Korean culture is making a splash in North America.  Not only does PSY’s song Gangnam Style flood our radio airwaves, but Korean food is starting to establish itself in our neighbourhoods.

This winter I had the privilege of hosting the most delightful young lady from Korea.  Yujin was as excited to introduce me to Korean food, a I was excited to learn.

We started simply, as she made me authentic Ramen Noodles that she brought with her from Korea. Unlike the over salted, chemical tasting version, we all ate too many of in college, these were hearty noodles in a delicious spicy broth into which an egg is dropped at the end of cooking to add a scrambled texture and further enhance the yumminess.

One night I decided that we should try the Korean restaurant that is on my block of Corydon while I had access to an expert to advise me on menu choices.  Platea at 590 Corydon is a quaint little place in a house much like my own.  Maybe that is what made me fall in love with it the minute we walked through the doors.  I also loved the touches of beautiful pottery that adorned the table and was used to serve our tea and food.  Owner Sun Me, was very attentive and so pleased to meet such a lovely fellow country woman.

We started our dinner with an eggy pancake called Chun.  It was filled with spring onion and shrimp and served with a great sauce for dipping.

Next we ordered our mains: Osam Bulgoki – a combination of pork and squid with a sweet and spicy sauce served with fluffy white rice and Dol Sot Bibimbap – served in a very hot stone bowl, it was a combination of rice, beef and vegetables cooked in gochuchang paste, topped with a raw egg.  As you stir the ingredients together, the heat from the bowl finishes the cooking process and the egg makes the rice a bit crispy the longer it cooks.

A few nights later, Yujin would get brave and try her hand at making Chun and Bibimbap at home.  After a quick visit to the Korean market, she was ready to get busy in the kitchen to tackle two dishes she had never actually cooked before. Yujin put kimchi (fermented cabbage) and green onion into her chun and I was amazed that she was able to replicate the texture of the pancake by guessing the amount of egg and flour.  For her Bibimab, she cooked numerous items, one at a time including: pork in soya sauce, carrot, onion, kimchi, mushrooms and eggs.  Placing each item in a section over her large bowl of rice, she added a good sized portion of chopped nori type seaweed and topped it all with a mixture of gochuchang paste and honey and at tableside mixed it all together to serve.  The results were shocking, especially to Yujin – absolute perfection!

Kath’s quote: “One of the delights of life is eating with friends, second to that is talking about eating.  And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.”-Laurie Colwin

Love-that is all.

I live in the part of Winnipeg known as Little Italy but these days you’ll find more sushi shops than Mom and Pop Pizzerias.  But in cities like New York and Chicago there are Italian restaurants everywhere not just in their vibrant Italian neighbourhoods. We ate a lot of Italian on our recent trip to New York, even having two Italian meals in Chicago on our stopover on the way.

We had time for a quick lunch at the food court at O’Hare on our way through Chicago and I was lucky to find Reggio’s Pizza.  They serve traditional Chicago deep dish pizza with what they call their “butter crust” and I must say it was buttery.  I was happy that D was willing to share this with me because even though it was a personal pizza size, it’s depth meant it was full of rich tomato sauce, Italian sausage, mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

Our first night in New York brought the storm serge from a tropical storm. (Thankfully we were not there when Hurricane Sandy hit as this rain was fierce enough for me).  As a result, we chose not to wander too far from home and ended up at a cute little restaurant at the corner of our street called Finestra on the corner of E 73^rd and York. Its a real neighbourhood place with an extensive menu.  The service was good and the food was just what we were looking for on this damp, late fall day.

D had the capresse salad and bruschetta al Pomodori, while B and I were more indulgent with

Spaghetti Carbonara and

Penne Alla Vodka.

One evening we wandered to the Time Square area to enjoy dinner at Carmine’s for family-style Italian.  This restaurant is huge and there was a line up out the door.  Thankfully D had made a reservation weeks before.  If you plan to dine at Carmine’s be sure to bring your appetite.  All the dishes are served family style, so regardless if there are ten in your party or 3, as in our case, you still get the same gigantic platter of what ever dish you select.  Your entrée is served with a big basket of assorted bread and rolls as well as an equally huge platter of salad.  We had left over of both salad and pasta and could have feed ourselves an entire meal the next day had we not been leaving for the airport first thing in the morning.  The menu is simple – you choose a pasta, a sauce and a meat if you would like.  A tough thing to do if there are a number of you with different tastes all planning to share.

We were having a hard time making a selection when our server told us about that night’s feature; Farfalle with mushrooms, chicken, asparagus, roasted red peppers and black olives in olive oil and broth. It was delicious and the perfect choice for us.

On our way back from New York we had a bit longer to spend in O’Hare and decide to sit down for a meal at Tuscany Restaurant. The dishes featured fresh herbs and you could taste the quality of the ingredients.  We enjoyed the caprese salad, margherita pizza and fetucinni alfredo with chicken.

Comfort food for weary travelers.

Kath’s quote: “Food, like a loving touch or a glimpse of divine power, has that ability to comfort.” –Norman Kolpas

Love-that is all.

When planning this recent trip to New York, I not only thought about what shows to see, what museums to visit, what tours to take, what stores to shop, but what restaurants to visit.  I was so happy when I was able to knock off two on my wish list in the same afternoon.

We took a tour of Rockefeller Centre including at trip to the Top of the Rock-seventy stories in the air with a 360° view of Manhattan.

We were at standing in front of the NBC Today show set when I looked behind me and noticed Bouchon Bakery. I had planned to go to the one at Columbus Circle and had no idea that this location existed. I don’t think it was there a few years ago when my sisters and I were at NBC at the crack of dawn to see a taping of the Today show.  It was the perfect location to stop for lunch at the end of our tour. Bouchon is the invention of Chef Thomas Keller. Over the years I have discovered a few of his desert recipes that have become my all time favourites including his lemon tart and molten chocolate tart.  You can find them both easily via Google.  It is my dream to one day dine at his famous restaurant “The French Laundry” in California’s Napa Valley.

D and I ordered the grilled cheese sandwich, melted fontina and Gruyere cheeses on buttery bread served with San Marzano tomato soup.

B had the French ham and Emmenthaler cheese sandwich on baguette with the house salad.  Simple food but made with the very finest ingredients.

Another icon NYC bakery that I was lucky enough to come upon that day was Magnolia Bakery.  Again I had planned to visit their other location on Bleeker Street so was surprised to come across this location. This bakery became famous for its cupcakes when featured on Sex and the City.

I stopped in to scope out the place, thinking I would come away with one of their famous cupcakes but instead I was drawn to the tiny red velvet cheese cake. There are no seats in this bakery so you need to take everything to go.  My cheesecake and I then proceeded to walk to Macy’s for a “one day sale”, take the subway back uptown to the Upper East-side and walk the 10 blocks back to our apartment.  I then shared it with B in celebration of our birthdays.

It was a bit bumped around, but lovely none the less.

Kath’s quote:  “Food should be fun.” –Thomas Keller

Love-that is all.

I can honestly say that I didn’t have a bad meal the whole time we were in New York.  Here are a couple of highlights of new discoveries made this time around.

Matt’s Grill W55th Street at 8^th Avenue

After an early morning to participant in the live audience of the Anderson Cooper show, we were three hungry travelers looking for some sustenance.  We found it just a short jaunt away at Matt’s.  What you would expect from a neighbourhood place, the bar takes up a good chunk of the room and locals greet the waitresses like old friends as they pull up a bar stool for a quick lunch.  We all selected sandwiches and fries.

D had the egg salad which was topped with ham and a slice of cheddar, I had the chicken wrap with bacon, avocado and tomato and

B had the grilled Portobello mushroom topped with fresh mozzarella, tomato and roasted onions.

Now a days there are so many Food Network shows about food trucks, and so many of them happen to be in Manhattan, I knew I had to visit at least one of these roadside vendors on this visit.  B and I took a day to ourselves to shop and found ourselves in Union Square Park at lunch time.

There were plenty of trucks to choose from but we decided on Patty’s Tacos for our lunch.

We skipped the famous cow’s tongue tostados and ordered corn tamales stuffed with chicken mole

and the cheese sincronizada (much like a quesadilla but made with two flour tortilla like a grilled sandwich.  This was served with a refreshing tossed salad.  We found a park bench to enjoy our food and watch the passers by.

On the night that we were headed to the East Village to see Stomp we decided to go to the Ukranian East Village Restaurant for dinner, as it was located next door to the Orpheum Theatre. It was nice to have something a little different, which at the same time reminded me of home.

I enjoyed the wiener schnitzel that was crisp and tasty, topped with a fried egg and served with mashed potatoes and vegetables,

B tried the varenyky (AKA perogies) and D enjoyed the beef brisket with potato pancakes.  Our entrees came with salad and delicious bread so there was way too much food all around.  But what else would you expect from a Ukrainian kitchen.

The last little gem we discovered was Uskudar Turkish restaurant at E 73^rd and 2^nd.  Unfortunately we were all so tired that night that we cancelled our reservation and I instead ran down to the restaurant and ordered our dinners to go.  When the food arrived I was so hungry that I forgot to take out the camera and snap my photos.  As a result I can’t even remember what exactly we had.  I know there was a Sheppard’s salad, humus, lamb kabob, cheese pie, but the details are blurry.  One thing for sure, it was yummy and one of my favorite meals of the trip. That may have something to do with my affinity for Turkish food. I guess I just have to go back and do a better job of keeping track of this meal next time.

Kath’s quote: “We are a family who start discussing our next meal before the one in front of us is fully consumed.” -Sister #3

Love-that is all.

There was a little pizza joint that I would notice on the way to visit my Mom in EK.  She reported that the pizza from there was wonderful and I always intended to give it a try.  But unfortunately, by the time I was ready, it had closed its doors.  My big brother reported that they had re-opened on Academy Road.  In the mean time, I had spied a place that boasted freshly made pasta as well as pizza on one of my many neighbourhood walks with our big old dog.  Could the place I spotted, be one and the same?  Sure enough, big brother confirmed that it was.

This is one of our fellow Jets’ fans.  I tried 4 times to get the top of his head in my picture but as soon as I would position him for the photo, he would start walking towards me, so that he could see the results on my camera. 

With the NHL schedule having started up again, I am often looking for a quick supper idea to eat while watching the game, especially if it is scheduled to begin at 6 pm as many often are.  So I placed an order to pick up and headed out the door a half hour later to explore Pizza 21^st Century on Academy and Centennial Ave. I came home with two steaming hot pies but my husband was detained at the office so I let my daughter dig in and quizzed her on what she thought.

She tried a piece of both the Meatlover Madness and the Mediterranean and her personal favourite was the latter.  She appreciated that the crust was nice and crispy (I learned that there is no oil used in the making) and that the sauce had an intense tomato flavour but was light enough that it did not over-power the distinctive toppings.  In her mind the best pizzas are constructed with the toppings on top of the cheese layer with just another sprinkling of cheese over all.  She thought that Pizza 21^st Century really understood this concept and loved the topping to cheese ratio.  She added that there was every kind of meat represented in each and every bite of the Meatlovers.

There are no tables to eat your supper in the restaurant but there is plenty of parking in the back and so you can zip in and out in no time.

I was pleased to meet Vlado and his wife Duubravka, who proudly indicate that they are from Croatia.  When you look at a map of the Mediterranean, it is no wonder that Vlado knows his stuff as his former country is one of Italy’s closest neighbours (geographically speaking at least).  I came home with a variety of his fresh pastas that I am going to cook up this evening.  Next time we will order one of the Premium Pizzas-either the Supreme with fresh arugula or the Margarita featuring fresh mozzarella di buffalo cheese.  Hmmm, when do the Jets next play an early start game?

Kath’s quote: “If it weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we’d still be eating frozen radio dinners.”-Johnny Carson

Love-that is all.