For some time now, I’ve been wanting to take a trip to New Orleans, Louisiana to enjoy the Marsh Gras festivities and to eat the local food. I follow some people from NOLA on social media and the food that they post looks delicious, especially the seafood boils with crawfish. Since I have not been able to take the trip, my boyfriend decided to treat us to Hot & Juicy Crawfish in 14th street. The owners are from Louisiana and promise that their seafood boils are as delicious as they are in back home. We got “The Drool”  experience that included crawfish, shrimp, crab, calamari, andouille sausages, corn and potatoes with a mild juicy Cajun sauce. I’ve never had crawfish so this was definitely a new taste for me. The sauce was flavorful,sweet and spicy and definitely cleared up my sinuses as I have a cold. The crawfish had very little meat and tasted like Omega 3 pills. Some people suck the head of the crawfish which is full of guts and not pleasant. The shrimp,crab, calamari, potatoes and corn paired really well with the sweet sauce and were delicious. I still believe that this seafood boil has a New York spin to it and is not exactly as delicious as it would be in NOLA. I’m still would like to visit New Orleans and try the local food.

I recommend this restaurant but also warn people that it is a little expensive.

Coquito is not something new to me. Every year being that my fathers side of the family is Puerto Rican we have this drink at our  Christmas eve party . I saw on my Instagram a local  custom cakery and sweet shop called The Best Goodie Bag was having a happy hour on all there cupcake and cookies so I stopped by. I picked up a few different kind of cupcakes and cookies. They offered a bunch of classic cupcake flavors and some spunky ones as well. The cupcake that stood out to the most was the Coquito cupcake. The cupcake itself was a light and airy cinnamon cupcake with the coquito soaked into the cake with a sweet whipped cream frosting dusted with some spices that are usually inside a classic coquito drink. To put the icing on top of the cake the cupcake came with a little shot of coquito. This cupcake was everything that I expected a cup of coquito to taste like. I’m definitely bringing this to my families Christmas eve party this year

A few weeks ago I took my niece to this Thai restaurant for her 13th birthday called Dek Sen in queens. Honestly the meal was great but the whole reason for us going to that restaurant was to get the Rainbow crepe. Den Sen is the only place in queens to have them and to be honest what 13 year old girl wouldn’t want that for their birthday. The crepe was beautiful to look at with all the thin layers of colored crepe and sweet white cream. I believe the whole rainbow crepe was overhyped. To me there was really no flavor besides the over sweetness of the cream. It was just pretty much bland and the crepe had a rubbery consistency.

Its been over a week since Thanksgiving and this left-over-monster of a meal is still haunting me! For the last food first post, I decided to step way out of my comfort zone and try out this Russian delicacy called Holodets Beef. Continue reading →

How ironic is it that I researched Ethiopian food in Harlem most recently, and I got the opportunity to try one of the staple dishes. At the heart of every Ethiopian meal is Injera. 

Injera is a huge spongy flatbread that looks like a fluffy pancake or better yet a really big crepe. It is made from  tef, a sour-wheat-like grain that is mixed with cool water and a pinch of yeast. The batter is left up to three days to be fermented, then cooked on a griddle.

The Ethiopian tradition of injera is served on a platter and is used as a plate, to sop up vegetables and stews called wat. Stews can include beef, chicken or lamb and different dips such as string beans, dhal lentils, potatoes, peppers, lettuce or tomato based salad and mixed vegetables that are ladled on top. Pieces of the injera are broken off and used to scoop up the food, with your hands of course. In a country where utensils are scarce injera is not only your dinner plate, it’s also your knife, fork and spoon.

Upon tasting the injera, it did have a sour, tangy taste and the texture was spongy with small eyes (air pocket holes) and fluffy but soft. Ladled on top was sautéed chicken with onions, stewed potatoes and spinach. The spices in the chicken were rich and bursting with flavor, which made every bite worth it. 

Feasting on injera took me down memory lane, when I attended an Indian wedding in Trinidad. There was an assortment of curries, dips and roti that was ladled and  served on a huge banana leaf, except the banana leaf was not edible. Similar to the popular dish injera, the food was also eaten by hand.

Injera eaten with hands

This is a Russian dumpling, pelmeni. This was my first Russian dumpling and it was fantastic. The dumpling wrapper was thin but wrapped perfectly around the plump filling of salmon. The filling was plump and had a perfect texture as it wasn’t overcooked and dry or raw. The dumpling was topped with a sour cream sauce and salmon roe on top. The sauce provided a good creamy texture and the few roes on top of the dumpling provided the salty flavor the whole package needed. A lovely salad accompanied the dumplings, and the whole dish was very good.

This is a soy milk miso based ramen with tochucha ramen noodles topped with tofu, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, and wild mushrooms. The noodles were a house special which were an additional dollar. Tochucha is a prized herbal tea made from the leaves of Eucommia tree. The noodles had more flavor than regular ramen noodles and a delightful springy texture. The broth was creamy and savory, not as heavily salted as ramen broth usually is. The toppings were simplistic in preparation. Everything was very well balanced and the taste of the noodle and broth paired very well together. This was a satisfying, different, and good vegetarian ramen bowl for those who are staying away from meat based meals.

Our first stop on the Jackson Heights tour was Amdo Momo Dumplings, they won the Golden Momo Championship in 2015. Momo is a South Asia type of dumplings. When I saw the dumpling picture at the food cart, I thought that it was going to be similar to the soup dumplings on Shang Hai, they were shaped the same way and it was displayed on the traditional bamboo dumpling steamers that Chinese use. When we the dumplings, I noticed that the dough was thicker than Chinese cultures and they served it with spicy radish pickles and white sauce. The combination was delicious; the spiciness and the sourness of the pickles help the dumpling bring out even more flavor.

Kanafeh is an Arabic dessert most popular in the Middle East region . I was intrigued by this sweet because it reminded me of something I had that is very similar to it. Kanafeh is made out of shredded crispy phyllo dough filled with a sweet cream that has been drenched in rose water. This is a delicious treat but I can see why people may not like it. Rose water has a very distinct taste and can be a polarizing ingredient. However, I’ve had products with rose water before so I was familiar with it. The pastry had an excellent balance of texture between the crispy phyllo dough and the creamy filling. It was of course sweet but was mellow enough to continue enjoying it.

Here is a photo taken from Google.

On our little trip to Jackson Heights I got to try these a Colombian treat called buñuelos. They are spanish donuts made with white cheese. This donut was golden brown on the outside and had a slightly yellow/cream color on the inside. When I took a bite, it was really crispy because of the oil in which it was cooked with; inside was a soft dough, almost like cake. This donut is not similar to any donut you can imagine, this doughnut is fluffy inside. I did not taste any yeast on it, so I believe that the fluffiness of the dough was from the gluten created from the flour. The buñuelo was a little bit greasy but you can expect that because it was a deep fried donut.