The last time I posted about Westville Chelsea, it was less than desirable. But, David lives down the street from the restaurant and the last time my mom was in town she liked it a lot, so Ken, David and I gave it another try on a recent Saturday afternoon. David always likes to order the veggies (I think everyone orders them because they’re seasonal and all basically roasted):
David ordered the steak and poached eggs:
Ken ordered the omelet made with tomatoes, ham, and spinach with a side of salad:
And I ordered the kale salad with bacon, avocado, Parmesan, and two poached eggs:
Our setup:
Everything was well prepared and my kale salad was bomb dot com. The kale is slightly wilted from the heat of the poached eggs and has a great amount of salt from the bacon. Definitely rethinking my previous opinion of Westville Chelsea and can’t wait to go back again!
A while back, I received an email from Urbanspoon emailed me asking if I wanted to go to dinner at Morimoto with their new general manager. (A free meal at Morimoto? Sign me up!) I met up with the general manager as well as Yvo from Feisty Foodie. Since I’ve been to Morimoto before (see here), I’ll just post photos from our meal.
The cooked oysters with foie gras served on a bed of salt and pepper:
Make your own toro tartare:
A simple salad to cleanse our palates:
Uni with Ikura (roe) and yuzu zest:
You can’t go to Morimoto and not order the rock shrimp:
Yvo got a side of ramps (we went to dinner back in March so it was ramp season):
I ordered the chirashi:
And a few pieces of my favorite, tamago and kasutera:
Keela, the new general manager of Urbanspoon, ordered the buribop (similar to bibimbap):
My meal, along with my miso soup on the side:
Morimoto was delicious and it was so nice to meet Keela and have dinner with Yvo. I haven’t been to Morimoto in such a long time that it was really nice to visit again!
I’m always looking for good places for lunch, especially since I live near my office now. I love Maison Kayser for their financiers (especially their raspberry financier, which is so dense and buttery), so I figured their lunch would be really good as well. They have a good deal for lunch, a pre-fixe where you can get a soup, an entree, and a dessert for under $30. My friend ordered the carrot soup to start:
With some bread:
While I started with the delicious French Onion soup that had a ton of melted cheese:
For Kerry’s entree, she ordered a chicken flatbread:
The chicken was slightly dry, but she thought it was acceptable for a lunch entree.
I ordered the salad with fresh peas and radishes:
I thought the dressing was really odd and had no flavor (not even an oily flavor) and wasn’t a fan of the way they prepared their asparagus, which was very stringy. The goat cheese was also flavorless and tasted more like ricotta than a tangy goat cheese.
For dessert, Kerry ordered a chocolate dessert with almonds, which she saved for her son:
While I ordered a mango-passionfruit dessert:
That I did not save for Ken:
The dessert tasted a little on the stale side (possibly because it was from the day before) but was acceptable for a lunch dessert.
After lunch, I was a little unsatisfied and ended up purchasing a raspberry financier from the bakery:
Which I knew would be good and a perfect breakfast for the next day.
I don’t think I’ll be dining at Maison Kayser again in their sit down area, but will continue to buy their financiers and breads from their bakery.
Ken and I like to do family dinners at new restaurants; oftentimes, I’ll organize a weekend dinner with David and Laura or my cousin Andrew and Hsiao-Mei at a new restaurant so we can sample a variety of dishes and order lots of food. David and Laura met up with me and Ken at The Clam, a new-ish restaurant opened by the team behind The Little Owl (I was not a fan of the restaurant, as you can see in this 
A creamy dip mixed with their zesty potato chips had just the right amount of brine and texture to make this addictive and a great way to start the meal.
We also ordered the clams:
I misunderstood Ken and thought he wanted the littleneck clams, when in reality he wanted the oysters. These clams were sweet and delicious, but Ken didn’t enjoy them as much because he was pining for the oysters. These also came with fresh vegetables that had a homemade green Goddess dip underneath.
Their homemade bread was buttery and so delicious:
Served warm and really delicious (in the background, you can see the clam dip was completely demolished by us!)
The clam chowder was promised to be the best in the city:
We were a little disappointed by it (it wasn’t creamy enough for us!) and my favorite is still from Pearl Oyster Bar.
The spaghetti and clams is a dish that I still dream about:
It comes with a spicy gravy (which is misleading because I thought it was a white sauce, not a tomato gravy), a salad on top, and clams. The sauce has just the right amount of spiciness but is really so thick that it really is quite heavenly. Definitely worth visiting the restaurant just to order the spaghetti and clams!
David ordered the sea bream:
The fish was well cooked and the citrus added a nice freshness to it, but I didn’t eat too much because I was so obsessed with the spaghetti and clams.
Ken ordered the clam and lobster sandwich, which was about $35 when we went:
And another shot:
The sandwich comes with lobster (mixed with a little bit of mayo) and on top of that, freshly fried clams. The sandwich is slightly intimidating to eat because it’s so large, but is delicious, even on the second day.
The Clam’s food and service makes me rethink my original review on The Little Owl and makes me think I should give them a second chance. I had a great meal there and Ken, David and Laura all enjoyed their meal there, too. It’s a great new restaurant in the west village and definitely worth a visit!
Way back in April, I was invited to a dinner at Pok Pok NY, hosted by Pepcid and Ted Allen (the host of Chopped on The Food Network). I arrived a tad early and ended up going to the bar across the street, Whiskey Soda Lounge, owned by the Pok Pok NY fam, and ordered myself a cocktail before dinner:
The Hunny is a grapefruit concoction that is mixed with their signature drinking vinegar (the one mixed with this drink is honey-flavored). A little kombucha-like, but slightly sweeter. It’s mixed with tequila and is very refreshing. You don’t taste the tequila, which would have been very dangerous if I had more time there!
After finishing my drink at Whiskey Soda Lounge, I walked across the street to start the dinner at Pok Pok NY, where they were mixing signature cocktails:
One of the cocktails was a drinking vinegar mixed with gin, soda water and lemon. The other cocktail had a mint/fresh herb infusion. Both seamlessly incorporated the drinking vinegars and were dangerously tasty.
We started with some papaya salad with other various vegetables in a Thai fish sauce:
Which was served alongside a lot of coconut rice that was individually wrapped and could be eaten with your hands:
The sausages they served were very spicy and were also presented with some pickled veggies, kombocha squash, and fried pork skin:
The kombocha squash balanced the heat from the sausage (and the squash made another appearance at dessert later in the evening!)
The fried chicken wings are well known for good reason; they are spicy, garlicky, and have a great crunchy texture:
We were also served a chicken with different dipping sauces:
The chicken was tender and tasted similar to a Chinese chicken that is smoked with tea leaves.
A favorite dish of mine – water spinach – that was sauteed with lots of spicy peppers:
The star of the evening: a striped bass steamed with soy, ginger, mushrooms, and more hot peppers:
For dessert, we had kombocha squash that was cooked with a coconut-palm sugar custard that was served slightly warm:
Kombocha squash is already one of my favorite foods (especially in soups) because it’s slightly sweet, but I’ve only ever had it in savory dishes. Serving it with the coconut custard was the perfect combination that wasn’t too sweet but definitely satisfied my sweet tooth.
At the conclusion of dinner, Ted came by to talk to all of us about the meal (he had just done the same meal two hours earlier with different people but managed to eat it again during our dinner!) I enjoyed all of the dishes at Pok Pok NY and definitely want to return to the area; it’s right by the water in Brooklyn and it looks like a beautiful bike ride to the restaurant!
