Sun Tung Kee [closed]

Occasion: Send-off dinner for me, right before my mom and brother took me to the airport
Location: Sun Tung Kee Hot Pot Restaurant on Alexandra Rd just off Kwantlen St in Richmond, a municipality of Greater Vancouver - Note: Sun Tung Kee is closed
Edibles: cilantro and thousand-year-old egg broth for cooking; fish paste; napa cabbage; taro; garlic chive dumplings; shrimp wontons; squid meatballs; pork meatballs; beef; chicken; tofu; mung bean and barley soup for dessert

Musings: Hot pot restaurants are all about the quality of their ingredients since they don't actually do any cooking; for the most part, food is brought to your table raw for you to cook in the broth.

To start with, Sun Tung Kee offers quality condiments. These include soy sauce, Asian bbq sauce, garlic sauce, sesame sauce, fresh cilantro, scallions and hot peppers. For special customers (like my mom), there's also a dish of XO sauce, a hot sauce with dried scallops, Chinese ham and cognac. They also offer seasonal live seafood like shrimp, certain fish, geoduck and Alaskan king crab. It's pricey but the absolute freshness is worth it.

The thing that really sets Sun Tung Kee apart is the quality of their beef. The difference between the usual hot pot beef and Sun Tung Kee beef is like the difference between cheesesteak "steak" and Peter Luger's steak. The beef was excellent, as always, but I noticed that the plates are about a third smaller (prices are the same). They also have a new recipe for their shrimp wontons that inexplicably includes bamboo and black wood ear fungus (not as gross as it sounds) in the filling. I liked their old wontons better.

Summer is a typically a slow season for hot pot restaurants, but the place was pretty empty even considering that. My mom theorized that Sun Tung Kee has lost a lot of business in the downturn to all-you-can-eat hot pot places nearby.

Flamingo

Occasion: Family dinner with my grandparents, my aunt, my cousins, my mom and my brother
Location: Flamingo Chinese Restaurant on Cambie between W 59th and W 60th Ave in Vancouver
Edibles: West Lake soup; taro duck; Chinese broccoli and beef; lobster in cream sauce with noodles; steamed tilapia; crispy chicken; tapioca pudding

Musings: We've been going to this restaurant for over twenty years. The menu has barely changed in all that time. So it's not the most sophisticated Chinese food Vancouver has to offer, but it's our neighborhood restaurant and it always feels good to come back. Upon our arrival, the manager (who we had seen rise from the waitstaff to his current position) came right over to greet my mom by name and take our order.

Everything tasted just as it should, just as it used to. (Well, with the exception of one meat pie dish, which the manager immediately whisked away and took off our bill.)

Restaurants will come and go but as long as the Flamingo is open for business, we will be there.

Golden Ocean

Occasion: Dim sum (the third time in a week!) with my mom, Amy and Sam
Location: Golden Ocean Seafood Restaurant on W 41st Ave at Maple St in Vancouver
Edibles: leaf tripe (omasum); stewed honeycomb tripe (reticulum) and beef lung; chicken feet; bbq pork buns; braised Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce; pork, fish and peanut congee; sesame balls

Musings: As you can see, we got some more unusual things this time around. I'm not a huge fan of lung or chicken feet, but I thought the leaf tripe was really well done. Strangely enough, with all the offal we ordered, the dish that stuck out the most was the sesame balls.

Sesame balls are usually the size of golf balls, or slightly larger, and filled with red bean paste or lotus paste. They serve a peculiar variation at Golden Ocean with no filling at all but fried for a longer time, until they're puffed up to the size of ostrich eggs. (I'm not kidding about the size.) The resulting hollow pastry has a thinner wall and is crispier than the standard. I've been to quite a few dim sums in my time but this is the first time I'd seen this. Dim sum innovation - go figure!

Mmmm... bubble tea and thick toast

Two super-Asian snacks that I inexplicably love. Bubble tea: what's not to love about a beverage you also chew? Thick toast: buttered and drizzled with condensed milk, it's a strange combination but totally delicious.

E Bei

Occasion: Dinner with Tania, Warren and Kim (well, a second dinner for Tania and Warren)
Location: E Bei Japanese on Granville at W 41st Ave in Vancouver
Edibles: California roll; chopped scallop roll; assorted sashimi (salmon, tuna, some kind of whitefish, tako octopus and hokkigai surf clam)

Musings: My brother and his friends love the late night all-you-can-eat at this place, which costs something like $10. The regular dinner hour all-you-can-eat will run you $23. Since you can only order it as a table, and Tania and Warren had already eaten, I just ordered à la carte.

The tuna and hokkigai sashimi were fantastic (though not as fantastic as the specimens pictured to the left - not my plate). The other pieces were fresh but not particularly memorable. The chopped scallop was a bit slimy, and both it and the California roll had too much rice. You definitely will not see particularly good knife skills or sushi-rolling technique here. But you get good value for your money.

Ningtu Restaurant

Occasion: Brunch with my mom (my brother, a fellow night owl, couldn't drag himself out of bed)
Location: Ningtu Restaurant on Kingsway between Gladstone and E 29th Ave in Vancouver
Edibles: broth noodles with chicken and baby bok choi; sautéed nian gao (rice cake); sesame rolls with pork and pickle filling (sort of a Chinese sloppy joe); yu tiao (deep-fried breadsticks); hot soy milk (sweet for me, savory for my mom)

Musings: A nice alternative to dim sum. I love this restaurant and always try to go at least once when I'm in town. This occasion was no different - I was so happy with the food I was making little pleased hums throughout the meal. Highly recommended.

Original Tandoori King

Occasion: Dinner with my mom and brother
Location: Original Tandoori King on E 65th Ave at Fraser in Vancouver [Note: there's another restaurant on Fraser itself that's called Tandoori King - don't be fooled]
Edibles: chicken tikka masala; lamb korma; eggplant bhartha; palak paneer; sides of garlic nan and pulao rice (all spellings are theirs)

Musings: Came home absolutely stuffed! The food was delicious as always, though their prices have gone up since I was there last ($3 per meat dish and $2 per veggie dish). The consistency is worth mentioning - I've been to this restaurant about 15 times and have never had a bad meal. Everything is richly spiced, and you can tell they use quality ingredients. Highly recommended.

Red Star

Occasion: Dim sum with my mom and her friends
Location: Red Star Seafood Restaurant on Granville between W 66th and W 67 Ave in Vancouver
Edibles: lots of the same classics from the Flushing dim sum outing - shrimp fun; shu mai; har gao; pork and thousand-year-old egg congee; steamed daikon cake (what can I say, I'm a creature of habit), plus a few new items - Chinese broccoli sauteed with garlic; ma lai cake; green tea jelly

Musings: A couple of pluses and a bunch of minuses. This place doesn't hold a candle to my favorite Vancouver dim sum place, Sun Sui Wah in Richmond.

Plus: 1) The shu mai and har gao were huge - easily the size of two in almost any other restaurant. 2) The ma lai cake was delicate and fluffy. Yum.

Minus: 1) The shrimp fun had pungent garlic chives (a.k.a. Chinese chives) in them, an herb I never acquired a taste for. 2) The pork in the congee seemed a little off. 3) The green tea jelly was just weird. 4) No ladies with the carts; you order off a menu.

La Esquina

Occasion: Birthday brunch for Meredith
Location: La Esquina on Kenmare at Lafayette (esquinanyc.com)
Edibles: pork soft tacos with sliced avocado and a side of scrambled eggs

Musings: The pork tacos were great, topped with shredded cabbage and pickled onions. I had some structural integrity problems, as the pork was very sauce-y, and ended up just eating it with a fork. Meredith got the steak tacos and someone else got the fish tacos and they looked good too.

I thought my mimosa and the avocado were overpriced. Still, the food was yummy and I'd go back.

[Note: I tried calling the restaurant six times throughout the morning to try to confirm the time of the reservation, but wasn't able to get through to a live person at all. While this might be acceptable on a weekend during the dinner rush, it's really not on a Sunday morning.]

Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice-Cream Truck

Location: We came across it on University and E 12th. It's there from 8-11pm; from noon to 7pm, it's at Greene and Prince. (vanleeuwenicecream.com)


Thanks go out to Sylvia for introducing me to the delights of this truck. I had a scoop each of gianduja (hazelnut-chocolate) and strawberry. The strawberry was outstanding - so fresh and fruity it almost tasted like sorbet. The guy manning the truck was really nice, too. Definitely an "I Love NY" moment for me.

According to their website, they use top quality local ingredients, all their disposable goods are made from 100% renewable resources, and they donate 1% of their profits to protect the endangered mountain gorilla. How cool is that?!

Wilfie & Nell

Occasion: Drinks and some nibbles with Sylvia
Location: Wilfie & Nell on W 4th between 7 Ave South and W 10th St - it's a weird intersection (wilfieandnell.com)
Edibles: pulled pork sliders; grilled cheese sandwich; fries with malt vinegar

Musings: If only I could find a man as satisfying as these pulled pork sliders... Love at first bite and I'm still head over heels! They are SERIOUSLY delicious. The grilled cheese and the fries are also great, but the sliders are the real superstars.

With its selection of superb bar food and fancy beers, Wilfie & Nell is a real guy-friendly place. Good for a date, too - dim, charming but low-key, and with lots of nooks and crannies in the main room. And if you don't have a man... well, there's always those sliders.

Mmmm... shaved ice dessert

After dim sum, we went across the street to poke around in the Flushing Mall. The food court really merited its own separate trip, but we found some room for a shaved ice dessert with the following toppings: stewed taro, stewed mung beans, tapioca balls, ai yu jelly and condensed milk. It was awesome but I would say that this, too, is an Asian dish with a high degree of difficulty. Not for beginners!

Asian Jewels (fka Ocean Jewels)

Occasion: Dim sum with two of my Penn posse, Kathy and Yining
Location: Ocean Jewels Seafood Restaurant on 39th Ave near College Point Blvd in Flushing [2010 update: now called Asian Jewels]
Edibles: the classics - shrimp fun; shu mai; har gao; pork and thousand-year-old egg congee; bbq pork buns; steamed daikon cake; sesame balls with lotus paste filling; mini egg tarts

Musings: Leagues better than anything I've had in Manhattan. All the food was piping hot, well-seasoned and not too greasy (at least, not by Chinese food standards). And it was served by old-school dim sum ladies wheeling carts around, shouting out their offerings in Mandarin and Cantonese. For me, the standout was the congee but I wouldn't recommend it to any neophyte white folks out there.

To make room for other Flushing delicacies, we were fairly restrained in our ordering. The total bill came out to only $25 and we walked out feeling moderately full and extremely satisfied. Don't bother fighting the tourist crowd in Chinatown next time you're in the mood for dim sum - the good stuff's in Flushing.

Hallo Berlin

Occasion: Friday afternoon loafing with Yining
Location: Hallo Berlin on 10th Ave between 44th and 45th (halloberlinrestaurant.com)
Edibles: alpenwürst and bratwürst, each served on a crusty roll with sauerkraut, red cabbage, grilled onions and a slathering of mustard; a stein (0.5L) of Radeberger pils

Musings: Beer and sausages on a beautiful sunny day? Heaven.

The service and décor are nothing to write home about but the food is good and the beers are relatively cheap. It doesn't have a true beer garden - there are a few tables out front and a patio area in the back (though I've never managed to get seated there). The front is a bit noisy from the traffic but, on a nice day, you can watch the sunset.

I'll definitely be going back soon for a humpen (that's their 1L-size mug) and some wiener schnitzel.

Mmmm... strawberries

Another reason to love Manhattan: Out of nowhere, I started craving strawberries. I ran out to the little fruit stand half a block away from my apartment and, two minutes later (seriously, the screensaver on my computer hadn't kicked in yet), was eating strawberries. Instant gratification - it's a wonderful thing.

Another use for chopstick dexterity: Fishing a runaway strawberry out of the garbage disposal.

Mary's Fish Camp

Occasion: Lunch with Bess
Location: Mary's Fish Camp on Charles at W 4th (marysfishcamp.com)
Edibles: salad of romaine hearts, cucumber and avocado with green goddess dressing; lobster roll (photo courtesy of Bess' iPhone); mini hot fudge sundae

Musings: Bess and I shared the salad to start. It was decent enough, but the dressing had a touch too much of one herb (I think it was tarragon?) for my taste.

The lobster roll? All I can say is, "Glorious, glorious!!" This is some top quality stuff - huge chunks of perfectly-cooked lobster, creamy dressing, on a buttery brioche bun. My only complaint is that it didn't come as a pair! A tart, icy Arnold Palmer complemented.

The mini hot fudge sundae, topped with fresh whipped cream and a shard of peanut brittle, which we also shared, was the perfect finish to a decadent lunch.

With its consistent excellence, Mary's easily holds its place as one of my top NYC restaurants.

Top Chef Masters Ep. 4

Original Air Date: July 8, 2009

1) Wouldn't it be cool to grab drinks with Mark Peel and Neil Patrick Harris?
2) Man, Besh and Rodriguez got SPANKED. The critics were pretty harsh this ep.
3) How did Anita Lo ever come up with the concept for her dish? Those are some wacky ingredients she chose to use, and combine. I would certainly be surprised if I cut into something that I thought was a scallop and it turned out to be a daikon shell filled with raw beef.
4) That Sterno-smeared coconut looked nasty. Rodriguez should have given up on the idea after he couldn't find the rum he wanted to use. Still, I'd rather eat that dish than Keller's mac-and-cheese, prepared in a college dorm bathroom. Ick.

Bar Stuzzichini

Occasion: Casual catch-up dinner with Catherine
Location: Bar Stuzzichini on B'way between 21st and 22nd (barstuzzichini.com)
Edibles: 3 small plates - meatballs; grilled eggplant with buffalo ricotta; grilled octopus

Musings: When the line at Shake Shack looked to be 1-hour plus, we detoured over to Bar Stuzzichini. I'd been a few times before and had found it solid enough for repeat patronage.

Yikes. TERRIBLE service today. We started at the bar for a drink, in hopes of scoring an outside table. When an outside table opened up, we asked the bartender (at the host dude's request) for the tab. The bartender was totally spaced out and either mentally decided to transfer our tab and forgot to tell us, or forgot about us altogether and tried to cover. Once we got that settled (tab would be transferred, we were told), we sat down at our table. No menu for ages. Luckily, we'd already decided what we wanted at the bar and flagged our waiter down to give him our order. At the end of the meal, when the bill came, they left off our drinks. Being honest citizens, we pointed this out. Bill comes back, now charging me for two pinot grigios when I'd only had one. On the third try, they finally get the bill right.

And the food? Meatballs were tasty, but one of mine was cold in the middle. Eggplant tasted okay but it consisted of one measly roll, about the size of a roll of pennies, for us to share. Octopus - all two pieces of it - was fantastic, tender and flavorful. So for 5 meatballs, 1 eggplant roll and 2 pieces of octopus tentacle, we were charged $18. On previous visits, I swear the servings were much more generous. Perhaps the recession has resulted in some cutbacks.

All told, the bad service plus the reduced serving sizes mean I'm likely not going back.

Kyotofu

Occasion: Pre-theatre (West Side Story matinee) lunch with Nellie
Location: Kyotofu on 9th Ave between 48th and 49th (kyotofu-nyc.com)
Edibles: carrot and miso soup; chicken and tofu burger


Musings: This place is probably most famous for its tofu desserts, but we thought we'd try it for lunch. I liked the soup, but for a slightly heavy hand with the miso. The burger was big and hearty, on a brioche bun with a great Asian bbq sauce. I couldn't taste the tofu at all, but it kept the burger wonderfully moist. Good value, at $13 for both courses.

(We skipped dessert and went up the block to Cold Stone Creamery for ice-cream. It was just that kind of wonderful, sunny day. My usual at Cold Stone - sweet cream ice-cream with graham cracker crust and pecans - was excellent as always.)

Inoteca

Occasion: Fourth of July dinner with Elizabeth
Location: Inoteca on 3rd Ave at 24th (inotecanyc.com)
Edibles: caponata bruschetta (and a taste of Elizabeth's fig mascarpone); tonnarelli con ragu bianco (square spaghetti with white sauce)

Musings: I was psyched when this Inoteca opened within walking distance of my apartment but I've only been there twice before today due to the difficulty in getting resos. (More than a week in advance is beyond my plan-making abilities. Inoteca's loss; Damon Frugal Friday, Artisanal and Irving Mill's gain.) Tonight, the restaurant was almost completely empty. Not surprising, since the streets of NYC were likewise empty this whole long weekend. It was nice to be able to sit down immediately and have elbow room to boot. I noticed that the menu, mostly in Italian, is now accompanied by a glossary. I've only seen this in one other restaurant, and I find it as pretentious and fussy here as when I first encountered it at Otto.

I can't get enough of caponata these days, so I was very satisfied with my little starter. I thought the fig mascarpone was good in theory but I didn't love it. As for the main, I'd had the pasta before (lunch with Bess) so I knew what was coming. The sauce was rich and tasty, as I remembered, but somewhat marred this time by some tough, woody flecks from poorly trimmed artichokes.

Overall, pretty solid. But this restaurant's main appeal continues to be its proximity to my apartment. Man, we desperately need some good restaurants in Murray Hill/Kip's Bay.

(PS. Bess, I really was atrociously, rudely late when we met for lunch that time and I apologize again!)