Friday, May 21, 2010

Fuse @ 34th & 2nd Ave - Thai & Japanese

For lunch last Wednesday, we decided to hit up this place called Fuse, located between 34th and 35th Street, on 2nd Ave. It was a newly opened place which I had never been to but a few coworkers had and they loved the pad thai. When I saw that they had RAMEN, I knew we had to go there.

Ramen must be one of the best noodle dishes ever invented. Real ramen is made with fresh noodles, in a delicious broth soup – usually soy based or miso based. However, miso is usually an iffy thing because it is rather difficult to get a good miso soup whereas soy is a simpler base.

The place reminded me of Cafe Asean in decor with its rough whitewashed exposed brick side and cheaper tables and chairs were alright. As usual, my complaint lies with the small tables that Asian restaurants prefer.

My coworker, Rania, ordered the pad thai.
Pad Thai
This pad thai she liked as it wasn’t too fishy – which is caused by flavoring it with the traditional anchovy sauce – a staple in SE Asian Cooking. She did pick out all the chicken and it might be that she just didn’t like the chicken in the noodles as she is indeed very picky about her meat.

My other coworker, David and I both had the ramen.
Ramen!
Okay…to be perfectly honest, I would not have the ramen again. There is something to be said about authentic ramen and inauthentic, which this appeared to be. The soup was not astounding and did not beg for me to slurp the noodles up rapidly or drink up the whole bowl of it. The noodles were clearly not freshly made. The naruto like fish cakes were bland at best. The pork pieces were fatty (just like Japanese ones) but the taste was not as divine as the ones I had in Japan.

There was just a glimmer of hope that we would get a decent ramen near my workplace but it turned into epic fail.

Fuse Japanese Thai
625 2nd Ave
New York,NY 10016
212.213.3883

Irma's B-day @ Agozar's

For Irma’s birthday, we went to Agozar’s again. Yay for Agozar’s! But it was a Saturday and their early bird menu is Mon-Thurs only! Like older folks don’t need to eat on the weekends!

Haydee made reservations but it was pretty empty when we first arrived. It got really crowded as the night went on (our reservation was for 6.)

It was also quite a beeyuuuutiiiiiiifulllll day. :P Quite lovely so that even waiting outside was fine.

Plus Haydee had invited another guest who invited another. So she was giving directions to them and I was texting Barb and talking to Irma. Irma had no idea they were coming.

We decided to go ahead and get seated as we were all hungry.

For appetizers, we went with :
a plantain dish
This was made from plantains but not fried up and served alone. This was more like a dip and it was pretty good – a nice start to our meal.

Empanaditas
This was a plate of mini empanadas – beef, chicken, and mushroom. All were yummy.

Camarones al ajillo
These were delicious shrimp in a double garlic sauce and if you like garlic, this was it! I dipped the bread and ate it and the sauce was just the right amount of garlic, seasoning. -_- I want more.

Chicharron de pollo
This was chicharron de pollo – a crispy fried chicken which was nice and hot when it came and it was quite delicious. But then again, fry = yum.

I think we could have stuck to appetizers and drinks with no problems.

However, we went ahead and ordered main menu items. Why? Because when you are starving, your eyes are always bigger than your stomach!!!

vaca Frita
Haydee’s cousin ordered this vaca frita. A fried beef, which is fried to a crisp.

rojos v????
This was the other beef special – I forgot how to spell it all. :( It’s meat surrounded by thin flat plantains and therefore, the beef was moist.

Lechon
And I learned that lechon meant pig. So this is lechon, a moist, tender pork dish. It was pretty good but not as good as other lechon I’ve eaten.

Paella Marinara
This is paella marinara, a lovely rice dish cooked with seafood. I would rate this pretty much average because the rice was just tender but this was not the same paella marinara I’ve had at other places – such as this one restaurant overlooking the cliffs in Fort Lee, NJ. This was passable with a slightly bland seasoning.

The ambiance of Agozar’s is a fun, hip vibe with loud music and great staff. Our primary waiter was Jose and he was very attentive and did alot of special touches like get a flan with a candle for Irma’s song. The whole restaurant erupted into applause at the end and it was pretty fun to have that attention on Irma, who was beet red.

This is definitely a great place to go for their happy hour specials and early bird specials – 2 for 1 drinks and appetizers in the lounge or bar as well as $14.95 3 course dinners are fantastic bargains in NYC. :P

Cinco de Mayo @ Agozar's

I had not planned on going out for Cinco de Mayo but I decided to at the last minute. So that day, after work, I met up with Babs @ 35th and 1st for a walk up to the Katwalk ( I should say west because the Katwalk is on 35th and 5th.)

We went to fellow lush – Michelle’s Cinco de Mayo event @ the Katwalk and would be meeting her there.

We arrived early, and there was a girl who looked just like Michelle there. Except it was of course, not Michelle but her sister! So we had special which was none too special – some disgusting drink. It was so bad, I did not care to memorize the name! The chips and salsa were good – the salsa had a nice kick to it.

But when Barb got up – there was gum…on her black skirt. The employees were not really cool – the manager either. They did not offer anything but ice to try to get it out. Well, it did but not all so she was fuming. Michelle took pictures and the manager rushed over and told Barb that Katwalk will pick up the tab for dry cleaning. After that, Barb was not in a good mood so we decided to hit up the Cinco de Mayo event @ Agozar’s.

It was crowded for a Wednesday but then again, it was Cinco de Mayo!!!

We had about a 10 minute wait even though the lovely hostesses told us 20 minutes. We ended up walking around block to the other door (Agozar’s has this cool L shape space). We got seated and we ordered drinks. Being Cinco de Mayo, we were able to get the two for one specials. So – we had Mojitos! Sorry, I didn’t take pictures. Well, I got a mojito the 2nd time and it was so good. The first drink was not so good. I think it was a coconut concoction that made me think of diesel fuel.

And because we were so hungry, I didn’t get a picture of the empanaditas or camarones al ajillo. :P

But here is the mystery dish – Mystery Appetizer. It tasted yummy – fried bits of something delicious but then fried foods almost always tasted good!

Babs ordered her special item: Vaca Frita which was a fried shredded beef. It was as crispy as it looked and served over plantains.

I ordered the Agozar’s version of arroz con pollo – Arroz con pollo, which I must admit I was not too fond of. It was tasty – seasoned lightly with nice pieces of chicken but it just didn’t have that oomph that I expect from this dish – especially after having it elsewhere like the cheaper Rivington restaurant.

It was a good Cinco de Mayo anyway. And we got two necklaces out of it. Score! :P

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Shanghai Cafe - Soup Dumplings!

A few Sundays ago, I stayed @ my friends’ place in the city. Sunday, Irma wanted to get a facial so we went to Avani. Epic fail! They were fully booked that afternoon so Irma and Haydee booked two facials for the following weekend. Then we were hungry so we went to find food.

I had a craving for soup dumplings so we ended up going to Shanghai Cafe – after I assured Haydee, one of the world’s pickiest eaters, that there would be some edibles for her and her mother besides my soup dumplings.

So we got to sit in the wooden booths – which if you know about Asian cafes/restaurants is a good thing because the tables are way too small to hold any amount of food with room to eat. So we got our ‘large’ table and rang up the order:

2 orders of soup dumpings – #2 (pork only – the crab one is just not as good)
1 order of fried dumpling
1 order of fried rice

I think that was it. I’m not 100% sure. :P

Anyway, I made Irma and Haydee try the soup dumplings and they actually LIKED it. It was like a miracle.

For those who have never eaten soup dumpling before, you simply must go and eat it. Like soon. Like right now.

A soup dumpling is just what it sounds like – a soft doughy casing with a juicy soup center around a lump of delicious pork minced with vegetables etc steamed in a bamboo case over cabbage leaves. The key is not to burn your mouth as you bite into this juicy morsel or dribble soup over yourself.

Soup Dumplings!

Yummy. I love soup dumplings!!! :P And that’s that.

Shanghai Cafe
100 Mott Street
New York, NY 10013
212.966.3988