New York: Once More in Eataly - Day 4

Been somewhat busy with work but finally got time to finish the last post of my trip to NY during this past St. Patrick's weekend!

On the last day, we decided to walk around Central Park and others wanted to meet up with a few friends.  Before we split off, we decided to stop by Eataly once more and grab some food from one of the eateries inside!


La Pizza & Pasta (Eataly)
200 5th Ave
Flatiron
New York, NY 10010
eatalyny.com

La Pizza & Pasta.

Part of the menu.

Pizza oven imported from Italy!

EVOO + balsamic is a must.

Rustic artisan bread.

La Pizza Margherita!  Mozarrella, tomato sauce, Parmigiano Reggiano & basil.

Awesome fresh mozza and super crispy crust.

There was only ONE basil haha. Sorta ridiculous to have only ONE basil leaf on the pizza :P

Neopolitan pizza done right and the fresh mozzarella is great with the sauce.

My Tagliatelle al Ragu di Manzo.  Housemade pasta with braised short rib ragu. Savory with tender short trib. A little salty.

Short rib hiding underneath!

Ben's Pasta al Forno al Ragu.  Lasagna with Italian ragu. Probably my favorite. I'm a sucker for lasagna.

Ahrhan's Pasta al Forno al Pesto.  Lasagna with pesto & bechamel sauce. Nice pesto sauce.

Audrey's Pappardelle.  Housemade pasta with chicken in tomato sauce & basil. It's not on the menu but as a special of the day.

Diana's Pansotti di Ricotta e Spinachi.  Housemade pasta with local ricotta, spinach, lemon butter & pistachio. Sounds sorta heavy but it's actually pretty refreshing thanks to the lemon.


I wanted something sweet afterwards so headed off to the gelato section.  Decided on the Espresso Gelato, and wow it packs a punch!

---

Afterwards, we took the subway and headed towards Times Square and Central Park.  Saw this food truck on the way: Bian Dang!  It's a food truck serving Taiwanese-style bento boxes!  Didn't try it though... wonder how good it is.

Shake Shack

366 Columbus Ave

Between 77th St & 78th St

Upper West Side

New York, NY 10024

shakeshack.com

After hanging out at Central Park for a bit, decided to end our trip with some good ol' American food from Shake Shack!  Went to the Upper West Side location.


Shack Shack Burger with Fries.


Just as good as I remembered it, but still, In-N-Out takes the crown!


Crispy fries!


Decided to try a "concrete" this time.  "Concrete" is essentially their term for frozen custard that is blended with toppings!  Went for the Natural History "Crunch-stellation" which has Vanilla custard, malt, Valrhona chocolate crunchies, and chocolate toffee.  Creamy and sweet.


The tables there are made from recycled bowling lanes!  I thought that was pretty cool.

And with the end of that meal, we walked back towards our hotel to grab our bags for our trip back to LA. Always feel a little sad at the end of a trip, but this was definitely one of those trips that I can say we tried to do as much as we can for a "long weekend!"  Till next time, NYC.

A little bonus:

There was a food truck serving Taiwanese-style bento!  Didn't get to try it... wonder how it tastes?

New York: Momofuku Ssam Bar - Day 3

To end our 3rd day in New York, we had dinner at one of the most popular restaurant in NY, Momofuku Ssam Bar.  I made a reservation weeks ago and only ended up with a 10:30pm slot.  Nevertheless, we prepped ourselves so we can eat to our heart's content and I can honestly say, I've never been this excited for a meal!

So the big thing at Ssam Bar is the Bo Ssam Dinner.  For $200, you get to feast on a 7-10lb pork shoulder that has been slowly oven-roasted for hours!  They say it feeds 5-10 people, but really... you gotta have some big eaters to kill it.  Ssam literally means wrapped in Korean, and it generally refers to food wrapped with lettuce or other greens.  It's a fairly healthy way of eating... until you get a huge piece of pork in front of you.

I will say though, the pictures for this post is absolutely horrible.  After a day's worth of activities and recovering from St. Pat's still, I just didn't want to carry the DSLR with me anymore, so I opted for the Panasonic P&S.  It does well in low-light setting, but blah, miscalculated.  Didn't think it would be THAT dark at the restaurant.

Momofuku Ssam Bar

207 2nd Ave

Between 13th St & 12th St

East Village

New York, NY 10003

momofuku.com

Momofuku Ssam Bar!

Menu.

We started off with some of the famous David Chang's Steamed Bun.  It is essentially a Taiwanese Gua Bao.  Super soft & tender pork belly, with hoisin sauce, cucumber, and scallions.

Awesome awesome awesome pork belly.

Naked Cowgirl Oysters.  Super fresh.


Small, but creamy and delicate.  I'm not a fan of oysters, but these I can eat.

Lettuce bib for the ssam.

Sauce for the pork belly but I didn't really use it.

Finally!  The pork arrives and it was a huuuuuge piece of pork.  Roast a pork shoulder for 6-8 hours with simple brown sugar and kosher salt rub results in this amazing chunk of pork. Most of the flavor is from the pork itself but the crust was great with the sugar all caramelized.


What an awesome color.

Toppings for the pork and for wrapping.

This was the best: Ginger Scallion Sauce.  Exactly what it sounds like.  I think we asked for this to be refilled like 3 times haha.

Of course, gotta have kimchi!

They even provided chopped kimchi!  Think of it as Korean salsa haha.

Ssam sauce or "Korean BBQ sauce" as they called it.  Didn't care too much for this.  Ginger scallion sauce all the way!

Some white rice to curb the pork overload.

My little creation: pork, kimchi, chopped kimchi, some crispy pork skin, ginger scallion sauce, and a piece of the oyster to give it a different dimension!

The pork was very juicy and I did expect a lot of fat but the cut was a good mix!  This was the aftermath... and as you can see we failed at finishing it :P  Probably still a good 2-3 pounds left.

Really though, after about 3-4 wraps, I had to change it up, either with different amount of toppings, difference sauces, with rice, or even just using a different part of the pork! It gets really heavy and towards the end, I just grabbed the bowl of rice and started to eat the pork like a charsu pork rice bowl with some kimchi haha. In the end, the 8 of us only killed about 4-5 lbs out of the 8-pounder that we got. Pretty sad...

Is it worth the $200? Besides the meat sweat, I say yes, especially in a big group. We had a blast and it is such a primal experience, just tearing off the juicy pork and eating with our hands! Next time I will probably just order off the regular menu, but still definitely an experience and am really glad I got to feast on the glorious pig shoulder with 7 of my good friends!

New York: Williamsburg, Brooklyn - Day 3

After a day of whiskey, we were definitely gonna take it easy on Day 3. Since some of us have never been the Brooklyn, Rose offered to show us around the area so we got on the subway and got a taste of NY's hipster central, Williamsburg!

Before that, we went into Eataly to get some water to re-hydrate ourselves and some coffee to wake us up.

Cafe Mocha. Lavazza coffee.

Cafe Latte.

Ahrhan and her espresso.

At the Williamsburg subway station, "B" for Brooklyn.

Egg

135 N 5th St

Between Bedford Ave & Berry St

Williamsburg - North Side

Brooklyn, NY 11211

pigandegg.com

First stop, Egg for brunch. Egg is this super super super super super hipster brunch spot. REALLY hipster.

Part of the menu. Nothing looked exciting except for the Eggs Rothko. Oatmeal... plain pancakes and others make up the rest of the menu. Later confirmed by others that everything else on the menu was average besides the Rothko.

Got a lemonade... only drank half. Way too sweet.

Eggs Rothko with thick brioche, then a circle is cut out in the middle, filled with an egg, then covered with melted cheddar.

Combination of buttery brioche, egg, and cheese is fantastic.

Candied bacon was literally strips of bacon then glazed with sugar. Worked well with the rest of the dish since I can take a "break" and have something sweet in-between.

Oven-roasted tomato had a nice tartness to it! Great with the heaviness of cheese.

Diana also got the Eggs Rothko, but with country ham and it was not as enjoyable.

Country ham was way too salty.

In the end... I didn't really understand why Egg was so popular. Maybe it is popular because they have their own farm and source other ingredients from local source so hipsters love it? Or maybe hipsters here just like bland food like grits and oatmeal... or they just like to overpay for a simple sausage & gravy.

---

Saint's Alp Teahouse

164 Bedford Ave

Between 7th St & 8th St

Williamsburg - North Side

Brooklyn, NY 11211

www.saintsalp.com.hk

Was walking around and found a Saint's Alp!! Saint's Alp is a chain of teahouse that originated from HK. Never knew they had branched out to US, let alone NY.

Milk Green Tea, with less less sugar. It's actually pretty good, except expensive as hell... Essentially, the price I paid can be a large at many places, and the regular size here is smaller than the regular size anywhere else! Their large is like.. TapEx's regular.

---

Brooklyn Brewery

79 N 11th St

Between Berry St & Wythe Ave

Williamsburg - North Side

Brooklyn, NY 11211

brooklynbrewery.com

Yup, the Brooklyn Brewery is located in Brooklyn. What a surprise! :P

Tanks.

Some malts.

There's also a tasting area where you can buy tokens for $5 each and receive a cup of beer with each token. Fresh draft!

Promoting their summer ale.

Where you pick your beer.

Others didn't really want to drink after a full day of drinking yesterday so Audrey and I decided to split a Mary's Maple Porter! It's a draft-only seasonal from Feb-April so we were able to catch it. It's a little hoppy with strong notes of the maple and hints of caramel, chocolate, and coffee from the roasted malts and the maple syrup added to the fermentation.

---

When we were walking on Bedford, I saw people eating these crazy slices of pizza. I had to stop and get one as well, and turns out Vinnie's is quite popular for their crazy toppings on pizzas!

Vinnie's Pizzeria

148 Bedford Ave

Between 8th St & 9th St

Williamsburg - North Side

Brooklyn, NY 11211

vinniesbrooklyn.com

Store front.

The Farmer's Daughter, which is topped with garlic sautéed spinach, sun-dried tomatoes, portabello mushrooms, and melted herbed goat cheese.

No tomato sauce. Lots and lots of spinach on the pizza. Very light. I like the thin crispy NY-style crust!

Ben's Chicken & Ranch.

Great BBQ chicken with ranch.

---

Part of the reason for going to Brooklyn is to check out the Brooklyn Bridge! We went on a really beautiful day and we were able to get a good view of it, as well as Manhattan.

Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory

Fulton Ferry Landing Pier

1 Water St

Brooklyn, NY 11230

brooklynicecreamfactory.com

Brooklyn Bridge! We didn't walk across it since we didn't have time. Maybe next time.

There's also the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory!

Line was looooong on a nice day. Would've took over 40 minutes.

Somehow Audrey went in, did her Audrey thing, convinced a guy to sell her Vanilla by the pint even though they do not that. *Bows down*

Our pint of old fashioned Vanilla! Vanilla is my favorite and you can really tell how good an ice cream shop is by their vanilla. It's easy to make but so hard to make it good.

Peeling bag the paper to reveal the vanilla ice cream!

So... how's the Vanilla? Fawking awesome. It's creamy, smooth, and it just has that texture that old fashioned ice cream is suppose to have. Good job Audrey!

---

After Brooklyn Bridge, we took the subway back to Manhattan, more specifically SoHo, since we wanted to do a little shopping, and that's also where one of my favorite, Uniqlo, is! Before we went though, we stopped by Rice To Riches since a few of us wanted to try it. I was never a fan of gooey desserts like rice pudding but figured... it must be popular for a reason so why not.

Rice To Riches

37 Spring St

Between Mott St & Mulberry St

Nolita

New York, NY 10012

ricetoriches.com

All the rice pudding on display.

HAHA they call toppings "Jesus Droppings." The whole shop has a bunch of these remarks throughout.

We tasted a few, but Diana and I went for the Almond Shmalmond.

All orders come in cool containers like this, but you definitely paid for it. Our "solo" size was a little over $5. You get even get one that serves 10 and they call it "moby" ahaha.

Rice To Riches logo.

We topped ours with homemade graham crackers. The Almond Shmalmond was WAY too sweet. When we tried the little sample, it didn't taste as sweet but holy.. I took 4-5 bites and I was done. Probably used a little too much of that almond flavoring. The graham crackers were awesome though. Very buttery and a little bit salty so it helped offset the sweetness.

Somebody's Cheesecake. MUCH better. Less sugar and it really does taste like a cheesecake.

Ahrhan's Chocolate and I think Cookies & Cream? Whatever... not a fan of rice pudding.

So in the end, I found out that I do not like rice pudding :P The concept and the execution of Rice To Riches is exceptional but it's just not for me.

Afterwards, we did a bit of shopping, but since it was a Sunday, most stores were closing around 8pm. With a little over 2 hours to kill, we decided to head back to the hotel and rest up before our huge dinner at 10:30pm at Momofuku Ssam Bar for the Bo Ssam!