Showing posts with label Chinese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinese. Show all posts
Friday, September 5, 2014
Queens Trip (Queens, New York City, NY)
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*****
In my quest to attend a game at each Major League Baseball stadium, I took a quick trip up to New York City for a Mets game, staying with my cousin in Queens. This was just a Friday to Sunday trip, but I managed to get to a few different places, including one old favorite restaurant in Flushing, and a couple great beer joints in Astoria.
Friday night, we headed to the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden, a Czech style beer hall with a huge outdoor courtyard. Their beer list is not incredible, but both times I have been there I had no trouble finding good beer options. The food is primarily Czech, or at least Czech inspired, which is similar to German. There really is not a great deal to say about the Beer Garden, other than that both times I have been there I have thoroughly enjoyed myself, as everyone is friendly, the outdoor area is great if it is not too cold, and the inside has a handful of televisions showing various sports games, including association football. It is one of those places I wish existed right in my backyard, though my wallet appreciates that is does not.
Saturday before the game, we grabbed a late lunch/early dinner at my favorite Chinese restaurant in New York, Joe's Shanghai in Flushing. Known for their soup dumplings, Joe's has locations in Chinatown and Midtown in Manhattan, and in Flushing's Chinatown, with menus featuring both Americanized and authentic food. Following a shared order of the shrimp and pork soup dumplings, I had the Crispy Whole Sea Bass. The dumplings have a spoonful of broth in them, so when you bite into one you get a little bit of hot soup along with the wrapper and the filling. I have occasional cravings of these, but I should be okay for a little while now.
The order of the Crispy Whole Sea Bass is a bit of a tradition for me, going back to the first time I ever ate at Joe's Shanghai as a young teenager; very slightly spicy, thoroughly crispy on the exterior and light and flaky on the inside, this fish is incredible. The sauce, which is where the spice comes from primarily, has a little bit of a sweetness to it, and goes well with the fish, on rice, or anything else really. Everyone else at the table had a bit and absolutely loved the sauce, even if they did not necessarily try the fish. The bass itself is very lightly battered and deep fried, so you get the delicious flavor of the fish and that classic fried flavor that really just makes everything better. This is among my favorite restaurants, period, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
After the Mets game, my cousin, her boyfriend, and I adjourned to Mosaic Cafe & Lounge. This place has an incredible beer list, comfortable chairs and a great atmosphere, along with knowledgeable, friendly bartenders. Their menu also includes several delicious looking items, though I was still pretty stuffed from the dumplings and fish. For beer, I went with the bartender's suggestions; one was a new item on tap for them, Hop Knife from Troegs Brewery. A fresh hopped IPA, it is among the best beers I have ever had. Incredibly drinkable (it comes in at a more than manageable 6.2%, but really feels like 5%; to quote the bartender, it is "completely sessionable") yet complex, the hops are very subtle, but flavorful, with a background note of lemony citrus and wheat. The beer had very little nose, surprisingly, but the aroma that was present was of hops and mild fruit. I look forward to having this beer again, though I suspect it is best on draught, rather than in a bottle, so I will be a little wary if I find it in bottles. All in all, this is actually one of my favorite beers now for the combination of flavor, drinkability, and the fact that it is out of the ordinary for me. Highly, highly recommended.
The second beer I had that evening was from Bell's Brewery, a fairly new-to-me brewer, but one that has impressed me significantly and that has received raves elsewhere (they have a 96 rating overall on BeerAdvocate). The beer I had was called The Oracle, and according to the bartender it should not have been available; someone shipped a few cases accidentally to their supplier, despite it not being released in New York State, and I am pretty pleased it happened. This beer is probably the most hop-forward beer I have ever had; from the first sniff I was blown backward by the aroma of the hops, and the first sip was legitimately intense. While I had to hold back on the Hop Knife so I did not devour it in just a few minutes, I had no choice but to nurse The Oracle. Every little bit of the alcohol (and there is a lot, at 10% ABV) is in each sip, and so are the hops, the malted notes, and some spicy flavors that I could not identify. I think I drank this beer (and it was just a 12oz) over the course of nearly an hour, so it is really the opposite of Hop Knife. It also was not as good; while I was very glad to have tried it, and I actually did enjoy it overall, I would probably not go for it again unless it was to pair with an incredibly powerful--and spicy--meal, as it is absolutely not the sort of beer that suits itself well to sitting around drinking.
Friday, June 7, 2013
Boston Trip #2
During my trip to the 2013 American Craft Beer Fest, Sean and I stayed at Hostelling International's Boston location, which is on Stuart St in Chinatown, leading us to having a few good meals in the area. I should also say, this was my first experience at a hostel, and it was a pretty positive one; the hostel was large, clean, and had some pretty decent amenities, including an espresso bar, lounge area, and even a kitchen space, and the rooms lock, which is fantastic, and each bed has its own locker that a padlock can secure. The room we were in had six bunks, each of which has a small cubby space at the head of the bed, which has a reading light and a few outlets to charge your phone. At just $50 a night per person, this is significantly better than just about any hotel in or around the city, and it is in a pretty great location, within walking distance to...well...just about anywhere in Boston.
Anyways, on to the food! When Sean and I arrived, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel, and went to grab some food. We spied Q Restaurant on the corner of Washington St and Beach St, a sort of pan Asian (or at least east Asian) restaurant offering sushi, Mongolian hot pot style dinners, Thai, and Chinese cuisine. We knew were going to get some dim sum in the morning, so we went with the Mongolian hot pot, which I last had back in 2000 in the Pacific Northwest (I think in Victoria) with my dad and brother on a vacation, and which Sean had never had. Essentially, you get a large bowl of hot broth (or in this case, broth that is heated to the point of an aggressive boil on a burner located in the middle of the table) in which you cook a variety of meats and/or vegetables. You can pick from a number of broths, which cost anywhere between three and eight dollars (or the Basic Broth, which is free), and at least one of these is vegetarian friendly. You can choose from combos or a la carte accompaniments for the broth, ranging from "Kobe" beef (I still have no clue why people aren't outraged that they are being asked to pay ridiculous amounts of money for a product that is not even available in the USA, and thus are being lied to) to fish balls to various vegetables. The combinations all include assorted vegetables, such as a small piece of corn on the cob, some baby bok choy, watercress, and a couple others. You also can choose from a few different noodle or rice options; Sean and I both went with the Udon noodles, and I had the Beef and Lamb combo, while he had just the Lamb. We went with a bowl of the Mala broth, which the menu says is their most popular. It was spicy, filled with chili peppers, and very, very flavorful, though the amount of time you are cooking the various items in the hot broth limits the amount of flavor transfer. The meat, which is sliced exceptionally thin (think lunch meat) cooks very, very quickly, as do the vegetables, though they can stay in the hot liquid longer without much issue. The noodles also did not require much of a soak, just enough to get them hot, really. The food was pretty delicious, and we were stuffed by the time we finished; the mile and a half long walk to the Seaport World Trade Center was definitely a positive, as it gave us time to digest, and also burned off at least a few calories (that we quickly replaced with beer, of course) as we walked in the very hot sun. I don't know how authentic the food was, but we both enjoyed it, and would go back. The prices weren't unreasonable, either, costing us each under $25 for the meal.
After the ACBF, we were pretty tired, and slightly tipsy, but by the time we got back to the hostel, we decided we needed some more food, if only to soak up the booze. Sean suggested finding a burger place, so with the help of my phone we found UBURGER, a small local chain with five locations throughout Boston. We went to the 140 Tremont St. location, which should only be about a 10 minute walk, that somehow we (I?) turned into a 30 minute walk via some unfortunate directional issues, arriving half an hour before they closed. I ordered a Cowboy Burger, which has barbeque sauce, pepper jack cheese, grilled mushrooms and bacon, and added a soda and fries, which cost me all of about $10; not bad in Boston. The burger was decent, nothing super special, but to a slightly intoxicated person at 10:30pm, it was perfect. Cooked a little more than I like (I don't recall being asked how I wanted it, honestly, though that could be me misremembering due to being exhausted), it was nicely salty, and the toppings were great. The fries were spectacular, shoestring fries that were deliciously crispy, salty and just the littlest bit greasy; aka, perfect drunk food. This is the kind of place that needs to be in the bar section of every college town in America. Probably not the most vegetarian friendly place, they do offer a veggie patty and some salads, but it is clearly not their specialty.
Sunday morning we woke up, incredibly sans hangover, and met my friends Forrest and Molly at China Pearl for dim sum. Few things appeal to me more as a breakfast food than dim sum, which consists of a variety of steamed buns, rolls, and rice dishes, among others, that are brought to the table on steam-table carts. There are a couple problems with this, as a non-Cantonese speaking individual: first off, I honestly have little to no clue what I am getting most of the time, as the wait staff for the most part spoke little to no English, and so I was left to guess what they were offering us several times; and second, I had no clue how much anything cost, since they just marked up the card on the table with stamps of Chinese characters. Despite these difficulties, we had some pretty good food, though it could have better. I loved the pork steamed buns (char siu bau), which were somehow both light and dense at the same time, and the sticky rice was great, filled with some variety of poultry. The steamed meatballs were less of a hit, though they were not bad by any means. The sweet buns filled with pork were great, a perfect combination of sweet and savory, though only Sean and I enjoyed them; neither Forrest nor Molly are big pork fans, as it turns out. We had a few other dishes, and I do not think anyone left hungry, though I suspect that I enjoyed the meal more than the rest of the group. We were each out exactly $10 at the end, so the fact that we had no clue what we were paying for individual dishes turned out not to be a problem at all; this was, in fact, remarkably cheap. China Pearl is one of two highly recommended Chinatown restaurants to get dim sum, with the other being Hei La Moon; I look forward to trying that restaurant as well in the future. I do not believe that this is a particularly vegetarian friendly type of meal, at least unless you are fluent in Cantonese and can converse with the waiters pushing the carts, as you may end up getting more than you bargained for otherwise.
******
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Anyways, on to the food! When Sean and I arrived, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel, and went to grab some food. We spied Q Restaurant on the corner of Washington St and Beach St, a sort of pan Asian (or at least east Asian) restaurant offering sushi, Mongolian hot pot style dinners, Thai, and Chinese cuisine. We knew were going to get some dim sum in the morning, so we went with the Mongolian hot pot, which I last had back in 2000 in the Pacific Northwest (I think in Victoria) with my dad and brother on a vacation, and which Sean had never had. Essentially, you get a large bowl of hot broth (or in this case, broth that is heated to the point of an aggressive boil on a burner located in the middle of the table) in which you cook a variety of meats and/or vegetables. You can pick from a number of broths, which cost anywhere between three and eight dollars (or the Basic Broth, which is free), and at least one of these is vegetarian friendly. You can choose from combos or a la carte accompaniments for the broth, ranging from "Kobe" beef (I still have no clue why people aren't outraged that they are being asked to pay ridiculous amounts of money for a product that is not even available in the USA, and thus are being lied to) to fish balls to various vegetables. The combinations all include assorted vegetables, such as a small piece of corn on the cob, some baby bok choy, watercress, and a couple others. You also can choose from a few different noodle or rice options; Sean and I both went with the Udon noodles, and I had the Beef and Lamb combo, while he had just the Lamb. We went with a bowl of the Mala broth, which the menu says is their most popular. It was spicy, filled with chili peppers, and very, very flavorful, though the amount of time you are cooking the various items in the hot broth limits the amount of flavor transfer. The meat, which is sliced exceptionally thin (think lunch meat) cooks very, very quickly, as do the vegetables, though they can stay in the hot liquid longer without much issue. The noodles also did not require much of a soak, just enough to get them hot, really. The food was pretty delicious, and we were stuffed by the time we finished; the mile and a half long walk to the Seaport World Trade Center was definitely a positive, as it gave us time to digest, and also burned off at least a few calories (that we quickly replaced with beer, of course) as we walked in the very hot sun. I don't know how authentic the food was, but we both enjoyed it, and would go back. The prices weren't unreasonable, either, costing us each under $25 for the meal.
After the ACBF, we were pretty tired, and slightly tipsy, but by the time we got back to the hostel, we decided we needed some more food, if only to soak up the booze. Sean suggested finding a burger place, so with the help of my phone we found UBURGER, a small local chain with five locations throughout Boston. We went to the 140 Tremont St. location, which should only be about a 10 minute walk, that somehow we (I?) turned into a 30 minute walk via some unfortunate directional issues, arriving half an hour before they closed. I ordered a Cowboy Burger, which has barbeque sauce, pepper jack cheese, grilled mushrooms and bacon, and added a soda and fries, which cost me all of about $10; not bad in Boston. The burger was decent, nothing super special, but to a slightly intoxicated person at 10:30pm, it was perfect. Cooked a little more than I like (I don't recall being asked how I wanted it, honestly, though that could be me misremembering due to being exhausted), it was nicely salty, and the toppings were great. The fries were spectacular, shoestring fries that were deliciously crispy, salty and just the littlest bit greasy; aka, perfect drunk food. This is the kind of place that needs to be in the bar section of every college town in America. Probably not the most vegetarian friendly place, they do offer a veggie patty and some salads, but it is clearly not their specialty.
Sunday morning we woke up, incredibly sans hangover, and met my friends Forrest and Molly at China Pearl for dim sum. Few things appeal to me more as a breakfast food than dim sum, which consists of a variety of steamed buns, rolls, and rice dishes, among others, that are brought to the table on steam-table carts. There are a couple problems with this, as a non-Cantonese speaking individual: first off, I honestly have little to no clue what I am getting most of the time, as the wait staff for the most part spoke little to no English, and so I was left to guess what they were offering us several times; and second, I had no clue how much anything cost, since they just marked up the card on the table with stamps of Chinese characters. Despite these difficulties, we had some pretty good food, though it could have better. I loved the pork steamed buns (char siu bau), which were somehow both light and dense at the same time, and the sticky rice was great, filled with some variety of poultry. The steamed meatballs were less of a hit, though they were not bad by any means. The sweet buns filled with pork were great, a perfect combination of sweet and savory, though only Sean and I enjoyed them; neither Forrest nor Molly are big pork fans, as it turns out. We had a few other dishes, and I do not think anyone left hungry, though I suspect that I enjoyed the meal more than the rest of the group. We were each out exactly $10 at the end, so the fact that we had no clue what we were paying for individual dishes turned out not to be a problem at all; this was, in fact, remarkably cheap. China Pearl is one of two highly recommended Chinatown restaurants to get dim sum, with the other being Hei La Moon; I look forward to trying that restaurant as well in the future. I do not believe that this is a particularly vegetarian friendly type of meal, at least unless you are fluent in Cantonese and can converse with the waiters pushing the carts, as you may end up getting more than you bargained for otherwise.
******
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