Famous Ben’s Pizza

177 Spring Street, New York, NY 10012

What’s a trip to New York without a proper pizzeria visit? For this visit we picked something close to where we were staying, SoHo. First off, I think I wanted to try Ray’s Famous Pizza, but then got it mixed up with Famous Ben’s Pizza…

Anyhow, you can see the pizzeria by the big Italian chef statue it has situated near the front entrance. For a regular lunch hour, it had a good amount of people coming in and out. They even sell Italian icees on the side window.

Once you go inside, there is a big counter on the left with a variety of pre-made pizzas and pastas and bread all for your taking. In the back of the store, there is a window that leads to the kitchen. You can see the cooks measure pizza dough and make-toss the pizza.

I decided to stick to what I came here for, of course, the pizza. I ordered 2 slices of the sausage and mushroom pizza. The combination of this pizza is not on the typical rotation so it took some extra time to make. Upon first inspection, I noticed that the thinness of the slice of pizza is up to New York standard… actually I can’t think of a pizzeria in Houston that makes pizza this thin yet have it still taste like pizza and not one of those hard thin crust pizzas. The dough was soft but firm and the cheese was at a good degree of melty-ness. The sausages were Italian sausage, served by the slices. The mushrooms however, looked like canned mushroom… not really the fresh kind. The pizza sauce was slathered at a good level not to much to take away the flavors of the toppings but just right to balance them all out. To add to the mushroom hating, I think that this pizza is really a pre-made cheese pizza, throw on some sausage, mushroom, sauce, and extra cheese, pop it in the oven and behold! New Pizza from semi-scratch.

Overall, it was good, but it was pretty pricey for pizza of this caliber… not just because its New York, because there are a lot of $1 pizza places in NY.

Also, I was wishing for something even more greasy…

The Durian Project

So… side tracking for a bit today.

A while back, some friends and I were casually discussion different types of tropical fruit… and the durian fruit came up. After a round of curious chit chat, I decided that we should just make an experiment out of it. I, personally, have not bought and served durian before. I remember seeing it for sale in the frozen section of the local Asian grocer, so we then proceeded to make purchase of this mysterious fruit.

The durian fruit is native to South Asian, shaped like a acorn/pine cone cross while growing on trees. It can weigh between 2 to 7 lbs and as big as the size of one’s head. The outside is hard and spikey and the inside is soft and mushy. The durian is most commonly banned from public tight compartments like trains and elevators due to a very strong odor emitted by its flesh.

Over with the brief intro, let’s begin tracing my steps on handling this fruit. It is quite a task to even break it open!

Chapter 1:

How to open the durian.

1) Take hold of spikey fruit with both hands

2) Locate hard concrete floor

3) Lift up and smash down, HARD

How to open the durian.
1) Take hold of spikey fruit with both hands
2) Locate hard concrete floor
3) Lift up and smash down, HARD

6) Grab hold of the split and proceed with caution
7) Wear hand protection if available
Pull the shell apart to expose the flesh sections

9) Keep peeling until all of the shell is off
TIP: The shell actually grows in a pattern, so as long as you find the seams, you can get an easy tear between them.

Now for the taste test… Hmmm… I’ve never had it before in it’s original form and all I’m going to say is that I’ll never have it again. It is definitely one of those acquired tastes… one that I never got. The flesh is slimy and wraps around a big pit, much like the avocado. There is a tough fibrous skin surrounding the outside of the flesh, which resembled latex to me. The taste is a cross between leek dumplings and a dash of sugar. I mean, it is sweet, but carries a WHOA aftertaste. I have friends who love this stuff, but granted, they have been eating it since they were young. I am not trying to diss the durian, but its not definitely not a introductory course to South Asian cuisine.

If the description was hard to understand, let me just say that it tastes just like it smells.

Salo-Salo Grill & Restaurant

3650 South Jones Boulevard, 89103

I will not let a year go wasted! So here I am, updating, close to the one year hiatus mark. I guess ‘real’ life took over… so sorry to my readers. I’m going to start to pull some of the older photos I stored up and update accordingly as best I can, so here I go, go, go!

On one of my homage trips to Las Vegas, I met up a local friend to see what other stuff Vegas has to offer so I mentioned to her that I have never had Filipino food. Since she was Filipina, it was only fitting that she suggested we go.

Salo-Salo is located in a small shopping strip in the middle of nowhere. To begin the festivities, I persuaded her to order sinigang, blabbing about how I’ve heard just so much about it from my other friends, I really wanted to give it a try.

It resembles a clear soup, almost chicken-brothy. The vegetables on top are my favorite ‘chinese water spinach’ and just next to it you can see big chunks of pork ($8.99).

I wasn’t kidding on the ‘big chunks of pork’ part. The way Chinese people eat this section of pork is in a red stew, with the flavor of the stew covering up the slightly gamey taste of such a section of meat. Sinigang was nothing close to what I thought it would taste like… the soup was sour, very very sour… and I wanted to say that I was waiting for something to jump out at me, but it never did. You can compare sinigang to Thai tom yum, except that tom yum kicks you with spicey tang. I think I need to try this soup again to give it second opinion.

Next, we have chicken adobo. I think it is right to say that every one makes adobo slightly different and that their mother’s adobo is always the best. Adobo is a concoction of soy sauce and vinegar (you see a theme here?). This was one of the more soupy adobos I’ve had… I’ve had adobo that was so thick and oily it makes youre heart skip a beat. This one, was very manageable, and the chicken quite tender ($8.45).

Beefsteak tagalog. I think its funny how they refer it to ‘beefsteak’, because your typical American would just assume that steak = beef ($8.95). Honestly, I don’t remember too much about this dish…

I ate at Salo-Salo more than a year ago and I am trying to pick my senses on what I remembered about each dish. Overall, I think it was a good start to try out Filipino food… but sadly to say, I have not gone to any other Filipino restaurants afterwards to give it a good comparision. I have, however, been to Filipino house parties and the food is always greasier there… not to mention surprise appearances by the whole lechon on a table!

Cho Sun OK Korean Restaurant

Cho Sun OK Korean Restaurant
4200 N. Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL 60618

Located on the corner of Lincoln and Berteau.

Mandoo- Comes with special Korean soy sauce mixture. Mandoo are pan fried pork dumplings with a savory vegetable mixture while the special Korean sauce has some of the same great vegetables and also vinegar and sesame seeds to give it that authentic Korean zest.

Mul Naegn Myeon- Buckweat Noodles in Cold Beef Broth. Usually also has shredded cucumbers and a hard-boiled egg.

Kimchi Chigae-  One of Samantha’s timeless favorites.  Best when served in the harsh cold of Korean winter, but Chicago summers are fine too.  This has kimchi, beef, tofu, green onion, and a lot of spices in the broth.  It is served boiling in its cauldron to maintain the perfect mixture upon arrival.

Side dishes typical of Korean cuisine.

Overall, this place is a favorite of ours.  The restaurant itself is nicely set-up, small, but welcoming.  The waitresses could be your Aunties (if you were Korean).  There’s no friendly small talk, but the service is quick and simple.

Cho Sun Ok is BYOB.

Prices per entre vary between $6.95- $13.95.

Major credit cards accepted.

Peking Cuisine

8332 Southwest Freeway, 77074.

So… it was Mother’s Day and I made a reservation at Peking Cuisine for lunch.  No, you don’t really need a reservation to eat there, any day, but you do need a reservation for Peking duck.  I’ll get to the duck later, there was a good crowd already feasting inside that day… so that’s a good sign.

The menu items here are authentic items, many of which might scare your average American.  The first appetizer dish is of sichuan origin and called ‘Couple’s Slice of Lung’ or fuqi feipian.  I didn’t know until today that it consists of beef tongue!  I knew that it had beef stomach and I am okay with eating that… but tongue?  Well, it was good… so I can’t say much about tongue.  The texture is slightly softer than regular beef and I think it had some tendons in there somewhere.  Even with the discovery, I think I will continue to eat tongue… but it wasn’t as spicy as it looks.

The legendary pig ears!  Now, this restaurant did it a lot differently… usually its just an orange pile of mess, but this restaurant arranged the ears nicely, compacted it all together quite beautifully.  At first, I was skeptical, because I don’t usually eat pig ears like this (I’m used to this).  But this new way of eating it is even better!  You can really get a feel for the gelatin complexity in between the crunch.  It might sound a little unorthodox, but such is food, and you just can’t knock it until you try it.

This is a particular type of cold noodle dish, very refreshing on a hot summer’s day.  The noodles are very thick and reminds me of jello, but al dente.  It has a pull to it when you chew.  The sauce is a soy sauce garlic, very heavy on the garlic.  Good dish overall, but I think I’ve had better elsewhere.

Stir fry bean sprout leaves, its just that simple.  I love simple, clean Chinese stir fried vegetables, Chinese people tend to eat a lot of leafy greens and that was what I had growing up.

This dish was just wrong.  It came out brown when I was expecting clear sauce.  It was sweet when I didn’t expect it.  The rice cracker was the only thing good in this dish… oh and straw mushrooms!  It was suppose to be shrimp over sizzling rice, where the rice starts to sizzle when the hot shrimp mixture gets poured over it.

This dish was ordered wrong in some sense too.  We thought we ordered crispy pork intestines but instead got stir fried pork large intestine with green peppers.  Sadness was me, until I tasted it.  I have some strange acquired taste for intestine… and I loved this newly discovered dish!  I usually eat intestines fried, or if its not fried, then spicy… this was none of the mentioned, but still dang good!

This is one of the few restaurants in Houston that does Peking duck, it is eaten 2 ways or a 2 course duck meal.  The first to come is the roast duck neatly sliced.  One duck fed 7 people, that’s because we ordered a whole bunch of other stuff too.  How to eat Peking duck?  Take a piece of meat and a piece of crispy skin and place over tortilla.  The Chinese tortilla is a lot thinner than your Mexican tortilla, but not as thin as Vietnamese rice paper.  Put sweet duck or really hoisin sauce over the duck meat and skin.  Garnish with green onion strips, wrap, and eat!  The duck was alright, it was good, but didn’t put me in a food daze.  Something satisfying if you are craving Peking duck.

The second course is the duck soup.  Duck bones are cooked for hours to make soup.  I love duck soup.  It has a nice rich flavor to it.  Inside this soup, they added cabbage, clear vermicelli, and tofu.  It compliments the heavy, greased roast duck because of it’s light, crisp taste.  Something soothing after the duck.

So… overall, I was a teeny weeny bit disappointed.  I was hoping for a wow factor that I just didn’t get.  I remembered the food being better, but that was a long time ago and I might have upgraded my tastes since then.  The best dish of the night was the pig ears, followed by the pork intestines.  The service was horrible, and we waited at least 45 minutes.  Those I kind of just disregard in a traditional Chinese restaurant… because if I factored those in, you would lose the experience of tasting some really authentic dishes!

Genki Sushi Hawaii

45-480 Kaneohe Bay Drive
Kaneohe, Hawaii 96744
808-247-9595

Several locations on Oahu; Also located on Maui and Kauai.

A good Revolving fresh sushi place. Check out the site: genkisushiusa.com

The menu offers several different types of sushi, sashimi, fried items, and other small Japanese orders served on color-coded plates to distinguish price:

You can wait for the pieces to come around, or order it right away! Although it’s mostly self-serve, the service is also great.

Unlimited ginger right in front of you!! The wasabi goes around the conveyor belt with the sushi, and it’s also unlimited.

Conveyor belt action. Just pick it up and eat! Impulse-item sushi.

Nigiri. So fresh and tasty for simple fried tofu. Just the right amount of sweetness and the sushi rice was fresh, too. Tidbit about the rice from genkisushiusa.com: Known as the sushi robot, [a] machine can produce 1,000 rice balls (Gunkan) in one hour. Today, the latest model can produce double the quantity within the same period. Traditionally, these rice balls were made by hand and were time consuming. With the introduction of the sushi robots in 1980, Saito’s little army of mechanical arms once again set the way to bring sushi within the reach of everyone. $1.40 2/pc

Nigiri Ikageso: So fresh; So good. The squid legs were just the right texture. Only $1.40 2/pc

Set your own Natto roll. Natto, fermented soybeans, usually has quite a bitter after-taste, but this roll was really good. Practically not bitter at all, but we could still distinguish the distinct natto taste.

Vegetable croquette: This was very, very good, fresh, and warm. It was similar to a hash brown, but so much better. Potato, Corn, Carrots, Peas, Panko, Egg fried with light, flaky Japanese batter.

Once done with each color-coded plate, we simply stack them up and put them to the side where the server counts them up later.

Unfortunately, Genki’s only USA locations are in Hawaii for now. If you are in Hawaii, I definitely recommend stopping by when you are looking for good, cheap eats. It’s something different.

Miniature Food Erasers

This is my 2 year anniversary post for Foodnatic! Hooray! I hope you enjoy the lovely spread I have collected throughout the years… as well as my passion for all things related to food.

Has it been 2 years already?? Actually, it was 2 in January but of course you know my procrastination habits… regardless, I still wanted to give you readers something a little different and special! I have here my collection of miniature food erasers I gathered throughout the years, specifically by manufacturer, Iwako. More pictures less talk right? As always…

This is the mega spread, I do have duplicates, but I decided to keep those in the box for picture purposes… I know this picture will be updated in the future.

This is how a typical package looks like, a collection of about 6-8 erasers. They also come in singles and groups of 3-6. For this particular set theme, it was Chinese dim sum. The detail is so intricate that is what makes it so amazing to look at and collect.

And here I have them spread out for the photo shoot.

Here we have the noodle soup from the picture above taken apart to show each separate piece. The best part of these erasers is that a different color is a different piece! Great to take apart and put together again and again.

Japanese meal collection complete with tempura bento and burner.

Japanese sushi collection with maguro, ika, shrimp, tamago, uni, and roe.

For those with a penchant for sweets.

Instant ramen in detail.

The American super value meal.

American junk food? Delicious!

Canned fizzy drinks.

Cute bottled drinks.

The fruit tray.

The veggie tray.

Size comparison of the honey dew melon to a quarter.

Again, just look at the details!

So, I hope you enjoyed looking over my eraser collection. I absolutely love them to pieces!  And the best part is, zero fat and lots of fiber!

Sorbetto’s

14008 Memorial Drive, 77079.

So it’s Sunday and you feel like being one of the cool people… perhaps an itch for hanging out at the local yuppie coffee shop, then you realize that you hate the scene there.  Too much people, too much traffic, too much of the same Monday thru Friday routine.  Well, Sorbetto’s will offer you a change of environment.  It’s located away from the Galleria crowd.

This was the perfect place to go to on my Sunday to hangout.  The crowd was close to nil and they also offer free wi-fi!  It was quiet and they also have a gelato bar if you get a sweet tooth itch.  I didn’t try the gelato that day, but the selection did look mighty scrumptious.  Instead, I had my generic Italian soda, almond flavored please.  After the drink, I skipped my booty over to Terry Hershey Park for some casual running.  What a productive Sunday!

The interior was nicely decorated to remain modern yet still have that little Italy flair.  I liked it very much so, next time I’ll make it a point to try the gelato.

We’re doing the cooking!

The smell of grease and an open fire was upon me as I lazily sauntered into the kitchen a few afternoons ago. My mom, an avid cook, your typical 5 foot, half an inch Asian lady, was at it again. She really doesn’t know how to relax after years of working non-stop. So, after cleaning the house from top to bottom and tending to her wild herb garden, she decides that it’s time to make her own eggrolls. We usually get this treat after she sees that we’ve eaten healthy for an extended amount of time.

I had the dangerous task of lighting the backyard gas burner which my dad insisted on setting up after incessantly complaining that our regular kitchen range flame was too weak. He is a cook in a Chinese restaraunt so he knows his heat. After about 30 seconds, the entire bottle of vegetable oil I poured into the wok was nice and watery, which is the indication that it’s prime time for some frying!

Here is my mom carefully placing the eggrolls into the piping hot vat of oil. It’s a delicate process.

Here she is manuevering the eggrolls in place for the first fry phase (the second phase is to help keep the crispyness of the outer shell after the eggrolls cool off (I didn’t know that either!).

The finished product: Lean ground pork, thinly sliced carrot strips, fried egg strips, stir fried cabbage (extra pepper), wrapped up in a mouthwatering crispy shell. “Sweet and Sour” glaze drizzled on top (tomato paste, vinegar, sugar, water, cornstarch, bring to a boil) with green onion shavings.

Damn straight!!! I’m a bit biased, but it was obviously delicious. You risk burning your lips on the fresh off the fryer shell to get to the “ham”, which is warm and inviting. The texture was grainy because of the pork but not dry, thanks to the juices from the cabbage and carrots. I ate eight of those rolls of heaven for dinner. And another five the next day. That’s why mom only allows for this every other month. =)

Versailles Cuban Restaurant

3555 SW Eighth St., 33135.

Standing proud on Eighth Street in Miami, is this grand sign informing visitors of this Cuban delight, Versailles Restaurant.  It is actually quite a big establishment, the shear size of the restaurant is note worthy but it also has a to-go coffee house and full bakery next door.  You can literally eat lunch, grab a coffee and get dessert at the bakery… which is exactly what we did.  Although you can tell that they want to attract tourists to the restaurant, I have to say that once inside, you will see a lot of Miami natives chowing down as well.  The decor can be compared to IHOP, nothing too fancy, but lots of mirrors and glass.

Once we sat down, the food came to us.  They brought out some of their signature garlic bread to start.  The bread was really tasty and very very oily… can you tell?  The brave one out of us actually dipped the bread back into the oil to make sure she got all the greasy goodness.

Oh come on, we’re on vacation, let’s get an appetizer… that was my theory.  I was really looking forward to eating Cuban cuisine so of course I wanted to try as many things as possible.  So then, I took the liberty of ordering the ‘fried combination for 2′, $6.95.  It comes with 4 croquettes (cheese/ham), 4 turnovers (empanada-like), fried yuca, mariquitas and mojo.  Croquettes are good of course, fried potatoes always hits the spot.  The turnovers I didn’t care for, the fried yuca yum yum, and mariquitas?  I am just going to assume that they are calling plantain chips that.  OH my gosh, I have a thing for plantain chips, I think it is my #1 snack food of all time.  I eat and eat and eat it till my mouth is all blistered from the sodium and fried goodness.  And mojo!  Isn’t that just the funniest word to use for sauce?  I’m thinking this is some kind of cilantro cream sauce.  I can just imagine servers saying “would you like some mojo on that?”, lol!

All that fried stuff and you get thirsty, quench it with a tall glass of Cuban mojito!  The mojito even came with a strip of sugar cane for decoration.  I didn’t really drink too much of this, I was more focused on the food aspect of this restaurant.  From what I did gather, it was more carbonated than the mojitos I’m use to, but still very good.  If I only was a mixed drink girl…

For the main squeeze, I ordered the very traditional ‘ropa vieja’, $10.50.  It is essentially shredded beef in a tomato creole sauce with fried plantain and white rice.  It tastes like beef stew… can I say that my mom makes good beef stew too?  It was satisfying but I don’t think it is anything special.  I would order it again just to have the dish, but I don’t think I would crave it too much.  Oh and once again, my mom makes good beef stew!

Oh, this was delicious.  Breaded beef steak Milanese, $11.95, breaded beef steak topped with tomato sauce and gratin of mozzarella and parmesan served with fried plantain and morose rice.  It was really cheesy and reminded me of a chicken fried steak cheese melt.  Who would want to eat chicken fried steak with white gravy after you can melt slabs of cheese on it?  Next time, I’m going to request that, hold the gravy and melt some cheese.  Morose rice is just a simple mixture of rice and red beans, fyi.

Roasted pork Cuban style, $9.95, marinated and slow oven roasted with morose rice and fried plantain (not shown).  Cubans do love their pork, there was a whole section on the menu devoted to pork.  The pieces I got to try was tender and fatty, a very good combination for rice.  The pork was roasted flavorful-ly but I think the skin was really hard, discarded not eaten.

Broiled fresh salmon, $11.95, topped with lime cilantro butter, and served with yellow rice and fried plantain.  Where is the butter?  Well, someone was trying to be health conscious on an A) vacation and B) Cuban restaurant… needless to say, the old grandma that took our food order did not quite understand the idea of butter on the side.  Worrying about your figure on a vacation is like being a vegetarian on a pig farm… they don’t go together.  But anyway, I bet the salmon tastes fine on it’s own itty bitty self regardless, because they probably used ample butter to grill it.

And then there was chocolate.  For dessert we walked on over to the bakery next door to select some goodies to take to the beach.  I wanted chocolate, bad.  So what I got was a three layer piece of chocolate cake on the right and chocolate mousse on the left.  Now, take that piece of cake on the right and chunk it out the window.  The focus was all over the mousse!  It was oh so creamy and chocolate-y heavenly-ness… so much so that I wish I bought 5 more.  But it being so rich, one person could probably only stomach at most one in one sitting.  I was nice and shared it with the other girls, and they agreed with me that it was just that good.  I think each item was under $3.

Well, Miami knows Cuban.  If you ever travel to Miami, don’t miss out on this authentic restaurant.  The food is great but the service lacked a bit.  Perhaps it’s so authentic that they don’t practice restaurant etiquette.  Our old grandma hostess/server/order taker brought out the bill to us and watched us study it for some time.  Then I guess she got worried and felt the need to mention to us ‘no tip yet’, meaning the gratuity was not charged on the bill.  Grandma, I know… I’ve been to plenty of restaurants in my days, and I know what a tip would look like on a bill.  She was afraid that we were just going to pay and not tip… no way… not us!

Cuban food is not know to be healthy and the closest thing they serve that comes to vegetables would be the fried yuca, onion topping, and mint in your mojitos.  They also like fry a LOT.  Definitely not an everyday cuisine for me, but I got to say, frying does make everything taste that much better.