Mmmm... spinach and feta hummus

Maggie brought this positively addictive dip to Mark's bbq.

Spinach and Feta Hummus
1 can (15 oz) of chickpeas / garbanzo beans
2 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
2 cups fresh spinach (I bet you can substitute 1 cup frozen spinach, defrosted and squeezed-out)
½ cup feta cheese
2 tbsp tahini
6 tbsp olive oil
salt, pepper, red pepper flakes for some heat - all to taste

Drain the chickpeas. Add the beans, half the spinach, half the feta, and all the other ingredients into a food processor. Process until smooth. Add the rest of the spinach and feta, and process to your desired consistency (I think it's nice when it has a little texture). Thin with water or more olive oil (or lemon juice or chicken stock) if necessary.

Refrigerate for one hour before serving. Great for parties!

BBQ Village

Occasion: Yet another meat-a-palooza shenanigan with Yining.
Location: BBQ Village on Northern Blvd in Flushing, Queens (bbqvillage.net)
Edibles: bbq'ed meats galore, all you can eat for $30

Musings: We went during ultra peak hours (i.e. regular weekend dinner) and paid the highest price on their matrix. You can get a better deal for more inconvenient time slots. On weekdays it's $25 per person. And the late night special is hard to beat - after 10pm on weekdays it's $17 per person, and after 11pm on Friday and Saturday, 10pm on Sunday, $20.

The meats all looked fresh and were of a decent quality. Be careful not to overcook the beef - it goes from juicy and tender to tough and chewy in about 30 seconds. Surprisingly, the pork kalbi was our favorite. It stood up to erratic cooking times really well and had the same yummy marinade as the beef.

There's also a selection of cooked dishes, vegetables, soup, rice, and fresh fruit for dessert. I quite enjoyed their braised short ribs and was hard-pressed to stop at just one bowl of rice.

This is a niche restaurant - all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ is not for everyone. If you are usually satisfied with a normal-sized Korean dinner, you might as well stay in Manhattan at the weekend prices. Meat-tooth that I am, even I don't think I'll be shlepping out to Queens just for BBQ Village.

In the end, transportation's the biggest hurdle. The closest LIRR stop is Broadway in Queens. After dinner, you might decide (as we did) to walk to the Flushing Main Street stop, about 20 minutes away. If you're headed back to the city in a rental car after some event, the late night special might be worth considering.

Markt

Occasion: Brunch with Abby, Elizabeth, Jill and Katie
Location: Markt on 6th and 21st (marktrestaurant.com)
Edibles: croque-monsieur with a side of bacon

Musing: Yeah, don't get the croque-monsieur here. Their version is thin, dry and Béchamel sauce-less. On the bright side, it was surprisingly uncrowded for a weekend and they made the best coffee I've had in ages. (French press, in case you're wondering. Only $3.) Also, they only charged a moderately exorbitant $4 for a side of bacon.

I'd try it again - I'm sure there's something on this menu I'd like, though it for sure wasn't what I ordered today. Maybe the Benedict. The pain perdu that Abby had looked promising as well.

Cafe Ronda

Occasion: Dinner with Abby and Jill
Location: Cafe Ronda on Columbus between 71st and 72nd (caferonda.com)
Edibles: calamares fritos; gambas al ajillo; spinach salad with goat cheese

Musings: While waiting for the girls, I ordered a cocktail at the bar. The drink was rum-based, but what their drink menu didn't mention was that they used coconut rum to make it. I really don't like coconut - it reminds me too strongly of sunscreen. Over a period of about 20 minutes, I took maybe two or three small sips of the drink. The bartender finally asked me if I liked it, and I told her about my coconut-suncreen thing. At which point she did nothing. Didn't comp the drink, didn't offer to make me a new one with regular rum. Boo. What NOT to do in terms of customer service.

The calamari was a nice big dish at $9. Inexplicably, the $11 shrimp were puny and came in a tiny dish.

Bottom line: Give it a pass - there are lots of better options on the UWS.

Porsena

Occasion: Winnie's birthday!
Location: Porsena on E 7th between 2nd and 3rd
Edibles: pea risotto and baby octopus starters to share; various pasta mains (more detail below)

Musings: There's a lot to like about this restaurant. It's a cute, cozy space. The staff couldn't have been nicer to us. The food gave me the impression that the chef really has a strong food philosophy, and cares about good ingredients.

That said, I'd give it an average score of B+. There was a something about almost every dish that was just a little bit off. With a few small tweaks, it could be amazing. (Or at least amazing to me. It's entirely possible that the chef and I just don't have the same palate, whereas you might find the flavors perfect as they are now. Porsena is kind of place where you tend to give the chef the benefit of the doubt.)

The pea risotto, for example. The perfect spring dish, it was competently prepared. I did find it oversalted, and texturally it needed to be a bit looser. (You can tell by the way it's mounded up in the picture that it's too stiff. A perfect risotto would slowly ooze into shallow puddle.)

The octopus was great. No problems there.

I also ordered the beef tongue appetizer, more out of curiousity than anything. I liked the concept of the dish; I think the pickled vegetables were absolutely the right side to serve with the meat. The tongue itself was a little mealy. Maybe it should have been served cold instead of room temp? I'd skip this dish, at any rate.

For my main, I got the pasta with spicy lamb sausage. The pasta was very interesting, a wide tube shape with ridges on the inside. It was cooked perfectly al dente. The lamb sausage had a great flavor - unfortunately, I could only enjoy the complexities of the flavor for a few bites before the aggressive spiciness numbed my mouth.

I also tasted of Winnie's uni pasta and Gabrielle's pasta curls with many cheeses. The sea urchin sauce was too rich and too fishy for my taste. I don't think I could have finished a whole dish of it. Winnie loved it, though. The cheese sauce was likewise too rich, though I loved the whimsical pasta shape.

I give this place at least one more try. Start with the octopus and maybe try another pasta.

Mmmm... Moroccan redux

Occasion: Melissa's birthday / Moroccan reunion!
Edibles: cucumber salad with cider vinegar and parsley; eggplant zaahlouk; carrot salad with golden raisins and marcona almonds, dressed with orange juice and zest, argan oil and cinnamon; zuchini with paprika vinaigrette; couscous; beef tenderloin with ras al hanout rub, served with chermoula sauce; Moroccan fruit salad [+ chocolate cheesecake bottom left contributed by Alicia]

Notes:
1) With an able prep assistant (thanks Melissa!), you can prepare all of the above for a party of 15 in three and a half hours, cooking flat-out. Give yourself five for a more leisurely pace.
2) The recipes are all variations from the classes I took with Souk Cuisine and Riad Kniza in Marrakech.
3) You can make chermoula in a blender, it just comes out smoother and more liquid-y. Works great as a sauce with beef tenderloin. (And props to Tony for bbq'ing that tenderloin perfectly!)
4) For the Moroccan fruit salad (chopped apple, mango, kiwi and strawberry in orange juice), Ceres Medley of Fruit with mango and passionfruit + regular North American orange juice = a close approximation of truly amazing Moroccan orange juice.

Big Apple BBQ

Location: On the streets bordering Madison Square Park

Met up with Winnie, Erin and Hsinpei for another meat-a-palooza. I swear I eat vegetables too. (I do! Sometimes.)

Stop #1: Ubon's - $8 for pulled pork shoulder sandwich with a side of coleslaw

Nice enough. Very tender and moist. Most of the flavor I got was from the sauce, though.

Stop #2: Pappy's - $8 for ribs and a side of beans

The ribs were, once again, undercooked for my taste. The meat was hard to chew and I was not impressed with their flavor (which was basically just bbq sauce slathered on at the end and brûléed). It was also unfortunate that we happened to get the stubby little ribs that come at the tip of the rack. The ends always get a little burned and dried out, compared to the bigger ribs further up. And the beans were sort of watery and sad. Thumbs down, Pappy's.

Stop #3: Blue Smoke Bake Shop - $6 for blueberry crisp à la mode

Now, I'm normally hating on Blue Smoke for their crappy food. And I stand by that. But I will say that they serve a nice dessert. (We weren't quite done with the meat yet, but passed right in front of Blue Smoke Bakery while waiting in line for Ed Mitchell. So we dispatched Erin to pick up... let's call it an unusual palate cleanser.)

This was the first dish of the day that made me go, "WOW!" Really good crisp topping and not too much of it, a light hand with the sugar in the berries, and a scoop of perfectly textured vanilla ice-cream. Yum.

Stop #4: Ed Mitchell - $8 for a chopped whole hog sandwich, with a side of coleslaw

While waiting in the long-ass line (after the blueberry crisp), I saw someone making pork rind crackling. At this point, my head pretty much exploded with joy. I had to get me some. When it was ready, they passed out a few shards to the people in line. It was amazing.... and so I had to get some more.

I went up to the lady and shamlessly played up my bacon-themed t-shirt and love of all pork products. Happily, she found me at least moderately amusing and rewarded my antics with a *massive* piece of crackling almost as big as my head!! Oh, happy, happy day!!!!

Yeah, we also got some of their whole hog, but nothing could really compare to that crackling. Here they are chopping it up:

And here's the sandwich:

I liked the more varied texture of the whole hog, but it was also sort of bland. Coleslaw was pretty generic, not as good as Ubon's.

But the crackling..... oh, the crackling.......

Mmmm... pasta salad

I basically threw this salad together with odds and ends I already had in the pantry/fridge. Despite the lack of premeditation, the flavors melded really nicely so I thought I'd share.

Pasta Salad with Chicken and Vegetables

rotini (but really any pasta will do), cooked, drained and cooled to at least room temp
shredded rotisserie chicken (I used Pio Pio's excellent chicken for extra oomph)
chopped red pepper
chopped celery
julienned sundried tomatoes in oil (in a jar, from Trader Joe's)
basic vinaigrette of Dijon mustard, red wine vinegar and olive oil
salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste

Ludicrously easy to prepare - just throw everything together in a proportion you find pleasing. (Though you don't want to overdo it with meat and veg - it's a pasta salad, not a chicken salad - and you don't want to drown it in vinaigrette). It can be easily scaled to feed any number of people.

The dressing will hold up well without refrigeration so you can safely bring it to a picnic. It will also keep at least a day in the fridge if it's been dressed, longer if you keep the dressing separate.

Goes without saying that you can add or substitute ingredients at will. I happen to like the color from the peppers and the crunch from the celery. They're both fairly watery, bland vegetables so the intense bursts of flavor from the sundried tomatoes are nice. Meat-tooth that I am, I always want to put animal protein in but you can substitute some kind of cheese (feta, etc.) for the chicken if you have vegetarians.

Enjoy!