Cookies from Milk Bar

A few weeks ago, I received some food gifts from Kirbie...

The contents of box with the stamped "Milk" logo was finally enjoyed earlier this week...

Djerdan Burek, Do Hwa

I'm posting this and the other posts below on Saturday 9/20. The food for this post was last Monday 9/15, the day before I returned to San Diego. For lunch, I wanted to try this place that served Balkan cuisine. I had to look up Balkan. It refers to Southeastern Europe but is considered a bit of an outdated term. Anyways, it's across the street from the Brazilian bakery, the Chocolate Spoon. I wanted to try the Burek which I've had before at the International Food Festival from Balboa Park (courtesy of the House of Turkey, but they called it 'borek').

This was a pretty big slice of burek. I chose the meat version, which is ground beef with spices.

Really loved the flakiness of the pastry. I should have bought another one! It was that good! Actually, two pieces would be too much for me. This was quite a large piece.

Here are some other items on their menu. Unfortunately I don't know the exact country of origin of these dishes but it all sounds delicious to me!

I spent most of the day inside because it was so damn hot! I ended up watching "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" (yes, it's not out on DVD yet, but my friend's husband had it on his DVR). Oh my God - British comedian Russell Brand is HILARIOUS! He is so vulgar and funny! Even though the movie kind of dragged, it was funny to see all of the Judd Apatow regulars, including the star, Jason Segel, make appearances in this movie (Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd, Bill Hader, Carla Gallo). Russell Brand is the reason to see this movie folks, as Aldous Snow, lead singer of the band Infant Sorrow!!! He steals every scene that he's in.

I also ended up watching "Penelope" on the DVR. Why? Two words - James. McAvoy.

The movie itself was kind of lame. It was like a fairy tale, but I couldn't really get into it. Oh yeah, and Russell Brand is also in this movie, as the jazz club owner. And if I didn't already watch a lot of TV, I watched the second half of the cinematic masterpiece and Oscar worthy contender that is known as "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay". Yes, folks I watched that flick! Put it this way, Neil Patrick Harris rules!

And lastly, back to food. For dinner, they had reservations at this Korean place near my friend's work. Her building by the way, houses this hair salon (below). Who is that? It's Nick Arrojo's salon, the guy who does the hair makeovers on TLC's "What Not to Wear". I peeked through the windows, he wasn't there. It probably costs about $300 for a cut there! Yikes!

Dinner was at Do Hwa, a Korean restaurant which seemed fairly new.

This is what we had:

I didn't use my flash here - kind of dark.

Watercress salad with sesame soy dressing. I didn't take a photo of the Chap Chae noodles.

This was really good - the seasfood scallion pepper pancake. It was crispy and light!

The soup - not so much. It was a salty miso based soup with mushrooms, tofu and zucchini.

The greens for our meat - Shiso (or Perilla) leaves and red leaf lettuce:

Their version of Bibimbop. No raw egg. The waitress mixed up the greens and sashimi pieces with some sort of chili sauce.

The braised yellow snapper, which I liked, but I only had a little bit because I really wanted to eat the meat. My friend doesn't eat beef or pork so the fish was mostly for her.

The panchan (cut off) was standard. I prefer the variety at Buga a lot better.

The meat was pork (left) and rib eye. There were no leftovers that night!

Dessert was an artfully sliced orange. By that time, I was too full to even eat the orange. In all, a great meal. It was fun to be out of San Diego for just a few days, although it was a bit lonely at times because I'm so used to having Bert and TC around. I got to hang out with my friends, check out some cool neighborhoods and eat some really fantastic food.

Chocolate Spoon, Kampuchea, Il Laboratorio del Gelato

For breakfast, my friend and I walked over to the Chocolate Spoon bakery in the neighborhood. It's a Brazilian place, believe it or not. She wanted to get Brazilian cheese break to eat with her coffee. I ended up getting a fresh-out-of-the-oven ham and cheese pastry.

Here's the cheese bread. It looks like a lumpy biscuit.

But inside, there is a white cheese that just melts away in your mouth. Quite tasty!Not sure what kind of cheese it is though. Bad foodie.

This time, N and I went out to the city while L stayed home with their dogs. We passed by the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy (it's a week long).

Since I didn't really have an agenda, we just walked around. Since we were in Little Italy, N wanted to buy some pecorino cheese at this place, Di Palo's.

Once you step in, you take a number. Hers was 93. They were on 78, but the lind seemed to be moving quickly. I believe this place was on some program about NYC on the Food Network because it seemed familiar to me. There are all kinds of dried/cured meats hanging from the ceiling. Ham, sausage...you name it. The shop is quite small and it was very crowded. I looked up this place on yahoo later that night and found out that DiPalo's is family run and owned and is known for their excellent customer service. Even if the line is out the door, the employees treat you like you are the only one in the store. They really do pay attention to you and you alone.

My friend wanted to get some pecorino cheese. The guy brought out two different types and explained, in great detail, the difference between the cheeses. He also gave her some samples as well as for me too. I was hanging out behind her trying to be inconspicuous, but I was impressed that he offered me some cheese as well. The first cheese we tried was really good - but the second cheese was even better. He explained that there was a grainy texture because the curds are chopped up during the cheese making process. My friend bought a little of both. Sold!

We were on our way to the Lower East Side but had to pass through a section of Chinatown, where we saw this Durian stand.

The vendor was cutting a piece out for a customer. I wasn't close enough to smell it. I still have bad memories of the time I tasted a durian popsicle ($1.99 for a box of 4 at Ranch 99). I wanted to scrape my tongue with sandpaper after that briefly horrific taste. Mind you, the durian popsicle flavor probably was a watered down version of what it really tasted like too. To me, it tasted like rotten onions. Shudder.

After some wandering in the Lower East Side, we chanced upon this place...

Kampuchea is a fairly new Cambodian restaurant. The decor was bar height dark wooden tables with tall square stools.

The menu was very short, sweet, and to the point. They serve small plates style here.

My friend ordered the Cambodian Savory Crepe. The filling was catfish, ground peppercorn, ground sesame seed and tofu. It came with a side of lettuce and cilantro along with a dipping sauce with peanuts reminiscent of nuoc cham.

I, on the other hand, ordered the Chilled Flat Noodle which was served with seared chili tiger shrimp, crispy pork belly (there's that pork again), chives, cucumber, lettuce hearts, mint, sliced red onions, and hoisin sauce. The sauce was pooled on the sides (you can see it at the bottom) of the bowl. The toppings covered the medium width rice noodles. It reminded me of bun but without the chopped vegetables on the bottom of the bowl. This was a refreshing dish, especially since it was a super hot day (heatwave!). We shared our dishes. I really liked how my shrimp was seasoned and my friend's catfish wasn't so bad either. I'm not really a big fan of catfish but this time, it didn't taste like mud! The portions were also just right. Not so overwhelming but not insubstantial either.

I was determined to go to at least one place on my list of "must eat" places. I was kind of bummed the other day when Lombardi's was too crowded, but my disappointment was short lived because of that awesome street pizza. So...we headed over to Il Laboratorio del Gelato which is on Orchard Street, and also, right next to a museum dedicated to the history of the tenements of this particular neighborhood. Okay, this gelato place had a long ass line. In fact, we waited 30 minutes in this line! Lotus recommended this place in one of her blog posts and Robyn from "The Girl Who Ate Everything" blog raves about this place...

Former tenements across the street from Il Lab...

There really is a lab in there. It's a tiny store front but there is some serious gelato making in the back! With this place, you can't really see the list of flavors until you get right up to the window. I think it would be better if there was a posted list outside so people could make up their minds ahead of time what flavor they want.

Sucky picture...but here's the gelato and sorbet bins beckoning me:

My friend had the Espresso and Green Tea. One cone with two flavors $3.25.

My cone was Blackberry and Pear. All four flavors were awesome! Especially my pear! You could see and taste real pear flecks in it. Although it was so damn hot and the wait seemed interminable, it was worth it!!!

San Gennaro Festival, Cendrillon, Ovelia's

Although it rained the night before, the weather was sufficiently decent to go out without an umbrella (but I brought one anyways). This is my friend's neighborhood in Astoria, which (according to Wikipedia) has the highest concentrations of Greeks outside of Greece. There are so many little ethnic eateries - it's amazing how much variety there is here. L and I walked a lot that day. Well for lazy ass me, that was a lot of walking. I'm not used to being a pedestrian. I feel so vulnerable. I need the safety of my car! Ha ha. I forgot what street this is and I haven't put in the hyperlinks yet, but below is a Filipino restaurant in the East Village (I think it is the East Village), Pistahan. Unfortunately, it was closed.

Just up the street (or was it down the street?) is Elvie's Turo-Turo ("point-point"). This is a Filipino fast food joint. You point to what you want on the steam table and they give it to you with two scoops of rice for less than $6. Just like the places in National Ciety and San Diego. We didn't eat here.

Somewhere in the East Village...

The Joe Strummer Memorial...

Although I was recommended to eat here, the line inside was too damn long. This is a well known deli known for their huge sandwiches (pastrami anyone?) but it was also featured in the infamous "fake orgasm" scene as performed by then non-trout lipped Meg Ryan in "When Harry Met Sally".

Katz's worker preparing some food...

Hey, my last concert that I went to was the Cult....Back in 1991! D'oh!

One of many bootleg DVD/CD places in Chinatown...this is where I got my Goshuken Seasons 1 -3 and the TV version of Densha Otoko.

I'm not sure what kind of fruit this is...

Dried mushrooms stand in Chinatown...

Fruit and peanuts stand...

This was kind of gross. There were dried oysters with flies crawling all over them. Tasty. There was also dried shrimps in the other bins. Smelled kind of funky. After walking several blocks through Chinatown, we headed to Little Italy, which is only two blocks.

We were wanted to eat here...at Lombardi's(sorry no exterior shot), but the wait was 45 minutes! Fk that, so we walked down the street...

Lo and behold, it was a festival for San Gennaro. It was mega busy and super crowded.

I wanted a "snack" before we had our real lunch so I just went to the first pizza stand I saw. There were about 10 different kinds of pizza there. You choose whatever slice you want and the guy heats it up for you in an oven. The pizza place from whence these pizzas came was located behind this stand. We saw some workers running back and forth with freshly made pizzas.

I bought one slice and had the guy cut it in half so L and I could share it...

This slice had ground beef, tomatoes and cheese (not sure if it was mozzarrella because the texture was a little different, maybe ricotta?)...Whatever it was, it was pretty good. The crust was the best part - very crispy through and through.

After consuming our pizza slice snack, we headed over to the SoHo area. But before that, we checked out this whimsical (and overpriced, like everything seems to be in SoHo) shop called Pylones. These are hair brushes. So cute yet so unnecessary.

We finally reached Cendrillon ("Cinderella" in French) on Mercer Street. This is an upscale Filipino fusion place. It opened more than a decade. The owners also have a great cookbook out called "Memories of Philippine Kitchens".

For starters, we had the spring rolls with achara (pickled green papaya relish)...

Actually, these lumpia were pretty good - they were filled with cabbage, shrimp, pork, string beans and carrots...The lumpias were slices on the bias (nice touch), but looked kind of ugly just laying there. Perhaps the presentation could have been better. Maybe standing up? Or leaning against each other?

The lumpia (or spring roll as they call it):

My friend had the Baby Back Ribs Adobo with bok choy and blackish purple rice. The ribs were 'de-boned'. Although he liked and enjoyed his dish, he felt the baby back ribs were too "vinegary" for his taste. Taking the bones out kind of takes the fun out of eating baby back ribs though. I had some of his bok choy - good stuff. The rice was a little different tasting, but it looked cool though.

I ordered the Balinese Fried Chicken with Sweet Potato Salad (alas, no rice for me). The two sauce accompaniments were Sriracha (it tasted like it was mixed with something else) and a very very sweet Kecap Manis (sweet soy sauce). The chicken was marinated with coconut milk, turmeric, ginger, galangal, and coriander. You could really taste the flavors in the crispy chicken skin. I only at the thigh piece - it was very rich; the breast piece I ended up just eating the skin and taking the meat back to their place. I wasn't too crazy about the cubed sweet potatos. Some pieces were still kind of hard. Despite our waiter's (who was a white guy by the way, not a Filipino) entreaties to order dessert, we were both full. Remember we had pizza before this! Did I really want to pay $8 for Halo-Halo? But seriously, I was full and couldn't eat another bite.

We called it a day and headed back to the apartment. This lovely sight is from their local butcher shop. You can see Wilbur and Billy hanging in the window...

plus a few of their other friends down here:

After several hours of rest, dinner was planned at a local Greek restaurant, Ovelia's. It was a few blocks away. By this time, my friend N had already returned from her business trip. We three met up with L's sister who also lives in the neighborhood. We ended up getting a bunch of appetizers which made up our dinner. One of them was Spanakopita (spinach and feta inside a phyllo dough).

Wait, L actually ordered an entree - some sort of fish with lemon seasoning and fries. The fries don't seem very Greek to me.

Another appetizer was the calamari:

Plus we had the Pikilia which is three kinds of dip with pita bread. The dips included Melitzanosalato (eggplant - it'sat the top), Taramoselata(which is cod roe, but it didn't taste fishy at all), and Tzatziki (yogurt with cucumber and mint).

We also had an order of seasoned meatballs (sorry, I forgot to write the Greek name for it) which was served with Tzatziki...I guess I'm not used to Greek seasoning because I didn't really like it. Although the waitress said the meat was beef, the seasoning to me, tasted off and contributed to my lack of enthusiasm for this dish. It smelled lamb-y but it wasn't lamb.

For dessert we had Loukoumades, which is bite sized pieces of fried dough drenched with honey. They gave us so many pieces! Although there were four of us there, we couldn't even finish half of it.

Mmm...fried dough is always good!