Yum, pizza.

New York City pizza. Pretty self explanatory. It is delicious. I may do some explaining tomorrow anyway, along with some more photos. But not tonight. I've had a rough past week and today was no exception. I'm going to go dream about this nice slice of cheese pizza now:


Yum. Good night.

X-cellent food in NYC! (aka "x" is an annoying letter in the English language)

I think I will have to again scribe a fairly concise blog entry tonight. My nerves are all strained from Cisco and just having to wait on incidents that could decide a decent part of my immediate future is causing me to yo-yo from wound up high anxiety to extreme exhaustion. Today my supervisor and three other people in my area (though those three are on a different budget than I am) learned that they were being let go at the end of the month. However, nothing whatsoever has been said to any of my four coworkers or me. We are silently going crazy and would really like to just hear anything tomorrow, be it good or bad, just simply to know what's going on. Once we learn we are naturally going to eat out to celebrate either the miraculous last minute save of our jobs (for another 3 months or so) or our triumphant escape from Cisco to move on to better and brighter opportunities.

Until that happens, it is time for more NYC meals.

Moving right along to my dinner on April 22nd, I was finally able to meet with my cousin Ann who lives in Manhattan and works at the New York Public Library as a legal assistant. I'll dig up a photo of her later as the best ones were all taken on her camera and are hidden somewhere in my e-mail. My next culinary experience was to be a Japanese restaurant by the name of Katsu-hama, a restaurant that specializes in one of my favorite dishes; they served all sorts of Katsu, or Japanese cutlets.


Ah...tabetai (I want to eat it). While this restaurant was probably not run by Japanese owners, this was still easily some of the best tonkatsu (pork cutlet) I have ever had either in the US or in Japan and it wasn't that expensive either. The restaurant was small, but neatly arranged, and I felt that how they arranged the meal was also a nice, Japanesque touch. They brought out beautiful plates like this one, but also served our sake in a small box filled with water and flower petals, and had us crush fresh sesame seeds for our sauce. While katsu is fried and my stomach had been feeling queasy all throughout my time in NYC, this was a fantastic meal where both my taste buds and stomach went home happy.

Or rather I should say, they both were so thrilled that they decided I needed to continue on my journey to attempt to completely satisfy them, as well as fulfill another pilgrimage of my family's culinary traditions in NYC, and like Katz's Delicatessen, easily one of my favorite places on the face of the earth as I have experienced it so far. So my cousin and I moved on to this mysterious place in the East Village...

I love bakeries. Real bakeries, not the supermarket or Little Debbie's kind. The traditional family owned kind where all baked goods are made day of (or are sold at a significant discount) and there is no use of sodium benzoate, artificial flavors or colors, or, god forbid, dough conditioners of any kind. I find this kind of bakery to be very rare in the US, because they are difficult to run as a business, minimally appreciated outside of the cities, and then probably hurt even more by the recession as they are considered more of a luxury item than the much cheaper mass market products at the nearby grocery store. However, despite all of that Veniero's Pasticceria & Caffé has managed to survive since 1894. There are many other very good bakeries in NYC (the Chelsea Market from a previous post contains some), but Veniero's, which focuses primarily but not exclusively on Italian style desserts, has become a family favorite. I literally dream about their pies and cookies and I have no pictures except for this one because I ate everything else so fast.

I'll have to find the exact name for it but this berry and apricot tart was out of this world amazing. Paired with some light coffee, it was the perfect dessert to end a good day in NYC. I already want to go back there to eat more...

Wieners!

Yes, today's entry is about hot dogs. But not just any hot dogs, Katz's hot dogs. Delicious.


Katz's Delicatessen is a kosher delicatessen and cafeteria style restaurant located on Houston (pronounced "house - ton") St. It is fairly old and famous and is a setting in a number of movies as well as being one of those places that celebrities like to go to on occasion so that the restaurant can take a photo of them sitting there. Obviously you can order a lot more than hot dogs for your meal - they are also well known for their pastrami sandwiches and salami among many other items. It has just become a family traditional to eat the hot dogs and drink Dr. Brown's soda. Also they are some of the cheapest items on the menu and probably make up one of the best tasting budget meals in this part of the city.



Katz's keeps their costs down by offering cafeteria style service and seating. You order whatever you like at the counter, the worker writes on your ticket what you ordered, you pick up your food, and you go to look for somewhere to sit down. You pay after eating on your way out. As Katz's is very popular, the place is usually crazy and you will almost inevitably wind up sitting with some strangers. I actually like this part a lot. I sat with an older lady from Hawaii who was stuck in NYC after her flight to Europe was canceled because of the ash cloud. We had a good discussion about life, work, men, politics, Chicago, etc and she gave me her fries because she couldn't finish them. From talking to her I also learned that Obama's motorcade had passed by only minutes before I arrived. I had indeed been wondering why the area was swarming with police - at least it was for a good reason.

I consider this one of my favorite places in the world to eat at, especially since I love deli food and hot dogs, so it is highly highly recommended should you ever venture out to NYC. And send me a salami, please.

Variety is the spice of life you know...

Today is the long awaited first official entry on my New York City trip from April of this year and some of the delicious cuisine I ate there. NYC is of course world renowned for its food, from some of the best low key street food and hidden local spots to literally some of the most expensive four starred places to eat on the planet. The amount of restaurants and cafes and bars and is simply ridiculous - you could easily spend over a lifetime in that city without eating at the same place twice. The variety is also incredibly extensive, as seen in this nice map here of the different types of restaurants that dominate each zip code of the five NYC boroughs according to the Village Voice. All of this is fairly overwhelming, and as a result, while I definitely try and eat at a new place each time I go, I also find myself falling back on old reliable places that it has become kind of a traditional for myself and my family to visit every single time. They're always good.

On my first day, Wednesday April 21st , I was pretty jet-lagged from taking a red eye flight from San Jose to LaGuardia, so didn't do much. After checking into my interesting budget hotel the Jane, I took a nap, called one of my cousins who lives in NYC, and eventually decided I was hungry enough to find something in the area to eat. I had unnaturally good luck on this entire trip despite it being planned last minute and during a time of personal crisis, so of course my hotel was only a few minutes away from one of my favorite food related places to visit in NYC - The Chelsea Market. I'd first learned about it a few years ago when one of my cousins took my Dad, brother and I to inspect their artisan bread shop. I could probably spend an entire entry or more on The Chelsea Market alone, and I may in the future, but basically it is an old Nabisco factory converted into high end apartments and such, and on the first floor is an array of vendors selling all types of food; a miniature NYC condensed into one floor with a very industrial feel given its history. It truly makes for a very unique experience, and on top of that you can get a decent meal for a good price. I opted for the simply named "Chelsea Thai" and had their version of crispy chicken with broccoli.

It wasn't bad - a little heavy for me since my stomach hadn't settled yet, but the broccoli was fresh, the Jasmine rice tasted like it was supposed to, and the chicken had a very unique flavor that I still can't quite place. Definitely neither the most authentic nor the best Thai I've ever had but for the price and the atmosphere, not bad at all.

Seems I failed to take any other photos of the Chelsea Market...hm...instead, here is a photo of the view from my room on the 4th floor of the Jane.
I may have been staying in a budget hotel, but I was still in the trendy West Village area, and I could actually see the Statue of Liberty from my windows. I was pretty excited.

Well, that was what I did Thursday at any rate and I think covering all the things I ate in NYC is going to take more than one post if I want any sleep, so further meals will have to wait to allow me to state the obvious: to be continued...