Korea Palace

Korean is my favorite cuisine but surprisingly none of my favorite restaurants are korean. For me, there really aren't any korean restaurants that stand out to be exceptionally good nor exceptionally bad. A lot of them serve standard korean fare and the quality of dishes don't vary much from one place to another. It may be that I love korean food that much that even the bad stuff tastes good to me.

I had dinner at Korea Palace with Aleta and Jason and like all other times I had korean food, I had a really good meal. We shared an order of man doo and kimchi chige and also cooked up some kalbi and pork on the grill. Once again, we ordered way too much food but somehow managed to shove every last morsel down our mouths.

The pan chan they served was basically standard, but I loved how they repeatedly refilled the empty dishes without us having to ask for it. As much as we loved getting all the refills, our stomachs eventually reached a point where we had to tell them to stop.

I like Korea Palace. It may be a little pricier than Ktown, but the quality of the dishes is comparable. I'd probably travel to Ktown for korean food before I'd travel to the east 50s, but for those times I'm in the neighborhood and craving korean food, I'll use the cab fare I saved for a couple extra OBs at Korea Palace.

Periyali

One of Aaron's favorite restaurants is Periyali. A bunch of us went one night on his recommendation (and dime) and had a really good meal. We started with a couple of appetizers, the octopus and the quail. Aaron's been raving about the octopus so we had to get an order of that. It was extremely tender and meaty, but not sure if it warranted all the raves I've read online about it.

For an entree, I had the Solomos Exohiko, salmon baked in fillo with spinach and feta cheese. The salmon was really good and not fishy like a lot of other salmon dishes I've had at other restuarants. The portion size was really big and probably enough to feed two. My only minor complaint is that I wished it had more feta. Jason ordered a swordfish special which I much preferred over my salmon and found out after dinner that he liked my salmon much better than his swordfish. If only I knew that earlier, I would've gladly switched with him.

On top of the good food, the service was also very good. Our waiter was a great guy. He was extremely friendly and very efficient. There was an incident where I was splitting up the quail appetizer and had accidently dropped it into a glass of water. He immediately came over and offered to heat it up for us again even though we insisted it wasn't necessary. He insisted it was. This was just one example of the things he did that night that went above and beyond what you normally expect from a waiter.

Vittorio

I've never heard of Vittorio before I was invited to a birthday dinner there. I did a little research and read some reviews before heading over. Vittorio's known for their parmesan wheel, named "Vittorio's Wheel". They bring the wheel to your table with a plate of smoking hot, fresh fettuccine. They dump the fettuccine into the wheel and swirl until it's covered in what looks like a creamy sauce. Except there's no cream or butter involved in making this dish. Just pasta and cheese.

If you want Vittorio's Wheel, they require a minimum order of two. Luckily, there were plenty of takers at the table. The dish was rich and was quite tasty. It's surprising how with just two simple ingredients you can yield a dish like that. I wouldn't mind having a wheel like that in my kitchen.

Portion size is basically what you see on the plate in the picture (pic is from their website). When they plopped my plate down on the table, I didn't think it was enough food to fill me up, but the table shared appetizers to start and I was surprisingly quite full afterwards.

I have two complaints about the service. First, the waiter hardly ever came around and refilled our glasses with water. Second, we were never offered fresh pepper for our pasta and entrees. It's especially annoying when you see it being done at other tables and somehow they just overlooked our table even though we were the largest party there.

It's a very average place. I might stop in again if I'm in the neighborhood looking for a place to eat outdoors. It's pretty nice and relaxing back there. You just have to carefully choose where you sit. Another table was attacked by falling tree limbs.

Mishima

Tsukushi was our original plan, but when we got there we found out they're closed on Sundays. We were trying to eat a some what healthy dinner so I was trying to think of another Japanese place near by that might still be open.

The only place I could think of was Mishima. Every meal I've had there was solid so even though Jason was extremely disappointed about Tsukushi being closed, Mishima turned out to be a good alternative. We started off with a couple of appetizers, the Dynamite and Nasu-Shigiyaki. The Dynamite are scallops baked with mushroom and smelt roe. This dish was better than I expected. The Nasu-Shigiyaki is eggplant with ground chicken and miso paste. This surprisingly turned out to be pretty unhealthy because it was swimming in oil. It tasted pretty good though.

We then had an assortment of sushi. They were all really fresh. The two pieces that left the most lasting impression is the blue fin tuna. Not that it was utterly amazing, but the darn thing cost $7 a piece. Not worth $7. The other was the uni. I'm not a big lover of uni and I don't get it very often. Only when I feel like giving it another try. The uni I had that night was the best I've ever had. It was the only time I bit into a piece of uni and didn't think eh, I don't know if I really like this. It was good.

Overall it was a really good meal. Still somewhat healthy despite all the oil in the eggplant. It's a bit on the pricey side. Two apps, about 10-12 pieces of sushi, two regular rolls and a couple of beers and sodas came to over $100 without tip.

Esca

Esca is another one of Batali's places and being a huge Batali fan, I was excited about trying this place. Jason was there the night before for a business dinner and said it was fantastic and wanted to take me there the night after.

He made reservations earlier the same day and was only able to score a table outside. I think I preferred to sit outside anyway. It seemed a lot more relaxed outside and a bit too stuffy inside. Plus, the weather was perfect for sitting outdoors.

We started off with the crudo tasting which was $30 per person for six very small, almost bite-sized tastings of raw fish. I don't remember ever paying $30 for an appetizer and unfortunately, I think the $30 could've been better spent on something else. It was good, but when you're paying that kind of money, it should be blowing your mind away.

Our pastas came next and we ordered the Maccheroni alla Chittara and another pasta that was a special. The portion sizes were bigger than I expected. Jason was surprised at the generous portion size as well. I guess he wasn't paying attention when he was eating there the night before. The Maccheroni alla Chittara is served with lump crabmeat and sea urchin. This was definitely a winner. It had good amounts of crabmeat and the sea urchin is what gave the sauce it's rich, creamy texture. I don't recall everything that was in the other pasta. It was a linguini type pasta tossed in a light sauce that tasted extremely fishy. I don't like my fish extremely fishy nevermind pasta. This was more a case of ordering the wrong thing than them screwing up the pasta. We both agreed that that's what we should've expected when we reminded ourselves of what the dish consisted of. If only I can remember it now for my blog.

Jason asked for cheese for his pasta and the waiter told him the chef doesn't allow it and if the waiter were to give it to him, he'd get fired. I didn't think the pastas needed it anyway. They were rich enough on its own. As a compromise, he came by with a bowl of bread crumbs and said we can have bread crumbs on our pasta if we wanted. Apparently that's acceptable and common practice in certain parts of Italy.

Jason was exhausted by the time we finished our pastas and we were both stuffed. Unfortunately, we had another plate coming. You can't go to Esca without trying one of their fish entrees so earlier in the evening, we ordered the salmon entree. Even though we were stuffed to our gills, we managed to shove down the fish and the side of vegetables it came with. It really helped that the fish was some of the best salmon I've ever had. I don't normally order salmon at restaurants because it's usually overcooked or too fishy. This was cooked perfectly. The vegetables complemented the salmon really well too.

We had a bottle of red to go with all our food. Since Jason and I usually play the eeny meeny game when it comes to wine, we decided to ask the sommelier to give us some options based on our preferences. The bottles he suggested cost more than what we typically pay for a bottle when we don't know anything about the wine. That was a bit of a disappointment. I think a good sommelier should recommend bottles in various price ranges. So in the end, we wound up with a $90 bottle of wine we weren't really crazy about. I'm sure on our own we could've found a wine we weren't that crazy about for half the price.

Next time we go, I think it'd be plenty if we shared an app, pasta and fish entree. Although this didn't blow my mind like other Batali places, I wouldn't mind giving it another shot some time down the road.

Kee's Chocolates

I walked out of Kee's with a box of eight truffles a little excited and a little disappointed. Excited because these chocolates have been highly recommended by people on Chowhound and disappointed because Kee told me not to walk around too long with the chocolates because they'll get too soft. I wasn't planning on going home for a good number of hours and I should've known though that the heat would affect the chocolates in some way.

I was wandering around Manhattan waiting for Jason to get out of work and couldn't wait any longer. Heck, I should try them while they're still at the right temperature, right? The first truffle I popped in my mouth was the tiramisu. It was okay. I definitely prefer getting the flavors of tiramisu in cake form. But I couldn't stop at just one so the earl grey truffle was the next victim. I bit into it and wow!.. strong tea flavor and sinfully rich chocolate. Amazing!

I forced myself to close the box and convinced myself to stop because I've been eating so much junk the whole day. But the box opened again when I offered Jason a truffle. He chose the pine nut truffle. He said he only wanted half which was perfect because I wanted to taste all eight truffles I bought. But after he bit into it, he was about to pop the other half in his mouth when he saw the sad look on my face and gave it to me instead. Sucker! These truffles are incredibly good. The pine nuts were toasted and coated a truffle that was made with dark chocolate. Jason goes for another. The green tea this time and it was good but a bit too sweet. This was the first truffle I tried made with white chocolate. The truffles were already soft and kind of gooey, but it didn't compromise the taste at all. And if it did, I can't imagine these tasting any better than they did.


This picture you see here is what's left of what I ate the night before. There's the coconut that softened up a bit. It used to be round. The squarish one is the hazelnut praline. The green is pistachio with white chocolate and the last one is almond and also white chocolate. Between the time I snapped the pic and when I started writing this, I finished the coconut truffle. I'm practicing a lot of willpower trying to hold myself back from the other truffles. Although, I still haven't had breakfast and it is considered the most important meal of the day after all.

Blue Moon, Upper East Side

Dan took a break from work so he can have dinner with Jason and I, so we chose to go to some place close and settled on Blue Moon. Jason and I weren't very hungry since we just had a big meal at the James Beard House so we ordered some bar snacks to munch on. Jason ordered super nova wings while Dan decided to go with the other end of the spectrum and ordered mild. The mild wings looked boring. They were dry. No hot sauce. No nothing. Just deep fried. Despite that, Dan seemed like he enjoyed his wings a lot. Jason's wings came covered in a bright red sauce and one bite into one of those things would most likely turn any normal person's face the same shade of red. They were spicy! So darn spicy, I stopped after one and worked on the nachos instead. The nachos came with tons of crap loaded on top and were damn good. Lots of cheese, chili, sour cream, guacamole, .. the works. The way nachos should be. I was skeptical about this place since we had a bad meal at the Blue Moon in Edgewater, but was pleasantly surprised that the Upper East Side location was pretty good. They at least know what super nova should mean when it comes to wings.

The James Beard House

Jason brought his dad to the James Beard House for father's day and I had the pleasure of tagging along. In honor of father's day, they brought a father and son team to cook and create the menu for brunch. Stephen Kleinman, the father, comes from Denver where he's the chef and owner of Cuisines and his son, Ian, is the chef at Aqua Restaurant & Lounge in Beverly Hills.

Once we walked through the doors, we were directed past the kitchen and into the backyard where they were serving champagne and mimosas. A little while later, servers came out with hors d'oeuvres. We were forewarned that the people there usually make a beeline for those hors d'oeuvres and it really was no exaggeration. As soon as I spotted a server holding a plate, less than a minute later, it was empty. Thankfully, they had more than enough to go around. Otherwise I would've had to knock down an old man trying to get past me.

There were three hors d'oeuvres being passed around: "Arepa Flour Crêpes with Red Mole Turkey, Apricot Sauce, and Chile Threads", "Blue Crab, Gruyère, and Maui Onion Frittatas", and "Mushrooms Stuffed with Bone Marrow Risotto". The mushrooms and frittatas were really good and the turkey I wasn't too crazy about. It was a little dry and I've never been a huge fan of mole. The major complaint I have about the whole hors d'oeurvres thing is that you have to use your fingers. Which generally is fine when you're eating food that's supposed to be eaten with your fingers, but they were too hard to pick up. Especially the mushroom since it was kind of soft and slippery. It would've also been nice if they spaced the food so there'd be enough room for you to pick up a piece without manhandling the neighboring pieces. I had a tough time with one of the mushrooms and touched the one sitting right next to it. I wonder how many fingers touched my mushroom before I put it in my mouth.

A little while later, we headed upstairs to our table. The place is charming. It's basically tables set up in the living/dining room of a house. It has a comfy, inviting feeling. We were lucky enough to have a table to ourselves. Everyone else had to sit with strangers since all other tables there seat about eight people.

The first course was the strawberry-poblano soup with cactus granite served in an ice bowl. This has got to be one of the most refreshing soups I've ever had. I'm not much of a cold soup drinker, but if more cold soups tasted like this, I'd be drinking cold soups year round. I thought strawberry and poblano were two odd things to put together but the sweet and spicy complemented each other very well. Ian was the creator of this dish and later in the Q&A session he told us he's considered the soup nazi back home because he loves experimenting with soups.

The "Scallop Ceviche with Vanilla Essence" appetizer was really good as well. I'm not a huge fan of scallop when it's not fully cooked, but this dish worked for me. Now, get ready for our main... "Colorado Grass-Fed Buffalo with Roasted Cipollini and Wattle Seed Hash; Brioche Napoleon with Espresso-Rubbed Bacon, Poached New York Farm Fresh Eggs, Grilled Fennel, Asparagus, and Calendula Hollandaise; and Heirloom Tomato Salad with Nipitella and Turkish Olive Oil". Yes, all that on one plate. It was all really good. The buffalo was my favorite but a couple of people at the table gave nods to the bacon which I found to be a bit too salty. To round off the meal, we were served a "Cashew and Pineapple Ice Cream with Rosemary-Grilled Pound Cake and Pomegranate Meringue" for dessert. Very average type of dessert, but still good.

All dishes were paired with wines and we were definitely feeling it after the meal was over. It's a lot of wine to drink during brunch, but hey, it's father's day.

Towards the end, the chefs came out, were thanked and presented with a gift. There was also a Q&A session where they answered questions from guests. One lady had the gall to ask why they made the bacon so salty that it was inedible. She immediately got booed from others. There's a little New York attitude for the chefs to take home with them.