Paris Part 3

Too much awesome food to write about, too little time to write about it.  My first night in Paris, many many weeks ago, I met up with one of my old co-workers who is now living there.  Lucky duck.  We went to Le Bistrot Paul Bert, a perfect French bistro in a perfect French neighborhood.  I started my night with a bang, deep fried head cheese with aioli.

my stomach said "yay!" and my arteries said "no...."

Head cheese is awesome.  So many textures in one little bite - gelatinous, chewy, meaty, crunchy.  The best of all nasty bits rolled in to one, and then fried.  Deeply fried.  

To counterbalance the hypertension-inducing starter, I got the filet de dorade with cockles and risotto.  

arteries and stomach said "yay!"

The risotto was perfectly cooked, slightly al dente but creamy.  It absorbed the flavors of the ocean from the sweet cockles and dorade.  I love dorade, it's flaky without being dry.  Succulent and delicious.  The perfect fish.

I rounded out my first night in Paris with the quintessential Parisian dessert, tarte tatin.  Rich and caramel-y, the gooey deliciousness is brightened with the tart creme fraiche-like creme.

 gooey deliciousness 

The table next to us was drinking a ginormous glass of wine.  When I say ginormous, I mean Jolly Green Giant size.  He was kind enough to let me take a picture in return, I had to taste the wine.  Uh, win-win?

win!

I couldn't leave Paris without having a crepe, or two.  Which is exactly what I did during lunch one day, have two crepes, that is.  

crepe #1

First up, a tomato, ham, cheese and egg crepe.  I am powerless in the presence of runny eggs.  I must order them when on the menu.  The crepe was simple and delicious.

crepe #2

Really people, the thinness of a crepe is deceptive.  One crepe per meal is more than enough.  But hey, I was in Paris.  I must stuff myself silly every meal.  It's a crime not to, I swear.  They told me.  The food police did. Crepe #2 was a salty butter and caramel crepe, sprinkled with sugar.  Enough said.  YUM.

Did you know that salty and sweet crepes are made with different types of flour?  I didn't.  The grittiness of the salty crepe flour stands up well to the robust ingredients.  While the softer sugar crepe flour complements the delicate dessert flavors.

Did you know the French drink cider when eating crepes?  I didn't know that either.  I am in love with the French cider.  My favorite part is the cool little pitcher and bowls you drink the cider from.  It is not sweet like the British kind, lightly sparkly, so yummy.  I must look for it when I'm back in the states!

cider

Paris Part 1
Paris Part 2

Paris Part 2

If one eats foie gras during lunch and dinner in one day, that probably crosses the line between indulgence and extreme excess.  I stood firmly in the extreme excess realm in Paris.

I started my day of excess with mulitple croissants and a couple of macarons.  Before I had a chance to brush the crumbs off my face, it was time for lunch with my wonderful French colleagues.  We strolled over to the lovely A Table, where we were met with some toast with tapenade when we sat down.

toast and tapenade

The perfect bite to begin the meal.  I followed up that perfect bite with a bit of soup, sort of.

soup?

Calling this soup doesn't really do it justice.  Pureed lentils soup topped with shaved foie gras.  Genius?  I think yes.  Earthy, creamy, and deeply flavorful.

I could have just eaten this for lunch and be satisfied.  But why stop there?  I didn't, I got the tartare de boeuf instead.

tartare

Tartare is one of those dishes that I love but don't eat enough.  Probably because I am often disappointed by them - gummy and stringy.  But not this one.  This one was awesome.  The meat was bright and perfectly seasoned.  It had the perfect texture, soft and beefy.  And the fries, mmmm...  the French, they really know their fries.

We went to Cafe la Jatte for dinner that night, where I crossed the line.  Cafe la Jatte was designed by Eiffel, as in Eiffel Tower Eiffel.  How cool is that?

very cool

After going gaga for the space, I settled down with more foie gras.  This time, as a slab with some mango jam.    I love foie gras.  It you didn't know that before, now you know.  

buttery and unctuous

For my entree, I went with something that sounded less unhealthy, the smoked cod with mashed potatoes and pink peppercorn.  

smoked cod

Of course this was tasty as well.  The cod has a deep smoky flavor which was an interesting and tasty combo with the mashed potatoes.  The meat was tender and flaky.  The entire dish was brightened up by the crushed peppercorn and the bunch of parsley.

I had the baba au rum for dessert and sampled some cheeses.  Stinky raw cheeses, how I love thee.  

rocamadour

saint marcellin

Rocamadour was a goat cheese, very gamey, almost rich in its gaminess.  I liked it a lot but my heart belonged to the Saint Marcellin.  Creamy to the point that it sticks to you and stinky in the way that only great cheeses can stink and still make you love it.  The perfect way to end a perfect day.

amazing interior

Paris Part 1 - The Pastry Edition

I ate well in Paris, very well, maybe too well.  My wonderful coworkers ensured that every meal was better than the last and that I maintained a state of over-satiation at all times.  Seriously, I forgot what hunger felt like for those few days in Paris.

I started each day with croissants, as in, I consumed a couple of them before lunch time .  Of course I know one is enough, but when there are bags of fresh croissants in various flavors, how do you have just one?  

simple, delicious

I usually start with a simple plain croissant.  Is there anything better than the perfect croissant?  Flaky, airy, buttery.  It has just a touch of salt and a touch of sweet.  Perfect.

pain chocolat

Then I move on to a pain chocolat.  The same lovely buttery layers, but kicked up a bit with a slick of chocolate.  Sometimes, you just need that slick of chocolate in the morning.

almond croissant

Then there is the almond croissant.  I can't decide which I love more.  Although the almond croissant is made with day old regular croissants, the soft and chewy texture filled with almond paste makes it a worthy contender for my top 3 favorite pastry.  I really can't decide which of the three I love best.  Probably why I ate as many as my tummy can possibly hold everyday in Paris.

My birthday coincided with my Parisian trip.  Marie, aka the most amazing hostess ever, surprised me with a box of macarons.  Macarons = my favorite type of cookies ever.  Birthday = awesome.

maaaacaaarons

My favorite in the box were the spiced wine, caramel, and pistachio.  I think croissants and macarons should be the fifth food group, i.e. the French pastries group.

London Part 2

On a blistery Saturday, I made my way to the famed Borough Market and got me some grub, when I wasn't getting pushed and squished.  People, I hate them.  

food stuff

But Borough Market, it's amazing.  Stall after stall of food stuff, from games to sweets, the whole gamut.  I zeroed in on meat pies as soon as I walked in.  Because, you know, it's British.

british food stuff

Despite the unappetizing grey-brown tone of the mush stuffing, this was actually really good.  The crust was hot, buttery, and flaky.  The stuffing is quite flavorful.  But I'll bet you that you can't tell it was a chicken and veggie pastry just by looking at it, can you.  No, I didn't thinks so. 

After more pushing and shoving thru people, I made my way to a seafood stand that seemed to sell things that still look like the original ingredients.

scallops and bacon

Their specialty is grilled scallops topped with bacon bits.  So tasty.  The scallops were super fresh and slightly raw in the middle.  Plus, you just can't go wrong with scallops and bacon.  Classic.

Being in London, one must eat Indian food, so eat I did.  I randomly went to a place called Bhatti, more because it had some sign that said best Indian or something.  I am easily swayed by signs.

I started with some grilled lamb chops.  There were delicious.  They were extremely tender and moist, incredibly flavorful with all those warm and fragrant Indian spices.  

lamb chops

To achieve a balanced meal, I opted for the vegetarian platter.  It was quite a platter, some spinich stuff, some potato stuff, some lentil stuff, raita, salad, and gulab jamun.  It came with fluffy rice and an even fluffier nan.  The nan was super tasty.  Softy and pillowy but grilled on one side to give it texture.  The dishes were all good, though my favorite was the gulab jamun.  It was almost pudding like, sweet but not too sweet.  Tasty.

vegetarian platter

Everytime I eat Indian, I am reminded again how much I love it.  Yum.

London Part 1

I have a couple of rules when it comes to eating.  1. Try everything once.  I follow the "don't knock it until you try it" mantra.  2. If I don't like something, try it again in an year.

As they say, rules are meant to be broken.  I finally found a food that I will probably never try again.  We'll get to that in a little bit.  First, the good stuff!

I finally made my way to St. John's Restaurant in London, after dreaming about it for ages.  I had the roasted bone marrow with parsley salad.

 bone marrow.  NOM

There is nothing bad to say about this.  Bone marrow is meaty, unctuous, and full of flavor.  Smear it over some toasted bread, sprinkle a bit of salt, it's the perfect hearty snack.  I loved the parsley salad.  Refreshing.

I also had the roasted shallots (not like the American shallots, they're more like baby onions), goat cheese, and mint salad.  This again is a simple dish, but interesting and tasty in flavor.  I've never thought of putting goat cheese with onions.  But it works.  The mint salad was tasty, just wish there was more of it.

shallots?

One morning, I decided to have a proper English fry-up breakfast, complete with beans and tomatoes.  Well, I guess it's not a true fry-up since I couldn't help but throw a croissant in there.  Surprisingly, I actually liked the beans.  They were tangy and sweet.  Not something I'd crave, but I would eat it if it's on my plate.  The sausage was good, but the mushrooms were a bit boring.  

semi-proper fry-up

Not all English traditions agreed with me.  Case in point, the one food that I shall never ever try again - the pickled egg.

yikes

I would say that I have a very broad palate.  There isn't much in this world that I wouldn't eat.  Then there is the pickled egg.  A puckery hard boiled egg.  Yeah, it tastes exactly like what it sounds like, just more rubbery.  It's definitely something that is an acquired taste.

In the background lies a quarter of a pork pie.  Kind of like spam in a cold, greasy, flaky crust.  Not something I'd seek out, but I would eat it if I'm starving, and if it is drowned in mustard.

I did love the bar that served the above creations, Ye Olde Mitre Tavern, which is one of the oldest pubs in London.  It was definitely good times that night, minus the few minutes swallowing that egg.

Frankfurt Part 2

I ate other stuff besides meat in Frankfurt.  Like pretzels, lots and lots of them.  I averaged about 1.5 pretzels a day while there, here are 3 of them.

As always, I had very little clue what I'm ordering when I ordered the following pretzel.  Heck, I didn't even know I was ordering a pretzel in tube form.  I was beckoned by this one because it was stuffed with white creamy stuff and topped with chives.  And yes, the salt studding the sides would have been a dead giveaway that this was a pretzel for anyone.  Anyone but me, apparently.

pretzel stuffed with white creamy stuff

The white creamy stuff turned out to be cream cheese.  I've never thought of eating pretzels with cream cheese, but now I will.  Maybe all the time.  Because cream cheese rocks.  The pretzel has a deep malty flavor that leaves a sweet fragrant flavor in your mouth long after the stick has been devoured.  

I also had pretzel in a semi-circle shape.  This time, I knew I was getting a pretzel.  The salt gave it away.  Yes.  This particular one was slathered with butter.  Pretzel with bovine fat is so awesome.  That same malty flavor seemed to be magnified by the butter.

pretzel w/butter

The last one was another stick one.  I actually didn't realize that I was eating a pretzel until almost half way done because there was so much stuff on it - crusty cheese, sunflower seeds, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, etc.  The seeds gave the stick a nutty crunch and crusty cheese just makes everything better.

pretzel with seeds

Everyday for lunch, we would go to a supermarket called Rewe near the office.  The supermarket has a salad bar, prepared foods, and is connected to the bakery where I assuaged my pretzel addiction.  I usually get a salad with these yummy meatballs that look like falafels and whatever egg salad they have that day (along with a pretzel of course).

the meatballs are in the back

Then I wash the meal down with different flavors of Bionade, a sparkling fruit juice thing with flavors that I still can't tell you. I just know that my favorite one is the red flavor.  .  

red is tasty

My first night in Frankfurt, I ate at the hotel after a day of sightseeing.  It was actually really delicious.  I didn't have too much faith in hotel food, but really liked this meal.  They sent out an amuse bouche of some sort of cherry gelee with pineapples or something.  I liked it.  Free nibbles are always welcome.

fruity

I wanted to eat something light so thought that soup and salad was the way to go.  It is, unless you screw up and order a cream soup and a salad that consisted of mayo-y slaw.  I probably would have been better off getting a steak.  But can't complain, I liked both.  The salad was some cured duck, almost prosciutto like, atop of some crunchy slaw with mandarin slices.  The duck was really tasty, tender, light, and flavorful.  The slaw was fine but a bit too runny for my taste.  

duck salad

The celery soup was silky and smooth.  The super fried croutons contrasted nicely to give it a good old crunch.  There were a few polenta-ish lumps in the soup that gave it more heft.  I was plenty full after my "light" meal.

 creamy soup

I was given a bread basket at the start of the meal with these super cute butter tubes.  The bread was tasty.  There was a blueberry bread that I really liked.  

lots of bread

Frankfurt was a tasty city.  I was sad that I didn't get a chance to try a sandwich made with pretzels.  I wonder if I can make one with that cured duck....

Thanks so much to Claudia, Isabel, and Ivo for being such great hosts and showing me a great time!

Frankfurt Part 1

Yikes, it's been over a month since my last post.  but you know, the usual excuses - holidays, blahblablah.  Anywhoo, ChubberBlub is now on the road!  ChubberBlub will be eating through Europe in the next month, starting with Frankfurt.


I'm going to start with the various pig products I consumed and throw in a beef product for good measures.  My lovely co-workers took me to a traditional German pub called zum Feuerrädchen for some traditional pub fare and apfelwein/Äppel woi.  After making my fellow eaters translate the entire menu for me, I settled on the roasted pork shoulder, bone-in of course.  

heaven on the bone

Look at the glistening awesomeness. Luscious, tender, fatty meat, wrapped in a crispy flavorful crackly skin.  The kraut cuts through the fattiness.  I wanted to eat the whole thing, and almost succeeded.  Almost.


The whole thing was washed down with copious of delicious apple wine.  Too delicious that you forget it's alcohol.  Take it from me kids, don't forget that it's alcohol.  Not a good idea.

delicious and lethal apfelwein

Going backwards, I consumed pork the night prior too at Chalet Multilounge.  That time, in the form of that most famous of German food, the thinly pounded and deeply fried wienerschnitzel. How do you make wienerschnitzel even better tasting/heart unfriendly? Why, just throw some more fat on it, like cream of mushroom. Or you can be a lame tourist like me and try to drink the cream of mushroom like a soup as a starter. Your choice. I recommend the smothering method over the divide and conquer one.

fried

While we're at it, why not accompany it with some spatzel. This was tasty as well. The spatzel is different from what I've had in NYC. None of that dumpling like oblong round pieces for the Germans. These are more egg noodle like. Less chewy more noodly.

I washed down this piece of pork with some hefeweizen with banana.  Yep, banana flavored beer.  It's not bad.  It's just fruity with a hint of banana.  But I think I'll stick with hefeweizen sans fruit moving forward.

Going even further back in time.  On Sunday, I wondered into Zum gemaltan Haus while roaming around the museum row by myself.

After my epic translation app usage fail, I frantically pointed to a random dish on the menu.  Side note, when translating German, make sure you split up the phrase into separate words.  For example "rindersolber" is really "rinder" and "solber" added together to get a beef thing.  So you will need to translate the two words separately.  I still dunno what solber means.  But hey, after order a rinder thing, I know it's beef!

So yes, I picked a beef dish by chance because I recognized that it came "mit kraut and brot".  No idea what brot is but hey!  I like kraut!  I ended up with 2 pieces of corned beef like pieces, a mountain of kraut, two slices of brot (hard rye bread), and some nasal-clearing horseradish.

rinder mit kraut

It was strangely addicting.  Very tender and flavorful.  It basically melts with pressure.  

And so yes, I had very meat filled meals in Frankfurt.  But the next post, you will see that I did not just consume meat, but copious amount of delicious delicious German pretzels too.  OMIGOD I WANT ONE NOW.

Northeast Kingdom

I admit, I rarely go to other boroughs to eat.  Besides the fact that I'm quite lazy, the reason is that I think the food has to be 1. really delicious and a good deal, 2. an awesome experience, or 3. better than what we have here in Manhattan.  This rule grows exponentially in importance as the number of train stops increases.  So although I was intrigued by Northeast Kingdom, my laziness about having to hike my butt out to Bushwick in crappy weather to eat at yet another "farmer's market" "american nouveau" place overshadowed my earlier enthusiasm.  But good food and good company made me glad that I did.

Northeast Kingdom, like all the new american restaurants, have a decent cocktail menu.  But I think Northeast Kingdom wins with the inclusion of buttered rum.  Damn that was delicious.  The hot spiced rum was made 1000x better with the inclusion of dairy fat.  mmm...  Their other cocktails were fine, I especially liked my sazerac.

We started with 2 different toast - the bee keeper's lunch and the roasted mushroom fondue toast.  The bee keeper's lunch was a crusty piece of bread topped with a soft and creamy farmer's cheese, honey combs, and shaved radish slices.  The cheese tasted like a mild goat cheese, but no one at the restaurant could tell us what kind of cheese it was.  Fail.  The combination was delicious.  How can you go wrong with honey and cheese?  You can't.  I tell you.  You just can't.

bee keeper's lunch

The roasted mushroom fondue toast was tasty as well, although a bit salty for me.  I imagine this is what good condensed cream of mushroom soup would taste like.  I love all matters of roasted mushrooms.  It brings out that funky nuttiness only mushrooms have.

cream of mushroom toast

We also shared a couple salads.  The braised kale and warm bean salad was my favorite dish of the night.  The braised kale was super flavorful and seemed to be pressed or dehydrated after braising.  It almost had the texture of a nori sheet.  The over easy egg added a creaminess to the dish after we mixed in the runny yolk.  I'm a sucker for runny yolk.

braised kale and warm bean salad

The market salad was tasty as well.  It was a simple shaved winter veggie salad - butternut squash, radishes, apples, etc.  I like the fact that they took winter veggies and created a light and simple salad from them.

market salad

For my entree, i had the collard rolls, ground soybean stuffing, and sauteed veggies.  It was pretty good.  The stuffings were on the loose side, which i actually prefer over compacted vegetarian stuffing.  I like all the different veggies on top of my rolls - fennel, celery, tomatoes, peppers.  I would eat this again.

rollz

J-me ordered the hand-made beef sausage, caramel braised red cabbage, and potato.  The sausage was fine. The meat was a bit too hamburger like for me.  I like sausages full of flavor with lots of spices not hamburger in tube form.  Also, the texture was a bit loose (hence hamburger like).  The cabbage was tasty.  And the piece of toasted bread on top was awesome.  Who knew buttered toast with mustard could be so good.  Then again, who am I to question the all amazing butter?

beef sausage

Hidy had the chicken pot pie.  I remember liking it but don't remember too many details.  The pie pastry crust was tasty, although i would have liked more of it.  I remember the filling was thick and chunky.  So that's good.  Nothing worse than a thin and watery pot pie right?

pie in a pot

Joe had the berkshire pork loin and seasonal sides (in this case, mashed yams and brussel spouts).  The pork loin was tender and flavorful - which I think are difficult feats for a pork loin to achieve.  I never order pork loins because they can dry out faster than chicken breasts.  But when cooked well, they are mighty tasty.  I loved the sides.  Both were so autumn-y and wraps you up in their happy homey warmth.  The veggies hug you.

pork and veggie hugs

We also shared a banana cream pie but that was also many cocktails later.  So no picture was taken.  And no flavors were remembered.  Oops.

I really liked Northeast Kingdom.  If I lived in the area, I'd probably go pretty often.  But I probably wouldn't make a trip to eat there when there are many comparable restaurants in walking distance.  I'm glad I went last night and recommend anyone who lives in 3 train stop radius to go go go.