Saturday, April 7, 2012

New York: 3 Meals in One Night - Day 1

After Eataly, we went back to the hotel, and instead of waiting for Audrey to get to New York, we decided to grab a bite at The Breslin first, which is a gastropub located at the Ace Hotel.

I've actually heard of The Breslin since their lamb burger was listed as one of the top burgers in US in a list on some blog or website I read. Since Audrey wanted ramen when she arrives, we decided that we will just grab a few drinks to get the night started and share a few things. We ordered a few things but the lamb burger was definitely not what I will remember The Breslin for, but the Scotch Egg!

Since it was a Friday and after work, the place was packed! The wait for a table was a ridiculous 2 hours, but we were able to find a spot at the bar to order.


The Breslin
Ace Hotel
20 W 29th St
Midtown West, Flatiron
New York, NY 10001

menu
Menu at The Breslin. It's actually fairly small.

drinks
Tonic & Grapefruit with a saison beer that was on draft. The Tonic & Grapefruit is made with Beefeater, grapefruit bitters, tonic, and grapefruit zest. I'm not a huge fan of tonic after my 22nd birthday, but the drink was very good! Unfortunately I forgot what the beer was, but the Belgian-style saison was very good with the lamb burger.

lamb burger
The Breslin Lamb Burger ($21). Chargrilled lamb burger with feta, and cumin mayo. Strong gamy lamb taste just hits my taste buds, and the cumin mayo instantly takes over. Cumin & lamb just go so well together that the gaminess didn't bother me at all! The lamb patty was grilled to a nice pink so it was juicy as well. Don't know what kind of buns they used but it had a more "rustic" texture haha.

triple fried fries
Thrice Cooked Chips. Yup, fries fried three times! Ridiculously crispy with still a creamy center.

scotch egg
This, is a Scotch Egg. For $8, you only get one and you may think that it is a rip off... but this golden orb of fried goodness is awesome.

hidden treasure
Scotch Egg is a soft boiled egg covered with sausage meat, breaded, then fried! Sounds ridiculous but it's fawking awesome

soft yolk
See the sausage surrounding the egg?

egg + sausage
Crispy outside, then you hit the sausage and then the soft egg in the center. Too good.

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After The Breslin, we then hit a few bars... and from what I can remember, we spent a good amount of time at the Boss Tweed :P When Audrey finally met up with us, we then headed off to Minca to grab some porky ramen!

First thing Jimmy told us was that Minca is one of those places you either love it or hate it, since their ramen is extremely porky. Perfect. Jimmy, Ben, and I got there early so we decided to get different ramen and take turn rotating the bowls so we get to have all 3 haha.


Minca
536 E 5th St
Between Avenue A & Avenue B
East Village, Alphabet City
New York, NY 10009

spicy miso ramen
I wanted the Spicy Miso Ramen with wavy noodles. The broth is made with both pork & chicken, but you definitely taste the pork more cause the soup is suuuper porky, and I loved it! I think it's cause we all drank quite a bit, and anything with the strong flavor taste awesome haha. Great charsu!

minca shio
Minca Shio Ramen with straight noodles. Tonkotsu based broth flavored with salt. Very solid tonkotsu ramen with that porkiness.

tsukumen
Recently, tsukumen's all the rage at ramen shops so we also got Minca's tsukumen!

ramen
What's tsukumen? Well essentially they give you a bowl of noodles with all the fixings and then a bowl broth for you to dip the noodles in. You don't leave anything in the broth, unless you want to, and whatever you dip in the broth is eaten right away. Definitely a new way to eat ramen!

pork broth
Tsukumen's broth. Again, very porky and a little thick. It's gotta be thick so when the ramen is dipped, there's viscosity so the broth will stick to the noodles! Wavy noodles work best here since there's more surface area for the broth!

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Afterwards, went to another spot and drank some more. At this point, we were defintely not sober and ready for our third meal of the night, and if you're in New York, gotta go to the halal carts!

Now, I've been to NY a handful of times, and unfortunately, I never made it out to the halal cart on 53rd & 6th, which is definitely the most popular one out of all. Everybody always talk about the chicken & rice and the legendary red sauce, and finally, I got to try it!


53rd & 6th Halal Cart
Look above for address :P
Midtown West, Theater District

halal
HI AND FINALLY!

excited
We were definitely excited!

$6!
"How many???" At $6, it is a great value for late night drunk food in NY haha.

chicken & lamb & rice
We all went for the combo, chicken & lamb with rice. I gotta say, I had a few other halal carts/trucks in NY but this was really the best one. Both meats had great flavor and the yellow rice is the perfect companion.

happy
Ben's EXCITED! We've been talking about this since January :P

chicken + lamb & rice
Lamb + chicken.

sauce
The sauce station! There's actually white sauce, which is a cream based sauce, BBQ sauce, and the red sauce, which is their deadly harissa hot sauce. The BBQ sauce actually works but most people go for the white & red sauces. Definitely don't add too much... and if you did, add more white sauce to balance it out :P

white sauce
White sauce first! It makes everything creamy but don't add too much or else it'll be gooey.

red sauce of death
For some reason, Ben didn't listen and just covered his with the red sauce. If he adds more white sauce, then it'll be too gooey or definitely get the right ratio down...

too much red
So how spicy was his? I took a bite of his and I couldn't taste my own for like... 5 minutes. I actually went and bought a yogurt drink cause it was so spicy. When Ben ate his, he couldn't fall asleep about 40 minutes later cause his tongue still taste the spiciness! Mine was about half the red sauce and it had a good burn! Definitely don't be the hero and add a ton. Moderation here is good :P

First chicken & rice (with lamb) experience was pretty damn awesome, and that red sauce is seriously killer. I should've paid someone like 5 bucks to squirt it in their mouth hahah.


So how did I feel after eating 3 times in one night? I justified it by convincing myself that my stomach needs all the food it can get in preparation for St. Patrick's the next day and damn... it's a good thing I did too.

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