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Eating at Ippudo NYC
12/04/2012 by
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On Yelp, this ramen place Ippudo got a crazy number of reviews.  Since I’m in New York for a short week, I decided to check this out during lunch to avoid the lines for dinner.  I ordered the “Akamaru Modern” ramen which has pork flavored broth, their own miso paste, pork chashu, cabbage, scallions, and garlic oil.  I told them to not put sesame kikurage mushrooms because I am not a fan of non-psychadelic mushrooms.  In addition, I made this into a set combo for 3 extra dollars, so it came with a small salad and fried chicken on top of cabbage and rice.

The salad had a ponzu type vinaigrette that you typically find in most Japanese places.  There’s some citrus and wasabi flavors in it.  The rice had some cabbage on top that was doused with some type of mayo mix.  On top of that is the fried chicken which is similar to “chicken karage”.  The chicken breading was ok.  It was breaded very thin, so it definitely lacked the crisp associated with fried chicken.

The ramen noodles are very similar to Shinsengumi in Gardena.  If you have read my preferences for ramen, you would know I’m only a fan of thick noodles, so I wasn’t that thrilled with these noodles.  Other than that, the broth itself was flavorful, but definitely not as rich as some of the other places in Los Angeles.  Like most ramen places, this one has quite a bit of sodium in the broth, but luckily this place was very quick on refilling your cups with water.

All in all, I’m not sure what NYC’s ramen scene is like, but this one is mostly a glorified Shinsengumi to me.

Visit: http://www.ippudony.com

Eating at Barrio Chino NYC
07/13/2012 (rev. 08/11/2012) by
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This is a very small restaurant in the lower east side, so be prepared to share tables if necessary.  In my blog of NYC eats, I totally forgot to blog about this one.  This place is supposedly known for their spicy margaritas.  My party each ordered habanero margaritas, and they were delectable.  They were spicy with a kick, but not overbearing.  For many, habaneros are already daunting.  But once you soak the habanero into the tequila, it’s really not that bad in terms of spicy.

I ordered the pescado tacos, which is citrus rubbed tilapia served with avocado salsa and pickled onions.  It was very good, and for $10 I was easily full.  The tilapia was surprisingly moist, and I’m glad the salsa wasn’t so watery that it would break the tortillas when you picked them up.

If you are visiting Manhattan and want a good non-touristy place to grab some tacos and habanero margaritas, check out Barrio Chino.

Visit: http://www.barriochinonyc.com/

Eating at Rice To Riches NYC
06/01/2012 (rev. 08/11/2012) by
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This will be my last NY food post for a while.  For the last day to cap off the trip, we went to Rice To Riches in Nolita.  This was actually really close to our Blue Ribbon meal a few posts ago.  Rice To Riches is basically the equivalent to Baskin Robbins 31 flavors in LA.  Instead of many choices of ice cream, you have many choices for tapioca.  You also have the option of sampling any flavor that you want.  I’m not a huge tapioca person, but I was willing to give this a try.

What you see here is a duo of flavors.  From what I recall, the brown is some type of coffee flavored tapioca with coffee beans, and the white is banana walnut tapioca.  The coffee flavored tapioca was underwhelming because the coffee flavor wasn’t as prominent as I’d had hope.  There were some chunks of the coffee beans, but it was a little sparse.  The banana walnut tapioca surprisingly had stronger flavors than the coffee.  The banana flavor was very distinct, and there were some small chunks of banana.

In the end, this was a unique dessert.  I still prefer ice cream over this, but I suppose if and when I felt like shoving flavored tapioca, I wouldn’t mind coming back here again in my next New York trip.

Visit: http://ricetoriches.com

Eating at Lombardi’s Pizza NYC
05/19/2012 (rev. 08/11/2012) by
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Whew, I only have 2 more New York City food posts including this one.  Previously, you may have noticed the sliced pizza style.  Here we have the gourmet pizza.  This one is courtesy of Lombardi’s Pizza.  On one side, we have italian sausage and pepperoni, and the on the other side we have margherita.  As with all pizza, it’s all about the toppings, crust, and flavor.  The crust is pretty good for what it is.  It’s homemade and has that oven brick feeling to it.  The dough is not too thick and not too thin.  It also is a little crispy too.  The italian sausage and pepperoni are my least favorite.  Look how small those slices are.  The meat themselves were average, but I think I would’ve enjoyed that side more had the toppings been more populated.  On the other side, the margherita was delicious.  You can definitely taste the tomato sauce.  It tastes very genuine and homemade.  It’s not salty, and the acidity of the tomatoes really shine in this.  All in all, I like this side more than the other.

Lombardi’s all in all is pretty good for what it is.  For that pizza you see here, it costs about $20.  It’s a must have if you have to have New York gourmet pizza pie.  But if you are like me and prefer slice, then you might think much of this.

Visit: http://www.firstpizza.com

Eating at Rosario’s Pizza NYC
05/12/2012 (rev. 08/11/2012) by
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The one thing that New York City is suppose to be known for is the pizza! By this point, I have not been to a gourmet pizza joint in NYC yet.  On the other hand, I do love slice pizza way more than gourmet in general.  Above is a picture of a regular pepperoni slice of pizza.  This was pretty good.  I like thin greasy slice pizza with loads of grease.  It tastes exactly how it looks.  I don’t particularly think this pizza slice is that much better than places here in Los Angeles.  What I do like though is the price is cheap for what you get and how they give you a lot of pepperoni.  Most places here in Los Angeles give such few pepperoni pieces that it annoys me to get sliced pizza here.  But Rosario’s on the other hand wasn’t stingy about it such that I desired to save the pepperoni portions of the pizza for last.

Visit: Rosario’s Pizza, 173 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002

Eating at Blue Ribbon Seafood NYC
05/11/2012 (rev. 08/11/2012) by
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Here’s another post that I meant to do several months ago in my February NY trip.  We went to the Blue Ribbon Brasserie.  I’m not sure if I mentioned in other NYC evening posts, but each evening meal had a genre e.g. seafood, italian, omakase, etc.  This was our seafood choice.  This place is open from 4 PM to 4 AM and is small.  You can’t make reservations and it’s first come first serve.  Fortunately for us, we’re just a small party of 2, and we had nothing else to do that night other than to drink.  After about an hour wait and a few cocktails at the bar, we finally got a table.

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Eating at Chikalicious NYC
04/17/2012 (rev. 08/11/2012) by
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Per recommendations for dessert after dinner at Momofuku Ko, we visited Chikalicious.  All I know is this place is busy normally with lines outside the door.  My buddy and I visited it on a Thursday night, and to our surprise it wasn’t overly busy at all.  In fact we got there right at 9:30 PM.  There were 2 seats at the counter right in front of the Chef Chika.  Yes, Chika is her name.  She’s shy and quiet yet is very friendly.  I’m not a dessert person in general, so it should take something really good to wow me.

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Eating at Bacaro NYC
04/14/2012 (rev. 08/11/2012) by
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I have a ton of food porn pics that I haven’t put online yet, but I’ll get through it.  If you don’t know already, I went to New York City this past February and tried out some of the local hot spots.  This is my first time to the east coast, so I really didn’t care for any of the touristy places.  My buddy and I, per recommendation, went to Bacaro which is Italian inspired cuisine.  My plane had just landed about an hour and a half ago, and this is the first place that we went to.

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Eating at Luke’s Lobster East Village NYC
04/12/2012 (rev. 08/11/2012) by
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I had a pleasure of visiting Luke’s Lobster in East Village when I traveled to NYC from Los Angeles.  What you see here is the “Taste of Main” sample platter.  It consists of: half lobster sandwich, half shrimp sandwich, half crab sandwich, 2 crab claws, 1 bag of chips, and 1 bottle of pop. The only comparison I have for this is The Lobsta Truck here in Los Angeles.  For those that don’t know, it basically is a food truck that serves lobster sandwiches that are pretty small.

The bread used in these sandwiches tasted like it’s been buttered and slightly toasted.  All the sandwiches had sprinkles of thyme on top.  The lobster sandwich was delicious.  It was pretty sweet and pungent.  The crab meat was also very tasty and sweet.  The shrimp was probably my least favorite, but that’s simply because I’ve had shrimp sandwiches way too much to count and am usually not easily impressed by them. The crab claws were decent.  They had a lot of meat and were fairly sweet as well.  I was trying my best to dig for the meat inside the claw, but finally gave up.  Then I figured you were only suppose to much the meat that was visible.  Oh well 🙂

What I like about this particular deal was that they weren’t stingy with the meat.  They really loaded the bun with as much meat as they can, compacted such that it won’t fall out yet still touched the tip of the bread.  Total price was $22, and it was well worth it given I haven’t been to a place like this before.  I’m sure if you visit Boston or somewhere else that specializes very much in seafood on the east coast, it would give this a run for the money.  However compared to LA, this exceeded beyond my expectations.

Visit: http://www.lukeslobster.com/east-village/

Eating at Doughnut Plant NYC
03/10/2012 (rev. 08/11/2012) by
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