Fig & Olive

Fig & Olive — Meatpacking

Executive Chef:  Pascal Lorange

Couple friends and I went to Fig & Olive for a much needed catch up dinner last weekend.  I’d been meaning to try this restaurant for awhile and was excited I was finally about to.

The space is very sleek, loftlike and softly lit. This restaurant is a great purveyor of the greenish amber serum known as olive oil and even offers olive oil tastings. A quick glance of the menu and you know the place is named after it’s often used ingredients of figs and olives.

Diners are served a bread basket with three choices of olive oil. We shared several apps for the table.  One was the tuna carpaccio with 18 year balsamic vinegar, sesame oil, cilantro, arugula, lemon and marcona almond.

Tuna is sliced paper thin and the sesame oil is cut by the sharpness of the lemon. The crunchiness of the nuts add a nice more substantial texture to the otherwise light and airy dish.

You can order a variety of crostinis with various toppings which we did.  We got these three crostinis: prosciutto, ricotta, fig, olive and walnut; shrimp, avocado, cilantro and and tomato; and the salmon, ricotta, citrus and cilantro .

My favorite was the shrimp crostini and my least favorite was the salmon one.  They were all good but nothing extraordinary.  I’d like to go back and try some other more inventive/interesting ones.

For main course, I had the trio de la mer.  It consists of three products of the sea: a seared scallop; branzino, glazed with fig & aged balsamic vinegar; and salmon glazed with apricot & orange blossom water.

The dish was interesting in that it offered you a variety of choices.  Salmon was perfectly cooked: crispy on the outside and smooth and slightly pink on the inside. Branzino was delicious however I could have done without the figs that accompany it. Scallops were good and I thought the spicy arugula and pine nuts complemented the scallop very well.

The meal and ambience is presented elegantly at Fig & Olive.  This restaurant is the place to go if you want an upscale adult feeling with great food and wine.  It works not only for dates that you want to impress but for dinners out with friends out on the town for a sexy night.

Fig & Olive — Meatpacking, 420 West 13th Street, New York, NY

Food porn: cheese filled tonkatsu

image taken from roboppy.com

Cheese? good. Pork? Good. Fried? Gooooood.

Get it at: Katsu-Hama, 11 East 47 Street, New York, NY

See you there

I scream for ice cream!

image taken from seouleats.com

It’s corn ice cream!

image taken from seouleats.com

The product unwrapped.

image taken from seouleats.com

The innards.

Apparently the shell, shaped as corn, contains a corn-vanilla flavored ice cream with chocolate and corn chunks!! Yay or nay? (apparently seouleats reports that it tastes kinda like wet popcorn)

Gotta love my crazy Korean peeps.  But we do get an A+ for inventiveness!!

I love David Chang

Momofuku Ssam

Chef:  David Chang

No sillies, David Chang is not my boyfriend, he’s the new “It” kid on the culinary block. He’s Korean, he’s bad ass (says what he thinks, does what he says) and he can cook up a mean pork bun.  Most of his dishes have Korean inflections in them which make them interesting, spicy and deeeelicious.

I have been to every one of his joints…from Momofuku Noodle Bar, the first, to his third and highly coveted 10 seat restaurant Ko (i know i couldn’t believe i scored a reservation too — but persistance paid off) and I often go to his second baby, Ssam.

That’s what this is all about right here. Ssam.

I went there last night with a friend and started with the usual: his well known and droolworthy pork buns.

image taken from roboppy.net

I dream of these. They are THAT good and worth every bit of the hype.  Soft cloud-like buns, smeared with a little hoison sauce, encase rich pork belly topped with sliced cucumbers and scallions. Perfect melody that melts in your mouth.

Next we split the Banh Mi.  You get crispy ham and chicken liver under layers of shredded daikon, carrots, cilantro and cucumber. It has a delightfully raw bite from the pickled veggies cutting the livery flavor of the pate and pork. It’s one of the best in the city I think and my friend agreed.

Finally we descended upon the main course I had never seen on the menu before. It is the spicy rice cakes with pork sausage, chinese broccoli and crispy shallots.

image taken from roboppy.net

In Korea there is a comfort dish called dukboki which uses the same rice cakes and flecks of ground beef in a thick spicy red sauce. I believe this was Mr. Chang’s take on that very dish. The most noted differences were that the rice cake was crispy on the outside as if fried or sauteed and he used more meat and garlic to flavor the dish rather than the spicy red sauce commonly used. Though bursting with flavor, the plate was VERY salty.  Midway through, it became an effort to eat as the saltiness was so overpowering.

With a glass of their house undistilled sake, the meal was finished, our bellies were full and we pushed ourselves away from the table and skipped off arm in arm into the cold cold New York night.

Momofuku Ssam, 207 Second Ave, New York, NY

Halloween: my costume

Guess what I am for Halloween this year? (and frankly, I think it’s quite fitting!)

Yup! McDonald’s Hamburglar!!!  I have the hat, the mask, the striped shirt and I plan to go to McDonald’s either tonight or tomorrow to get the McDonald’s takeout bags to use as my purse for the night….and maybe get a Number 2. (that’s the 2 cheeseburger meals for you amateurs)

Maybe I’ll post pics post Halloween

A feast fit for…a mouse

When i was younger I loved dollhouses and all things tiny and miniature.  I thought this was really cool and wanted to share.

Two artists with no formal training in creating miniature sculptures created this rustic tabletop filled with goodies.  At first glance it looks life size…until you see the giant finger.

The details are amazing. There’s even a little country mouse coming to gather what he can.

I actually want to eat that banana.

All photo credits and more on this skilled labor of love can be found at this link.

Vegetarianism and Bacon: isn’t it an oxymoron??

If you are vegetarian, doesn’t the taste of meat and pork turn you off? One would think so but then again, I suppose they eat “meat like” tofu and chicken shaped tofu….I dunno. The whole concept sort of confuses me because if you chose not to eat animal meat, why would you want to eat things that tasted of it??

Well along that thought of confusion comes baconnaise:

It is a vegetarian and kosher bacon-flavored spread and comes in regular and lite.  These same guys also make bacon salt.

This salt seasoning is ALSO kosher and tastes like bacon!!

Well, what are you waiting for, go and buy some today!

Pure bliss looks like this…

I swear to you this is not me but how adorable is this little Korean girl enjoying her ice cream? It put a smile on my face and I wanted to share..

Happy Monday!

Does the world really need one of these??

Bacon Scented Bacon Print Tuxedo

From the website: “Each Tuxedo is tailored from chemically treated latex print fabric in one of four different sizes. Best of all, it smells just like bacon sizzling in the pan.”

Basically, for approximately $100, you can wear bacon AND smell like it too?

hahaha i don’t know what to laugh harder at, the concept behind this product or the photo.

Cheeseburger Combos

Found another strange snack and flavor combination. Again, I would totally try these.

image taken from seriouseats.com