After our Vietnamese sandwiches at Nicky’s, Chris and I headed to the Takashi Murakami exhibit at the Gagosian on the Upper East Side.
Takashi Murakami is probably best known for his smiley flowers, like these:
He also worked with Louis Vuitton (do you remember those white bags with all those smiley flowers?!):
For this exhibit, he did portraits of Daruma, the founder of Zen Buddhism. From the Gagosian website, I learned that Daruma achieved enlightenment by “sitting in meditation before the wall of the Shaolin monastery for nine years, without blinking his eyes. During this process, his arms and legs atrophied, withered and fell off. In today’s Japan, Daruma’s continuing popularity as the embodiment of resilience and determination has given rise to an entire industry of good luck charms in the form of armless, legless and eyeless dolls, available in endless variations.”
Here are the pictures of Daruma:
My favorite is the one on the far left – the background, if you look closely, is actually black with glitter! Interesting, huh? The exhibit runs through June 9th and I posted pictures of all of the art from the exhibit (in case you’re too lazy to go), but it’s fun to see if you have the time (it only takes 20 minutes, I swear).
On Saturday, Chris and I headed to Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches on the LES for some Vietnamese sandwiches. I didn’t even know there were Vietnamese sandwiches…I’m from Champaign…so, be happy that I’ve had pho before. 🙂 Nicky’s is special because it’s this small place on 2nd Street (I’m not familiar with the LES at all…unless you count knowing where all the good bakeries are in Chinatown as knowledgeable):
The place was really packed when we got there (at 3pm!) Nicky’s is a little run down, but it’s a small space with only two or three employees, two toasters, a rice cooker, and a television (playing the Simpsons on repeat!). Their menu is very simple – three or four types of sandwiches and a couple of rice options. Also, it’s incredibly cheap for sandwiches (only $4 a pop – you can’t beat that!). I ordered the traditional Vietnamese sandwich – Pâté, ham, ground pork, pickled carrot, cucumbers, cilantro, jalapeño, and mayo on a baguette and Chris ordered the chicken sandwich – Chicken, pickled carrot, cucumbers, cilantro, jalapeño, and mayo on a baguette. A picture of my sandwich:
First bite: awesome. The baguette is crispy on the outside but soft and chewy on the inside. The Pâté, ham, and ground pork go surprisingly well with the carrots, cucumbers, cilantro, and jalapeño. The cilantro really makes the sandwich fresh and delicious. (My opinion may be somewhat skewed since we hadn’t eaten since the night before and we had to wait 30 minutes to get our food). If the location was closer to me/closer to a subway that’s close to me, I’d go there all the time, but since it’s in the middle of nowhere for me, Nicky’s is a place I’d go for a special treat.
So, I did it. I bought an ice cream maker! It’s a cuisinart ice cream, frozen yogurt, sorbet maker that I purchased from Bed, Bath and Beyond on Friday night. Chris and I were eager to try out my new machine (I was a little too eager, actually). There’s a self-cooling feature that makes the ice cream maker very user friendly, but you have to make sure the liquid inside the container is actually frozen (otherwise, it won’t work). When we got home, we put the container in the freezer right away and put the freezer at the coldest setting. Two hours later, there was no noise when I shook the container, so I thought I could start experimenting (even though Chris wanted to wait until the morning…what can I say – I’m impatient!). I found a recipe for frozen yogurt that is supposed to be very similar to Pinkberry’s – it’s so easy, how could we not have tried it?! Making the ice cream is a cinch – all you need to do is pour the ingredients into the container and press the on button. Twenty minutes later, you have yourself a nice bowl of frozen yogurt! Our frozen yogurt:
My ice cream maker makes a big bowl of ice cream/frozen yogurt/sorbet and is so easy to make! Look at how much “Pinkberry” yogurt we made:
AND, no skimping on the topping (Chris went to Chinatown on Friday after work and picked up mangoes and blackberries):
Doesn’t that look fantastic? The texture of our frozen yogurt is pretty similar to Pinkberry’s, but we’re still working on the tanginess. Also, you need to add a lot of sugar to make it – we didn’t add a lot, but you’re supposed to otherwise the frozen yogurt will get too icy. On second thought, it might’ve been a good idea to not add too much ice to begin with since Pinkberry’s frozen yogurt is pretty icy to begin with. We also bought strawberries to make our perfect Pinkberry dessert:
I’m going to try more recipes next week – lemon basil sorbet is my next on my list!
On Thursday after work, a couple of my coworkers and I headed to Korea town to have dinner at Bon Chon Chicken. I tried it before and wasn’t really impressed (maybe I was expecting something else) but this time, when I walked in, I realized I kind of had a craving for the juicy, tender meat and the light and crispy crust. We had six in our party so we decided on three orders – two soy garlic and one spicy. The soy garlic drumsticks/wings:
And the spicy order:
Pam, Brandon, and David enjoying the chicken:
The soy garlic wings/drumsticks were better than last time but the spices from the spicy drumsticks/wings were slightly off. I’m not sure why, but there was something missing in the heat of the sauce. The crispy skin is definitely something special about Bon Chon Chicken, but after a while, it can get to be too much…too much oil can’t be good for you, right? I can’t really complain about the food, but there is definitely something lacking in their service. It took 20 minutes (no joke) to have a waitress come to our table (and the only reason someone came is because I went to the bar telling them that we needed to order). I’m not sure why the waitresses aren’t that into…working. There weren’t that many people in the place, either, so it wasn’t because they were extremely busy and had other tables to tend to. After dinner, Audrey, Pam, and I headed to Pinkberry (even though it was freezing outside) and shared a shaved ice:
Shaved ice, condensed milk, strawberries, bananas, kiwi, pineapple, and mochi with pinkberry frozen yogurt on top. The picture was taken from a previous trip to Pinkberry for shaved ice, but I never had a chance to post it! 🙂
So, my verdict on Bon Chon – I think it’s a fun place to hang out if you don’t mind waiting…be careful going up and down the stairs to the restaurant because the steps are super small!
Our usual Wednesday night dinners at restaurants have moved to Chris’ dining room/patio. Eating out all the time isn’t good (you don’t know how much fat they use, who prepares your food, etc) and it can get so loud in restaurants you can’t hold a conversation, so we’ve decided to eat at Chris’ place more. We bought all of our ingredients at the new Whole Foods on Bowery (it’s HUGE and definitely worth checking out from 6-8pm for the free samples!). We decided to make steak frites because I’ve never really cooked meat (only shellfish and pasta) and I was craving some juicy steaks, plus, it’s a pretty simple meal (it was pouring rain last night and we didn’t get back to Chris’ place until past 8:30). We’re going to Peter Luger’s next month for steak, but I figured you can never get too much steak. We started out by cutting up the potatoes and frying them to make pommes frites:
Chris was in charge of the fries and is really great at taking them out right when they’re crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside (the best kind of fry). Maybe he missed his calling at McDonalds? 🙂
Since I was making the steak medium rare, we saved that for last (so they wouldn’t get cold while we were frying the potatoes). Next, we made a simple salad from arugula, spinach, tomatoes, and a homemade dressing (red wine vinegar, olive oil, lemon, and a little salt):
I cooked the filet mignon and portobello mushrooms with a little season all (that’s all you need for steak, I swear!):
While the steak was cooking, I cut up the watermelon Chris picked out:
The watermelon is supposed to be seedless, but there were a couple seeds (no worries). We’re going to use the leftover watermelon to make watermelon sorbet this weekend! (Yup, I’m investing in an ice cream maker).
Our final set up of steak frites for two:
We also bought orangina and Peter Luger Steak Sauce (which tastes exactly like cocktail sauce…I would definitely pass on that). Dinner took less than an hour from start to finish! This weekend, I’m running in the 10K (pray that it doesn’t rain and that I actually FINISH), hopefully playing tennis in central park (if the weather is warm enough), and getting ready for my birthday! I’ll be back on Monday with updates!
