IT'S NEW YEAR'S EVE

If you've noticed that time stamp on my posts you'll realize that today is New Year's eve. Tom and I are celebrating by doing nothing at home. We've just gotten back from a whirlwind trip in NY, and are recouping. Tom's spent the entire day playing video games while I've cooked and surfed the internet. But of course, this finally gives me the opportunity to catch up on my blog, especially for all you complainers - and you know who you are.

And speaking of NY, you should all know that I take our trips to NY as an opportunity to stuff myself silly. I make reservations months in advance and basically end up planning our trip around what meals we'll be eating. After spending Xmas with Tom's family, we spent two days in Manhattan just shopping and eating. Rather than staying with friends like we normally do, we found it easier just to book a hotel. I got a really good deal via Priceline, and though the hotel wasn't anything spectacular, it was truly worth it for it's location - smack in the middle of midtown and blocks from major shopping and the Time Warner Center.

When I figured out how close we'd be staying to the Time Warner Center, I knew we'd be spending lots of quality time there, and sure enough, after checking into our hotel, it was the first place we headed for lunch. Now though the original Bouchon Bakery is an hour's drive from us, and we go everytime we're in Napa, I still wanted to visit the one in the Time Warner Center. A lot of people had said it's a little hard to find, due to the massive, kinda mislead "Samsung" sign that heads right over it. But knowing that was what I'd be looking for, I looked straight up and headed to the third floor where we found the cafe. Here's a shot of it....

So in Napa, you can't sit a a full service restaurant like the location in NY. You can get take out sandwiches, but there's no seating area. In contrast, the NY location has a cafe, along with a mini bar and off to the side, you can get take out if you want (serving many of the same items that are on the cafe menu). Though it was almost 2pm, the place was packed, but Tom and I decided to wait it out and were seated in about 20 minutes.

Now as you can see form the photo, the location is kinda weird. It's basically a space carved from the middle of the mall. It's pretty tight and not a great place for a large party. When we were seated, we were handed menus, which was filled with sandwiches and salads.

After ordering, we were served the typical Bouchon epi baguette. And though it was good, it was kinda chewy and not as crusty as a really great baguette. And not as great as the ones we get in Napa.

I ended up ordering a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup - a perfect lunch on a cold day (and lots of people around agreed with me - I saw them ordering the same thing). The grilled cheese was perfectly grilled- look how that got it all brown and crunchy all over, and it was filled with gruyere - may favorite cheese. The tomato soup was also really great. Lots of tomato soups tend to be kinda watery and salty, but this one was perfectly balance and yummy.

Meanwhile Tom got a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. Though he did enjoy it, he would've preferred it not toasted. I also picked at his salad, since the one thing I was lacking from my meal was a bit of green.

Overall, the food was really great, which is what we've come to expect from Thomas Keller restaurants. The setting is a bit noisy and hectic (it is in a mall after all), and the service was efficient, though not pleasant. That was the one weird thing, since service at Keller places tends to be quite good, but really, I felt for the servers there. They were dealing with a tremendous numbers of people, many of them tourists. And though this place wasn't cheap, it wasn't really expensive, either. So they had to continually turn tables to really earn tips. I can see why they wouldn't want to keep people lingering over their meals. I also liked the fact that this Bouchon Bakery had a seating area - something I think the Napa location could certainly use.

BREAKFAST AT A TOURIST TRAP

It's not often that Tom and I will head into the touristy parts of the city. However, Steve and Barry's was having a liquidation sale, and the closest location is located at The Cannery near Fisherman's Wharf, so early on a Sunday morning, we headed into the city for some breakfast and shopping.

The times we've been down at Fisherman's Wharf we've often walked by Boudin, a place famous for its soudough bread and always packed with tourists. We decided to have breakfast at their cafe since I figured it'd be less busy with far less tourists.

When you enter the place, it's clear that it's a show place designed to handle masses of tourists.

Though there were plenty of people there, it wasn't packed, so Tom and I were able to order at the counter. It was funny because as we drove to the city, we discussed uses for the breadbowl (not just for soups). I had commented that it'd be possible to serve eggs in a breadbowl and sure enough when we got there, it was one of the options on the menu.

Though I really would've been happy with a clam chowder bread bowl, it wasn't listed on the breakfast menu and I figured they didn't serve it this early in the morning (I later saw someone else with it). And Tom greatly encourage me to order the egg breadbowl, so I did. Here it is below:

And yeah, it was kinda as appalling as it looks. It was basically a veggie scramble with cheese in a sourdough bread bowl. The eggs were waaaaayyyyy overcooked, but to their credit, that sourdough bread bowl was really quite tasty. (Though Tom didn't think it was sour enough). I think I would've been happy with just some toasted sourghdough and butter.

Meanwhile, Tom ordered the breakfast pizza:

He describes it as "passable" and "it wasn't great". They had cooked the eggs prior to putting it on the pizza rather than cooking the eggs on the pizza, so the eggs ended up quite dry.

My advice in the future - stick to the sourdough and maybe the clam chowder. Avoid everything else.

A LIGHT LUNCH A BOUCHON BAKERY

This is a rather delayed post, so I doubt that most of you will find it, but I feel it worth putting up, since I'm writing about a rather well known place. So last month my friend Matt was in town visiting and I decided to take him up to Napa for a few hours. We stopped for lunch at Bouchon Bakery, of course founded by the famous Thomas Keller, and located in St. Helena next to the original Bouchon.

This place is famous for its breads and pastries, and I knew it'd be a bit pricey, but I splurged after the drive up. For lunch, I ordered this veggies sandwich.

It was very tasty, served on thick slices of homemade bread with well grilled veggies and a nice basil sauce. I also picked up a number of desserts for dinner later that night, and you can see them below.

We had little tastes of all my favorite flavors represented: an apple tarte tatin (my all time favorite dessert, especially if I'm making it), a chocolate tart and a passion fruit tart. The apple tarte tatin was ok, I like mine more warm and the pastry cripser. The passion fruit was very tasty, but had raspberries mixed in, and I'm not a fan of raspberries, so the chocolate tart was my favorite, and in my opinion, the prettiest one.

Overally, I enjoyed my treats from Bouchon Bakery. I'd also gotten Tom some bread and though he liked the baguette more than the ones from Acme, they still weren't as good as the ones at Clear Flour. So I look foward for my next trip back to Napa, to pick up more treats from Bouchon Bakery.

BAKESALE BETTY'S

Fried chicken sandwiches with spicy coleslaw. Need I say more? I was excited to go to Bakesale Betty before I'd even moved out here. And I'd even told Leah about it and showed her the pics. So since I happened to be in that part of Berkeley, I dropped by with my mom and aunt after our trip to Berkeley Bowl. There was a small line out the door, but it was moving fast. They had lots of cookies, but I knew what I wanted. I ordered two fried chicken sandwiches, an egg salad sandwich (for my mom) and a cookie. They had my order ready in like 2 minutes.

We ended up taking them home for lunch. I left one sandwich with Tom, who was working at home, and took the other one to my cousin's house. Here's the fried chicken one:

Well, what can I say, this could have been so much better. Maybe if it'd still been hot, but I doubt the ones at the store were even hot since they were frying the chicken in advance to make. It ended up being super greasy, under seasoned and that coleslaw? Not so spicy. Overall, it was eh. Perhaps it'd be different if I'd actually had one there.

And here's the egg salad.

I didn't have any, but it was the eggiest egg salad sandwich I'd ever seen. It was like all egg, no filler. There must've been 4-5 eggs per sandwich.

I guess that not all things can live up to the hype. I'll just make my own fried chicken sandwich at home.

I'M BACK...
The sun is rising behind me as I type this post, and so I begin to think...having jetlag sucks. I had a great first full day back- got a full night's sleep and stayed up all day. I even had Leah over for dinner. And so I thought, I'm not gonna have any jetlag this time. But then I slept all day yesterday. And today I was up at 5:30. I just hope I get over it soon, cause I feel really useless when I spend an entire day in my jammies.

I had a great trip back to Taiwan, so lots of posts will follow. I ate a ton, hung out with family and went shopping. But first, I spent a day in LA, and went to a couple new places to eat. After my flight landed at LAX, my sister, Christine, and I decided to have lunch with my Dad. Christine wanted to go to a new restaurant called Katsuya in Brentwood. And my Dad begrundgingly agreed. He'd been there before and hadn't really liked it.

When we entered the large space, it was rather empty. Apparently they'd just started serving lunch and the word wasn't out yet. The design of the space reminded me a lot of Gari on a giant scale. It was very clean and white, with large paintings on the wall. It was very LA, with it's white couches for seats. You could totally imagine it packed with trendy, pretty people- and I ended up reading about it in last week's U.S. Magazine. I generally dislike these type of restaurants and avoid them, but at least it was empty at lunch. Katsuya has a large central roboto grill and lots of seating. Here's a shot of the grill:Our waitress was quite pleasant. And since Christine and I hadn't been there before, she explained to us that there are 3 kitchens- one for hot food, one for sushi and one of the roboto grill. This would end up being a minus rather than a plus. But first we ordered. My dad got a regular chicken teriyaki lunch, while I got a lunch cooked on the roboto grill that I shared with Christine. Meanwhile, Christine got an order of their spicy tuna on crispy rice. Here it isThe rice is actually grilled, and Christine enjoyed it a lot. Meanwhile, here's the salad that came with my lunch. It was waaaayyy overdressed. I only ate half of it. And here's my California roll that came with my lunch. It was competently made, and at least they used real crab. (which seems to be used a lot more frequently in LA than Boston) So here's the problem with having 3 different kitchens- the timing of food is very very poor. My father's entree came out first, and he was mostly finished with it by them time my lunch came out. (His came out of the hot kitchen, and I was waiting for my food from the roboto grill). His lunch was ok, but my dad was totally correct in saying that we could get better food at the Japanese restaurant we've been going to for over 20 years, and it would've cost less. And here's my entree By the time it arrived, it was lukewarm. And the reason why I like food grilled on a roboto grill is for the smoky flavor that comes from the charcoal. This food totally lacked that flavor. Needless to say, Katsuya was not my favorite restaurant and I can't imagine going back.

After lunch, Christine wanted to visit a cupcake shop called Dainties Cupcakes. LA is currently over run with cupcake shops (even more so than NY where the whole cupcake thing started) It's located on little Santa Monica Blvd., and it's a little hard to find because it's actually located behind a strip mall (look for a Winchell's Donut, and it's right behind that).

The space is really more of a production/ office space. The owners were there taking orders when we arrived. But they do have a case full of cupcakes. All their cupcakes are devil's food, dipped in chocolate ganache and then filled with some type of flavored whipped cream. They were $3/piece and we ended up getting 10 mixed ones.When we got home, we cut one open to share.
I thought it was OK. Whipped cream isn't my favorite thing and I found the cake rather dry. I'd much prefer a regular cupcake, even if it came from a boxed mix. However, they do look quite nice, and make pretty gifts- I gave two to Katie and Dustin.

And that was my brief stay in LA, I was off to Taiwan the next day.

HI RISE V. CLEAR FLOUR

Welcome to the start of Boston's Winter Restaurant Week. That's right people, if you don't have reservations by now, you're probably not gonna get them. Just kidding. There are so many restaurants participating, I'm sure it's not hard to get one, even now. I have two reservations for this week: Union and Chez Henri. Both restaurants I've wanted to visit for sometime, and now I finally get to go! Actually this month will be filled with eating, since I'm headed out to NY next week. It'll be the NY foodfest weekend. And April will be the time to purge my system, exercise and lose weight month. But let's just make it through March first, shall we?

Yesterday we actually went to two bakeries in one day. We started the morning by having brunch at Hi Rise Bakery in Huron Village. We were joined by a number of friends and when we arrived to Hi Rise, the place was packed. However, the crowd tends to ebb and flow there. So after placing our orders and slowly grabbing seats, we were eventually able to grab a whole large table to ourselves. I got a sandwich and only finished half of it. (I'm having the other half for lunch today). Tom got a very generous bread basket. And since it was his first trip to Hi Rise, I think it was a great way for him to try out the breads there. Overall they were well made, but I think the breads at Hi Rise just tend to be bolder breads. The don't have the delicate artistry of the breads made at Clear Flour. So after some grocery shopping, we made out weekly trip to Clear Flour. I was able to grab two of those delicious sesame bread sticks, while Tom got an Epi French baguette (the braided kind). The breads tasted wonerful, as usual. And I'm glad the we make a weekly trip here now.

Now we just need a visit to Iggy's and Sel de la Ter to make this survey of Boston bakeries complete.

ANOTHER VISIT TO CLEAR FLOUR

It's snowing outside. Which means I'm stuck inside at my store and no one is shopping. I mean no one. I've had one customer today. So I'm also deeply bored. These are the days you want to declare a snow day and head home. If I weren't training the new employee today, you'd bet that's exactly what I'd do. But at least I brought lots of snacks to work to keep me entertained. This weekend I spent a lot of time working, but at least I had all of Sunday off to run errands. And have brunch with Leah. We went to Shangri-la in Belmont for dim sum. I hadn't been there in some time, and it was nice to have familiar comfort food. And I also really like their scallion pancakes.

After brunch, I took a nap and then did the typical Sunday stuff: laundry, food shopping and what has now become a weekend ritual, a visit to Clear Flour Bakery. As I said last week, we tried out the staples first, but were now ready to try some more unique bread. I got 2 almond macaroons, plus a loaf of bread stuffed with sundried tomatoes, a demi French and the best thing of all, a black sesame bread stick with herbed butter. We also grabbed a bread schedule. Some stuff they only make on certain days of the week. So that black sesame bread stick is only made on Saturdays and Sundays. I think it's nice, so if you go often, you can keep being surprised. Unfortunately when we got home, we noticed that the girl had forgotten our demi French, which I was planning on serving with a lentil soup I'd made for dinner.

I'd been watching Ina last week when I decided to make her lentil soup with sausage. It turned out pretty well, but while I was making it, I kept feeling it was lacking in something. I ended up tossing in some rosemary, which helped give the soup more body. And the addition of red wine vinegar at the end really did help change the flavor, as did the accompanying grated cheese and olive oil. So don't forget those. I used kielbasa sausage, as she suggested, but Tom pointed out that he likes some heat and an andouille sausage may have worked better. I couldn't agree more. I also like additional heat. Lastly, this recipe is enormous. I halved it and still have a ton of soup left, but that's ok, cause that's what I'm having for lunch today.

A DAY OF DINING IN BROOKLINE

It's been a long time since I've reviewed anything. With the cold weather and the business of Valentine's Day, it was hard to motivate and visit new places. It's always easier just to go to the old favorites in the neighborhood. However, this past Saturday was warm and sunny. Warm being in the 30s. So we decided to head out and try a new place. We'd spotted Zenna Noodle Bar in Coolidge Corner the week before and vowed to return and try it out and that's what we did. We were having an early lunch, it was only 11:30 when we arrived, and the place was completely empty (something we had noticed the week earlier). The decor was nice, and fairly modern, but I was a little put off by the Muzak that was blasting from the speakers.

So we were given menus, which was kinda gimicky in its organizaiton. They were going for a theme of the five elements, so salads were listed as "earth", noodles in soup were "water, panfried noodles were "fire". You get the idea. I thought it was unnecessary. The menu is more like a pan-Asian menu, but I found it had a lot of Vietnamese influence. After debating for a while, Tom ordered the Vietnamese Crepe. I think that's what it was. The menu isn't online, so you'll have to bear with me here. At any rate, here it is.We both enjoyed it a lot. It was stuffed with fresh veggies and big pieces of shrimp and it had a pleasant crunch to the outside, while remaining soft on the inside. I thought it could've used more salt, but the flavor was greatly improved by the addition of basil, which it's served with.

Then I ordered what basically amounted to wonton soup, but in this case, the shrimp dumplings didn't contain any pork, so I could actually eat them. After adding two spoonfuls of hot sauce, I thought it was very good. I wasn't the biggest fan of the shrimp dumplings, the texture of the interior was a bit off, but the large fresh shrimp and veggies in the soup made up for it. Tom ordered their signature dish, which was basically a chicken pho. He also enjoyed it. Even though it was much more expensive than what you'd get at a place like Pho Pasteur, it was also filled with nice fresh veggies, so that was a great addition.
Overall we both enjoyed Zenna. By the time we'd left, the place still hadn't filled up. Only 2 tables had arrived, but I think if people start to discover it, they'll find a well priced yummy noodle place in the neighborhood. And to finish, Tom wanted me to show you this paper rose they made with the straw wrapper that came on his Coke.After lunch we decided to visit Clear Flour Bakery. Now, I'd been to Clear Flour before, but it was years ago, when I first arrived in Boston. It's well known for being one of the best bakeries in town, but it's a little hidden, on a side street off of Comm Ave. in Brighton. The actual retail space is tiny. They use most of the space for production (which is quite big) but there was a steady flow of people going in and out. Once we entered the space, we were overwhelmed with all the options. There were so many things we wanted to try, but Tom opted for 2 loaves: one baguette and one sourdough loaf. Tom loves really good bread, so he wanted to see how well Clear Flour made the basics before starting in on any fancy stuff. Meanwhile, I got an almond macaroon. I'm a big fan of the almond macaroon. Crunchy on the outside, but soft and chewy on the inside, the ones at Clear Flour were extra big and super delicious. I only bought one cause I wasn't sure how good it'd be, but I'll be sure to buy extra the next time I'm there. Tom also really enjoyed the bread, and we managed to finish off both loaves in 2 days. It went really well with the Potato Leek soup that I made for dinner

I had gotten leeks in my most recent Boston Organic's order, so using this recipe from Epicurious, I set out to make my soup. First I had to clean the leeks, which took a little while since leeks have so much sand in them. After that, I chopped up my potatoes, and that was pretty much it. I first sauteed the leeks. Take note that the recipe tells you not to brown them. That's where I screwed up. I was being inattentive and before I knew it, the leeks had browned. I immediately poured in chicken stock, but the damage had been done, my soup would now be a brownish color, rather than the classic white. Even the addition of the potatoes wouldn't help much.

I let the soup cook for about 30 minutes, waiting for the potatoes go soft. Then I blended them up with my hand mixer and tried it out. It was bland. Or missing something. Which is where I got a little carried away and added four cloves of garlic. 2 would've been fine, but with the four, the entire thing now tasted like garlic soup. Not always a bad thing but certainly wasn't what I was going for. The good thing was that the soup went wonderfully with the bread. Next time I'll add the garlic at the beginning and hopefully it'll have more flavor.

So that's it! A Saturday of dining in Brookline. Today I'm going to try out a recipe by Mark Bittman, the minimalist. And I'll let you all know how that goes.

AN AFTERNOON IN ARLINGTON

So it was Monday afternoon. I had some time off, so I called up Katie and we decided to check out Penzey's Spices in Arlington. We also decided to get some lunch. It seemed a bit to hot for bbq from Blue Ribbon, so I did some digging and found an interesting Russian cafe for us to check out instead.

We drove up to the place, and as usual, with address in hand, we walked up to the restaurant... and found that it no longer existed. How this has happened to me twice in one week I don't understand. But suffice it to say, when looking up info on Chowhound, call to verify that the place still exists. If only I had taken my own advice. However, it was a serendipitous mistake because in place of the former Russian cafe was a cute little bakery/coffeeshop called Sweet Sue's. So we went in, hoping to find a nice, light lunch, which we succeeded in doing.

Here's an interior shot of the place. It's got big windows, so is very light and has a comfy seating area. There was a fairly large case up front that contained some very yummy looking pastries, especially muffins. But we were here for lunch. The options, written on large chalkboards scattered throughout the place, were pretty limited, but still looked very decent. I ordered a chicken club (minus the bacon) while Katie got a lovely Oriental chicken salad. (do they only call is Oriental cause it has mandarin orange slices and almonds?)

At any rate, here's my sandwich. It was quite tasty. A bit too much mayo, but i really like the baguette it was served on. Plus the potatoes.Here's Katie's salad, which also looks great and she enjoyed a lot. In retrospect, I might have ordered this, but there's always next time.At the table next to us, there was a family having lunch together. And towards the end of their meal, they had ordered these mini pies which were so cute! Katie and I both wanted one. But when we went back up to the counter to order, they were already sold out! So note to self, order early next time. I also like the fact that this place was very reasonably priced, so I will certainly be back for that mini pie.

After lunch, we headed up the street to Penzey's Spices. I'd heard about this place from my older sister who enjoyed going while she lived in Pittsburgh. And I knew that they'd opened a store in Arlington, but I hadn't made my way up there.So Penzey's really does just sell spices and herbs. Dried ones that is. They're well known for these spice kits that you can get people as gifts. I had a small list of stuff that I needed: vanilla, bay leaves and cinnamon. Here's a pic of how a shelf is layed out.They have different size bottles of stuff and next to each one, they have a covered glass jar that you can open and smell what's inside. That's how i ended buying more than I'd originally planned. Plus, buying spices at Penzey's is much much cheaper than buying them at your regular grocery store. And they quality's much better. I ended getting the 3 seasonsings i needed, plus a jar of European peppercorns, a smoked paprika and 2 types of red pepper flakes. Here's a pic of all my goodies when I got home.Katie also got something cool- vanilla sugar. And a few other ingredients. All in all, it was a great way to spend a sunny summer afternoon with a friend.

NY DINING DAY 1: AMANDINE AND EXCELLENT PORKCHOP

For me, there are two ways of dining in NY. Either super high end or hole in the wall excellence. On my most recent trip to NY, we engaged in the latter more than the former, and I was just fine with that. So I was in NY for work, attending the annual Fancy Food Show, the largest gourmet food show in the country. And it was also an opportunity to see my cousins and check out their awesome new pad in DUMBO. (I dream of having 12 foot ceilings, a subzero fridge, a wolf range and a great roof garden).

By the time we arrived at my cousin's place, it was post lunch. But the perfect time for a pre-dinner snack. We first checked out Jacque Torres' chocolate shop, I always want to see what new stuff he's got going on and then we went over to their neighborhood bakery, just across the street from J. Torres, Amandine. It seems to me that bakeries named Amandine tend to be excellent, since there's also one in LA that I've blogged about (but they are unrelated). And really, if we had a bakery like this in Boston, i would be driving to it all the time, even if it wasn't in my neighborhood.

The pastry case at Amandine is filled with all sorts of freshly made pastries. The also sell freshly made breads and sandwiches. Yeah, we don't have a place like this in Boston. Believe me, I've looked. Though Truly Jorg's comes close (of course his new location in Boston hasn't opened yet.) After perusing the case I decided to get this strawberry tart.
Doesn't it just look lovely? Of course, when you have something this simple, all the components need to be great. And in this case they were. The two things that people tend to screw up the most are the tart shell and the pastry cream (and I'll admit, good pastry cream is hard to make). But in this case, they were great.

My cousin, Jeany, got this mixed berry eclair. She says it's her favorite thing there.and I didn't photograph it, but my cousin's husband got a chocolate mousse cup. Post snack, we strolled around the park a bit, checked out the awesome views of Manhattan and made an attempt to get ice cream (but the place had run out of ice cream for the day!) Afterwards, we went home and watched a movie.

Then it was time for dinner. We thought about various places to go, but the final consensus was the Excellent Pork Chop House (yes, that is actually the name of the place) in Manhattan. Years ago, before I had lived in NY, one of my cousins (not the one I was visiting this time) had taken me there, but just for shaved ice. Then, when I finally moved to NY, I had to track it down for myself and was very please to introduce it to my cousin, Jeany, who had lived in NY for over 10 years. My only problem with the place is that it closes by 9pm, which is unheard of for NY.

So the Excellent Porkchop serves very authentic Taiwanese cuisine. It's located on Doyers street, which is this little alleyway between Mott and Bowery, right across from the Post Office . I've heard that it actually has a secret underground tunnel hidden below it, which had been used by various Chinatown gangs, but I've never been able to find it for myself. I will admit that this is not the greatest, most romantic setting in the world. But that's why it's a hole in the wall.

This place does have picture menus (just like Duk Bua) and the waitress did give it to one of my friends once. Luckily, we've been there so often that the waitresses still remember us (even if I don't live in NY anymore, I still go here 1-2 times a year). We started off ordering two appetizers. First, i always order these little cucumbers. (translated, the name is little yellow cucumbers). They are slightly pickled and are very garlickly. Kinda sweet and sour at the same time, but always delicious.Jeany ordered a plate of jellyfish. It's been marinated in sesame oil and garlic and along with the pickled daikon, cucumbers and carrots, it is cool, crunchy and also wonderful.Then it was onto the main event. As you all know, I don't eat pork. (I left that up to the rest of the table and they all enjoyed their porkchops) Meanwhile, I ordered my favorite fried chicken leg noodle soup, with an extra marinated egg on the side. It arrives with a huge bowl of noodles. At the top of the pic you'll see the pickled veggies that it's served with. Again, the crunchy, saltiness of the pickles just enhances the flavors of the soup.And of course, here's the fried chicken leg that they serve on a separate place.
It actually ends up being a massive amount of food. And of course, being in Chinatown, and not on Canal street, this entire dinner cost us around $8/person. I love NY Chinatown! So if you're ever wandering around Chinatown, looking for an excellent place to eat, try the Excellent Pork Chop House on Doyers, you won't be sorry.

SWEET SNACKS FROM MEDFORD

Have you heard of the CBS4 AList? I don't know how you haven't, since nearly every business in the city has been nominated. But it's this thing where anyone can nominate a Boston based business and people vote for their favorites. It's basically a big popularity contest, kinda like in high school when you're voting for the prom court. I never voted, but Leah was nice enough to nominate my store in the "Desserts" section since there wasn't a "chocolate" category. So we were surfing around looking at the other nominees last week when we noticed a place called Donuts with a Difference. I'm gonna digress right now and tell you all to visit the CBS4 website to vote for Leah if you haven't done it already. http://cbs4boston.cityvoter.com/Details.aspx?p=2051&Cat=19&SCat=17

But back to the donuts. We decided we wanted to check out this donut place and buy a dozen donuts before heading over to the Pride parade, so on a very rainy Saturday morning, Tom and i headed up to Medford to get the donuts. After getting a little lost, we found this tiny shop on the main part of downtown Medford. It was a store that looked like it'd been there since the 70's. Not much charm, and kinda dark, but they did have a lot of donuts. We picked up 6 different varieties, and it ended up being super cheap. Just $6 for a dozen.

And while we were in Medford, I remembered that there was a Modern Pastry. Since I never go to the North End anymore (there just isn't anywhere to park and I hate the T) I go to Modern like once a year now. But i do love their almond cookies (the plain ones, not the ones with pine nuts) and I picked up a half dozen of those. Here they are below. So light, and chewy, but with a crunchy exterior. I love them.And returning to the donuts. There we were at Pride. The rain was coming down and we ducked under an awning at the Four Seasons for a donut break. And here they are:The look pretty nice. Here's a pic of Leah's boston cream donut. These donuts turned out being super super dense donuts. Leah liked the cream filling, but was sad there was so little of it.And here's tom's jelly donut. Again, not a whole lot of jelly in the middle, but a very dense donut exterior.
I just nibbled on a chocolate donut with sprinkles, but thought it was too much after all the almond cookies I'd had. I think these donuts were worth a try, but probably not a drive all the way to Medford. They were just a bit too heavy and dense, though they were very fresh. Those almond cookies are a different story, though. Almost worth taking the T to the North End. Almost.

IS THERE ANY BUTTER AT THE BUTTERY?

Which is what one of our fellow customers asked while we ate. A couple of weeks ago, Jayna and I decided that we wanted to go have lunch. She needed to go to the South End to visit a site and I wanted to go to the South End to check out some coffeeshops. So with that in mind, I suggested that we visit the Buttery, which opened not too long ago on Shawmut St. and Union Park St. First, let me just say that I was thrilled to have found VISITOR PARKING in the south end! it'll probably never happen again in my lifetime.

Upon arriving at the South End Buttery, I realized that I'd driven by this place many times before, and had always wondered if it was ever open. After looking at the hours, I realized that I was just driving by at the wrong time. The Buttery does an intense lunch crowd, so they're only open until 3pm on weekdays, 5pm on weekends, but they're packed the entire time.It's a super casual place, but they have lovely salads, sandwiches, homemade soups and pastries. I think they make everything on premises in their basement kitchen. It's also pretty small, so I was glad that we were able to grab a table (though they turn pretty quickly). I also admired their lovely espresso machine. It was old school and beautiful. Too bad they didn't know how to use it properly. Jayna ordered some chicken soup (she was just starting to get sick and remains so even now). While I ordered a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich.

And here are the remnants of that sandwich. ( I apologize, i forgot about photographing until I'd consumed most of it.) But it was yummy and melty and cheesy. I liked it a lot. Sometimes the simplest things in life are the best.

Here's Jayna's soup. It looked good, and they used real chives. How rare.

And lastly, we shared a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie which was fantastic. Loaded with butter, it probably set me back a week at the gym, but it was worth it. So in response, yes, there is butter at the south end buttery, and it's all in the cookies.