Category Archives: Food

Unexpected finds: deals at Eataly!

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For our extended family gathering on Saturday at Chris’s mom’s cousin’s place, I originally had planned to make a mango tiramisu to bring over. Unfortunately, the two places walking distance from us were no longer selling ladyfingers, so I had to go with a Plan B option pretty quickly based on my pantry. And because my pantry is pretty well stocked, I had a lot of potential options. But I stuck with my mango theme and ended up making mango lassi butter mochi cake from one of my favorite food bloggers Milk and Cardamom, and it was a huge hit. Since I had to open a large can of kesar mango pulp, I had a lot of pulp leftover. I had already purchased the heavy whipping cream and mascarpone to make the tiramisu, and I didn’t really have the headspace to figure out how to repurpose them. So I decided that for Chris’s dad’s birthday coming up this Thursday that I would make my original dessert of mango tiramisu repurposed as his birthday cake. But that meant I had to find those damn ladyfingers.

Chris insisted I was overthinking it and told me just to buy them on Amazon. So I went on Amazon, found a decent brand from Italy, and purchased two 7 oz. packs of imported ladyfingers for… almost $20. Yes, I thought it was expensive, but I chocked it up to inflation. Chris saw the email receipt from Amazon and balked at the price, asking me why they were so expensive. I told him my rationale, and of course, he didn’t think it was enough. So he started doing searches on ladyfingers and somehow found out that Eataly right here in New York sold a 14 oz. pack of Italian ladyfingers for $7.99, so less than half of what I would have paid on Amazon. He cancelled my Amazon order, and yesterday, I went to Eataly Flatiron to check out the ladyfinger stocks.

I think the last time I stepped foot into an Eataly was pre-pandemic, so over six years ago. I have zero reason to go to Eataly because I usually get my Italian groceries from Little Italy in the Bronx, or at other Italian grocery/specialty stores. Eataly has always just been too packed and touristy for me to enjoy. I always hated going in there and feeling like a sardine; walking in there was never a comfortable experience. But walking in there today (at an off hour, obviously), I was pleasantly surprised. There were a few interesting sample stations set up to entice visitors to either order interesting new drinks or treats. There were also a good number of sales when it came to grocery items, whether it was cocoa-hazelnut spreads, Italian olive oils, pistachio cream spreads, and multiple types of Italian cookies. Then, I found the Eataly brand of ladyfingers, a 14-oz. bag, for even less than what Chris saw online — it was $6.49! So I ended up spending less than a third of what I would have spent if I had bought a similar product on Amazon. Who would have guessed that the cheapest ladyfingers I could find would be at Eataly of all places! I just assumed they would be more expensive there, but I was obviously very wrong. In addition, I picked up a jar of wild strawberry jam from an Italian brand that I hadn’t seen in years — also on sale!

Now that I had this positive experience at Eataly and saw so many interesting items on sale at pretty reasonable prices, I realize that I have more of a reason to occasionally pop in there to browse, especially since there is an Eataly in SoHo, not too far away from Kaia’s current school. So, maybe I will be more intentional about stopping in there when I am in the mood to browse Italian groceries. It’s always fun to find good deals on tasty things!

The Japanese experience of having different matcha ice cream levels right here in New York City

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I’m still sticking with my goal of trying at least one new business in Manhattan Chinatown (or the surrounds) while Kaia is in school down here. This week, I tried another new matcha place called Aoko Matcha. They started in the West Village, then opened two other locations in Bayside, Queens, and in Manhattan Chinatown. While it has different matcha drinks and desserts, what it’s unique in doing is offering five different matcha levels for matcha intensity in its matcha ice creams. Matcha cafes are opening up left and right in New York City; I don’t think you can get by in any neighborhood here without either seeing a matcha-specialized cafe, or at minimum, seeing a matcha or two (probably a crappy, low quality kind) on a drink menu. But the levels of matcha intensity are definitely a differentiator. I have only ever seen this in Japan, and most notably in Kyoto almost 11 years ago now. I remember trying the very high intensity level and shaking at exactly how bitter it was! I guess at this point, the matcha ice cream would cease to truly just be an indulgent dessert, and could even be seen as a health food…?!

So I’ll be honest and say that after lunch, I didn’t feel up to having an ice cream all by myself, so I didn’t end up sampling any different matcha levels for ice cream. But I did get the matcha coconut cloud drink, which was matcha cream, coconut water, fresh coconut fruit shavings, and coconut jellies. And given how delicious this drink was, I’d say that I have very high hopes for all levels one through five for the matcha ice creams!

Banh xeo love for the family

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Although I am half Vietnamese, I never ate banh xeo until I was a teen. My mom never made much Vietnamese food at home because her favorite Vietnamese dishes were so laborious. Plus, cooking was done out of necessity, not passion, so she could feed her family economically. So when we ate Vietnamese, it was at the occasional Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco, during a day trip to San Jose (along Story Road), or down to Westminster, California, which has the biggest concentration of Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam. With banh xeo, it was love at first bite for me: the banh xeo, or sizzling crepe, was crispy, almost chewy in the center, fragrant from coconut milk, and generously dotted with mushrooms, shrimp, and pork pieces. Banh xeo is usually stuffed with mung bean sprouts, and the most traditional ones have mung bean in the batter and also scattered inside with the mung bean sprouts. The sizzling crepe gets an even bigger hit of flavor once you add fresh Vietnamese herbs, roll it in lettuce or rice paper, and then dunk it into nuoc cham dipping sauce. 

Banh xeo is not a weekday meal, as it has multiple steps. its batter needs to be soaked, ground, then rested. And each crepe takes at least 12-14 minutes to make, end to end, assuming you are making it properly, have your mise en place ready to go, and are allowing the crepe to get fully cooked and crispy at the edges. It’s a true labor of love. The cooking part on the stove can be tricky and is where I have personally messed up a number of times because I’ve rushed it — a true rookie move. Some take the easier way out by shallow or deep frying the Banh xeo, as this cooks the crepe much faster. I stick with the traditional and less-oil/less caloric method of pan frying. And once the banh xeo is ready, it ideally needs to be eaten within 20-30 minutes to be enjoyed at its peak, otherwise it will quickly get soggy and even mushy, and the magic will be finito. So it’s hard to make for large groups unless you have multiple pans going at the same time. They don’t keep well warm in the oven, sadly. One of my Instagram food friends said that when she makes it, she has everyone gather around her kitchen counter and wait for the next banh xeo to drop, and the second it comes off the pan, she serves it immediately and they literally dive right into it. Once that one is done, it’s onto the next one. As the chef, she eats it all while cooking and standing up. The rush is real!

Well, I had the craving and ingredients, so I wanted to make it for Chris’s parents’ arrival back from their Nevada, Utah, and Toronto travels. So we did have to start cooking dinner right before we ate to ensure peak crispy banh xeo. But I think it was worth it: they got to experience something super fresh and authentic, and I got to witness Chris’s dad try to roll and wrap rice paper with his “I can’t stand eating with my hands” mindset. Kaia even got to enjoy another rice paper roll. Joy for all!

Disappointing NYC pizza

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So after years of following a certain very popular downtown Manhattan pizza spot, I finally went today to get a single slice of their version of margherita. Given it was a Monday at around noon, there were none of the usual crowds, just a few tourists. It was standing room only: no seats at all. If you wanted to eat just outside, they created “makeshift tables” out of the tops of huge garbage cans (really classy). I went and ordered a single slice of pizza and waited for them to reheat it.

And when I got it, I touched the bottom of my plate and noticed that it actually wasn’t that hot. They did a bit of a rush job to reheat my pizza. When I bit into it, it was even worse: the botttom was soggy; there was no crisp or crunch on the bottom despite the reheating. And the tomato sauce tasted so sweet that it was as though they added sugar to it to make up for lackluster tomato sauce. It was actually really embarrassing given the reputation this pizza joint has in lower Manhattan. I knew I would never be back.

The cherry on top was that I went back and looked at the pricing: they charge 15 percent extra if you pay credit card, plus tax. If you pay cash, which I did, you get a 15 percent discount and don’t have to pay any sales tax. Wow — 15 percent? That’s a lot higher than the 3-4 percent that Visa and Mastercard are charging the business. It’s almost like they want to profit even more off you for dealing with your credit cards! I will definitely never be back — I don’t care how good the other slices are supposed to be. One bad move with pizza in a city as pizza-rich as New York, and it’s game over forever.

Taking advantage of the last several months regularly being downtown

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Before I know it, Kaia will be having her preschool graduation in June, and so will begin her very last couple of months going to school in Manhattan Chinatown. August will be the last month she will be in school down there, so that will mark my last month having an excuse to go down to Manhattan Chinatown almost daily. I’d been thinking about this since September when she started Pre-K. So, I made a mental note to myself that every week, as long as I had time, I’d “take advantage” of my time down there and try at least one new business. That could mean a restaurant, takeout spot, bakery, cafe — something that was new for me. I’ve long shared with anyone that while I like where I live, I don’t necessarily love it. The Upper West Side/Hell’s Kitchen are not a top food/eating destination for me at all in New York City — this is obviously my opinion, and I am sure many people will disagree. I would far prefer living further downtown closer to where most of my favorite places are, and where most new fun places open.

My Google Map list is pretty out of control. If you took a look at it for the Lower East Side/Chinatown area, it’s almost covered in green flags for “to try.” So trying new spots is never a challenge; it’s more figuring out which one I feel like trying when. On Wednesday, my friend and I went to 1915 Lanzhou Hand-Pulled Noodle, so that ticked off one box (and I am definitely going back there — the noodles and broth were soooo goooooood). Today, I forgot my water bottle and got thirsty during my walk around SoHo/Chinatown, so I used that as an excuse to finally try Matchaful on Mulberry. There, I had an Indigo Glow matcha, which included four grams of ceremonial grade matcha, taro, maqui berry, maple syrup, and oat milk (very satisfying and not too sweet). And for our usual Friday takeout dinner tonight, I stopped by the very new Grandma’s Dumpling House on Pell, where I picked up two types of dumplings, Chinese chive pockets, and shredded potato salad. Here, the dumplings were filled and cooked to order (so fresh!) and super juicy, and the chive pockets were stuffed to the brim. I rarely see shredded potato salad on any Chinese menu, so I decided to try this out here — it was very refreshing and crunchy, though I would have preferred if it were spiked with freshly ground Sichuanese peppercorn, which I still remember having from a very delicious and authentic Sichuanese restaurant in Framingham, Massachusetts, of all places. The dumpling skins were particularly good — they weren’t too thick at the fold part (which I usually can’t stand), but they also weren’t too thin that they’d break easily.

So many things to eat, and never enough time: ’tis the dilemma of someone with limited time in downtown.

1915 Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodles – lives up to the hype

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I met a friend for dinner tonight at 1915 Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodles, which has two locations in Manhattan, one in Kips Bay, and its second in Manhattan Chinatown. I was first introduced to Lanzhou, Gansu, style hand-pulled noodles from a nondescript restaurant in Boston Chinatown. A friend’s boyfriend, who was also originally from Gansu, said that as a little boy, he grew up eating these noodles, and there was nothing quite like it. When the little noodle shop in Boston Chinatown eventually closed (with no reasons noted on their shuttered doors), he was devastated and said he had no idea where else to find the taste of his childhood. Simply watching noodles being pulled by hand was mesmerizing to me at the time, as I’d never seen any food craft quite like it. Even today when I watch this being done, I’m in awe.

When I eventually moved to New York in June 2008, I ended up in the mixed neighborhood of Elmhurst, Queens, where my cousin introduced me to Lao Bei Fang, a neighborhood staple in the budding mini Chinatown there. Lao Bei Fang specialized in hand pulled noodles and dumplings, and it was there that I became a hand-pulled noodle and dumpling regular. The owner always pulled the noodles then; he was truly a noodle master. If you came during off hours, he would even sing Chinese opera for you as a side bonus. As someone who grew up Cantonese and eating lots of Cantonese food, I found northern style noodles and dumplings to be a total revelation, one I was eager to delight in and slurp up.

Eventually, Lao Bei Fang expanded and moved into a bigger space off Whitney Avenue and onto the main drag of Broadway in Elmhurst. This required more staff, and this also meant that the owner and his wife were rarely seen at the restaurant anymore. Instead, they hired others to make all the dumplings and pull all the noodles. Sadly, the food was just never the same again. I tried going back twice to give them another chance, yet I always left disappointed: Once, I was given cold, previously fried dumplings. Another time, the noodles were gummy, and the beef soup tasted one dimensional and even canned. My beloved hand pulled noodle shop of my early 20s was no longer the same.

So when I read about 1915 Lanzhou Hand Pulled Noodle, I figured I had to try it out. I got to the restaurant a little early to find that a small line had already developed; there were eight people in front of me, and all were White! I wasn’t sure what to make of this or whether the line would move quickly. But within 10 minutes, I got a little table and was seated, even without my dining partner. And when my friend did eventually show up, she got confused that this was the right place because, “Why are there so many White people lining up for these noodles?” I let her know about the New York Times write-up, and she smiled and understood.

Here, you can choose the thickness and cut of the noodle, which was fun. And there’s a big glass wall through which you can watch the dumpling and noodle makers at work. And I will say: the hype was real. The beef broth was beefy, rich, with lots of spices and herbs, and the flavor was deep. The beef was tender and melt in your mouth. And the noodles had a delicious and addictive springiness. I also loved the chili oil with its fruity undertones. The little fried buns (sheng jian bao) were super crispy on the bottom and juicy.

I will definitely be back here for my hand pulled noodle fix in the future, even with the lines. I think takeout might be in order!

Finding good things everywhere I go

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I get told I am full of shit for this belief a lot: I truly believe that no matter where you go in the world, whether it’s a different neighborhood, town, city, or country, that there is always good food somewhere there. I think of it like I think of people and beauty: there is beauty when you give a place a chance. There are also good, well-meaning people if you give them a chance and take a little time to get to know them. I know every single place I’ve been to has something good or great that I’ve enjoyed.

So, even for places that I have been to that I have very little strong opinion about, I can still feel myself getting protective over them when people I know make sweeping, negative generalizations about them. I was telling my friends this last weekend that I was going to be in Raleigh this week for work. A friend (who has never been to Raleigh) shared that her husband has had to go to Raleigh a few times for work, and she said he was not a fan; he said there was no good food in Raleigh. As someone who has been to Raleigh once and had three very solid meals there last year, I could feel myself getting annoyed.

“Where did he go, and who chose the places?” I asked.

She said some colleagues chose the restaurants and that he didn’t. To be honest, I don’t think I would have had much more faith if he had chosen them.

I told her that I found a really great bakery cafe there that I loved and was planning to go back this week. And today, I made good on my word: I stopped in for an iced latte, a kouign amann, and two caneles to go. Every bite of that kouign amann was perfection: each bite shattered, had this addictive crunchy sugar coating on the outside, and definitely had seemingly millions of flaky, buttery layers. I got one canele for me and one to bring home for Chris. I ate my canele in flight, over 7 hours after I purchased it. It still had a super crunchy outside and a gooey, soft, tender inside, with a strong vanilla bean flavor. Last August, I had a delicious tapas meal with a work friend. That same trip, my colleagues and I hosted a great happy hour event for a prospective customer that had amazing appetizers. And last night, I had a very noteworthy, crunchy banh xeo generously stuffed with lots of shrimp and pork, along with a pork bao and a calamansi spritz. If you do your due diligence and spend the five minutes or less it takes to look up Google Reviews or some AI tool like Claude or ChatGPT, I highly doubt you would fail to find a good restaurant or six in Raleigh.

Sometimes, I wonder why I feel so frustrated when people make negative over-generalizations about places, especially smaller U.S. cities. It’s clear that I do not live in a small U.S. city — quite the opposite! And I think I do know why: it’s almost indicative of how quickly and based on very few interactions people can draw sweeping judgments and harbor negative stereotypes about other people or groups of people. If you want to get to know anyone or any place, you have to come in with an open mind and an open heart. If you already are coming in from a big city and choose to think that everything in said smaller city must be crap, that will inevitably color whatever experiences you have there — and ultimately taint it. And well, that’s your loss, not that place’s, because it means you are not able to enjoy your time spent there. And since none of us is living forever, we should try to do what we can to at least attempt to enjoy every moment we’re so lucky and privileged to live.

The luxury of space while eating sourdough pancakes in a residential neighborhood in Asheville

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In many ways, I am living my dream from when I was a little girl: I get to work and live in New York City, the Big Apple — right in the heart of Manhattan, steps away from Central Park. But if I had to be honest, sometimes, I do wish we had more space. There are a lot of thoughts starting with, “It would be nice if…” we had a backyard, we had more space, we had a bigger kitchen, if restaurants and outdoor enclosed spaces could be bigger and more spread out for littles to safely run around. And my friends and I were all thinking about this while having breakfast this morning at the Liberty House Cafe in Asheville. This cute little coffee shop/cafe has been around for the last 10 years and is housed in a small cottage from the 1920s. While the cottage itself is quite tiny, its outdoor space is sprawling: it has two large patios that spread out from its left and right side, along with a massive green lawn with even more tables and benches for dining, sipping coffee, and relaxing. They easily could set up more tables and benches, but a lot of the space is just… empty space to breathe and just be space. It could be space for dogs to roll around. It could be space for kids to play and be silly. Or it could just be what it is, which is a lot of space.

My two friends live in San Francisco/the Bay Area, which increasingly is lacking for space; I live in the famous concrete jungle of the Big Apple. We all know that space is always premium in major metropolitan areas. So just sitting on this big covered patio, overlooking this vast green lawn and openness, while eating our indulgent, delicious, crispy-edged sourdough blueberry pancakes and drinking cubanitos, felt like an unspoken treat.

Farm to table dining, which is what Liberty House Cafe offers, is spreading everywhere across the U.S. You can find restaurants using hyper local produce and ingredients in major cities, suburbs, and in rural areas; it’s become ubiquitous. But to simply experience this setting while having these pancakes felt like just another luxury of this trip after our amazing spa and tapas day yesterday.

Candied nuts – the simplest addition to salads that can make it pop!

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As someone who has always loved tinkering in the kitchen with different ingredients and recipes, I have always enjoyed candies nuts in salads when I’ve had them. But for some reason, I never thought to make them myself. I know they are pretty simple and straightforward to make: you take a bunch of nuts, coat them in maple syrup or simple syrup, sprinkle a little sea salt on top, and toss them. Then, you bake them at a low-ish temperature in the oven for about 25-30 minutes until they are crystallized. When you are done, you get this magical savory-sweet, high protein, high fiber snack that will quickly impress people when they find out you actually made them yourself. It’s low effort, but high “wow” factor.

Well, I finally got inspired and pushed to make them for a beet and lentil salad with tahini-yogurt dressing recipe from Hetty Lui McKinnon’s Linger cookbook. Honestly, this is not normally a cookbook I would have bought for myself; it’s all about salads, and the entire book is vegetarian. But after being gifted it and going through it, I’ve realized I am quite inspired by Hetty’s take on what a “salad” is, and I love the way she pairs ingredients together. It’s definitely made me rethink food pairings and what flavors complement each other.

So for this salad, (pre cooked) beets and shallots are pickled in a sweet vinegar mixture with spices. Then, you add cooked lentils, toss them both together in olive oil and salt/pepper. And finally, you smother a tahini-yogurt sauce on them, topping them with candied walnuts. And yes, the candied walnuts truly MAKE this salad pop. It’s one of those salads that are very memorable not just because it’s gorgeous to look at with the color contrasts, but because the flavors all meld together really beautifully.

And that, my friends, is a beautiful, delicious salad worth making and eating again and again.

Rediscovering the glory of cooking with fresh lemongrass — all because of a very sharp knife

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At most, I cook with fresh lemongrass two to three times a year. You can’t buy it at a regular grocery store; if I need it, I pick it up from Hong Kong Supermarket or my Vietnamese market in Chinatown. There’s really no substitute for fresh lemongrass: it is bright, fresh, almost sweet, with very floral, minty, almost gingery and herbaceous notes. When you eat something with lemongrass, it stares at you in the face; subtlety is not a characteristic of this herb. Although I love this herb, I’ve historically found it really annoying to deal with. The edible part of the stalk is very hard, which means it can be difficult to cut, even with a sharp knife. If you look at guides for how to cut lemongrass, some of them even say that you should consider resharpening your knife after cutting lemongrass because the damn stalk can dull your blade!

But alas, with my fancy Shun knife that was gifted for my birthday, I have a super, duper sharp knife now. So when I picked up two lemongrass stalks to make some grilled Vietnamese lemongrass beef patties, I wondered how much easier it would be to cut these with this new knife. And lo and behold, this crazy sharp knife made a massive difference: not only did the knife slide through the tough stalk quicker and smoother, but every cut felt so easy! Who would have thought that the knife would truly make all the difference when it came to cutting this delicious herb?

So I finely minced the lemongrass and threw in some other aromatics, fish sauce, oyster sauce, black pepper, and some sugar. I added the minced beef, mixed it up, created meatballs, then flattened them for quicker cooking on the pan. And once I was done cooking, I took a bite of one of the meatballs: Yum. The lemongrass flavor was just singing! Few things beat this flavor for me. My new mental note to self is that I will definitely be cooking with lemongrass more often now that I have this knife, which has greatly improved my handling of literally tough ingredients like this herb. It really is true: oftentimes, your equipment makes all the difference when cooking!