afterwards is for another blog...