Street Food from Taiwan

We recently came back from Taiwan and tried many of the local cuisine. By local cuisine…we mean STREET FOOD! Street food or what locals call “xiao chi” is in abundance! We saw (and tried) everything from snake soup to exotic fruits.

Here’s a few of our favorites:

[Picture 1] BBQ squid; [Picture 2] We've only seen these fruits in Taiwan. Not sure what the red apple looking fruits on the left are called. The green fruits on the right are called "Shi Jia" or pineapple sugar apples. Both are delicious!; [Picture 3] Fresh muscles cooked in basil and chili peppers.

[Picture 4] "Steal" Eggs (small and tasty); [Picture 5] Grilled snails! We did not try this...; [Picture 6] Interesting dessert, it was a flour tortilla wrapped with parseley, peanut crumbs and icecream.

Cheesecake-Filled Pumpkin Cupcakes

My latest Rachel Ray magazine came in the mail recently and we tried out some recipes. Since its the fall season, this pumpkin cheesecake cupcake recipe caught my eye. Here is the recipe right from the Rachel Ray website.

Ingredients:
One 8-ounce package cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
2 large eggs, plus 5 large egg whites
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoons salt
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup light brown sugar
Simmering water
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-size pieces and chilled

Directions:
1) Place a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350°. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with baking liners. Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese and confectioners' sugar for 3 minutes. Beat in 1 egg white and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

2) In a bowl, whisk the flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt. In another bowl, mix the pumpkin puree, 2 eggs, granulated sugar, oil and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Whisk in the flour mixture.
3) Layer each muffin cup with some of the pumpkin batter, then the cream cheese mixture, then more of the batter. Bake until springy to the touch, 25 minutes. Let cool.

4) Using the electric mixer, beat the brown sugar, remaining 4 egg whites and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt. Fill a medium saucepan with enough simmering water to reach a depth of 1 inch; place the mixing bowl on top. Whisk the mixture until it registers 160° on an instant-read thermometer.

5) Transfer the bowl back to the mixer and beat at high speed until fluffy; lower the speed and beat to room temperature, about 5 minutes. Add the butter, 1 tablespoon at a time, then beat at high speed for 5 minutes. Beat in the remaining 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

6) Transfer the frosting to a pastry bag; pipe large rosettes on top of the cupcakes.

THE VERDICT:
The cupcakes itself tasted great, but the frosting was a waste of money and time. Also, there was way too much frosting for 12 cupcakes. I ended up throwing away the frosting and enjoying the cupcakes by themselves. I would make this again minus the frosting. The recipe was easy to make and takes very little time.

Backyard Cooking Classes at 24 Prince with Top Chef's Nikki Cascone

We recently attended Chef Nikki Cascone’s, former Top Chef Cheftestant, backyard cooking class. It was an amazing experience! The class was at her restaurant, 24 Prince. We’ve learned some cool tricks and tips, plus enjoyed a 3 course meal while learning her secrets.

Chef Nikki Cascone is one of the nicest ladies you’ll ever meet. She is very friendly and thorough in explaining the ingredients, the food, cooking methods, and more. She was very approachable and even dished out some Top Chef behind-the-scenes secrets to us. She made the entire experience very enjoyable. Here’s what we learned to make:

Watermelon Salad
















This was a very unique salad with a mix of fresh greens and fruit. Ricotta Salata is now our new favorite cheese!

Seared Jumbo Shrimp


















Butter squash Pound Cake with Homemade Whip cream


















You’ll have to attend the class to get the recipes…I can guarantee you that each dish is simply delicious!

Each cooking class is $35 per person + tax and gratuity and can be reserved by contacting Emily@24prince.com or (212) 226-8624. Just on a side note: you are not actually cooking with the chef; you are actually sitting and watching Nikki cook and explain the dishes. She provides the recipes at the table and you take notes as she is cooking.

One if by land, Two if by Sea Restaurant

We went to One if by land, Two if by Sea during New York restaurant week (they are actually offering this until Labor Day), so it was a three course pre-fixe dinner for $35. It was an elegant setting and the staff was very nice. The appetizers were good, not great, but the entrée and desserts were superb…cooked to perfection. It was well worth the money.

Here’s what we ordered (from the restaurant week menu):
Appetizers
Tomato Gazpacho (Soup)
Crab, avocado, lemon basil oil
Although, in many Tomato Gazpacho recipes paprika is added, we did not expect this soup to be as spicy as it was. The spiciness really took away from the other flavors of the soup. We liked the small chunks of crab meat in soup though. Overall, it was decent, not great.

Mushroom Tart
Wild mushroom, baby zucchini, amaranth, salsa verde
We would not order this again. It was extremely salty. The mushroom was minced very finely and placed on top of a small piece of pastry. The zucchini was on the side. We tasted nothing but loads of salt on this! Stay away from it.

Entrée
Grilled Bavette Steak
Pearl onions, confit tomato, roasted radish
Three of us were at dinner; we each ordered our steaks to be cooked differently. However, when it came, the redness was the same all around. We were going to send it back until we took a bit to try it first. It was tender and flavorful! Maybe I do like my steak medium-rare…I never knew that! The steak was already nicely sliced and ready to eat. Would come back just for this!

Desserts
We ordered one of each from the restaurant week menu. We loved all three, but the cheesecake was the favorite among the group.
Nutella Cake
Olive oil semifreddo, popcorn ice cream, chocolate coated popcorn

Blueberry Composition
Rosemary gel, yuzu curd, blueberry tapioca, blueberry sorbet and rosemary chip
This was our least favorite because the smell and taste of rosemary was very strong (may not be a bad thing if you love rosemary!).

Mascarpone Cheesecake
Black currant foam, black currant streusel, pineapple
Very soft cheesecake, unlike regular cheesecake where there’s a stiffer consistency. Overall, yummy!

This restaurant is gorgeous, the waiters were nice (they even gave us a complimentary soup), but if it wasn’t for restaurant week, we might not come back again. The regular menu is extremely expensive (you can spend upwards of $250+ for 2 people). The other downside was that the portions are relatively small. We’ll go back again for next year’s restaurant week!

Address: 17 Barrow St, New York, NY 10014 (Btwn 7th Ave S & W 4th St)
www.oneifbyland.com

Total Yummy Points: 8
(Lost some points with the appetizers!)

Ashiya 2: All you can eat sushi and sake for $30, worth it?

We have mixed feelings about this place. We’ll just lay out the good, bad, and ugly for you. Let’s start with something nice to say:

THE GOOD:
You cannot beat the price. All you can eat sushi for just $25 and with an additional $5 you get unlimited beer and sake. We highly recommend the Ashiya and Dragon rolls. The food was some of the best we’ve had at any sushi buffet. If you are looking for decent sushi at a reasonable price and don’t mind the crowd, this would be a safe bet.

THE BAD:
We had made reservations for a large birthday dinner here. We called a week in advance, gave them all the information they needed including our credit card number to hold the reservation. The morning of the dinner, we called again to ask if it was okay to bring a birthday cake to eat there. Turns out it was okay to bring a cake, but they have NO RECORDS of our reservation! They also said they didn’t have a table to accommodate for a large group that night either! After much negotiating and talking to several people, magically, a table became available.

THE UGLY:
You are given a two-hour limit on your sushi buffet, but after you put in your first order, expect to wait at least 40 minutes to get your first sushi rolls to your table. We had some late comers to dinner, but their two-hour limit started when ours started. So in actuality, some people had about 1 hour. You may be tempted to order A LOT of food in your first order since its take so long to come, but be WARNED, if you don’t finish it all, they charge you extra (depending on how much is left). They tried to sneak some rolls to our table that we did not order and after we sent it back, all those same rolls still came back at our table. They sneaked a roll here and there to the plates of sushi that we did order.

Don’t expect a nice, quiet dinner here with friends either. It’s an extremely rowdy crowd. There were people playing “sake bombs” all night. This game involves loud banging on the tables (and yes, you’ll hear plates and chopsticks come crashing down once in a while).

Double check your bill when it comes. Some of us did not order the sake, but was charged. They did take it off after we complained.

To sum it up -- food is decent, price is great, and service is so-so (if not poor)!

Address:
167 1st AveNew York, NY 10003-0309(212) 505-3348
http://www.ashiya2.com/

Total Yummy Points: 6.5