momofuku fried chicken dinner

So, when we were in NYC this past weekend, we went to Momofuku for their fried chicken dinner. And it was amazing. AMAZING. This was my second time having this meal and it was even better than I remembered. Good thing this isn't in Philly because I could seriously have this once a week. Which would not be good for my health or my figure. Remember when I raved about the Korean fried chicken at Meritage? Well, this is even better than that. This is what you get: two whole fried chickens, one southern style and one korean style, mu shu pancakes, long spicy peppers, baby carrots, red ball radishes, shiso leaves, bibb lettuce, four sauces and an herb basket. And all of that for $100. It's enough food for 8 people - we had 8 in our party and had leftovers! - so that's less than $13/person! What a bargain!! However, you always get the same amount of food whether you're a party of 8 (which is the max number of people you can have) or a party of 2. Though, I wouldn't complain about having to take chicken home because it's just as good leftover - even for breakfast:) If you guys are bigger eaters than us (I was a bit disappointed we couldn't finish the chicken - I expected more from our group!), there are plenty of other dishes you can order off the menu. Good thing we only ordered a pork belly bun for each of us...although at the time I wanted about 5 of them. Don't they look good:



I love pork belly. Some people complain that it's too fatty...but that's what makes it so good!! The star of this meal, though, was the chicken:



The Korean style chicken was on the left side of the plate and the southern style chicken was on the right. What makes it Korean or southern? The Korean chicken is coated with this delicious sweet and spicy Korean sauce and the southern chicken is seasoned with Old Bay. Both kinds are delicous but I couldn't get enough of that Korean sauce! I wish there was a bottle of it I could buy.

If you find yourself planning a trip to NYC, you really need to try this. The only thing is that you have to plan ahead. It is REALLY difficult to get reservations. Although you don't need reservations for Momofuku (by the way they only serve this at the Noodle Bar), you do need one if you want to do the fried chicken dinner. The first time we went, we could only get an 11:30 PM reservation. This time around, there were three of us that tried to get reservations and the earliest dinner timeslot we could get was at 10PM. Oh, and you need to make the reservation exactly a month in advance (all done online - you can do so here) and if you don't log onto the site at exactly 10AM to do so, you most likely won't get anything. Except for maybe a lunch reservation - they're less popular. Sounds crazy? A little. But totally worth it!

tampopo

When I lived in Rittenhouse, I probably ate at Tampopo at least once a week. Man do I miss those days. The food there is SOOO good and really affordable. I know they've raised their prices over the years (I think its been about 8 years since I lived in that area) but you can still get a meal there for less than $10. That's pretty rare these days. The food is a mix of Japanese and Korean and my favorite thing to get is their hot and spicy beef bento box. It comes with either white or brown rice (I love white rice so that's what I always get), edamame, and your choice of either broccoli, gyoza or egg cake. I've gotten the gyoza everytime but I just read a description of the egg cake and it sounds pretty delicious: a layered Japanese omelet seasoned with soy sauce and fish sauce. YUM. I know I've gotten some of their other dishes there - like the fresh tuna bi-bim-bob which is tasty - but almost every single time I've gone I've gotten the hot and spicy beef. When something is that good, it's hard for me to try something new! I do have to say that their steamed dumplings aren't that great (although the deep fried gyoza is very yummy) and I really didn't like their sushi that much - although I don't see the sushi anymore on their menu. But overall, I highly recommend this restaurant. Definitely worth a try!


hot and spicy beef bento box


hot and spicy tofu bento box - this is what Eric always gets since he doesn't eat beef and doesn't like their chicken as much

meatball subs

If you read this blog, I'm sure you've heard me mention Smitten Kitchen before. If not, and you love food, check it out ASAP. She has awesome recipes and takes beautiful photos of her food. This is another recipe that I found on Smitten Kitchen and it is seriously amazing. One of my favorite things to make and eat. It's a pork meatball sub with carmelized onions. Yum right? Believe me, it tastes even better than it sounds! The first time I made it, it took FOREVER - only because it makes a ton of meatballs and I didn't start cooking the onions until the meatballs were almost done. The second time I made them, it took about an hour which isn't so bad. It's definitely worth the time and effort. And if you are in the Philly area, you have to eat them with Sarcone's bread - incredible.

Here's the recipe:

Yields about 24 to 28 2-inch meatballs

Ingredients:

Meatballs
The baguettes or seeded sandwich rolls you’ll use for your sandwiches (see Note above for how to estimate)
2 pound ground meat of your choice (I used pork but have in the past used beef, veal, chicken, turkey or a blend thereof)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1/3 cup finely grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
3/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of red pepper flakes
2 small garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 large egg
Olive oil
4 cups prepared tomato sauce (plus extra if you like a lot of extra sauce)

Caramelized onions
2 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt

Assembly
2 cups coarsely shredded Gruyère

Make the meatballs: Split your rolls almost the whole way through, leaving one side attached. Scoop out some of the roll to create a channel for the meatballs to rest in. Grind the bread you pulled out in a food processor or tear it into minuscule bits. You will need 1 1/3 cups or 2 3/4 ounces of fresh breadcrumbs for the meatballs. If you’re not making subs, you can get this same amount of breadcrumbs from 2 to 3 sandwich bread slices. Set rolls aside until later.

Place the fresh breadcrumbs in a large bowl with 3/4 cup warm water and all of the meatball ingredients except for the olive oil and tomato sauce. Combine with a fork, breaking up clumps of meat until the ingredients are evenly distributed. Form mixture into 2-inch meatballs are arrange on a tray. I find wet hands make it easier to form meatballs without them sticking too much.

Heat a generous slick of oil (few tablespoons) in a large saute pan with a lid. Brown meatballs in batches, being careful not to crowd the pan or nudge them before they are nicely browned or they will stick and you’ll leave delicious meatball bits in the pan. These meatballs are soft, so use a gentle hand. Transfer meatballs to a paper towel-lined tray and continue until they are all browned.

Discard the oil and heat your tomato sauce in the pan. Add the meatballs, cover the pan and simmer them on the lowest heat possible for 25 to 30 minutes, until the meatballs are cooked through.

Caramelize onions: While the meatballs are simmering, you can cook the onions. Heat the olive oil and butter in a heavy large skillet over medium-low heat. Add onion, sprinkle with salt and a little pepper and cook until they’re tender, sweet, and a deep golden brown, stirring occasionally. This takes me about 30 minutes.
**This part does take a while, so I like to start them when you start browning the meatballs**

Assemble subs: Arrange meatballs with sauce in the hollowed-out roll(s). Drape caramelized onions over the top and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Place subs under a broiler or in an oven at top heat to melt the cheese.

sampan

Sampan is one of several new restaurants that have opened up on 13th Street in the Gayborhood AKA Midtown Village in the past couple of years. The first time I tried it was during the Midtown Village Festival this past October (when I debuted my sumo wrestling skills) where I tried their pork belly banh mi that was delicious. I went back a couple months later for some drinks and some small plates and really enjoyed it, so I knew I wanted to go back for a full meal. I finally had a chance to do that a couple weekends ago with Karen and we had a great time! The space feels very hip and cool - something you'd find in NYC. I thought the decor was nice - nothing super special but it was nice to have a space like this in Philly. It felt different. And young.


image via


image via

They also have an outdoor area in the back - called the grafitti bar - I will need to check it out when it gets warmer!


image via

Karen and I did the tasting menu which was only $35/person that night (because it was the night before Valentine's day - yep I had two Valentines this year, Karen AND Eric) but usually its $40/person which is still a fantastic deal. It was sooooo much food - you get to choose 6 plates (they're all small plates) from the menu plus dessert. We started with some drinks:



I can't remember what kind of cocktail Karen ordered, but I tried one of their sake flights. Loved it. Our first dish was the Korean short rib satay. Yum, it was one of my favorite dishes of the night.



We had meant to order the shrimp dumplings but somehow got the edamame dumplings, but I'm glad we did because they were soooo tasty:



Tuna rice cracker (I think that's what these were...):



Crab wonton taco:



Korean fried chicken - good but not as good as Meritage's or Momofuku's which I will be having again in a month!!!



Kim chee fried rice:



Broiled sea bass:



At this point I was STUFFED but I still ate all of my dessert:



Aren't they adorable? One was butterfinger flavored and the other was twizzler. Yummy.

happy 2011!!

I still can't believe it's a new year already! This past week/weekend was so fun and SO BUSY, I just didn't have time to write a proper post...so I decided to take the week off. Which means I have a bunch of fun things to share over the next few days and somehow they mostly involve food (surprise, surprise). Let's start with new year's eve.

Eric and I usually go out to dinner for NYE and this year wasn't any different. We ended up going to Fond - a BYO on Passyunk that is probably one of my favorite restaurants in the city. I'll go into more detail about the food in a bit. Since our reservation wasn't until 930, I had everyone that was going to dinner with us (there were 10 of us) over for some predinner drinks. It gave me a good excuse to break out my vintage champagne coupes.



We had some snacks and drank some champagne, Lillet and Karen made sidecars which were delicious (and very strong). This is the recipe she used:

1 1/2 oz brandy

3/4 oz Cointreau

3/4 oz lemon juice, strained of seeds

Combine ingredients in a shaker with cracked ice. Shake vigorously and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. If you want to get fancy, take a lemon slice and run it around the rim of your glass then dip in sugar.

Okay, so now onto Fond. I've eaten there about 3 times now and everything I've had has been amazing. Their website says that the food is "contemporary American" but it's definitely French influenced (I think the chef previously worked at Le Bec Fin). For NYE, they had a prixe fixe 3-course menu and I was really hoping that pork belly would be an entree option and it was!!! They have the best pork belly I've ever had. It's so crispy and fatty and meaty. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. So, of course I decided on the pork belly for my entree:



For my appetizer, I had the tuna tartare:



It was very very good. But I liked Eric's appetizer even more:



He got the gnocchi with wild boar ragu. Gnocchi isn't my favorite thing to eat as a meal, but I think it makes a great appetizer. And it's amazing with the boar. Oh - and I have to mention the amuse bouche (I love that phrase) that we had before our apps. We were served butternut squash soup shooters. So good.

Dessert was a raspberry marscarpone layer cake:



I was stuffed by the time this course rolled around so Eric ate most of it, but what I had was yummy. Except for the lime sorbet that came with it - it was too tart for me.

We were still at the restaurant when it turned 12, so they served us a glass of champagne as well as homemade sambuca. A great way to finish off a meal!



After a very satisfying meal and several glasses of wine and champagne, I was very happy, very full and very tired:



I have no recollection of Eric taking this photo of me when we got back to my house. It was a great night:)

spare ribs

One of my favorite meals growing up was my mom's pork spare ribs. I don't have her recipe yet - it's not easy getting a recipe from her because they're all in her head and nothing is ever exact. If I want to learn how to make something I basically need to shadow her and take notes. I found this recipe on Epicurious a while ago and it's become one of my favorite things to make.









Marinated Thai Style Pork Spare Ribs

Ingredients:

1 cup sliced shallots
10 scallions, coarsely chopped
One 3-inch piece fresh ginger, sliced
8 large cloves garlic, peeled
1 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro including thin stems (and roots, if possible)
6 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc mam)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon fresh coarsely ground black pepper
2 tablespoons sugar
4 pounds pork spare ribs, cut by your butcher across the bone into 2- to 3-inch "racks," each rack cut between the bones into individual 2- to 3-inch-long riblets (I always eat this as a meal, so I don't have them cut across the bone)

Preparation:

1. Put the shallots, scallions, ginger, garlic, cilantro, soy sauce, fish sauce, salt, pepper, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Process to a loose, finely chopped paste, scraping down the sides of the bowl once or twice.

2. Place pork ribs in a large bowl or a pair of heavy resealable plastic bags. Thoroughly coat the ribs with the marinade, massaging the paste into the flesh for a minute or so. Cover and marinate at room temperature for 2 hours or up to 5 hours in the refrigerator, tossing the ribs once or twice during this time.

3. Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread the ribs out, bone-side down, on two large, parchment-lined baking sheets and bake until ribs are deeply colored and very tender but not yet falling from the bone, about 11/2 hours, occasionally rotating the pans to encourage even cooking. Remove from the oven and serve with small bowls of Thai Chile Herb Dipping Sauce

Thai Chile Herb Dipping Sauce

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon jasmine or other long-grain rice
6 to 8 dried whole Thai chiles (each about 2-inches long)
1 heaping tablespoon finely chopped scallion
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 teaspoons sugar
3 tablespoons Thai or Vietnamese fish sauce (nam pla or nuoc mam)
1/3 cup fresh lime juice

Preparation:

1. Place the rice in a small skillet over medium heat and cook, shaking the pan, until fragrant and lightly toasted, less than 1 minute. Transfer rice to a spice or coffee grinder and let cool. Process cooled rice until almost powdered, transfer to a small bowl, and reserve.


2. Place the chiles in the same skillet and cook over medium heat until lightly toasted, 30 to 45 seconds, shaking the skillet to avoid burning. Transfer the chiles to a spice or coffee grinder and let cool. Pulse the grinder until the chiles are coarsely chopped. Transfer the chilies to the bowl with the rice (the rice and the chiles can also be ground separately with a mortar and pestle).

3. Add the scallion, mint, cilantro, sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice to the bowl, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Cover and reserve (the sauce can be made a few hours ahead and kept at room temperature). May be stored in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week; however, the bright colors will fade.

**I've always eaten these as a meal with rice and the dipping sauce poured over top. YUMMMMMMMMMMMM.

french onion soup

I fell in love with Julia Child after watching Julia and Julia last year, so Eric bought me Mastering the Art of French Cooking (mostly in hopes that I would give him a break occasionally and cook more!). I've been craving French onion soup lately and decided to break open the book and make Julia Child's version. It's actually really simple - just requires a lot of time cooking the onions.









Soupe a l'Oignon

Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds (about 5 cups of thinly sliced yellow onions)
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon oil
A heavy-bottomed 4-quart covered saucepan
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar (helps the onions to brown)
3 tablespoons flour
2 quarts boiling brown stock, canned beef bouillon, or 1 quart of boiling water and 1 quart of stock or bouillon
1/2 cup dry white wine or dry white vermouth
Salt and pepper to taste
3 tablespoons cognac
Rounds of hard-toasted French bread (see following recipe)
1 to 2 cups grated Swiss or Parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Cook the onions slowly with the butter and oil in the covered saucepan for 15 minutes.

Uncover, raise heat to moderate, and stir in the salt and sugar. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes stirring frequently, until the onions have turned an even, deep, golden brown.

Sprinkle the flour and stir for three minutes.

Off heat, blend in the boiling liquid. Add the wine and season to taste. Simmer partially covered for 30 to 40 minutes of more, skimming occasionally. Correct seasoning.
(*) Set aside uncovered until ready to serve. Then reheat to the simmer.

Just before serving, stir in the cognac. Pour into a soup tureen or soup cups over the round of bread and pass the cheese separately. (Or, use the instructions below for a baked cheese top -
Soupe a’ L’Oignon Gratinee)

Croutes - hard-toasted French Bread

Ingredients:

12-16 slices of French bread cut 3/4 to 1 inch thick
Olive oil or beef drippings
A cut clove of garlic

Preparation:

Place the bread in one layer in a roasting pan and bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for about half an hour, until it is thoroughly dried out and lightly browned.

Halfway through the baking, each side may be basted with a teaspoon of olive oil or beef drippings; and after baking, each piece may be rubbed with cut garlic.

Soupe a l'Oignon Gratinee

Ingredients:

The preceeding onion soup
A fireproof tureen or casserole or individual onion soup pots
2 ounces Swiss cheese cut into very thin slivers
1 tablespoon grated raw onion
12 to 16 rounds of hard toasted French bread
1/2 cups grated Swiss, or Swiss and Parmesan cheese

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Bring the soup to the boil and pour into the tureen or soup pots. Stir in the slivered cheese and grated onion. Float the rounds of toast on top of the soup, and spread the grated cheese over it. Sprinkle with the oil or butter. Bake for 20 minutes in the oven, then set for a minute or two under a preheated broiler to brown the top lightly. Serve immediately.

**I was HUNGRY and couldn't wait another 20 minutes to eat, so I just added some cheese to the soup, floated one or two rounds of toast on top, added more cheese on top, put it in the broiler for a minute or two and voila! Delicieux! Also, please note that the recipe is supposed to be good for 6-8 servings. I had 6 people over for dinner and it only allowed for one serving each (and there were 2 people who had extra small servings) - I would 1 1/2x or 2x the recipe next time.

I had a ton of cranberries leftover from Thanksgiving as well as some apples from our CSA, so I made a cranberry apple crisp for dessert.





Ingredients:

Topping

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned oats
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, room temperature

Fruit

5 large Jonathan apples (about 2 1/2 pounds), peeled, sliced
4 Granny Smith apples (about 2 pounds), peeled, sliced
2 cups fresh or frozen cranberries
3/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Caramel Sauce

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Preparation:

To prepare the topping:Mix first 3 ingredients in bowl. Add butter; rub with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal.

To prepare the fruit:Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Mix apples, cranberries, sugar, flour and cinnamon in large bowl. Add 6 tablespoons butter and toss. Transfer to dish.

Crumble topping over fruit. Bake until apples are tender, about 1 1/4 hours. Cool slightly. Serve with sauce.

To prepare the caramel sauce:Stir sugar and water in heavy medium saucepan over low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat; boil without stirring until syrup turns deep amber, occasionally brushing down sides of pan with brush dipped into water and swirling pan. Remove from heat. Gradually add cream (mixture will bubble vigorously). Stir over low heat until caramel melts. Add butter and stir until melted. Let cool slightly. Serve Caramel Sauce warm.

**I didn't make the caramel sauce - just served it with some ice cream and it was very tasty!

homemade turkey stock...

...is so easy to make that it would be silly not to make it. It's the best way to use your leftover turkey carcass and veggies from Thanksgiving dinner. And even if you don't have a lot of leftover vegetables, you only need a few things from the grocery store and I'm sure you can find a lot of the spices/seasonings in your pantry. The only thing is that it does take some time - most of it is just spent waiting while it simmers - but you'll have to plan to make it on a day when you'll be home for most of the day. I made stock for the first time last year and it was so nice to be able to just reach into my freezer and grab a container of homemade stock whenever I needed it. I ran out of the homemade stuff months ago, so I'm excited to "stock" up! HA! Get it, "stock" up? ANYWAYS....

I used 3 carrots, 2 onions, 4 stalks of celery and I just roughly chopped them up. In addition to those veggies, I added 2 bay leaves, a few sprigs of parsley from about 6 stems, and a head of garlic that I cut in half. I put about 1/4 tsp of dried thyme leaves, oregano leaves and basil leaves each as well as 1 tsp of cracked black peppercorns and 1 tbsp of kosher salt in a metal tea ball - but I don't think you need to do that if you don't have a tea ball, just dump it all in the pot. Once you get everything into a pot, add some water - enough to cover everything by about an inch - and heat the water until it is just simmering - try not to let it boil. Then comes the waiting around. You want it to simmer for about 4 hours and you really don't need to do anything - no stirring, just check on the water level every so often.

The most finicky part of this recipe is the process you have to go through to store it properly. There are recipes out there that say to do this to avoid contamination of bacteria and then there are also recipes that don't say to do anything special...so I don't know if it's really necessary to do the following, but I do it anyways to be safe. First, fill your sink with ice cubes and water. Get a stainless steel bowl and using a ladle, pour the stock thru a strainer into the bowl. Put the bowl into the ice water, stir for a few minutes and let rest for about 10 minutes. Once it's lukewarm, pour into containers and freeze. Not too bad, pretty simple.

And it makes a good amount of stock too...look how many containers I filled:

Now I'm ready to make some soup!

BTW - I don't add a whole lot of salt to the stock, so it may taste a bit bland. I just figure that I'd rather have too little salt and add more while I'm cooking than to have it be too salty.

izumi

There are some great restaurants along Passyunk and Izumi is definitely one of them. South Philly is full of Mexican, Italian and Vietnamese restaurants, but Japanese restaurants are rare around here. And I'm happy to say Izumi is a good one too. Another plus is that it's BYO.

My friend Colleen and I decided to grab some dinner there the other night and it was delicious. We decided to get two orders of spicy tuna (my favorite!), salmon and avocado, and one of their specialty rolls: the Passyunk Avenue roll which is shrimp tempura with spicy crab on top. So. Good.



We also got an order of their pork gyoza which were tasty, but nothing to really rave about. My roommate highly recommended the rock shrimp tempura - I'll have try that next time...

We ended the meal with coconut rice pudding with pineapple on top. Once we removed the pineapple, it was pretty good. I love pineapple, but you could tell it had come from a can - which I don't usually have a problem with but it just didn't taste right in this dish.

All in all it was a very good meal. The sushi was definitely the best part of the meal - can't wait to go back!

EAT. napkins

I was at a store in Northern Liberties this past summer and saw these napkins that I loved that had the word EAT stamped on them. I think they were more than $20 for two napkins (!!!), so I didn't buy them...I decided to make them instead! Not only that, but I decided to make 14 of them so I could use them for Friendsgiving. It's just sewing a square - how hard could it be, right? Well, let me tell ya, I won't be trying out for Project Runway anytime soon. It took me FOREVER to cut them out and then I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to use the sewing machine (I know how to sew, but since I don't do it often, I always forget how to use the machine...) The sewing itself was pretty straightforward, but it still took me a loooooooong time. So much for a quick little project!

I thought the stamping portion of the project would be the difficult part - but it was actually really easy. And, fortunately, fast! I bought these stamps at AC Moore along with a black ink pad. I've never used stamps like these before - each letter is separate and you're supposed to buy a stamping block that the letters stick to and you hold onto while stamping. I was being cheap so I decided to see if the cover of the ink pad could work as the stamping block - and it did! I first tested the stamping on a scrap piece of linen...



...then moved onto the real thing.





I'm really happy with how they turned out. And everyone at Friendsgiving loved them too - yep, Friendsgiving was this past Sunday and it was the best one yet! I will post photos soon...

pastoral

Okay, I promise this will be the last post about Korean food for a while! I just wanted to do a little write up for Pastoral because I love it and haven't really talked about it yet. Pastoral is a Korean restaurant located in the gayborhood at 205 S. 13th Street. I used to live only two blocks away and would go there about once a week and it was heaven. The food is awesome, the staff friendly, prices reasonable, and it's hardly ever crowded. The only thing lacking is the decor - it's just a bit dull, but it is clean. My friend Kat and I were craving Korean food (although when DON'T I crave Korean food..), so we decided to get some at Pastoral last night.

As per any good traditional Korean restaurant, we started out with complimentary banchan. Last night's included: kimchi, cucumber kimchi, spicy sliced cooked tofu with onions and jalepenos, spicy radish, cubed tofu in soy sauce, and a couple of egg-y omelette-y things. My favorite was the spicy sliced tofu.

Then came the Korean pancake - although they call it a Korean pizza. They had a few options and we decided to go with the one with kimchi, scallions and pork. Spicy and delicious!! Although, to be honest, I coudn't really taste the pork in it.

Then of course, the soon du bu. Kat got the one with pork, shrimp and veggies and I got one with mussels, shrimp, scallops and veggies. So hot and spicy and yummy - perfect for the weather we had yesterday (rainy and dreary). Does this meal sound familiar? I know it's pretty much identitical to the one I had at Jong Ka Jib Soft Tofu Restaurant about a month ago, but I can't help it. It's what I always want! I do sometimes try new things, but it's not often. If you are curious to see what else you can get, you can look at the menu here. I think I like the Soft Tofu Restaurant better, but this is a very close second. And the best part is that you don't have to drive 30 minutes to get there - I can hop on the bus and get there in 10 minutes!

brindle cafe

My friends Scott and Deepti have been talking about opening a cafe for a while now and I'm really excited to say that they've finally done it! Brindle Cafe officially opened last Tuesday! Scott has worked in the industry for fifteen years at restaurants such as Swanky Bubbles, Roy's and Cafe Spice so he is very familiar with what it takes to run a restaurant. With his experience and Deepti's background in business - they make the perfect team. Brindle is located in Fishtown on the corner of Girard Ave. and Day St., a quick walk from the Girard Ave. subway stop. The name "Brindle" was inspired by their two adorable brindle pit bulls (pictured in Brindle's logo, which was designed by moi), Kayla and Gracie, that they adopted a few years ago.

I was finally able to stop by this weekend to check it out and I can't wait to go back! They're definitely more than just a coffee shop - although they do have a great selection of coffees and teas (I had a Thai tea that was very tasty) as well as your typical coffee shop food such as bagels and assorted baked goods from local bakeries. But what really stood out was the food that they make in house that's listed on their "special menu". They offer three different salads, three types of sandwiches, spicy chilli and mashed potatoes. Deepti and Scott are definitley foodies and I have been over their house for dinner numerous times - so I know firsthand that they can not only appreciate good food but they also know how to make good food. And my meal at Brindle did not disappoint. I ordered the slow cooked beef sandwich which was cooked in a dutch oven with roasted Paquillo peppers, garlic and cardamom. It was topped with mozzarella and white horeseradish and served on crustry bread from Metropolitan Bakery. DELICIOUS. I will definitely be going back for that again. And also the slow roasted pork sandwich which has honey, provolone, roasted garlic and a hot cherry pepper. Oh - and the Thai Beef Salad (which can be a shrimp salad if you'd rather) also sounds amazing. The beef (or shrimp) is tossed with scallions, tomato, cuke, white onion, celery, coriander and dressed in a combination of chilli pepper, garlic and lime juice. Doesn't that sound so good? Can't wait to try it!!

They still have a few things left to do to the space - they are in the process of getting some more loungey furniture and tables and chairs, but I think the counter by the front window is the best spot to sit. There's a window ledge that you can prop your feet on and its perfect for people watching - and you certainly see a lot of characters walking along Girard Ave! Doesn't it also look romantic at night? They have a wall of lanterns that cast a nice glow to the space.



So, if you live in the area and are looking for a new place to get some coffee or a bite to eat (and feel free to BYOB - the candlelight makes it a cozy spot to have a little dinner date!), give Brindle a try!!