Fun Thai Food in Financial District

I'm having this coconut ice cream in a young coconut shell as I'm typing this. It's delicious and fun and it's from 35 Thai (35 Lispenard St). They have a similar pineapple ice cream served in a baby pineapple!

This coconut ice cream is very light (feels like there's very little fat in this, possibly because they used a good portion of coconut water to make it instead of cream/milk), so it is a completely different ice cream experience than the rich, butter-like frozen nitrogen ice cream served at Lulu & Mooky's that we tried a couple of months ago!

I was also very tempted to get frog legs from Cafe Sage (108 John St) but they are cash only and I only had $5 on me. You can get their frog legs
a) in red curry sauce with red onion.
b) In garlic and pepper sauce
c) In basil and chili pepper sauce.

I'll have to try them next time! Continue...

Weird Food Club recommendations for NYC Restaurant Week Winter 2010

Img via The Modern

2010 Winter Restaurant Week is Monday-Friday, January 25-29 and February 1-5, 2010. Although most NYC chefs stick to their tried and true butternut squash soups, duck confits and panna cottas, luckily, a few of them take the opportunity to experiment with their menus. Restaurant Week is also a fantastic opportunity for you to try rare and/or expensive ingredients on the cheap -- all selected dinners are $35 so hurry for reservations.

1.Brasserie 8 and 1/2
Fluke Tartare (Avocado & Sea Urchin, Mango Vinegar, Cucumber)
Slow Braised Goat (Chicken of the Wood Mushrooms, Polenta)
Blood Orange Mirror Cake (White Chocolate Mousse, Passion Fruit Coulis)

2.The Modern
Braised Tripe with chickpeas and harissa aioli or steak tartare with quail egg
Saffron Tagliatelli with cider braised rabbit, wild mushrooms and baby zucchini
Hazelnut Dacquoise with milk chocolate chantilly.

3.Industria Argentina
Mollejas al Verdeo (Crispy sautéed sweetbreads, scallion and white wine sauce)
Milanesa de Pescado (Skate wing milanesa, brown butter, cappers, cauliflower purée)
Bombón Suizo (Dulce de leche Argentinean-style Tartufo, warm dulce de leche sauce)

4.Trattoria dell'Arte
Toredelli Bolognese (wild boar & porcini stuffed pasta with a three meat ragu, baby arugula)
Veal and Wild Mushroom Marsala (shaved black truffle)
Gelato

5.Rouge Tomate
Gravlax (a Scandinavian appetizer)
Duck with kumquat and coriander (avail. Regularly)
Passion fruit curd

Also try:

Caviar @ Petrossian

US Kobe beef skewers, Fish shaped Japanese waffle ice cream @ Inakaya

Wild boar stew with soft truffle polenta @ Osteria del Circo

Salmon Kulebiyaka @ Firebird

Huitlacoche Crepes @ Maya

Raw Tuna Pizza @ Mercer Kitchen

Squab @ Mr. Chow Continue...

Thai food that needs to be discovered in New York

Jackfruit

Apologies for my long absence and silence. Yours truly has been sampling unusual culinary creations in the Kingdom of Thailand, where street carts, night markets, cafes and restaurants had a vast selection of fun edible stuff. Here’s just a small taste of what I found.

STREET FOOD THAT IS NOT SCARY


Jackfruit ice cream in a cone. Jackfruit itself is rubbery and tastes a bit like bubble gum.



Sweet sticky rice with sesame seeds served on a palm leaf, eaten with toothpicks.


One can eat many things on a stick.


BLACK JELLY







Chow-Guai is a vegetable jelly made from a Chinese plant. It's black and is eaten with ice and palm sugar. This is a dish shrouded in mystery -- no other information can be found about this.

DRIED SOUR FRUITS





BUGS! OF ALL SORTS!


Crickets, beetles, larvae! Play the slideshow to see me eating them. These bugs were sold from a street cart. I picked out the ones I wanted to try, they were scooped into a plastic bag for me and sprayed with some kind of salty soy sauce-like spray but remained crunchy. We only saw one bug cart like this throughout the duration of our trip, so I don't think they are very popular. My eyes lit up when I saw this street cart, so I'm glad we decided to try the bugs that same instant and not to wait to find another one later.

SNAKEHEAD FISH


This is a grilled snakehead fish. It is called so because its head looks like it is covered in snake-like scales and because of its other peculiar features: this freshwater fish breathes atmospheric air with primitive lungs and feeds on other fish and small animals like frogs and rats. Not much of a fish now, is it?

SOMETHING I FORGET THE NAME OF


This is a Muslim dessert crepe that one purchases with a bag of colorful palm sugar strings. We were told it would be unbearably sweet and kind of dry but it turned out moderately sweet and delicious. It was a little bit like eating cotton candy in a crepe. We tried it in Ayutthaya.



KHAO SOI NOODLES


Khao soi noodles are deep fried and crunchy, floating in a very rich coconut milk-based curry.


VAST FOOD COURTS


This food court at the Siam Paragon mall in Bangkok is the largest food court I have ever seen in my life. It had an extraordinary selection of restaurants, stalls, cafes, mini-grocery shops and bakeries. I haven't seen a larger food court even in Japan. Does anyone know of a larger food court? My favorite finds here were the marshmallow taco, hot dog pancakes and a bear-shaped bread bun.

This is a reminder that a whole world of weird food exists beyond the shores of our city, but to stick to the focus of this blog, I will try to research for you guys where you can sample some of this stuff on our soil. Continue...