Ramen And Tacos

We had a great weekend full of yummy city eats thanks to time spent in Astoria, Cobble Hill, and LIC.  Five highlights include…

{1} Doughnuts from Sugar and Water.  A cake doughnut crusted in sprinkles and a doughnut-croissant hybrid covered in chocolate.

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{2} Coffee from Velvette Brew.  This is my new favorite quad nonfat iced latte in NYC!!

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{3} Brunch at Leyenda.  Their cocktail menu is amazing; my paloma was made with housemade grapefruit soda!  And I had breakfast tacos with scrambled eggs with kale, requeson cheese, avocado, and pickled onion.  They came with an avocado-tomatillo salsa that everyone at the table was wild for.

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{4} Ice cream from Malai.  Rose with cinnamon roasted almonds // non-dairy cinnamon with black salt caramel.

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{5} Dinner at Mu Ramen.  The entire meal was a breathtaking 10/10 but the highlight was these scallion and corn okonomiyaki with smoked trout salad, tobiko, bonito flake, and foie gras syrup.

 

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Dough My Goodness

Five things from last week:

{1} Cookie dough

Still obsessed with the cookie dough Perfect Bar (which still has no online presence?!).

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Newly obsessed with this monster cookie edible dough.  I may have eaten too much sugar this week.

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{2} Leftovers

Leftover homemade corn okonomiyaki topped with gojuchang mayo and gochugaru chile flakes (p.s. this is the brand I love for both).

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{3} Snacks from Trader Joe’s

TJ’s kills it in the snack game.  Dehydrated carrots.

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Sea salt and turbinado sugar dark chocolate almonds + dried baby pineapple.

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{4} Yogurt bowl

Guava passion fruit Greek yogurt (also from Trader Joe’s) with blueberries, sumo mandarin, and chocolate banana granola.

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{5} Veggie bowl

Roasted – shredded brussel sprouts, green onion, shishito peppers + sauteed – baby tomatoes, TJ’s turkey summer sausage.

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Toppings

Five things from the weekend…

{1} The best yogurt bowl of the month.  Cinnamon vanilla Greek yogurt with banana, blackberry, and maple almond butter.

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{2} I am loving the crap out of living with a milk foamer.

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{3} Dark chocolate chip peanut butter is my favorite flavor after cookie dough.

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{4} Bona Bona tops their ice cream with toasted Italian meringue.

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I got frosted animal cracker ice cream!

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{5} A homemade take on okonomiyaki with cabbage and roasted corn.

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{bonus} I’ve been putting this dream team on top of everything.

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Souvenir Tastes

Highlights from this week include…

We were missing vacation and immediately ate all of our Hawaiian goodies.

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Taro macadamia shortbread / passion fruit gummies / li hing gummy pineapples.

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Also Hawaiian-inspired goodies, dried baby pineapple and tropical punch kombucha.

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We went to brunch at Comfortland and loved it x10,000.  The space was super cute and I wanted everything on the menu!

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We had a doughnut milk latte!  Plus a nutella creme brulee doughnut.  And a giant bbq fried chicken biscuit that I got too excited to photograph.

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Dinners were awesome thanks to some great H-Mart finds – jumbo puff tofu and Korean rice cakes.

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Stir-fry with tofu, baby bok choy, mushroom, green onion, and cherry tomato.  Sauce = soy sauce, fish sauce, rice vinegar, sriracha, sugar.

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Stir-fry with chicken, egg, rice cake, cabbage, and onion.  Sauce = gojuchang, soy sauce, rice vinegar, garlic, ginger, lime, canola oil, brown sugar.

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Oahu Part III, Fun Places We Ate

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We were blown away by how good everything we ate on this trip was!  Hawaiian chefs are absolutely killing it.  The next time we go back to Hawaii I would strongly consider returning to Oahu just to revisit some of these spots!

I really tried to limit my picture taking and this post will be a million pages long if I list out every single thing we ate so this will just be the highlights of the highlights…

** Kona Coffee Purveyors.

Nitro Kona coffee with a black sesame kougan amann (not shown).  Affogato.

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** Leonard’s Bakery.

This malasada (Portuguese doughnut) stuffed with guava cream was my favorite bite of the entire trip.

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** Matsumoto Shave Ice.

This was my favorite shave ice of the trip; the flavors were spot on and the ice cream was wonderfully chewy and a great foil to the ice.  Guava, passion fruit, and strawberry on top of vanilla ice cream and topped with condensed milk.

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** O’Kims.

Dumplings stuffed with king oyster mushroom, button ear wood, yellow squash, zucchini, and truffle paste, topped shoyu jelly and pickled dikon.

 

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Korean fried chicken with gochujang, housemade gnocchi, brussel sprouts, purple rice, and kimchi.

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** The Pig and the Lady.

Midday Run – mezcal, passion fruit, vanilla, habanero, and lemon (not shown).  Le Swoon – Kohana rum agricole, Okinawan sweet potato, pandan, coconut milk, cinnamon, lime, and aphrodite bitters.

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Chocolate banana tart with Valrhona dark chocolate cremeux, chocolate cookie crust, fresh banana and banana marmalade, toasted hazelnuts, and tamarind caramel.

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** Piggy Smalls.

This was hands down our best meal of the trip!  We ordered all the things.  Brussel sprouts with makrut lime, peanut, fried shallots, cabbage slaw, and pickled red onions.

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Stir-fried ramen noodles with aged garlic shoyu, Chinese chives, pickled fresno chile, and shrimp.

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Lychee infused milk cake with blueberry compote, lychee chantilly cream, and lemon citrus streusel.

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Hanoi egg coffee, Kona dark roast poured on whipped egg yolk and vanilla bean.

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** The Surfing Pig.

Best cocktails of the trip.  I drank way too much prior to our 10 hour red-eye flight.  The bartender was crazy talented and also maybe my new favorite person – she hugged us on our way out.  Smoked rosemary mezcal margarita.  I also had a spicy paloma with mezcal (not shown).

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** Waiola Shave Ice.

Guava and passion fruit with vanilla ice cream, condensed milk, and housemade mochi.

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Oahu Part I, Fun Things We Ate

Adam and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary(!!!) with a trip to Hawaii and had an absolutely fantastic time.  We chose to spend our entire trip in Oahu – versus island hopping – and ended up being very happy with that decision.  We walked a ton, stuck our toes in the ocean, ate a million delicious things, and saw a billion beautiful things.  I did not even take as many photographs as I usually do but I still need to split my recap into multiple posts!

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I’ll share more about the amazing restaurants we visited in a later post, for now, here were some of the best Hawaiian bites…

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** Chicken katsu musubi – seasoned rice with seaweed and fried chicken.

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** Shrimp okonomiyaki – a savory Japanese pancake.

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** Garlic butter shrimp plates from the food trucks out on the North Shore.

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** The cookies from Honolulu Cookie Company are all 10/10 buttery and delicious.

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** Butter mochi – cake made with glutenous rice flour.

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** Dole Whip – blended frozen pineapple.

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** We ate shave ice practically every single day of the trip!  The standouts are in a later post but these were still pretty darn good!  Both of these were Japanese kakagori style versus the more traditional Hawaiian style.  From Ice Monster – coffee ice with brown sugar jelly, panna cotta, and cookies and cream gelato.

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From Snow Factory – cookie butter ice and butterscotch ice with mochi, coffee jelly, and condensed milk.

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Waffley Glad

We had a really amazing time in Hawaii (several posts are coming soon!) but I am awfully glad to be back home with Webster!

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I didn’t make it the grocery until Sunday afternoon but we still managed to eat some yummy things this weekend.  Highlights include…

My new favorite yogurt bowl = Trader Joe’s plain Skyr yogurt with maple syrup, blueberries, banana, and blistered peanuts.

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Extra spicy, extra veggies hand-pulled noodles from our mall’s fancy food court.

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perfect snack.

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Costa Nova made me a fantastic quad iced latte!  Plus a waffle with marshmallow and cookie butter!

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We thought this frozen kunefe from Trader Joe’s was fantastic.  Highly recommend buying if you spot it.

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Waffle flavored chicken bites with baby carrots and maple sriracha aioli.

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My new favorite veggies bowl = a base of cauliflower rice with soft scrambled eggs, sauteed baby tomatoes, and avocado (topped with Cholula).

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The night before we left for Hawaii we celebrated our anniversary at Bowery Meat Company and the night we returned we feasted on leftover duck lasagna.

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Aloha, 17 Years

I hope that all my readers who celebrate had a merry Christmas!

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Three fun things from this week –

I bought chestnut paste – which basically tastes like Christmas! – and used it in amazing yogurt bowls.

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With cocoa granola and fresh strawberries.

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These bougie almond butter cups were surprisingly delicious.

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We made easy but great pasta bowls: boxed macaroni and cheese / canned smoked trout and anchovies / roasted broccoli and baby zucchini / topped with Kewpie and Sriracha.  Plus a side of sauteed baby cauliflower.

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Current excitement?  It is our 12 year wedding anniversary today!  And since we got married on our 5 year dating anniversary, that means we’ve been together for 17 years (aka half our lives!)!!  To celebrate, we are heading to Hawaii tomorrow!!!