Marea

Last night Alex and I dined at Marea for the first time.  While the food was amazing, the restaurant itself was something of a mixed bag for me.  First of all, we were the only people there not over the age of 35 and wearing a full suit to dinner.  We were also the only table that quietly drank our $40 bottle of wine, while other tables were yelling about how delicious their magnum of '45 Latour was or how the table was sharing a nice bottle of Cristal with their crudo.  For the record, the table of 6 seated near us probably went through at least $10,000 worth of wine with their dinner, including that bottle of '45 Latour and an '82 Cheval.  All in all, the average patron at Marea last night was so far out of our league it's not even funny.  I wouldn't say that I was uncomfortable dining there, but I will say that as I walked to the bathroom it was an interesting trip through the crowded dining room.  Oh and I saw Jeffrey Steingarten there (author of The Man Who Ate Everything and frequent guest judge on Iron Chef America), so that was kind of fun, but again pointed out just how out of place we were. 

Out of place or not, I was determined to enjoy my meal.  And I did.  And I tried to take pictures, but the lighting was so dim in the corner where we were seated, with weird shadows being thrown across our table, that the pictures are even more terrible than usual.  I refuse to use the flash when taking pictures at a restaurant because it can be so distracting to other diners, plus the plate tends to reflect so much light that the entire dish is washed out.  I also refuse to use my nice DSLR because I find that equally distracting to other diners.  So I tried, but I apologize.  Do not judge the food by the quality of my admittedly terrible photographs.

More after the jump!

Tom Kha Gai (Thai Coconut Chicken Soup)

One of my first experiences with Thai food was a bowl of Tom Kha Gai soup at a restaurant called Tara Thai in Rockville, Maryland back when I was in high school.  It was my first introduction to the use of coconut milk in soup, its sweetness meshing nicely with the savoriness of fish sauce; the brightness of cilantro, lemongrass and lime; and the heat of red curry paste and Thai chilis.  As I started eating more and more Thai food, I realized that many variations of Tom Kha Gai soup are far too sweet and missing the necessary spice and acid to balance out the natural sweetness of the coconut milk.  During my travels in SE Asia I tried Tom Yum soup and realized that Tom Kha Gai soup isn't the only delicious Thai soup out there.  Now when I go out for Thai I tend to alternate between ordering Tom Kha Gai and Tom Yum, depending on my mood, but I still have a special place in my heart for a really nice bowl of Tom Kha Gai soup.

This bowl of Tom Kha Gai soup was really nice and had lots of spice to it to balance the sweetness.  If you don't like spice, I would cut down on the amount of curry paste or on the number of dried Thai chilis.  In the past I have always made the soup with green curry paste instead or red, but we were out of green this time so I decided to use red instead.  In my admittedly limited experience, green curry paste tends to make a soup that is a little more floral and a little less outright spicy.  But both are delicious.  The red curry paste also gives the soup an orange tint, rather than the more traditional milky white broth from the coconut milk.  Strictly speaking, the curry paste isn't necessary, but it does add some extra complexity and some heat to the soup.  If you aren't using the curry paste, you need to use more lemongrass, galangal (or gingern like I used here, although galangal is definitely preferable) and kaffir lime leaves than I used here to give the soup the same depth of flavor.  You will end up with a soup that is in some ways more delicate, not to mention less spicy, than the recipe I have included here.  With the inclusion of the curry paste and the straw mushrooms, this soup almost reminds me of a cross between Tom Kha Gai and the more traditionally spicy Tom Yum soup. 

Recipe after the jump!

Homemade Creamy Tomato Soup

As far as I am concerned, homemade tomato soup is one of the easiest, most satisfying dishes.  It is also incredibly easy to play with, depending on what exactly you are craving.  Today I wanted a simple creamy tomato soup, rather than anything more complicated.  When I want to complicate things I add fire roasted tomatoes, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, creme fraiche, buttermilk, crushed red pepper flakes, handfuls of fresh basil, orzo, or slow roasted fresh tomatoes.  But the basics always remain the same - chicken or vegetable stock, canned whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes, sweet onions, garlic, herbs (generally basil), and s&p.  This afternoon I was out of fresh basil, so I used a combination of fresh thyme and dried basil.  I also wanted the soup to be sweet, creamy and tangy, to pair with my sourdough grilled cheese sandwich.  In order to make the soup a little sweeter, I added more carrots than usual.  Then, to give the soup some tang I added buttermilk.

Use this recipe as a base for your own tomato soup experiments.  Usually when I am making tomato soup for Alex and I, he campaigns for lots of crushed red pepper flakes and sometimes for bacon.  If you want to add crushed red pepper flakes, add them at the very beginning while sauteing your aromatics.  If you want to use bacon, cut it into small pieces and cook in the pot first thing.  Then once the bacon is crispy, remove it with a slotted spoon to drain on a paper towel.  The rendered bacon fat can then be used in place of the evoo to saute your aromatics.  Have fun with it!

Recipe after the jump!

Shrimp Tacos

Every cook has a few easy, reliable and quick meals that they fall back on.  This is one of mine.  Fish and shrimp tacos are one of my favorite dishes, both to eat and to make.  During the summer I make tacos regularly, because they just strike me as the perfect summertime meal with a couple of nice cold beers and some chips and guacamole, or chips and salsa.  Somehow spicy Mexican and summer just seem to go hand-in-hand for me.  But after a week of feasting only on Asian-inspired dishes and in anticipation of some fairly heavy, meaty meals this week, shrimp tacos seemed like the perfect simple foil for the richness of Dinosaur BBQ this evening, and a bacon-centric cooking class we took last night.

I marinate my shrimp for my tacos in a blend of chili powders, cayenne pepper, lime zest, garlic, cinnamon (just a touch for a hint of cinnamon sweetness and aroma), and cumin for smokiness.  Then you have the fattiness of the guacamole with the bite of red onion and jalapeno, and the brightness of the cilantro and the spritz of fresh lime juice.  Delicious - even in winter time.

Recipe after the jump!

Food on the UWS

When we moved to the UWS I was a little nervous about what I thought was the lack of a real foodie scene on the UWS.  In the past few years the restaurant scene up here has EXPLODED and we have a ton of wonderful dining options.  The most recent addition to the UWS dining scene is Five Napkin Burger, which I can see out the windows of my apartment and have vowed to try soon.  However, what prompted this post is that we finally tried Eighty One this evening.  And we loved it.  The funny thing is that when we were reading the reviews online we almost talked ourselves out of going to Eighty One because some of the reviews were so poor, but I had a coupon from this wonderful site called BlackboardEats for a free glass of champagne and a free scallop ravioli appetizer so we decided to go ahead and try it.  While a lot of reviewers seemed to prefer Dovetail (another UWS restaurant) to Eighty One, we thought that the worst component of our meal at Eighty One tonight was far better than anything we tried at Dovetail.  By the way, that scallop ravioli appetizer (pictured above), which was on the $30.81 three course economy friendly menu was amazing.  It was my favorite thing I have eaten at a restaurant in at least a month, which is saying a lot since I have eaten at quite a few restaurants recently.  The yellow wine sauce that was served with the ravioli was amazingly buttery and savory, but so simple that it let the scallops really shine.  I actually would have licked the bowl if I could have.  As it was, I took a spoon to the remaining broth/foam.  So I took a few pictures of our meal from Eighty One that I am posting here now with the caveat that the lighting was atrocious and I only had my little point and shoot Canon digital Elph with me to take the pictures.  Oh well.

This whole meal got me thinking about my other favorite restaurants and dishes on the UWS, which I decided I had to share.  My favorite UWS picks after the jump!

Chinese Spinach with Oyster Sauce and Roasted Garlic

For our last Chinese New Year meal, I decided to go simple.  We had two pounds of yu choi (Chinese spinach) sitting in the fridge, and a pound of shrimp that I defrosted last night.  Unfortunately, the shrimp wasn't quite defrosted.  But after realizing just how much yu choi we had, we decided that we didn't need the shrimp after all.  And after a week of fairly elaborate and/or heavy meals, it was pretty nice to just sit back and stir-fry some veggies.  We took this recipe from The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook, which has become my go-to for easy weeknight Asian meals, and modified it just slightly.

Served with some steamed rice, this was a very satisfying light meal.  These stir-fried veggies would be a perfect side dish to almost any Chinese meal.  I would eat it with Chinese roast pork, roast duck, salt and pepper shrimp - just about anything.  It is both sweet and savory.  The roasted garlic is delicious.  Definitely don't skimp on the garlic or the ginger.

Recipe after the jump!

Roasted Rice Cakes

Recently Alex showed me a blog called Momofuku for 2 where someone named Steph from Vancouver is making every single recipe in the Momofuku cookbook.  It's very Julie & Julia, but it is unbelievably fabulous.  Steph takes beautiful pictures of the recipes, documenting every step of the cooking process.  It is blogs like hers that make me realize how great an amateur food blog can really be.  And it also makes me wish that I had the free time to cook labor-intensive recipes like that every evening.  If you love food, and you love Momofuku, you really need to check out her blog.  It really is THAT good.

Steph's blog inspired me to finally get off my ass and make David Chang's recipe for Roasted Rice Cakes from the Momofuku cookbook as part of my Chinese New Year all Asian-inspired menu.  However, seeing as I didn't have the time full roast the onions for the recipe, a process which is supposed to take approximately 50 minutes, or to make the Ramen Broth, which requires 4 pounds of chicken and 5 pounds of meaty pork bones plus a ton of other ingredients and takes at least an hour, I made a much lazier/simpler version of the rice cakes.  For me, David Chang's cookbook is a lot like Jean-Georges Vongerichten's.  I love to look at it, but I rarely ever make anything from it.  Chang and Peter Meehan's prose is amazing.  I love reading them babble on just about everything.  But when I take the cookbook off the shelf to try to figure out what to cook for dinner, I almost always have to put it right back on the shelf once I realize that I am missing at least 2-3 ingredients, plus I don't have 3 hours in which to cook dinner.  Oh well.  I love the cookbook anyway.

These Roasted Rice Cakes are heavy and very filling, but very tasty.  They are also sweet enough that I could only eat so much - maybe half to two-thirds of the portion I had originally served myself.  The sauce does have savory notes, but considering the Korean Red Dragon Sauce starts with simple syrup and the rice cakes are tossed with seriously caramelized onions, it would be hard for the savory notes to outweigh the sweet.  If I had made the recipe as written from start to finish there might have been more savoriness to cut the sweetness, so I can't lay the blame at the cookbook's feet.  There's always next time!

Recipes after the jump!