i can feel it – the allergic reaction i have to most raw fruit – starting to tickle the back of my throat. serves me right, but this summer it’s been so humid occasionally that i refuse to cook, and eat fruit instead. ok, i […]
can you believe that i haven’t been watching law & order obsessively? yeah, neither can i. so this isn’t a murder case involving food, but it does involve me surreptitiously copying a recipe out of the best recipe at barnes & noble. this is my […]
annisa / 13 barrow street, new york / 212-741-6699 / m-sat 5:30-10:30, sun 5:30-9:30 / appetizers $9-18, entrees $27-33
when i was in chicago, i always felt awkward having dinner by myself – i always have that problem, when not in cambridge, where i can’t find people who share my predilection for eating out at nice restaurants. luckily i have (a) grown out of this phase; (b) know a couple of people who will go with me on occasion; and (c) feel more comfortable eating out by myself in new york than in most cities. it’s also true that i’m a student and can’t afford a whole lot of nice dinners, but this summer i’m in new york and i want to make the most of it. this is partly why i currently have three jobs (yeah, don’t ask…i just have trouble saying no).
most of the time, though, i do prefer to eat out with other people. yesterday’s partner in crime: j, who lives in brooklyn and is also interning this summer. we went to annisa, which is actually just a few blocks from my apartment. additional sidebar: i feel really weird when i come and go from my apartment since it’s right in the middle of a busy, trendy area – all of these people have come to the neighborhood to go out, and i’m going up to my apartment to stay in because i don’t feel like going out when everybody else is out too. yes, i am living in new york despite my aversion to large crowds of people. i’m avoiding times square like the plague. (more…)
banq / 1375 washington street, boston / 617-451-0077 / m-sat 5:30pm-1am, sun 5:30pm-11pm / appetizers $8-12, entrees $19-26 did that title sound a little snide? too snide? yeah, it’s a little snide. this is a review of banq, the new-ish restaurant on washington street, next […]
n is coming over for an early brunch tomorrow, and as i’ve forgotten the files i keep on promising her, it is going to have to be good. here’s what i’m thinking: poached eggs with some sort of cilantro or basil fake aioli, maybe some […]
when i was growing up there were tons of things that my sister and i weren’t allowed to have: twinkies, hostess cupcakes, tv dinners, all manner of synthetic food. this was all for my own good, of course, but when i was ten years old i was much too young to realize that. while i didn’t have an all-consuming desire for these packaged cake products, i would watch the commercials or see images of them and wonder what they tasted like. they always looked soft and dense, but not too dense; filled with some kind of delicious whipped cream.
now that i’ve taken charge of my own nutrition, i know that these fake cake products are actually pretty gross. the cake is too soft and doesn’t taste like it should (ie, chocolate or butter), the filling is some sort of synthetic, gritty sugar parade, and the icing is more like plastic than anything else. but the idea is still a good one – it’s the execution that’s lacking. (more…)
just a brief rundown of recent dinners: posole (pork and hominy stew) buttery cornbread with caramelized corn and scallions made this with c – she made the posole and i made the cornbread. one really shouldn’t take as long making cornbread as i took, but […]
o ya / 9 east street, boston / 617-654-9900 / tu-th 5-10pm, f-sat 5-11pm / $100-150 tasting menu, a la carte small plates range from $8-$45 i can identify significant points in the development of my palate: the fresh ricotta from chez panisse, the moment […]
oh, top chef. who works on this show, anyway? i just watched the season premiere and the judges blasted a guy who had no idea what piccata was. true, he should have looked it up (and not made the thing that he made based on his childhood recipes), but then they should have blasted one contestant who made “parpadelle” and the one who used “halla bread” – both things that didn’t exist last time i checked. what does exist is just this: papardelle and challah bread. boo on you, top chef!
so last night i made dinner with sonia. she had an avocado, so we made these lime-marinated pork wraps. i wanted to marinate the pork, so i made one based loosely (ok, very loosely) on an epicurious recipe for pork adobo, based on what i had on hand. the recipe is what i think the amounts were, since i just threw some stuff together. the wraps were great, though! we had ours with a bunch of condiments, which included julienned, slightly cooked snap peas, which gave them great crunch. (more…)
what you see is roasted tomatoes, nicely caramelized in a 450-degree oven, sitting on top of saffron and smoked paprika scented rice. what you see is gorgeousness. let us all worship at the altar of tomatoes and rice. this is a slightly revised version of […]