All posts in Restaurants

By Jessica | January 8, 2009 | Other People's Recipes, Projects, Restaurants | 2 Comments

I been in england, so get off my back.

But, I got some goodies to share with yall. But before I get into it, I promised myself and my special brit traveling partner boy toy that no matter what shite I was served as a ridiculous excuse for a meal on the plane, that once home, I would recreate it into real food and serve that shit up lovely on Go Meat Yourself.

I was getting my england on even before leaving BK. Before boarding the death trap that has come to be known as an “airplane,” I was surprised with a special treat of english boozin called mulled wine. I realize that mulled wine comes from all over the globe, but since it was made by an english man, this is a damn english recipe.

Mulled Wine

1 cheap bottle of red wine
2 cinnamon sticks
1 tbs of whole cloves
1 cup of brown sugar
juice of 1 orange
Serves 4.

Pour the wine in large pot and keep on low. With a microplane, grate some of the cinnamon into the pot and then toss the sticks in whole. Add the cloves. Quarter the orange and squeeze the juice into the pot. Then add the squeezed orange pieces. Add sugar and stir until it dissolves. Heat the wine on low for at least 15 minutes – longer if your alcoholic ass can handle it. When your kitchen is sufficiently smellin like an old english farm house, pour the wine into mugs or wine glasses and garnish with the cinnamon sticks or orange slices. As you can see in this picture, we have a darling mini orange tree which we used special for the occasion.

On the plane, while trying not to think about my plummeting death, I was interrupted with the most wannabe pasta nosh. Fake food or not, I was excited to eat (ok, fine, I kinda like plane food). And I was excited to see what I would be recreating once safely back on the ground in BK where god intended me to be. And the wiener is: Manicotti! Stay tuned.

Now, jolly ol england has some fucked up eating practices. Baked beans for breakfast, along with roasted tomatoes and mushrooms. Now, I love me a good shroom and even some tomatoes here and there, but not with my scrambles, namean? Also, have you had marmite? A spreadable brown yeast? No thanks. You know what they put on their salads? Salad Cream. I know we did that here in the 80s, but now, a thick white jizz on my salad only makes me think of the most novelty of porn. Do you know they have something called black pudding, which is just fried blood and fat encased in intestines? Now that is fucked up. BUT. For all their ill conceived culinary delights, they really make up for it in a couple delicious ways. And I’m about to tell you how: bacon and steak flavored chips and pork scratchings at every bar.

Dude, it really tastes like meat. Kinda.

And on the luckiest of street corners, a bacon fairy will sell you a bacon bap, which is just a small roll with some “bacon” and by bacon, they mean ham. But thats ok. Its still a succulent slab of fatty pork on the way to the bank.

And for just a few quid, you can get some fried fish and chips in a crumpled up newspaper, doused in vinegar and a tiny little wooden spear. How angelas ashes is that!?

And if you are fortunate enough to make your way into the cutest area of the whole country known as cornwall, you can get yourself a cornish pasty. Not the kind you hang from your nips, although im sure you can find one or two there as well, but the kind of pasty that is a breaded pocket of savory goodness. The original and most common is steak with potato, carrot and swede. Yall have wolfed (or if you wont admit to wolfin, seen a commercial for) hot pockets, right? Same thing. A pasty in cornwall is like pizza in brooklyn, or sausage in vienna, or roofies on the jersey shore.

The flight home wasn’t very memorable. Mostly because I took as much sominex as I could without ODing.

By Jessica | November 3, 2008 | Projects, Restaurants | 2 Comments

I recently made a trip to Brooklyn’s Chinatown to check out thee. most. bomb. grocery store I have even been to (take that Trader Joe’s). In fact, I had to bring friends to witness what an experience this place was. Then I was all, “duh, I have a blog, the series of tubes is my witness.”

The Great Wall Supermarket is an all-in-one-stop shop, offering produce, meat and fish, prepared foods and anything else you might get at Met except the produce doesn’t melt in your fridge in a day and instead of saying “betty crocker,” it says [insert chinese characters here]. They sell the freshest and cheapest foods, much of which I had never heard of before. Have you ever seen 6 different types of bok choy? What about 30 feet of different types of noodles? Odd vegetables and fermented sauces, fish jerky and quail eggs, there was a lot of “wtf is this” and “I’m scared – let’s buy it.”

So, I bought a shit ton of food and took mo pics to share them with yall. I even did some marginal research (read: cut and paste from wikipedia) on the most confusing items. I hope you find them as interesting as I did. If not, go here instead of More Meat, jerk.

Fullish view of the store.

Check the aquarium along the back wall. Can’t get much fresher fish than this. I saw them pull one out, take a mallet to its head, throw it into a bag, and hand it to a shopper.

Love this presentation. See that bubble in the bottom middle fish? That was inflating and deflating to a rhythm. Yeah. Ain’t no fake lettuce for decoration going on here.

One time? I was at the beach with some friends and there was a jellyfish that didn’t not look like a bloody mess cause you forgot the tampax. The cool thing I learned about edible jellyfish is that the monger goes through 20 to 40 processes to bring the jellyfish to a state where you actually buy it at a grocery store and cook it at home. That’s really why this doesn’t look like that blobular mess that stung you at the jersey shore that summer you decided to date strictly staten islanders.

Those are scallops. Rare you see them in a shell, right?

Does conch make you think of Lord of the Flies, too? Oh Piggy.

Have you ever had frogs legs before? They taste like fishy chicken. Apparently people only eat the legs cause I’ll be goddamned to find a recipe for say, a frog shoulder roast. Send one?

How beautiful is this? An abalone is basically a sea snail. The holes are the respiratory system. (der.) The shell is also harvested for Mother of Pearl.

Geoduck, pronounced “gooey duck,” is a big ol clam that looks like a gigantic penis. Another fun fact (thank you to all the nerds at wikipedia) is that the geoduck is one of the longest living organisms with an average life expectancy of 146 years. Happy Birthday to you, penis clam! More on Wiki.

Snails. Haven’t decided yet if I like these suckers. But I did just buy myself a snail baking pot thing and Ima cook em. It’s a good excuse to eat something soaked in butter and garlic.

Those are NOT pets.

hehe.

Lots of cock.

The Devil Pod. Has there every been a name more appropriate for something that looks like this?! It’s also known as Bat Nut, Bull Nut, Water Caltrop, Trapa Natans, and Buffalo Nut, which is actually my favorite name for it. This evil little fugger is the seed pod of an aquatic asian plant. Although the seed inside is edible, it is more commonly used for warding off the devil. You don’t say. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that if you don’t boil these suckers before eating them, you’ll like, die or shit your pants or something.

Known as the “King of Fruits” in southeast asia, one of the things people talk most about Durian is its smell, which apparently is sometimes offensive. And you call yourself the King. I guess Durian makes people either love the shiv or hate it. anthony bourdain apparently said that “Its taste can only be described as…indescribable, something you will either love or despise. …Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.” Other comparisons have been made with the civet, sewage, stale vomit, skunk spray and used surgical swabs. Wow. Plate me up. Quick. Jay. Kay. More on Wiki.

My friend. He wouldn’t leave me alone. I love him.

Honestly, it is what it looks like: A pile of skinned goats with their eyes still in their skulls. We saw this bed of grossness a couple blocks away being delivered to various shops in the hood.

Hope you enjoyed my internets tour of, what is for me, an exotic and wonderful grocery store.

See this super helpful site for more info on the Great Wall Supermarket.

By Jessica | October 28, 2008 | Recipes, Restaurants, Snackin, Salads and Apps | No comments

B and I went to one of our favorite restaurants on Smith the other night, La Lunetta, and enjoyed a delish meal, served at the kitchen counter, perfect for spying on our cooks. Our guy’s the chef over there so he treated us lovely. Aside from homemade sausages for wolfing and pork ragu for rib-sticking, there was a panzanella for recipe-stealing. This was my first foray into the world of panzanella and I can’t believe I have never been before. After having multiple dreams of the salad during the night, and waking up with a salivation for more, we decided to recreate the deliciousness to our best. And now, you can too. Booyah!

Panzanella Salad with Fresh Mozzarella and Basil

half a ball of fresh mozzarella
1 very small red onion, cut in small strips
2 tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped (either vine or plum)
2 semolina rolls with sesame
lots o’ olive oil
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
salt and pepper
10 small fresh basil leaves
Serves 4 as an app.

Let’s talk about peeling tomatoes. Now. I don’t want you to be intimidated. This is very easy and extremely gratifying. Do it once and swear you’ll wanna do this for everything. Make 2 slits in the shape of an “X” on the top and the bottom of each tomato. Boil a pot of water. When it comes to a boil, turn off the flame and drop the tomatoes in the pot for 1 minute. Remove with a slotted spoon and drop into a bowl of ice water. After 30 seconds, you can easily pull the skin off the tomatoes, starting with the corners at the slit you made. Walla. Chop your tomatoes, toss the seeds, set aside.

Pull apart your cheese into large forkful chunks and scatter on your serving platter. Try not to eat too much before serving.

Heat a skillet with a good amount of olive oil. When the oil is hot, toss in the onion and tomatoes. As soon as the onion is slightly soft remove along with the tomatoes and place on top of the cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Add more oil to the skillet. Tear apart your bread in big forkful chunks and throw in the oil. Keep a high heat so that it doesn’t really cook on the inside and yet browns on the outside. Once achieved, add the bread and the oil from the pan to the platter. Add the red wine vinegar and basil leaves. Toss and serve immediately.

By Jessica | September 15, 2008 | In The News, Restaurants | 2 Comments

So, Pickle Fest 2008 in the house.

In some year at some point, the Lower East Side BID started closing one street in LES to host picklers from around the world. Under big tents with big barrels, farmers and hipsters alike are workin it for your pickle pleasure. Most picklin artists are kind enough to offer samples. At least the smart ones do. Those that were giving it away had crowds that led around the block. Damn, I never knew New Yorkers were so gotdamn cheap. Cheap and aggressive, sucking the life out of the crafterman and their pickles. But hey, I shoved with the best of em.

These chicks were offering rice with their kimchi. Thank. You.

Kimchi, but it was too mild for my fire mouth. Next time, ladies.

Are pickles the only thing foodies will eat out of barrel?

I bought some pickled green tomatoes from these billies. We ate them tonight. Yum.

My one criticism of the festival was that it was marketed as “international,” so I was sort of expecting some exotic pickles or something. Gimme some pickled papaya. I wanted to taste lamb chops in a spicy brine. Feed me some pickled tiger toe nails on a freakin cracker. Just one acidic pork nipple for my martini please. But no. Dill, sweet, spicy, blah, blah, blah. At least last year, I heard, they served pickled hot dogs. I should be on the committee next year. Then I’ll put into play my ignorant ass ideas.

Stay tuned for my recipe for homemade kimchi. It’ll knock you on your ass.

By Jessica | August 29, 2008 | Restaurants, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 1 Comment

I wish I was Anthony Bourdain. What a friggin bullshiv life. Getting paid and being famous for traveling and eating shiv you wouldn’t. Well, I would. I’ve always prided myself on my non-judgmental stomach. Hard as steel I’ve always said. Well folks. I found my limit. And who woulda thunk it – it turns out to be a common bar food: Pickled Pig Feet. Vom. It seriously looks and tastes like raw grizzly meat with some salad dressing on it. If you have the cohones, try some. Send me a pic of it. I’ll make you famous by posting on More Meat.

By Jessica | August 5, 2008 | Restaurants | No comments

Asian again. R and I had dumplings from Eton yesterday for dinner with a cold bottle of white wine on the roof of our apt building. It was such a brooklyn moment that i had to take pics. Plus, much props to Etan, the newly opened dumpling place in Carroll Gardens. The dude that owns it was a personal chef prior to opening his store. The mostly take out place, although he has about 3 tables, dons a hot plate for cookin. A HOT PLATE. He uses a hot plate to make his dumplings. Love how this guy can take like 6 bucks and open a place in bk, hire a few dudes to throw his dough around and make his dumplings from his recipes. $3.50 for 5 dumplings is a deal. Also found out he does catering. Go there.

We had pork and beef, chicken and mushroom, and veggie cabbage. Sauces included a duck sauce, caramelized vinegar, chili oil and Sirachi, all of which here homemade, except for the Sirachi. (remind me to do a whole post on this special sauce.)

Expect a dumpling recipe to come.