The Ten Bells

Damn, I've been so delinquent with posts.  Blame it on my new toy - PS3.  Apparently, I enjoy slaying dragons and building magi more so than writing.  Who knew?

We went to The Ten Bells one Saturday afternoon to partake in tapas and wine.  There were a lot of yummy sounding things on the chalkboard menu, good thing J-me was there to retraint me from over-ordering.  (side note, restaurants - if you are going to use chalkboard menus, PLEASE use legible and large handwriting.  It's such a pain in the ass to try to decipher chicken scratches in dim mood lighting.)

We started with roasted peppers and eggplant, which was actually a mistake due to my chalkboard dyslexia.  It was fine - lots of olive oil, salt.  Yeah, that's all I have to say about that.

roasted peppers and eggplant

We like meat.  Yes, meat in tube shape is good.  Tube shaped meat sliced into pieces and then cooked so it's a bit charred around the edges is better.  Go chorizo, you keep glistening.

shiny meat

My favorite dish was the brandade.  The Ten Bells version was whipped to almost a fluffy mashed potato consistency.  It was liberally salted and baked to a crusty top.  I wish it was slightly less oily though.  But no matter, the crusty bread soaked up the oil nicely.

brandade

Crab puff pastry sounded like a good idea, but no, it really wasn't.  It tasted like it was made the day before.  The stale puff pastry was not the worse part.  The crappy crab was.  It tasted out of a can and fishy.  Sad.

bleh

We also consumed some very phallic veggies, in the form of white asparagus.  I don't think I've ever had white asparagus now that I think about it.  It was cooked to mush and dressed with vinegar and topped with a vinegary relish.  I didn't love it but didn't not like it either.  I was ambivalent.  Since I have nothing to compare this dish to, I didn't know if white asparagus is supposed to be so mushy.

albino asparagus

We finished off our meal with a chunk of raw goat cheese.  It was mild and lovely.  Perfect with the nut bread that came along with the cheese.

cheeeeeese

We also had a few different wines (a great minerally reisling, a mild rioja, and a dry sherry).  I enjoyed the wines more so than the food, which was less than impressive.  Perhaps the rest of the menu is better, but I'm not all that eager to find out.  I'll probably go back and have wine and their great oyster special.  But will stay away from that crab pastry fail.

Brunch at Ulysses Folk House, or Ode to Financier

I am ashamed to say that I rarely travel below Fulton St.  Actually, anything below Worth St is as foreign as Kansas to me.  So after living in NYC for over 12 years, I was still ignorant of the cute little cobblestone street deep in the Financial District, Stone Street.  Until last weekend, that is. How damn cute is that street?!  So cute that I thought dwarves and singing animals were going to pop out of the buildings.

Eight of us went to brunch at Ulysses Folk House on Stone Street last Sunday after hearing that they have a $20 all-you-can-eat buffet, complete with raw oysters, make-your-own omelets, and pastries from Financier.  Your 20 bucks will also get you a drink.  I love buffets, which is probably not a good thing.

We ate a lot, but did you expect any less?  Except that not only did we eat a lot, we gorged ourselves on Financier pastries.  Yeah, the pastries were probably leftover from the week, but gosh they were tasty.  I think pastries need little commentary.  So I'll just blind you with a parade of sweets.

plum tart

This was tasty.  The ravage of time did not negatively affect the tart crust too much.  I think it would have been flakier if fresher.  I love the plums.

umm...

Forgot what this was.  I remember being eh about it.  It wasn't bad, just left no impressions on me.

creme brulee tart

Mmmm... I liked this one.  It was kind of a creme brulee in a tart.  Creme brulee is one of my favorite desserts.  I embrace all creme brulees.

mousse cake\

Some sort of passion fruit mousse cake.  It was good, tart and creamy.  Not too heavy.

croissant?

This was either a very dense almond croissant or some sort of danish.  It suffered from slight staleness.  I think it would have been delicious freshly baked and flaky.  The almond paste inside was yummy.

apple galette\

The apple galette was also kind of stale.  I think next to we go, we should stick to non-tart/flaky crust desserts since the poor things age much faster than the other stuff.  That said, my favorite dessert was the napoleon (which I devoured before taking a picture, of course).  Maybe it was stale too but the tasty tasty cream distracted me.

more mousse cake

Another passion fruit mousse cake.  Pretty and tasty.

tasty tasty remains

Remains of a chocolate cake.  I really like this.  Moist, chocolaty without being too sweet.

overgrown macaron

Giant hazelnut macaron.  No really, it was ginormous, about the size of my palm.  It was good.  Still chewy.  I hate nothing more than a dry macaron.  I did not hate this.  nom nom.

Behind the hazelnut satellite dish, there are some Guinness cheese chunks and a wedge of cheddar.  Part of the buffet.  And no, we did not eat the macaron with the cheeses.  I do not endorse that.

chocolaty magic

I have no idea what this was called but it was awesome.  The small bar on top is a creamy rich truffle.  The bottom was some sort of mousse cake thing on top of a wafer cookie, covered in dark chocolate.  How can that be bad?

We ate all that plus some other pastries that I forgot to photograph.  And 2 hours later, we all crashed like 5 year olds after trick-or-treating.

To cleanse our taste buds in between the tarts and cakes, we also ate plates of salty foods.  I was a huge fan of their omelet.  Call me uncouth, but I prefer flat, slightly fried omelets over the perfect fluffy French kind.  You can stuff a bunch of stuff into you omelet.  Because I can, so I did.

over-stuffed omelet

I also ate a bunch of raw oysters and clams.  They were fine.  Can't complain for $20.

bi-valves

I also liked their veggies (escaroles and broccoli) and corn beef (yum!).  I wasn't too impressed by the sausages and didn't try the bacon.  Other than that, they also had eggs benedict (seemed pretty good for a buffet, the eggs were runny), pancakes, french toast, roast turkey, fruit, etc.  It was a good spread for the price.  I'd go back, especially when I start missing Vegas buffets.

Atlantic Antics and New Amsterdam Market, Oh My

No, we didn't eat that.  But isn't she cute enough to eat?

Pinky didn't like the antics, Atlantic Antics that is.  It was crowded, loud, and full of drunk people.  But we, as a part of the crowd, being loud and drinking pints of Six Points, fit right in.  It was a gorgeous day in NYC so we said, hey! let's travel to that land mass across the water called Brooklyn and enjoy some sun and food!  But alas, we were not so original with our idea.

Atlantic Antics would have bee awesome with 85% less people.  Food was abound everywhere, but so were lines.  So we got very little to eat.  After spotting a quick moving line for some sort of grilled matter, we scored ourselves some braised pork with apple jicama slaw on pretzel bread from Building on Bond (BOB!).  It was... aight.  The pork was tender but the sauce was way too sweet.  Which would have been okay if they weren't so stingy with the slaw - the tartness and texture of the slaw would have balanced out the tender and sweet meat if there were more of it.  

pork sandwich

I was excited about the pretzel bread.  But they were a bit of a letdown too.  Kind of stale tasting, more like a street vendor pretzel then a nice chewy bakery pretzel.  So much potential, so little return.

wasted potential

We also got some random jerk chicken from a random stand.  I was surprised at how tender the chicken was.  But I thought the flavor could have more kick.  Jerk chicken should burn my taste buds off!

jerk chicken

Too bad we didn't get to try other stuff at the Antics.  Next year, perhaps.

Last weekend, on another beautiful Sunday, we went down to New Amsterdam Market at the South Street Seaport.  After being denied by Porchetta cuz our lazy asses got there after they sold out of sandwiches, we got in the massive line to procure ourselves some sea critters on rolls from Luke's Lobster Bar.  Mmmm... insects of the sea.  We got a lobster roll and a crab roll.  You guys know that I love my lobsters and crabs.  Luke's seafood quality was really fresh, but sadly, my favorite part of the rolls were the actual rolls themselves.

lobster roll

Both lobster and crab rolls were mayo-free, seasoned with a brush of butter, salt, and pepper.  The crab had some Old Bay.  The light seasoning would have been awesome if I were just eat them in a non-sandwich form, like as a part of a raw bar.  But the presence of carbs demands the creaminess that mayo provides.  Also, it could have used some tang too.  I don't like a lot of mayo in my lobster rolls, but I do want a teaspoon or something.  Lastly, without the binding powers of mayo, my fillings kept plopping out, which was super annoying.

crab roll

The rolls themselves were awesome though.  Buttered and then griddle toasted, they were fluffy, soft, and had a light crunch around the toasted parts.  Instead of the bread complementing the fillings, I felt that the bread was the star of the show and the fillings just provided a contrast in texture.  Sad.

tasty tasty carbs

After the rolls, we strolled around the market and sampled random stuff while picking up cheeses, wines, and bread (olive bread from Sullivan. SO GOOD.  I WANT MORE NOW) for our dinner that night.  While strolling, we stopped by Brooklyn Larder and got a bowl of their frank and beans, fancified.  How much do I love the name Larder!?  Yeah, I know it means food storage or something.  But it can also mean more lard,  yes?  YAY FOR MORE LARD!

Okay, back to the gussied up frank and beans.  We got a bowl of cannellini beans crowned with a grilled sausage.  This was tasty.  The beans were topped with some delicious extra virgin olive oil that gave it that tasty green flavor only good olive oil can impart.  I think cannellini beans are my second favorite beans, after green beans.  They are so light and tender, and don't make me feel like I just ate a bunch of boiled potatoes (I only like potatoes fried or mashed with lots of butter, yes, I'm weird.  I don't hate non-fried or mashed taters, just that they bore me to tears).  The sausage was lightly spicy and super flavorful.  I just wished that the beans had more meat flavor from the sausage. The dish tasted like two different dishes plopped on one bowl, not one unified dish.  If that made any more sense...

frank and beans and dog

New Amsterdam Market was really fun.  It was like a farmer market but with lots more free samples.  It was crowded but not unmanageable (like Atlantic Antics).  I'd be down to go again in November.