A BREAK

Hello all. So this is the last post for a minute. We have the wedding then the Thailand. See you on the flip side.

KOREAN JOE

We finally did it ... we went to the new Brooklyn Trader Joe's. And I'm not sure I'll be back. Well, maybe. After buying their Bulgogi cuts from the meat section, I might go back for that. But ONLY that. The rest of the place is a madhouse and it's all gross.

But last night, after chillin' at the Antic on Atlantic, we hit Joe's and picked up a few things. It was nuts, so we just grabbed a few essentials (you know, bulgogi beef, boston lettuce, the usual) and got out as quickly as possible.

When we got home, we threw the bulgogi cuts on a pan, seared them up quickly and threw them on a plate after running a knife through it all a couple times.

Then I made a quick chutney:
- white wine vinegar
- red onion
- mustard seeds
- brown sugar
- crushed red pepper
- salt
- olive oil

I also filled up a ramekin with some kimchee and cleaned a boston lettuce and we were in business. Lettuce wraps with bulgogi beef. With a bit of hot sauce, I must say, this was fantastic. The marinade for the beef was pretty awesome because the cuts were super tender and packed with good bbq and sesame flavor.

Kimchee, beef, hot sauce and chutney. Man. That's Sunday night done right.

FRANK & DAN

Saturday Dan came by to help Meena plow though a few wedding things and just generally make us both feel better about all things wedding related. Dan has that way with us.

So after a few drinks and much conversation, we ran out to Frankie's 457 for a bit of pasta and a whole host of other nice things.

While we were waiting for a seat, we got started with something I'd never experienced before - hot buttered rum. And it's just what you'd think it is if you've never had it. It's butter, spiced aplenty, water and rum. And it tastes like fall in a cup. Much like spiced cider, but this is somehow even better. Maybe because it has rum in it. But it was pretty awesome.

After we were seated in the back yard (and this was a massive feat we were told because it was 10:45 and that pretty much NEVER happens), we kicked off the night with the following:
- antipasto plate
- meatballs with raisins

Really delicious. All of it. The meatballs were weird as an appetizer, but to be honest, when it all came to the table, it seemed very right. Very, very right.

For main courses, Meena and both had the same meal:
- pork braciola with marinara

And Dan had:
- cavateli with sausage

I mean, I had a bite of Dan's and it was awesome. No doubt. But the pork ... wow. It's just amazing. Every time. With the sauce, it's just another level of delicious. The meat just falls apart. And the subtle cheese is just right with the meat and the sauce. It's pretty much one of the best things on a menu in this neighborhood. Just saying.

So it was a great night. Back yard dining at a great spot with great friends. Can't ask for much more.

Note: Stole these photos from flickr. From scaredey cat ... who I have stolen from before. Thanks Cat!

IN THE CITY

Meena needed to get her hair cut downtown on Friday so after a long night at the office, I rolled down to meet her for some trendy (but quite good) food at Bacaro.

We were right in the thick of things. We were hoping for a nice spot downstairs, but we were dealt a spot right next to the door. So there was some commotion. But it was nice. It was sorta fun to be right there in the middle of all the too-cool-for-school comings and goings.

For starters, we had a couple little bites:
- fried baby meatballs
- charcuterie plate
- octopus and potato salad

And then for dinner, we sorta split two main courses (they were pretty small):
- beef stew over polenta
- whole wheat pasta in duck ragu

The food was really lovely. The octopus salad was exploding with garlic and really well done. Sweet, delicate octopus was the name of the game, not chewy, gross stuff. The meatballs were OK. I was looking forward to them and they weren't as special as I had hoped they would be.

The main courses were awesome. The duck ragu was beautiful. Lots of duck cooked down to its essence and thrown with some whole wheat pasta cooked to a perfect al dente.

The beef stew stole the show though. It wasn't so much beef stew in the traditional sense. It was just bits of slow cooked stew meat piled high over a really rich bed of creamy polenta. Not something I would normally gravitate to, but man, I'm glad I did. It was perfect.

So Bacaro was pretty rad. I'd a) recommend it and b) go back again.

I'M OUT OF JOKES

I don't have any more jokes. No defense. I just love cheap Tex Mex when the world is stressing me out! And my wife-to-be feels the same way.

Thank goodness.

So anyay, we went to Lobo again last night and we were treated to more of the same lovely grub that we could probably make at home but don't because it's pretty darn cheap and they have better chips and salsa. Although we got a WHOLE garlic clove in the bowl last night which was weird. But whatever. I still love you Lobo. As Cleveland says, "We good though, Lobo!"

Meena had:
- edwin's enchiladas with ranchero sauce

Alec had:
- pork quesadilla

Hot spicy and probably not the best thing for either of us. But man, with all the crap we've been dealing with at work and throughout the planning process, we just needed it. So we did it. And we're feeling pretty good about it.

BACK TO INDIAN

I guess it's been nearly two years since we started this thing and if you've read it a little over that time, you know Indian delivery has long been a part of our lives. When we lived in the East Village, I think we were reeling in some Baluchi's nearly once a week. It was just so good we couldn't help it!

But since we've been in Brooklyn, I'd say we've probably had Indian maybe ... four or five times? Tops? And maybe only twice was that delivery? We just haven't found anything we like that much.

Last night Meena tried to alter this course and called in some delights from Raga on Smith. We hadn't had it in a long time and honestly, it had just been too long. So when I got home and heard this is what we had in store, I was pretty stoked.

Meena had:
- shrimp appetizer
- chicken tika masala

Alec had:
- lamb vindaloo

Not bad. Not bad at all. We each had a little naan with our dishes and that was one of the only sorta unfortunate parts. Not great naan. Not terrible. Not great though.

The food was pretty solid. My lamb was like a spicy, liquid fire. Just the way I like it. Meena enjoyed her tika - I think she still loves Baluchi's a lot more. Can't argue there.

But it was a pretty solid Indian delivery and we're both really happy to have it back in our lives. It's such a ridiculous thought when I see it in writing ... but so true.

REELING IT IN

We're getting close. Things are coming together. It feels good.

What doesn't feel good is getting home from work around 8:30. But that was my reality last night and although I said I was going to be better at the blog this week, I didn't promise cooking. Sorry. You might not see much in the homemade department for a minute.

Anyway, Meena ordered some Cube 63 while I was on my way home. She kept it fairly simple for herself and ordered:
- shrimp shumai
- salmon sashimi
- white tuna sashimi
- clinton roll

Actually, that was a total departure for her. But it was still ... simple I guess.

Alec had:
- miso soup
- salmon and avocado roll
- yellowtail and scallion roll

It was delicious, actually. I got totally standard rolls but they were great. The scallion was balanced nicely with the yellowtail. Sometimes I feel like one is much greater than the other and this one was pretty equal. The salmon and avocado was HUGE and plump. So I felt pretty good about all the foods last night. Very enjoyable.

We'll see what else this week brings. Maybe I'll find time to cook. Maybe not ...

CRUNCH TIME

The food wasn't crunchy but our lives have become that way. We're nearing the finish line with the big day and we've been busy. I have a TON of stuff going on at work (as does Meen) and we're both trying to bring it all home with the other huge thing we're working on. So last night required some errands and when we got home, we required Joya.

Meena had:
- chicken pad thai (NOT SPICY ... more on that later)
- chicken spring rolls

Alec had:
- tom yum koong
- thai salad with tofu and peanut dressing

Everything was nice. For some reason, my soup came NOT SPICY. So I had to jazz it up with some siracha. It worked just fine and the result was a delicious and very spicy tom yum koong.

Meena is trying a new trick - because even the mild pad thai is too hot for her lately, she's been ordering it NOT SPICY and just asking for some sambal oelek on the side. Then she controls the heat. You'll see the option from now on. She's MUCH happier this way.

So again, I'm going to try and keep this very up to date for the next couple weeks. Give me a shout if you think I'm slacking.

SORRY

For the lack of updates. I've been out of town and we're in crunch time for the big day. So we've been a little preoccupied. But I'll try to do better this week.


A little recap of the past few days ...

Last Tuesday ... Allen & Delancey. Awesome. I had the finest pork belly I've had in ... well, forever. Meena had a halibut that was just about perfect. Dan had some duck and Steve had a risotto. Pretty outstanding.

Can't remember Wednesday. Sorry!

Thursday I ate at Gage in Chicago. I had an antelope tartare and an heirloom pork chop. The tartare was sorta nuts. Had a raw quail egg, some awesome mustard and some other stuff. The chop was quite nice. I enjoyed it all.

Friday I was back in NY and Meena and I had come Cube 63 delivery. Just what the Dr. ordered after a longish flight back from the Windy City.

Saturday night we had Lucali with James and D. So awesome we were finally able to get there with them. We had a basil pie and another with shallot and hot pepper. Awesome pizza and fantastic company at one of the best spots in our hood in my humble opinion.

Sunday night was pretty much all planning all the time so we just called in some Zaytoons. Weird toon's night. My shish kebab sandwich was really messy and I found a cherry tomato in it. Sorta odd. The Zaytoons mix was a little lacking but I did get a bunch of peppers. So that was cool. Meena's chicken shawarma sandwich was equally messy. Not sure what was going on tonight.

So anyway, I'll try to be better here over the next couple weeks. Because soon we'll be off to Thailand and we'll be without updates for a minute. Maybe I'll have a guest blogger for the time we're out. Dan and Steve? D and James? Any takers?

MORE TOONAGE

Boy. Yesterday sucked. I'll come right out and say it. Miserable day at the office. So although we had high hopes of going to the gym and making dinner, we got home around 9:00 and just couldn't do any of it. What do you do when you're totally beat and totally over it all?

Zaytoons.

You've seen it before. But here it is again. Meena had:
- chicken shawarma sandwich

Alec had:
- shish kebab sandwich
- zaytoons mix

Olives, peppers, pickles, pitas, tomatoes, grilled lamb and delicious chicken. Man. It just doesn't get any better than this.

FISH AND VEG

Sunday was a busy day. Not really. But I did have to get my haircut and watch my Colts go down for the second time this season. Bummer. But when I got home from the bar, totally disheartened, Meena cheered me up with a little dinner she'd thrown together.

She picked up some fish at the market the previous day and got rolling with the following:
- lemon
- garlic
- thyme
- sage
- olive oil
- rainbow trout

She also threw in some sweet corn from the Carroll Gardens farmer's market to cap it all off.

I don't think she was a big fan of the fish, but I thought it was nice. Very mild and packed with a lot of herb and garlic flavor. I thought it probably would have been perfect with a touch of salt, but I'm not complaining. I thought it worked.

The corn was like candy. Just ... amazing. Now ... back to the office.

ARMY AND JOYA

Saturday I went up to West Point to see Army play Akron in a game of American football. It was weird. Strange that we were there. I'm a football fan, yes. But I don't really know much about Army. It was beautiful up there, though. And our tailgate was super. We had hot dogs, hamburgers, pasta salad. Everything.

I even got a sunburn. So you know, it was pretty awesome for a fall tailgate. When we got back to Brooklyn (when ALEC got back I should say ... Meena was at a dress fitting all day), I wasn't all that hungry. Meena was feeling some Joya, however, so I went ahead and picked something up as well.

Alec had:
- tom yum koong

Meena had:
- chicken pad thai (a little spicy)

This night we had a much better movie in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the Joya was solid. I think I fell asleep around 10. Pretty sad for a Saturday night. But after that lovely day ... I was just tuckered out.

ZAYTOONS & THE CITY

Another long week and the only answer was sitting at home in front of the TV with some Zaytoons and a movie. Unfortunately, our movie was Sex And The City and it was awful. Terrible. But the food was great and I was with Meena so I can't complain.

We kept it pretty real. Meena had:
- chicken shawarma sandwich

Alec had:
- zaytoons mix
- shish kebab sandwich

It was a sleepy, lazy night. And despite the movie, it was awesome.

NANA TIME

Sorry to my anonymous commenter - but these photos aren't that great. See, this blog isn't so much about the pristine photos and success stories. It's just about documentation. So sometimes it happens with a camera phone. Sometimes it's at home with a nice camera and in those cases, I think my photos aren't THAT bad. But sometimes I just take what I can just to get the idea across. Thursday night at Dan and Steve's was one of those!

We were chillin' with the guys and we called in a little Nana to get our sushi fix on. Pretty good choice because the food was fantastic.

I have no idea what everyone had. I can't remember. I know I had a maki combo with some tuna rolls and california rolls and eel rolls. Meena had some shumai and a bunch of other nice rolls. It was delicious!

So, sorry for the crap photos - but I just wanted to make sure you had the latest news!

INDULGE

We were through the middle of the week and decided it was time to let loose. It was time to call in some Chance and just eat a bunch of stuff that made us feel awesome.

So we did. We called them and they brought us all this lovely stuff you see up there. Thank goodness. We needed it.

Meena had:
- chicken fried rice
- crispy fried beef

Alec had:
- hot and sour soup
- shiitake mushroom salad
- sea bass and carrot dim sum

Both of Meena's plates were great. Note, she didn't eat it all. Not by a long shot. But that's not the point. She likes to get a taste of a few different things. And with Chance's prices, that's not too hard.

Mine was rad. The sea bass dim sum is awesome. Delicate, moist fish with a little sweetness of carrot and some salty dipping sauce. Perfect, really.

FRESH AND FROZEN

Check out the juxtaposition. Frozen onion rings paired with some nice chicken sausage from the butcher. Again, like the tater tots from a few days back - weird, but oddly good. And comforting.

So I got home late and Meena got to work on this one. She started by mixing up a salad:
- field greens
- red onion
- green grapes
- bleu cheese
- dressing (olive oil, lemon juice, rice vinegar, sea salt, garlic powder and black pepper)

Then she cooked the sausage in some beer with onions and a bit of vegetable broth. The beer was a touch bitter so the onions took on a hint of that flavor profile. Not bad though. I threw them on my my sausage and housed a couple with an organic wheat bun and some mustard.

Nice.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the sausage was of the chicken sausage variety. Chicken sausage with jalapeño and cilantro. Very nice. Very nice indeed.

And to cap it all off, Meena threw in some frozen onion rings. Crazy! But I have to say, the came out of the oven crispy and delicious. Weird. So weird. But again - can't front, I liked them.

OH, MUNDAY

Yeah, we both had a case of the Mundaze. It was terrible. Awful. So what do you do when your day is totally unbearable? Order Zaytoons delivery. Obviously.

In addition to a Zaytoons mix (which was one of the best we've had in recent memory - the pepper and pickles were crisp and the olives were delicate and spicy.), we did a couple sandwiches. Meena had:
- chicken shawarma sandwich

Alec had:
- shish kebab sandwich

I don't know if it was just because we were both so tired and depressed after the day at work but this one was SO good. The shish kebab was grilled to perfection. It was packed with juicy bits of lamb and sweet grilled peppers. It was just AWESOME. Meena's sandwich was killer. Packed with hummus and perfectly cooked chicken.

Thanks for being our shoulder to cry on Zaytoons. We love you.

CAPPING OFF THE WEEKEND

If you read the last post, you can see we had a pretty great weekend. Lots of great food and all sorts of fun. So we decided to cap off the weekend with some turkey burgers and salad. You know ... just roll on through to Monday with some poultry burgers.

I got to work with the following for the burgers:
- ground turkey
- garlic
- red onion
- panko
- egg
- cumin
- soy sauce
- sesame oil
- black pepper
- green onion

I mixed that up and threw a few bits of the concoction on the skillet. When they came off, I threw them on some peasant bread with a little more red onion, mixed greens and a bit of that buffalo wing sauce Meena picked up a few weeks ago.

It was pretty good! The burgers were moist and had a lot of good flavor. The garlic and the sesame oil really came through nicely.

Meena also threw in a salad that featured:
- mixed greens
- green grapes
- bleu cheese
- red onion
- dressing (garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, rice vinegar, sea salt and black pepper)

And as if that wasn't enough, Meena pulled out some of the organic tater tots from the freezer. So weird. But good. I can't font. They were good.

If you have to let the weekend slip away, you might as well eat well.

INSANE // GOOD

I'll start by saying I stole some photos from scaredy kat on flickr. Thanks, sk. You're the best.

Ok. So this was a day. This was my bachelor party and rather than doing all the things you THINK I did, let me just say ... my day mostly revolved around my favorite stuff - friends, food and baseball. And some beer and cameras, too. Oh, and Queens. All things that I like now, even if I didn't so much before. That mostly refers to Queens. Queens and I are cool now. Not that we weren't before. We just didn't know each other well. We're feeling good now though.

Anyway, so the day started out at PS1 for some fun art in Long Island City. Some great stuff. Some stuff with obligatory nudity. You know. Art.

Then we hit an awesome halal street cart in Queens (might need Matt to remind me of the name) for a $3 chicken sandwich. With all sorts of sauces. It was messy, huge and totally awesome. It was dripping everywhere while I was trying to chow and run back to the 7 train so we could get to the next spot.

After that, we picked up some Corona Lemon Ice (I had pina colada) after a hike through ... Corona. I think my medium was $2 and worth every penny on what was probably the most humid day I've felt in September in a long time.

Then we hiked through the park and made our way over to Shea for my first (and last) game in the old blue ring. I'm glad I made it to Shea once. It wasn't such a great game. Mets blew it. But it was a lot of fun and I had a couple beers. Awesome.

After the game, we made our way over to the crown jewel of the night - Spicy & Tasty. Matt had heard some pretty amazing things about this spot and I'll just go ahead and say it - it did not disappoint. This is a tiny little Chinese joint out in Flushing and it's amazing. We were some of the only white folks in there and it was pretty clear the other patrons weren't all that happy to see us. That's harsh. They weren't UNhappy to see us. They were just like - what do these guys REALLY think they're doing here.

Well, we were eating all the crazy stuff we can't get anywhere else! That's what. And we did. We ate. And ate. And ate. There wasn't enough room on the table for our plates. And it was a big table.

I can't even remember everything. I know I had the following:
- sliced pork with crushed chili sauce
- diced rabbit
- beef tendon

I know Matt had:
- bean curd and celery with green onion
- shrimp in black bean sauce
- some other kind of shrimp with rice cakes
- some peanut butter mochi type thing
- seaweed salad
- sesame noodles

And James had:
- chicken with cashew
- black been mochi type thing

I can't remember what else James had. But suffice it to say, we at a lot and it was really, really good. Everything.

I think Matt might have real photos. I'll maybe post them later. But man. Great night. Awesome, awesome night. Matt and James really pulled through and sent me in to matrimony a very happy, very full guy. Thanks, dudes.

READY FOR A PARTY

We had a big night ahead of us and I had to take off early, so I got started on a quick breakfast ASAP. I'm not sure why I did this. I guess because we had some chicken I needed to use. So ... yeah. Chicken and the egg here.

The curry chicken salad included:
- chicken breast
- red onion
- red cabbage
- crimini mushrooms
- raisins
- light mayo
- red curry powder
- sea salt
- black pepper
- cumin

Then I threw a dollop of that mix on the following:
- egg
- peasant bread
- havarti cheese
- barbecue sauce

It was pretty delicious. Sorta messy. But it was good. And it wasn't such a bad way to get everything going before our big day.