EatWellsLiveWells

September 4, 2008
Restaurant Chez Turkmen
If you are looking for a good, reasonably priced meal in Perpignan (and why wouldn’t you be?) then by all means, go visit at Ismail at his Turkish restaurant in a small alley right off the Place de la Victoire and Le Castillet.

September 5, 2008

A cocktail party in Perpignan, France. There was plenty of white, red and rose wine along with trays hors d’oeuvre.

A quick lunch at Restaurant le CHAP in Perpignan, France (Definitely not what you think of a Best Western hotel restaurant)

Amuse-Buche (Savory); Tuna Tartare with Avocado; Mixed Grilled Seafood;
Amuse-Buche (Sweet) – this was some sort of passion fruit ‘caviar’ served in a frozen glass at minus really cold and finally, fresh strawberries with lemon sorbet.

September 3, 2008

August 28, 2008

Hill Country, New York

Last Saturday I went with my family to Niko’s Greek Taverna in White Plains, NY. It was crowded and noisy with plenty of families – what imagine a taverna in Greece to be like. We shared a bunch of appetizers served with fresh, warm pita bread. I had the daily special which was calamari, shrimp and spinach in a light tomato sauce. I also tasted the grilled lamb, ‘Greek’ meat balls and a cold, squid salad. The stuffed peppers looked great. This is not the place to good if you’re looking for quiet conversation. But if you want some delicious Greek food at reasonable prices, its definitely worth a try.

I like this blog Bitten by Mark Bittman of The New York Times.

We had a very good pizza at Trattoria Zero Otto Nove (089 is the area code for Salerno) on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. The 9 inch margherita was baked in a brick oven imported Italy, and had just the right amount of fresh mozzeralla (made daily from a shop down the street). The sauce was just sweet enough with plenty of tomato flavor.

We took a little walking tour of Manhattan’s Chinatown last Saturday. We started at Catherine and Madison Streets and walked west towards East Broadway. Our first stop was Food Sing 88 Corp. Here, for about $5 you can have a big bowl of soup with freshly made hand-pulled noodles. We had Beef Han-Pulled Noodles. The broth was tasty and flavorful but not overly salty, which is what we expected. Our next stop was Doyers Vietnamese Restaurant on Doyers Street (the small elbow street that connects the Bowery to Pell) for Vietnamese crepes. We had been there many times before when it was called New Vietnam, although the current operator’s business card reads “Former Vietnam Restaurant. Unfortunately, due to not-so-clear reasons, they were out of them (too busy, not busy enough, not weekends, the chef wasn’t there). Instead we ordered a shrimp summer roll and an order of shrimp cake with meat cake. We found the roll to be pretty bland and the other dish, was, well, interesting for its textures. There were slices of meat(?) which sort of looked like gefilte fish sliced on the bias. Finally, we walked over to Eldridge street to look for Prosperity Dumplings where you can find 5 just-out-of-the-wok dumplings for $1. They were just crispy enough with a little fresh chive, certainly worth a buck.

We had a quick meal last week at Terroir, chef Marco Canora’s wine bar in the East Village (Canora also owns Hearth and Insieme). The mid-block restaurant has a long communal table in addition to, of course, the bar. The aluminum stools were infinitely more comfortable than the wooden boxes you find at Momofuku or Momofuku Ssam.

We had a panino with duck ham, Taleggio cheese and hen-of-the-woods mushrooms (this comes apparently from Canora’s days at Craftbar), crisp risotto balls with beets and blue cheese; and lamb sausage with fresh sage.

We both agreed, the food was excellent. So was the bar service. However, I thought the “Summer of Riesling” t-shirts and posters were a bit out of place…. more appropriate in one of those chains from Seattle. The food and wine, like TERROIR, should speak for themselves.

We were walking to THOR (The Hotel on Rivington) last night and passed by the Streit’s bakery. We looked inside the open window and saw two men taking freshly baked matzoh off the conveyor belt. Without a word, one of the bakers handed us a piece of warm, slightly salted matzoh. I grew up eating Streit’s from their famous pink box

but never remembered it tasting so good. It was also nice to know that something is still baked on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.