Win Son - Take II

I went to Win Son a few months ago for dinner (original post here), and I made the trip out again to Brooklyn once more to try their brunch.  Verdict: good decision, as brunch was better than dinner.

Overall I think everything was cooked well, but there was a lot of sauce (perhaps a bit too much) on everything.  Again, Win Son does a creative take on traditional Taiwanese dishes and flavors, but the food here is by no means traditional.

All the appetizers we tried were pretty good.  I liked the turnip cake wrapped in a thin egg crepe,  and both the savory and sweet dou jiang you tiao 豆漿油條 (soy milk with cruller) were good.  The hua lien egg bomb was tasty (fried scallion pancake with a runny egg in the middle), although the pancake was a little bit too fried, and there was too much sauce.  The sloppy pork buns are essentially filled with the ground meat, perhaps from the lu rou fan 滷肉飯 (not too sure, as we didn't get the lu rou fan this time).  The pan griddled pork buns were cooked very well with a nice and crispy bottom, and they were very juicy on the inside.  This could've also used less sauce, especially since the buns were pretty good on their own.
         

Of the mains, the chicken in the chicken and waffle was flavorful and tender (yay for dark meat), and the waffle was soft and delicious with a hint of sweetness on its own.  I normally prefer crispy waffles over soft ones, but theirs was good.  The danzi noodles were also great and tasted of home.

  

Pea shoots were a welcome side, although the sausage (xiang tsang) was only okay.

Kyo Ya

It's hard for me to pick "favorite" restaurants in NYC because there are so many different types of cuisines, but regardless of mood or occasion, Kyo Ya is one of my absolute favorites.

Of all the times I've gone, I've actually never ordered the Kaiseki menu because there are so many items on the a la carte that I love or want to try.

My staples include the following:

• Pressed mackerel sushi: not many places do pressed sushi, and even fewer do mackerel well.  Mackerel is a such a strong flavored fish, but Kyo Ya does a great job with it and actually turned me from an indifferent mackerel eater to a saba lover.  Must try item, in my opinion.

 

• Sweet potato tempura: so simple, but so good.  It's perfectly fried, and the dipping salt and soy sauce balance out the sweetness of the sweet potato very nicely.

• Seasonal kamadaki (clay pot) rice: this takes a while, but it's a nice way to end the meal.  The rice is light, really highlighting the natural flavors of whatever seasonal ingredient you choose.  If you can't finish, they'll pack it up nicely for you, and you can ask for some pickles to go with it too.

  

And so many other delicious and beautiful morsels!

      

36 Hours in Napa

I recently went on a whirlwind trip to Napa for a lovely girls weekend, specifically, a bachelorette party.  While we considered a variety of activities, from spa time to hiking, ultimately, we settled for a food-centric weekend (surprise, surprise).

Our travel chronicles:

Friday: Everyone makes there way to Napa.  We stayed at a Vino Bello Resort, which offers condominium-style lodging.  Despite a minor hiccup at check-in, where they accidentally gave us the key to someone else's room (okay, that's not minor and is pretty bad), we checked into a nice and spacious two bedroom, two bathroom suite.  Dinner at R&D Kitchen.  The line was too long for the actual restaurant, so we just grabbed a seat outdoors.  The more limited bar menu items didn't sound as exciting, except for the pulled pork sandwich, so we all ordered the exact same thing.  The food came quickly, and the sandwich was delicious and huge; we probably could've shared, but we scraped our plates clean.  Waste not, want not.

Saturday: Our big day of adventure.  We started off with brunch at Bouchon.  You really can't go wrong with that.  Then we walked over to the French Laundry culinary garden  down the block for some pretty pictures and fragrant smells.  Next, we moseyed on over to V Marketplace to enjoy the air conditioning and browse the boutiques there.  The marketplace is also home to Kollar Chocolates, so I picked up some fancy chocolates to take home as a gift for the husband at home.

    

Once sufficiently cooled down, we braved the heat once more and went to Mumm Winery, which is known for their variety of sparkling wines (very bachelorette appropriate!).  They have a few different tasting flights available, or you can always order a la carte.  FYI, they give very generous pours (two thumbs up).  I wasn't a huge fan of the wines I tried in my tasting so didn't buy anything, but it was still a very enjoyable experience (and we snacked on our takeaway Bouchon macaron).  Because we clearly didn't have enough food, we went to Oxbow Market after the winery to walk around, and of course I had to have some ice cream from Three Twins Ice Cream.  It was absolutely necessary to help me cool down from the heat.

We had a late dinner reservation at  Ad Hoc, which was a good call because no one was hungry, so we just went back to the resort to relax (aka digest) before dinner.  Ad Hoc is a family style restaurant, and I think I liked the starters and sides more than the main pork entree that day, but it was a nice meal overall.  Apparently they made a mistake and only gave us food for four people instead of our party of six, and while we noticed (e.g., not enough wings or grilled cheese sandwiches to go around so some people had to share), there was still more than enough food, and we could not even finish the pork entree (although cleaned up shop for everything else).

Sunday: After all the eating out and food adventures from the prior day, we decided to stay in and have brunch in our suite at the resort, as we brought a lot of food and snacks and drinks, and it would be a pity to not eat those pastries from Mr. Holmes Bakehouse, for example.  So in a nutshell, we ate and drank some more and finally got around to playing some bachelorette games before heading home.

I originally thought that the trip would've felt too rushed, but it actually felt like a pretty comfortable and relaxing pace, and we got in so many yums and wonderful memories.  Perfect girls trip weekend.

O Ya

Great  food and excellent service.  The sushi pieces and flavors were very creative.  My favorite sushi pieces were a prawn with yuzu tobiko (most surprising to the bite, with the tartness of the tobiko standing out against the umami of the prawn) and a fried kumamoto oyster with squid ink foam.  The most unique one was a potato chip with flake of black truffle, which was good and the texture worked, but if given the choice, I'd rather have fish.

  

Of the cooked foods, the wagyu beef was done well with a nice sear on the edges and a pink center, and they brought out a sake pairing (not sure if they were being nice because it was my birthday or if they always have this dish with the sake pairing), which paired perfectly with the beef.  Same comment for the last piece -- the foie gras sushi and sake pairing worked very well together.

  

The weakest link was the grilled lobster with truffle.  The lobster was overcooked and tough, and as much as I love truffle and appreciate extra truffle in everything, the truffle sauce was so strong it overpowered the lobster itself.  Another nit is there was a mushroom sushi and a separate grilled trumpet and shiitake mushroom dish, which I felt were somewhat similar (and one mushroom item in an omakase would've been sufficient).

  

Overall, a lovely meal and very friendly staff.

Morgenstern's Finest Ice Cream

If I could only go to one ice cream parlor, Morgenstern's would be it.  Note there's almost always a long and slow line, but I keep going back and taking people back to wait in line because it's that good.  Perhaps part of the inefficiency (only adding in required mix-ins to order) is what makes the ice cream so good and fresh, so that's a bit of a catch 22.  Because of the long lines, they also only allow 1 taste, which makes it hard to decide because there are so many delicious sounding, unique flavors.  There are a lot of places that try to experiment with new flavor profiles that don't always work, but everything I've tried at Morgenstern's has been good.

2 things about me: 1) I'm a huge chocolate lover, and 2) I like trying out new things.  However, at Morgenstern's,  4 out of 5 times I get my favorite Vietnamese coffee and green tea pistachio flavors because...yum.  I'm also not usually a caramel person, but the salted caramel pretzel sundae is amazing (salted caramel ice cream on top of a gooey caramel cake, topped with pretzels and caramel).  It's quite large though, so either be very hungry or share.  (Once my husband tried to order the sundae just for himself, and they misunderstood and instead gave him a scoop of salted caramel ice cream instead...haha).  As for the other sundaes, the New God Flow was sort of underwhelming, and the King Kong Banana Split unnecessarily overwhelming with its 5 scoops of ice cream; I thought the pineapple and luxardo toppings made that one too sweet.

King Kong Banana Split

Salted Caramel Pretzel

I recently tried a couple of the seasonal flavors -- coconut espresso and blueberry chocolate -- and as expected, both were delicious.

Ice & Vice

Ice & Vice always has fun seasonal flavors, but I still love my classics like Shade, 9AM, and Milk Money.  For those who haven't been, their "classics" are by no means boring flavors, and are every bit as unique to Ice & Vice as any of the seasonal ones.

They've gotten more and more attention recently for their beautifully scooped ginormous cones (e.g., how many scoops can you pile onto a cone before it topples, and how about get creative and add an ice cream pie and an ice cream sandwich on top too?!).  There's also a pretty extensive selection of cone flavors from The Konery.

Korean Fried Chicken Recipe

Ingredients
Chicken and batter:
1 to 1.5 pounds chicken wings
1/2 cup corn starch
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cold water
1/4 cup vodka
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon pepper

Dressing:
3 tablespoons Korean gojuchang red pepper paste
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon hot water
2 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon minced ginger
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon white bottoms of scallions

Garnish:
White sesame seeds
Green tops of scallions

Instructions
Combine 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, half of corn starch and baking powder and mix well.  Add chicken wings and toss until every surface is coated.  Refrigerate and marinate for at least 30 minutes.

In the meantime, combine all dressing ingredients and heat over low heat and keep warm.

When ready to fry, pour oil into a large, heavy pot to a depth of about 1.5 inches.  Heat to 350 degrees F.  Combine remaining cornstarch, baking powder, flour, and another teaspoon of salt into a large bowl and mix.  Add water and vodka and whisk until a smooth batter is formed.  It should have the consistency of thin paint and not be too thick.

Add wings to batter.  Let excess batter drip off and lower into hot oil.  Fry and rotate to cook evenly.  Cook until golden brown and crisp, about 8 minutes.  Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate.



Coat wings in the warm dressing.  Garnish with sesame seeds and green scallions.