I Love NY

I had a great Thanksgiving weekend in the greater New York area, and had the opportunity to sample a number of delicacies (sweets and otherwise).

First off, I went to two interesting restaurants.

The first stop was Sripraphai in Woodside, Queens. The decor is nothing to look at, but what a feast! We had drunken noodles with ground beef, whole fried red snapper with lemongrass sauce (special of the day), pork with mustard greens, spicy papaya salad with dried shrimp and peanuts, vegetarian spring rolls, crispy tofu and green chicken curry. I most enjoyed the drunken noodles, which were incredibly moist and delicious. The spicy papaya salad was also super, with a great tart, citrusy taste. The spring rolls and crispy tofu were good, but the dipping sauces (sweet, spicy, red sauce) were better. The snapper was flaky, and chewy in all the right parts, but I didn't love the lemongrass sauce (but that's because I don't love lemongrass). The green chicken curry was disappointing; the flavor of the curry was off due to an overabundance of lemongrass (it struck again!). I really wished we had tried the panang curry, as I'd read some reviews that raved about it.

We had everything spiced medium (you can choose mild, medium, or hot). I didn't find anything overwhelmingly spicy, although the one thing I thought had a great balance of taste/spice was the papaya salad. Perhaps if we had gotten the curry spiced hot it would have tasted less like lemongrass and more like curry. Still, if I were going there again, I'd steer clear. And finally, get there early if you want a seat.

I also had brunch with SB/SB at Dos Caminos in New York City (the SoHo location). One thing I find interesting after living in CA for so long is that Mexican food has to have more than a few mild chili peppers to do it for me. Spicy is spicy, and spicy this wasn't. It was, however, decent, and quite the scene, which more than made up for the lack of "flavor," as MH likes to refer to "spice."

The scene: Too-cool-for-school modernist, with wood floors, and minimalist furniture.

The food: We started with the guacamole for two. It was made to order, and had a nice zest to it. It was more than enough to serve three. I ate a lot of chips, since I was really hungry, but they had a great corn flavor, with enough salt to satsify me. After the guac (no salsa, though, which I thought was odd), I moved on to the Farmer’s Market Vegetable Quesadilla. It had grilled vegetables and wild mushrooms layered with tortillas, Chihuahua cheese, and roasted tomato-arbol salsa. Again, the salsa wasn't spicy, and the cheese was quite mild, but I enjoyed the dish. Unlike the other dishes, it wasn't salty at all. It was a lot of food, which was good, because MH's Asada tacos were tiny. The three miniscule tacos came with grilled kobe beef and caramelized onions, and were spiced with cascabel chiles and guacamole. Again, not hot, but tasty. Ironically, the Asada tacos were listed as the "hottest" tacos, spice-wise. I suppose by our heightened standards, they weren't.

SB got the Dos Enchiladas (roasted chicken rolled into hand made corn tortillas, one tomatillo serrano, one mole poblano with Chihuahua cheese), which was a sizeable dish. All dishes came with rice and beans. The rice was surprisingly salty, but tasty. The beans (black) were dense, and barely edible.

While I was in the city, I also visited the Jacques Torres chocolate store. I'd been there before, and had sampled their pretty amazing hot chocolate (regular, not spiced).

This time, I first ordered three confections: Bandol Breeze (a layer of homemade almond marzipan over a thin layer of apricot pate de fruit, covered in dark chocolate); Raspberry Fruit (a layer of raspberry pate de fruit topped with a layer of raspberry ganache, covered in dark chocolate); and Menage a trois (a secret-ingredient chocolate, but which I have deduced is a dark chocolate ganache with chili, finely chopped hazelnuts (almonds), a bit of cinnamon, and a tart fruit, like raspberry or cassis). I really enjoyed the apricot pate de fruit in the Bandol Breeze, but the marzipan left me cold, as it had a dull taste. The Raspberry Fruit was decent, but I felt that the true raspberry flavor came from the pate de fruit, and not from the ganache. The Menage a trois was interesting; nutty, spicy, and dense. I enjoyed it most of all, but was marginally annoyed that the sales staff refused to tell me what the ingredients in it were (they claimed they themselves did not know).

I also got a 72% plain bar which was, for lack of a better word, fabulous. Quite sweet, even at a high cacao level, it had very strong overtones of vanilla and citrus and berry. It reminded me of a cross between the Lindt 85% and the Valrhona Le Noir Amer 71%.

SB/SB kindly got me a metal cannister of the hot chocolate to take home, a gift I will be enjoying during the chilly winter months to come. Excitement is too mild an adjective to describe my delight.

Oh, and I finally sampled the clementine ganache turkey from L.A. Burdick. Tasty, but not worth $3.25 for a tiny morsel.