While New York broadly has excellent food from across the world, one cuisine we are frequently disappointed with is Indian (I concede I have not tried some respected places in Queens). With one of us being Indian and both of us traveling in India, we have an admittedly high bar but none the less, never found a particularly good place. Always on the lookout for a good place and to quench our (and especially my) constant desire for spice, we tried Brick Lane Curry House and I attempted its Phaal Challenge. Phaal is reportedly the spiciest curry dish and the challenge entailed eating an entire order on your own for the grand prize of a free Kingfisher, a certificate of completion, and your name and picture on the Phaal of Fame.
Read more…
dpetc Uncategorized
So we’re back from Italy and despite stuffing ourselves throughout Tuscany and Rome, upon our return, we immediately wanted to try and make a few dishes we had over there. Our first night in Florence, we had a massive steak. We were ordering in kilos so ended up with (we think) just over three pounds of pre-cooked steak for the two of us. Needless to say, we still managed to finish it. Before the steak, we had a dish of drunken pasta, it was basically spaghetti cooked in red wine rather than in water. While extremely flavorful, the dish was a bit of a single note with an intense red wine flavor and not much else. This recipe, adapted from here adds in a few extra flavors.
Read more…
dpetc Uncategorized
Commerce is a restaurant that opened earlier this year in a beautiful spot in the West Village. It’s in that great part of the Village where the cobbled streets make no sense at all, turning in seemingly random directions at whim. When you walk down Commerce Street to Commerce, the restaurant appears right after the street curves in what is basically a 90 degree turn. This sets up the restaurant to deliver something unique and unexpected, which is exactly what I found over brunch there a few weeks ago.
Read more…
dpetc Breakfast, Reviews
There is something special about weekend brunch in New York. The top brunch spots, places like Prune and Little Owl, are perennially packed with eager eaters. This past summer saw the advent of the somewhat disgusting “super” brunch at places like the now-closed Merkato 55, which aimed to replicate a Meatpacking night out over the noble meal of brunch.
Read more…
dpetc Breakfast, Reviews
I recently tried making dumplings for a fundraiser we held. I had never made them before but had always wanted to and thought a party would be a good time to try. While pork is obviously a more traditional stuffing for a dumpling we didn’t want to prohibit some of our non-pork-eaters from enjoying them. I tried cooking them two ways: traditional potsticker method and baking. The potsticker way method definitely leads to better dumplings but for making a big batch, takes a far amount of work. In all, these were quite tasty but admittedly a fair amount of work.
Read more…
dpetc Appetizers, Asian, Recipes
I came across a recipe for a salt-crusted pork shoulder recently and, both of us being big fans of pork and salt, M and I agreed that we had to make it. On a recent Saturday we did, changing the recipe slightly to match what we had on hand, and the results were fantastic – some of the most moist, tender pork I have ever had.
I had not made lasagna in a bunch of years, but wanted to do something a little bit different. As evidendced by our eggplant parm pizza recipe, we’re kind of fans of eggplant. I figured, if eggplant parmesan was good on its own or on pizza, it should work in lasagna as well. I still included some meat in the sauce, but this could easily be a vegetarian lasagna if you excluded the sauage. When I made this lasagna, as I had most times cooking lasagna in the past, I made some extra and froze it. I’d highly recomend this as a reheated lasagna really does taste nearly as good as a freshly made one.
Read more…
dpetc Italian, Recipes, Uncategorized
I made this soup one weekday when I was feeling kind of sick. It was actually incredibly easy and tasted fantastic, much better than a lot of the hout & sour soups you get in restaurants. it’s particularly fun to make because you’re familiar with the basic taste but can tweak it to your liking. In my case, I added a few additional splashes of vinegar, several extra turns of black pepper and the noodles, which all contributed to it being a non-standard hot & sour soup.
Read more…
dpetc Asian, Recipes, Uncategorized
Few things are better than a really good slice of pizza. At a recent dinner, we really wanted to make a side of eggplant parmesan, but ultimately decided it would have been a bit much. Figuring two good things together are usually good, we made some eggplant parm. pizza for appetizer instead. We ended up charring the bottom of the crust a bit too much, but overall this worked pretty well. The most important thing is to make sure that the eggplant is well seasoned. Especially make sure to salt it appropriately if using an unsalted ricotta on the pizza.
Read more…
dpetc Uncategorized
My two favorite things are probably food and movies. Also being a sucker for animated movies means that watching Ratatouille is basically 2 hours of bliss for me. I was also understandably quite excited about Julie and Julia. Meryl Streep, Amy Adams and Stanley Tucci are all both extremely talented and fun to watch on screen. Given the obvious food connection, it seemed like a great excuse for me to do some movie-related blogging. Last week I was perusing my usual rotation of movie blogs when I found a post on www.cinematical.com giving away tickets to an early screening of the movie the Monday before it opened. I jumped on it, won one of the pair of tickets and was off to the movie. Read more…
dpetc Uncategorized
