Kashkaval

Occasion: Last stop in the tapas crawl (after a visit to Tia Pol, an old favorite)
Location: Kashkaval on 9th Ave between 55th and 56th (kashkaval.com)
Edibles: cheddar and ale fondue; some cold salads; salmon wrapped in grape leaves, donated by friendly fellow diners

Musings: I've loved this place since the first time I came here, brought by a Hell's Kitchen resident in the know. From the street it looks like a Greek deli, but there are a number of tables in the back as well as a bar area. It's close quarters - most of the tables will seat a maximum of four. There is a long table with benches that will seat one party of six to eight, which you can reserve.

The dining area is dim and cozy and comes across as very European to me. Kashkaval is open late - until 12:30am Friday and Saturday, 11pm other days of the week - making it a great option for after theatre.

The cold salads (in the case at the front of the shop) are excellent. I like the eggplant, the elephant beans, the beets. The hummus is good, if somewhat more mundane choice. They usually have a few daily specials as well.

For the hot, I usually get fondue. The Kashkaval house blend is good, as is the cheddar and ale. It's a matter of personal taste of course, but I find Swiss fondue a bit plasticky and the gorgonzola, too strong.

Yining and I were eating at the bar. The couple next to us ordered these divine-smelling salmon dolmas. I asked them how they were, and they very kindly gave us one of them to taste. I'm happy to report that they're as yummy as they smelled. I'll definitely be getting some next time I come.

Mercado de San Miguel

Occasion: The inaugural meal of the trip!
Location: Mercado de San Miguel, in the Plaza San Miguel, Madrid, Spain
Edibles: we hit several different stalls - more details below

Musings: Foodie heaven!! Winnie and I absolutely gorged ourselves on all kinds of fantastic seafood, snacks and pastries, washed down with wonderfully crisp local white wine. Divine!!

After a quick pass-through to look at the options, we settled on a seafood stall for the first course. We got a plate of octopus with olive oil and paprika, nuked for a minute, then spritzed with lemon juice. Cooked perfectly - really tender, but with just enough chew to it.

We also had oysters on the half shell. These were bigger than I usually like them, but tasty nonetheless.

The real standouts of the day were the langoustines. They were simply prepared - boiled, with a sprinkling of coarse salt and some lemon wedges. But! They had roe! Something new for me. I've had shrimp with roe a few times, but never langoustines. As with the shrimp (or even fish with roe), the meat is a little mealy and not the best. But it's a worthy tradeoff because the roe is wonderful. Be patient - take the time to glean every little bit. And of course, you have the head to slurp! Langoustines are spinier and more heavily armored than shrimp, so it's a bit hazardous, but HOLY MOLEY does it taste amazing. I think my eyes rolled back in my head.

Finally, I had some fresh surf clams. Fantastic.

The stall also served wine in little plastic Dixie cups. Despite the humble presentation, the wine was awesomely delicious: crisp and bracing and the perfect accompaniment to the seafood.

Onward! We hit a little bakery cart for some empanadas. I got one each of the bacalao and the chorizo, and both were excellent.

Next! A cone of olive oil potato chips from this cart. Yummy. (The other half of the case is deep-fried jamón. I tried one, but it was sort of underwhelming. I know.... what a letdown.)

Finally, dessert. Europe is pretty much the only place I can order apple pastries, because they don't always pair apples with cinnamon. This tart was exactly what I was looking for. (Hey, I'm running out of adjectives here!)

So there it is - a truly epic meal. And not a single bobble by any of the vendors we tried. Mercado de San Miguel.... I'm beyond impressed. Bravo!

Fishs Eddy

Occasion: Picking up some supplementary glasses and cutlery for the Diego Felix dinner!
Location: Broadway between 19th and 20th (fishseddy.com)

I love, Love, LOVE Fishs Eddy. It's cheap (I started shopping here when I was a student), functional (almost everything is sturdily made and goes in the dishwasher), whimsical and charming. I have pieces from lots of different collections, and my experience is that they mix and match very well.

My personal Fishs Eddy inventory:
- Lots of the now discontinued Cynthia Rowley line: plates with shoes along the rim, soup plates with underwear on them, and bowls with colorful people walking around.
- Three large alphabet bowls.
- Nursery rhyme water glasses. This trip completed my set - I started out with just two of the Little Red Riding Hood but now I have all four designs.
- Half a dozen of their dirt cheap and dishwasher-safe wineglasses. These come out every time I have people over, and have returned their original investment many times over.
- Four old-fashioned ice-cream cups. A housewarming gift from Karen.
- Two huge yellow serving platters. I bought these on clearance for about $2 each and have used them every single time I've entertained since. Love 'em.
- Two long, skinny platters for hors d'oeuvres.

For Karen and Josie's wedding, we New Yorkers put together a gift box of the NY Skyline collection. Fishs Eddy also stocks funky vintage china, stuff with old hotel logos, old airline flatware, stuff like that. If you're more of a minimalist, they have tons of stuff that's just plain white or clear glass. The 99¢ room in the back is a particular treasure trove for the basics.

This trip, I picked up an enormous alphabet platter on sale for $10 (same pattern as my bowls), some short water glasses for 99¢ each and extra knives, forks and spoons at the same price. I also couldn't resist a couple of glasses in the Strip Tea line. They were comparatively expensive at $6.50 each but getting to use a drinking glass featuring a guy pole dancing in buttless chaps is kinda priceless, isn't it?

Billy's Bakery

Location: 9th Ave between 21st and 22nd (billysbakerynyc.com)

Musings: For the price of Jill's one marshmallow at Recette, I got a massive wedge of red velvet cake, two cupcakes for the road, and a café au lait. The fluffy, whipped frosting on Billy's red velvet isn't quite as good as Buttercup's dense and unctuous version (cream-cheesy goodness!), but the size of the slice is generous to say the least and cake is nice and moist.

Incidentally, you can get an un-frosted cupcake for about half the price of the frosted ones. For those of you who consider this blasphemy, A) I intended to eat them for breakfast the next day and it's easier on the conscience without frosting, and B) I ended up having a few leftover dabs from the red velvet cake that I was able to repurpose.

St. Germain Bakery

Location: Oakridge Shopping Centre in Vancouver, among others

Best loaf of bread in the city.

I remember when there was only one out-of-the-way location (on Cambie, I think) and we would go especially for the bread. The three of us kids would eat half the thing in the car, ripping chunks off the fragrant, freshly-baked, sometimes still hot loaf. My mom would grumble about crumbs, but then even she would succumb and ask for a corner.

You now have to special-order a full loaf of their unsliced white bread, a weighty, ponderous column almost the length of your arm. (You can get smaller portions of pre-sliced bread any time.) It has a silky-fine crumb and is chewy and substantial in the mouth, yet somehow avoids being dense. When sliced thickly, toasted and slathered with butter, it's a superb breakfast. Or afternoon snack. Or a bite for whenever you happen to wander through the kitchen.

(They also do good repertoire of Chinese cakes and pastries.)

Mmmm... burrata from Murray's Cheese

Location: Murray's Cheese in the Grand Central Market (murrayscheese.com) [Note: another location in Greenwich Village]

Murray's is practically synonymous with cheese in the city. And it's easy to see why: they've got excellent selection and the staff really know their business. Recently, I was thrilled to discover that, among its many charms, Murray's carries burrata.

For the uninitiated, burrata is a special subset of mozzarella, and an artisanal cheese in its own right. Burrata tastes like it was barely touched by human hands but it's actually surprisingly complicated to make. (And to my dismay, beyond the capacity of the home cook.) Basically, it's a skin of mozzarella, gathered and tied around a heavenly pulp of mozzarella scraps and fresh cream.

Murray's imports burrata from Italy weekly and though it's not as mild as ones I've had in restaurants (it ages a little more during transportation), it's still thrillingly fresh and creamy. It's expensive at $11 for a fist-sized ball, and a bit too much for one person to eat in a single sitting, but I didn't let either of those things stop me.

[Note: On my second visit a week later, I got a burrata that seemed to be less fresh. The cream had absorbed into the cheese in the center much more, and the taste was less milky and more acidic. As freshness is critical with burrata, I now know to ask about the delivery date.]

The Butcher Block

Location: on 41st, just off Queens Blvd in Sunnyside (close to the 40th St / Lowery stop on the 7 train)

Instead of a turkey, my plan this year was to bake a spiced ham based on a Nigella recipe. The recipe listed a "mild-cured gammon," and called for it to be boiled for 2 to 3 hours before going in the oven. I knew that I could find a fully cooked, spiral-cut ham or a fresh, uncured ham (a.k.a. pork roast), but this recipe seemed to require something in between.

I called Lobel's to confirm. Once I got past the call center to the store itself, a butcher named Paul immediately said, "What you're looking for is an Irish ham. We don't have it, but The Butcher Block will." And indeed they did.

From the name it sounds like they just sell meat but they're actually a grocery / market that stocks all sorts of Irish and British foodstuffs. The guy I spoke to on the phone was very friendly and informative; the butchers were likewise in person. My six-pound ham cost a very reasonable $30. Recipe to follow.

I was particularly tickled by the fact that everyone in the store, from the employees to the customers (except me) had the full-on "they're after me Lucky Charms" Irish accent.

Dintai(?) bakery

Location: I'm not 100% sure about the name, but it's on Main St about a block south of the LIRR station in Flushing

A great little Chinese bakery. You can walk out with a bulging bag of breads and pastries for $5. They're finally re-opened after weeks of renovations! Yay!

Really good man tou (a dense, fine-crumbed white roll of sorts). They last over a week if you toss them in the fridge immediately. I like to bring them back to life by slicing and pan-frying them with a little butter or oil. Though too bland to eat on their own, they're excellent for breakfast slathered with dulce de leche or your jam of choice, or on the side with a big bowl of soup.

I like their sesame sao bing but my mom (who has more a more authentic Taiwanese palate) found them too doughy.

They also make good individual sponge cakes (the tall, reverse-pyramid-shaped ones) and pineapple buns (pictured on the right).

Las Familias bakery

Location: the corner of Armenia and Honduras in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires

I had a ham and cheese knot and a meat empanada (I think it was beef, with chopped-up hard-boiled eggs, olives and mushrooms). Awesome and dirt cheap at just 5 pesos (a little over a dollar) total. With a cup of overpriced coffee from Starbucks - purchased only to be able to sit at their outdoor tables, mind you - it was the perfect breakfast and prelude to an extended ramble in La Recoleta Cemetary.

[Note: I had empanadas three more times during the trip, including once in a fancy restaurant, and the ones from Las Familias were the best. If your hotel is nearby, I recommend picking some up for the plane ride home.]

Schaller & Weber

Location: 2nd Ave between 85th and 86th (schallerweber.com)

Yining had done a lot of the provisioning for our Oktoberfest party due to my schedule constraints, but I wasn't going to miss out on this one. Recommended to me by Ben and also referenced in a Martha Stewart cookbook, this place was supposedly THE place for German sausages.

The guy behind the counter was very friendly and informative. With his help, we selected bratwürst, chicken würst, pork and veal bockwürst and pork and beef country-style brauernwürst. Most of their sausages are cooked, and only need to be reheated on the grill or in some simmering water. (Yining was wary about letting me take them home, knowing my carnivorous tendencies well, but eventually decided I was the lesser risk compared to her sister.)

We also picked up their in-house sauerkraut, red cabbage and Düsseldorf-style horseradish mustard.

Party time!

[Postscript: Of the sausages I tasted, the classic bratwürst was the best. The sauerkraut was a bit disappointing - not sour enough for my taste and the shreds of cabbage were too long and unwieldy.]

New Beer Distributors

Location: Chrystie St between Delancey and Rivington (new-beer.com)

Yining and I set out with the intention of buying great quantities of beer. We planned to take our souvenir steins for a spin, you see, and it was clear that pouring bottle after bottle to fill a 1L receptacle just wasn't going to cut it.

In addition to a vast selection of snobby beers by the bottle, New Beer also has six beers on tap that you can get in 32 oz. (approx. 1L) and 64 oz. (approx. 2L) sizes. Of the six, five were various domestic brews and one was a Belgian import, at twice the price of the domestics. The empty 64 oz. glass jug (a "growler") will cost you $4, but it's yours to keep for the next time. They will also fill the growlers from Whole Foods and, presumably, any other conforming jugs you may have.

Incidentally, we went to Whole Foods to comparison-shop and, while the prices were comparable, New Beer had two advantages. First, they let you taste the beer - a distinct benefit when you are committing to litres of it at a time. Second, their caps are sturdier and higher quality. (Whole Foods will likewise fill New Beer containers, if you need a few extra selections.)

We went home with 2L of German-style Coney Island Mermaid Pilsner ($8) and 2L of Ommegang Witte Ale ($10), a Belgian-style white. An awesome afternoon/evening was had by all.

Mark your calendars - Oktoberfest party at my place!