While in Chinatown for the tour, I was able to sample Chee Cheong Fun.  It is basically a rice roll.  When I first heard that, I pictured something along the lines of sushi.  It’s a roll.  It has rice on it.  Must be sushi!  I was really wrong (reference the picture above.)  It is a realllllllllllly big rice noodle that is steamed, and rolled with your choice of filling.  I had the roast pork.  The noodle had an amazing texture that held on to the peanut sauce, sriracha, and hoisin perfectly.  The filling was a little lacking, but the delicious sauce definitely made up for it.  They’re all made to order and served steaming hot, as evidenced by the burns in my mouth (so worth it.)   I can’t wait to go back and try every variety of rice roll.

Sponge Cake is a common thing in the pastry world.  They can be tasty, light, and airy.  Or bland, dense, and rubbery.  During our walking tour today, I tasted a sponge cake from Chinatown.  It was everything a Twinkie wanted to be.  The cake was super airy, like no cake I’ve ever tried before.  Each bite was like taking a piece out of a lightly sweetened cloud.  The cakes are steamed, which preserve the moisture of the cake while providing it with its light texture.  I may have to frequent Chinatown for my new addiction…

On Friday, while I was working some “elote” lady stopped by my job and asked if I wanted any elotes or esquites. I work at a liquor store in Jackson Heights so I have the privilege of eating anything with sazon around here. There are a lot of Hispanic restaurants around here. Elote is corn. I felt like I had to try the esquites because I have heard of them but never tried them. I know many who talk beautiful things about it and how it is so good and I cannot wait to go around your job to have one of those. Esquites is grained and boiled corn then sautéed in butter and onions. Esquites are served with mayo, salt, lime, cheese and chili powder. I always though esquites were dry corn served with mayo and cheese, at least that’s how I saw it on pictures. Honestly, I was not thrilled by it. I felt the corn snack was too liquidly and the mayo and cheese just didn’t go with the water. Also I could taste a lot of onion. I am glad I only had the $2.50 cup because I would not have finished the $5 cup of esquite. I feel that maybe it does taste good but this was one was not prepared the way I was expecting it. Hopefully next time I do have another esquite its how I imagined it if not, I will not ever have one again.

Last night I went to Giorgio’s of Gramercy with my boyfriend. Giorgio’s of Gramercy is located in 21^st street between Park Ave and Broadway. For dinner, I had sea scallops. When I say sea scallops, it is not an ordinary sea scallop plate. The four sea scallops were served with caramelized cauliflower fondue and florets, raisins, roasted almonds and balsamic glaze. This dish was served hot. It was the perfect mixture of everything. The crunchy almonds, and the sweetness of the raisins were perfectly mixed together. I never tried raisins with balsamic glaze. All the chemicals of each ingredient somehow incorporated very well. Something else I liked about this delicious dish that I will never forget was that the scallops had a soft but tender taste with each ingredients on my plate.

It’s 2016.  Poisonous mushrooms are easily identifiable, and as far as I know, not sold in supermarkets  My brain knows that mushrooms are edible, my heart knows it too.  But some instinct deep within me says “STAY AWAY!”  I don’t know why I have this subconscious distrust of mushrooms, but it’s there.  Maybe one of my ancestors died from eating a poisonous one and this is evolution trying to keep me alive.  Before today I never had a mushroom.  After today I will never have another mushroom.  I was at a get together and the host prepared stuffed mushrooms.  I was there fresh from this class, and with a cocktail in hand I asked myself, “what’s the worst that could happen?”, if anything I had a drink to kill the taste.  Something stuffed with breadcrumbs shouldn’t taste so bad.  The flavor isn’t what killed me, more so the texture; a rubbery, pseudo-meaty, almost-gelatinous blob from hell.  Darwin was trying to keep me around because my first instinct was to remove this thing from my body.  But I was at a party and not the Galapagos so I washed it down with some Tito’s and complimented the flavor.  If I’m not in class next week, you know why.