Thoughts & Reflections

Tag: Restaurants

Vienna: Food Around Town

Austria may be known for schnitzel and its famous cafés but I did not eat nor visit them, respectively. With only two days in Vienna, I was more interested in seeing as many things as possible in under 48 hours. There were a few places to visit on my to-do list and the rest of the time we ended up wandering around the city center.

Here’s a look at my non-traditional meals:

I was on one of the morning flights and it was fortunate that some of the hotel rooms were already available and we could check in. After dropping off our luggage, we took a brief break in the room and plotted our itinerary for the day. It would be lunchtime by the time we headed toward the city center so our main goal was to find somewhere to eat. In my very brief research beforehand, I did find one restaurant that looked interesting and had good reviews but when we got there, we found it was closed. There was a note taped to the door but it was in German so I assumed it was about renovations or some sort of maintenance issue.

So we turned to the handy dandy tablet and scrolled through some online listings (I think it was from TripAdvisor). Where we ended up was Das Heinz. The menu near the door looked promising but the only problem was that the sign said “Closed” though it was already past opening hours. Apparently, they forgot to flip the sign when they opened and when we went in, there were already a few non-empty tables. (The nice lady who served us flipped the sign over after we mentioned it to her.) Anyway, onto the food. M ordered a more traditional dish, the “roasted dumplings” which looked nothing like the dumplings we have here and I ended up choosing one of the daily specials, penne with chorizo and paprika sauce. Both came with a choice of soup or salad and we opted for the latter. I also wanted a hot drink so to no one’s surprise, I ordered a pot of Earl Grey.

We passed this sausage stand after lunch. I think it would’ve been tempting to grab food here but it’s hard to want to eat outside in the middle of December. I also wasn’t in the mood for meat right after getting off a plane. But there were plenty of other chances for hot dogs or wursts:

Dinner that night was provided as part of our tour. We went to Stadt Park Bräu where there was a small menu of items we could choose from for our group meal. I went for the fish dish: grilled pike perch, with parsley potatoes, vegetables and herb butter. There was a soup or salad starter that the waiter forgot to bring me but given how many plates of salad were unfinished, that might not have been a bad thing (the soup was pumpkin, which I’m not a fan of in general). The fish was pretty good (the other options were beef or a vegetable dish) and I ate most of it.

And when it came time for dessert, the famed Austrian dish won hands down:

The following day’s meals were less exciting, though lunch was more tasty than dinner.

In Spain, I had paella in a hotel. In Vienna, I had it at a fast-food seafood chain called Nordsee. And for the record, it was damn tasty, possibly even more so than the slightly more authentic version in Valencia. Quick and cheap, it made for a very satisfying meal. I was tempted by the fish and chips at the takeout side window but I’m easily drawn in by paella since I never have enough of it normally.

Dinner was far more mundane. Our hotel was conveniently located near a shopping mall (with free WiFi) so we ended up grocery shopping and downloading email and apps (hello travel apps and Google Translate). Since neither of us really knew what we wanted for dinner, I was all for eating at this tiny Asian shop called Rakki Delicious next to the supermarket. It was quick and cheap (under 10 Euros!) and while I wanted more veggies than was in my bento box, it did help sate my fruit and veggie cravings just a bit. And this being Europe, I wasn’t expecting it to taste the same as it would back home so lower expectations definitely helped.

And here’s a parting shot of more traditional Viennese fare:

Ah Demel. I miss your old shop back at the Plaza Food Hall and wish you’d reopen again. This original shop is a lot smaller than I expected though it offers quite a selection of cakes. Alas, none of them really appealed to me; the strawberry shortcake was my favorite but unfortunately for me, it wasn’t the season for it!

February 1, 2015
Brunch at Coppelia

December has been pretty a crazy month for me: between the insanity at work (deadlines and being short-staffed is a really bad combination) and taking a trip (more to come on that in a future post), life has been a not-so-fun roller coaster ride. With so many commitments, it’s been hard to actually get anything done. One thing I did make time for was brunch with my friend (and former work colleague) T, who has taken a job on the West Coast and has been dividing her time between here and there the last few weeks as she is preparing to permanently move out to California.

We met last Sunday at Coppelia, a 24/7 Latin diner in Chelsea that’s been on my to-visit list for ages. One of her other friends, M, joined us as well and it was definitely much more merrier and interesting with three people in for food and conversation (sample topics of discussion: work, travels and how reality television makes one dumber).

It was really hard to pin down our brunch order; everything on the menu looked delicious. In the end, we settled for some guacamole and chips, hot chocolate and sangria (for them; I passed and stuck with some nice hot mint tea), and some really good breakfast dishes. I also enjoyed the bread basket, which made a nice change from the standard toast, baguettes and croissants.

Alas, I didn’t take photos of everything and only have a picture of my own main course, the Hash de Costilla. It was a short rib hash with potatoes, red peppers and a fried egg. Pretty darn tasty. I wavered between that and about a half-dozen other dishes, which means I need to revisit so I can try everything else. And we were all so full that we had no room for any dessert course afterward.

December 27, 2014
Dinner at Ippudo Westside

A few weeks ago, a friend and I had a pre-show dinner at Ippudo‘s midtown location. We were going to a Christmas concert at Carnegie Hall that evening and Ippudo wasn’t very far away. Even though we were part of the early dinner crowd, the restaurant was pretty full when we arrived but thankfully, we were seated quickly.

We started off with two appetizers: a plate of shishito peppers served with yuzu salt, and the Suzuki Hakusai which was steamed sea bass served in a wrapper of napa cabbage and tofu skin. I love shishito peppers (my sister grew them one year in the yard, though some of them ended up spicy thanks to the bees’ cross-pollination) and these were pretty tasty; I could’ve eaten more of them. The Suzuki Hakusai was just as delicious though I can’t remember much about the dish except for the very tasty crunchy noodle decoration on the side.

I’ve already tried two of the ramens from the regular menu. It was my friend’s first time at Ippudo so she ordered the Karaka-men, which was what I ordered on my last visit here. For me, I wanted something different and ordered the Sho-jin, which is the vegetarian ramen.

The waitress tried to dissuade me at first, emphasizing that it wasn’t very much food and I might be disappointed with the small portion but I insisted. I also had a late lunch that day so I wasn’t too hungry at that point which was fine for me. The Sho-jin came in this big bowl and the ramen was topped off by a nest of fried rice noodles. Beneath that were some mountain vegetables and the noodles itself. I thought it was very good and tasty and it satisfied my stomach.

And since we has time to spare before the show, we also ordered dessert. My friend ordered the December dessert special; I can’t recall the name of the dish but it was slices of baumkuchen served with cornflakes and a small scoop of coffee gelato, I think. I went for the Hirata Milk, a parfait of green tea ice cream and jelly, red beans, mochi, with a shot glass of coconut-almond milk on the side. I poured the milk into the dish and happily ate it up. It was light and refreshing, a terrific way to end the meal.

December 22, 2014
Afternoon Tea at Bosie Tea Parlor

I took a few days off last week to celebrate my birthday. Coincidentally, my friend P had emailed the week before saying she was coming up to the city and wanted to catch up. The timing worked out beautifully and we met for lunch/afternoon tea at Bosie Tea Parlor.

I haven’t had a proper afternoon tea in ages and when P said she wanted to experience it for herself, I was more than happy to oblige! We narrowed down where to meet up and settled on Bosie for its much more casual dress code and vibe.

We ended up with the Afternoon Tea Service for two. It was my first time to sit down to a proper afternoon tea here; in the past, I usually end up ordering savory options for lunch or solely a dessert and pot of tea after dinner. Besides the tea, the service included mini vanilla scones served with clotted cream and jam, several types of sandwiches of our choosing, mini tea cakes (vanilla, green tea, chocolate and lemon) and two macarons each (we had earl grey with milk chocolate; raspberry with yuzu; lavender and maple bacon).

For tea, I can’t really remember but we both ordered black teas; I think I chose the Kosabei and P the First Flush Darjeeling Tumsong. Everything was so good, and I especially enjoyed the tea sandwiches. We had the Farmer’s Egg Salad with thyme blossoms; Chicken with raisins and curried mayonnaise (coronation chicken); Smoked Salmon with red onion, lemon zest and cream cheese; and Crab with cocktail sauce, capers and yuzu. I especially liked the smoked salmon sandwiches and the other flavors were very good as well.

For a while we nearly had the place to ourselves. When we arrived, there was only one other other table occupied though it slowly filled out with late lunchgoers. It was nice to sit for a bit, have a bite and catch up with an old friend. And it was certainly tamer (and much more enjoyable) than my birthday last year, which was an all-day food fest while running around Hong Kong with my family.

October 21, 2014
The Paris Café

The South Street Seaport and Financial District are not areas where I would normally go when I’m looking for a post-work dinner. If I have to eat all the way downtown, I usually end up further west and north in Tribeca. In the end, I did what most people would do and just went to a search engine. On OpenTable, two restaurants came up for the Seaport area and that’s where M and I wound up for dinner since she’s working in the Financial District these days.

The Paris Café is located on the far edge of the general Seaport area, directly facing the East River Drive as the lanes run above South Street. We took the scenic route over, walking down Wall Street and then along the pedestrian paths that edge the East River and north to the Seaport. It’s been a while since I’ve been in the area; I haven’t visited since the last time the New Amsterdam Market was running back in early summer. The restaurant itself isn’t new—it dates from 1873—but the interiors have been restored after Hurricane Sandy (look up to see the copper ceiling tiles above one’s head); I remember seeing a news feature about its reopening a few months ago.

Despite its name, the food was more traditional British pub fare than French. There were a lot of people having drinks (mostly the after-work crowd) or a meal (residents that lived in the area) when we arrived but we were seated pretty quickly. We opted to sit in the back room which was a lot less noisy and had fewer patrons. After perusing the menu, the two of us settled on seafood and chips: fish for me, mussels for M. And don’t forget the drinks; it had been a very long week at work but I also wanted something fruity so I ordered a peach mojito while M had a glass of white wine.

The food was pretty good and it filled us but we weren’t too stuffed. There was still room for dessert (we opted out of that at the restaurant) but first, a walk was in order. The night wasn’t too bad and we trekked to the west side before sitting for some cake at a supermarket (that would be Whole Foods), of all places.

September 15, 2014
English Breakfast at the Breslin

After trying and failing to meet during the weekend of Labor Day, I met up with M for a Monday brunch at The Breslin. Being that it was a Monday, it was hard to know for certain what restaurants would actually be serving brunch on the last day of the long weekend.

It wasn’t too bad at 11am, our meeting time, and the restaurant was busy but not crowded. We both ended up ordering the same thing: English Breakfast. It was a toss-up between that and the Strawberry-Cornmeal Pancakes but I think we did make the better choice. One of the tables near us ordered the pancakes and though it looked good, it didn’t look very filling. I also considered ordering a scone as well but I’m not a big fan of blueberry pastries. Had it been strawberry, I would definitely have gotten it.

I love English Breakfast and honestly, I think I’ve gotten better ones here than across the pond (unless I finally make it to that one place in London that’s known for their English Breakfasts). And that’s also assuming one doesn’t count The Hawksmoor, which has an awesome breakfast spread (for two people) that is so much more than the standard English Breakfast fare and makes the regular breakfast plate seem more of an appetizer (I think my sister and I still dream about that meal sometimes). Meanwhile, the one at the Breslin comes with the usual foodstuffs: eggs, pork sausage, blood pudding, bacon, roasted tomato and mushrooms. It was all fine except the blood pudding was a bit more gritty and loose than I would like. And I wish there was a bit of buttered toast and some baked beans to go with all of it.

But it was more than enough food to get us going and we walked off the calories with some window shopping afterward.

September 9, 2014
Red Rooster

The nice thing about having friends who are running races in the morning is that we can meet up afterward for food, whether it’s breakfast, lunch or brunch. The earlier the race ends, the better, though not always so: some restaurants aren’t even open yet by the time racers have crossed the finish line.

In this case, the timing worked out pretty well. The race was up in the Hamilton Heights and Harlem area and that meant we could go to Red Rooster as soon as it opened. I arrived just after 10am and there was a line out the door; it turned out that many of the racers had the exact same post-race plans. Fortunately, the line moved pretty quickly and when I got in, I saw my friends (or rather one friend and a former coworker) already seated at a table.

It was hard to decide what to eat but the three of us ended up with different dishes. I settled on the Red Rooster Scramble, M had the Bloody Mary Eggs and U the Brioche French Toast. Everything was so delicious! I particularly liked the biscuit that came with my dish and U gave me a piece of the French Toast (also very, very tasty) while she had some of the sausage from my plate. Also of note was the black tea I ordered; co-owner Marcus Samuelsson created custom tea blends with Harney and Sons, so the tea served came from that collection. The one I chose that day was the Safari Breakfast. One can receive a free tea sample if the bill is paid with a Mastercard (we didn’t but it was fine; I have more than enough tea at home).

Finally, another restaurant crossed off my to-visit list!

September 4, 2014
Uncle Boons

Uncle Boons has long been on a to-visit list between me and my friend P. When we meet up for a meal, we have a habit of trying to check out new and/or interesting Thai restaurants in the city. So we finally went to Uncle Boons over the weekend as a late (but not belated since we had to work around our schedules) birthday dinner for her. The original idea was to go for brunch but the restaurant is only offering dinner service now.

We were seated in the back room, tucked into the cozy corner booth. It was still early afternoon but the lighting inside was very dim (hence the not so great photos below) and it was somewhat hard to read the menu; there was a window directly behind our seats so we had a little natural light to help us but a group at another table required the use of flashlights (a literal flashlight and using smartphones as well) in order to read the small text. The menu itself isn’t very long and with our various food requirements (e.g. allergies, or general dislike of certain ingredients), it wasn’t too hard to narrow down what we should get. Between the two of us and at the suggestion of the waiter, we chose two small plates and one large plate to share.

We both ordered the Tong Taa “Real Gold”, a cocktail with lychee liqueur, chartreuse and sparkling wine. The waiter described it as refreshing and light but it ended up being a bit too strong for us. I really should have stuck to my usual iced tea (or Thai iced tea, in this case). In the end, I didn’t even finish the drink but I went through copious amounts of water.

The first dish to arrive was the grilled Issan sausage, which was P’s choice. As the room filled up, I saw many other tables had also ordered the dish. It wasn’t bad but I’m not really a fan of the dish in general. The other appetizer we picked was the Mee Krob, which was a sweetbreads salad with crispy noodles, peanuts, dried shrimp and herbs. It was definitely better than the sausage and we were both pleasantly surprised at how great the sweetbreads were. Eating offal wasn’t a big deal for us and the Mee Krob was pretty tasty (I’m usually fine with offal as long as it isn’t haggis).

I was beginning to get full even before the main dish arrived. The Kai Yang Muay Thai is half of a rotisserie grilled chicken, served with green mango salad and two dipping sauces. We also ordered a side of sticky rice to accompany it. It was more than enough to feed the two of us and we did have a hard time trying to finish it. The chicken was good and we preferred dipping it into the green sauce (which was similar to a chimichurri) than to the brown one, which I think was some combination of tamarind and fish sauce. After the other dishes, I was on fish sauce overload and the taste was pretty overpowering; at that point I just ended up drinking a lot of water to try to cleanse the palette.

When the waiter first came to our table, P wisely asked if we could see the dessert menu first. I most definitely wanted something sweet at the end of our meal and it would be helpful to figure out how much food we should order but still leave enough room for dessert. There are only sweets offered: the traditional mango sticky rice and a coconut sundae. I had wanted to order both but we ended up only ordering the coconut sundae, given our full we were and having had sticky rice as an accompaniment to the chicken. One of the tables next to us did order the mango sticky rice so we were able to see what it looked like so at least we didn’t miss out. The coconut sundae, on the other hand, was pretty huge. It reminded me a lot of the shaved ice desserts that I see in the Malaysian restaurants in Chinatown.

It was coconut ice cream topped with whipped cream, peanuts, toasted coconut slivers and garnished with a butter coconut biscuit. We dug in and ate most of it, leaving mainly the biscuit (which I passed on, since I’ve eaten them often enough since I was young). We were so full at the end and the two of us totally needed to walk off all those calories after we left the restaurant. It was a nice evening and with the longer daylight hours, we ended up taking the scenic route to catch our trains home.

June 5, 2014
Pies ‘n’ Thighs

My sister had been watching some food-related show on cable and finally decided it was time to visit Pies ‘n’ Thighs. I hadn’t been in ages and happily joined her yesterday. I got there first, just before it opened and apparently we weren’t the only ones that wanted fried chicken for brunch; there were at least a dozen people waiting outside.

Even though we looked at the menu online the night before, I was still undecided on what to order. Sis and brother-in-law M both wanted the fried chicken box, which is the most popular choice. I had that on my first (and only previous) visit and settled for the chicken and waffles this time. The three of us happily dug in when the plates arrived and everything was tasty and worth wiping the grease off my fingers after every bite. The waffles were made with buckwheat and topped with warm strawberries and a dollop of cinnamon butter; there was a bottle of maple syrup on the table but I didn’t see the need for it.

The others ordered the chicken with a side of sausage gravy (which is a premium side and costs a little extra), which I sampled a bit of; the gravy ended up being too creamy for tastes. I had ordered my chicken with the black-eyed peas last time and much prefer that.

It was good we arrived early. The wait for a table quickly built up, with an average wait time of 15-20 minutes. And after all that food, Q and M bought a few items to go as well: three slices of pie and three doughnuts. If I didn’t think it would fill me quickly, I would have ordered a doughnut as well; they were huge and resembled bagels from afar. The next time I’m in that area early, I should go get one to go and see how they compare to the other terrific doughnut shops in the city.

May 26, 2014
Ladurée Brunch Revisited

Nearly one month to the day of my first visit, I was back at Ladurée for brunch again. It was a different friend this time but almost the same meal as before: we both ordered the Champs-Elysées set but this time, I opted for two eggs with bacon instead of scrambled eggs. And I washed it down with a pot of Earl Grey. The service had improved only slightly and I was again seated in the front room (there was a private party in the nicer back room and the garden did not open until the following day). But at least the food was better on this second visit:

I think I prefer the eggs with bacon over the scrambled eggs; Ladurée makes a good version but I’m not much of a fan for the scrambled variety at any restaurant. And this time, I did get the fruit salad that was missing previously. All in all, another very good meal. Next up will ideally be cake (or some other pretty pastry) and tea in the garden. Anyone want to join me?

May 20, 2014