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Showing posts from November, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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Happy Thanksgiving!!!! So I'm in Florida this year for the holiday which is kind of strange. It doesn't really feel like Thanksgiving because of the palm trees and sun.  So I decided my Thanksgiving post wouldn't be a regular turkey and potatoes post either.  Instead I'm going to show you one of the best fish tacos I have ever had right here in St. Augustine.  These are the baja fish tacos from Nalu's. Nalu's is actually just a small stand, kind of like a street meat cart in the city.  You roll up, place your order and then sit at a little picnic table and wait for your food.  About 10 minutes later you have a Styrofoam container filled to the brim with tacos, rice and beans and chips.   The fish is only called the fish of the day and I think ours was a Mahi Mahi. It came with cabbage, cheese, and a baja sauce that was delicious!!!  For around $7.00 I was stuffed to the gills and happy as a clam. The best part about Nalu's?  It's open t...

Post Road Pumpkin Ale

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I absolutely love all of the autumn beers that come out around October. This past year I was so busy traveling here and there I feel like I never got a chance to really have any special harvest ales. I saw Post Road Pumpkin in the store the other day and I grabbed what looked to be the last six pack. Post Road is actually made by Brooklyn Brewery. I can't believe I have never tried this one considering it's brewed so close to where we live. The beer poured with a nice orangy amber color and a small head. It had a faint smell of pumpkin and nutmeg on top but not overpowering like some pumpkin beers. The taste wasn't overpowering either. The pumpkin flavor was very prevalent but subtle and there were notes of caramel that rounded out the smooth flavor of the beer. This is one of the best pumpkin beers I have ever had. I could easily have a couple in a row without feeling too full or sick from the flavor. Very drinkable.

A Leisurely Lunch at Otto

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Okay, I have to start this post just by showing these pictures. OMG how good does this food look!! These are the Brussels sprouts con vin cotto and the Octopus, celery and lovage. I honestly had to look up what lovage was(thank goodness for wikipedia) and it's basically a plant that resembles celery. It doesn't really matter because in the end the taste of these two dishes were ridiculously good and I am honestly salivating a little just staring at them right now. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Mr. T and I headed out on Saturday ready to do some shopping and hit up Bottlerocket's Thanksgiving wine and food tasting. We got to Bottlerocket about 2:30 and the line was already huge!! Mr. T is not one to wait in line for anything, so after some discussion we decided to leave the line, do some shopping and go enjoy a nice lunch at Otto instead. For those of you that don't know, Otto is one of Mario Batali's restaurants that is known mostly for it's pizzas and wi...

Free Wine Tasting Today!

Just so you guys know there is a free food and wine tasting today at one of my favorite wine stores Bottlerocket on 19th street. I went last year and they had a bunch of different wines to try along with some Thanksgiving foods provided by City Bakery (yum!) to get you ready for the holiday season. It's today from 2:00-5:00. Enjoy!

Ippudo

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It's starting to get chilly once again on Tuesday so we decided to go out and get a big bowl of some RAMEN!!! Ippudo is a new place that opened this summer near St. Marks place. It's always very crowded whenever I walk by so I was a little nervous we would have a long wait. We decided to go early and at about 5:30 we walked inside and got a seat right away. Ippudo has a nice airy but sleek interior. It was a lot more spacious from the inside than I had imagined. We looked at the menu and realized we both wanted to order the same exact things we had at Momofuku the week before! We like what we like! Because of that, we ended up comparing each thing with Momofuku. It's kind of impossible not to when something is so fresh in your mind. Anyway, we decided to start with some steamed pork buns. The two buns came out looking a little bigger than Momofuku's but quite similar in style. The pork inside was thinly sliced and came topped with lettuce and mayonnaise. I thought the m...

Bouchon Bakery

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My Iphone had been giving me tons of trouble ever since I bought it. I took it to the Meatpacking Apple store and the "Genius" at the "Genius Bar" didn't help me at all. It wasn't that he didn't help me, he just didn't listen to me! He gave me the same talk he would have given anyone regardless of their problem. I came home, did what he said to do and nothing changed. I decided to try my luck at the 5th Avenue store and was met with the most wonderful man ever! Within 10 minutes I was out the door with the problem solved and feeling like I mattered. Now was that so hard? I decided to walk over to the Time Warner Center and pick up some tasty treats to celebrate my success! Mr. T has been working hard all week again so I got us a couple things and brought them home. I went directly to Bouchon Bakery which is Thomas Keller's bakery on the 3rd floor. The place had a line about ten people long with the usual tourists. I felt kind of bad because they ...

My Halloween Treat

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This Halloween my was my friend's 30th birthday so we traveled to garrison NY to spend it with her and the best people in the universe my friends!!!! I stopped at the Jas mart on my way to pick up some funky candy and of the bunch I picked this was the winner. It's a mini cheeseburger candy!! This little concotion was yummy!! The outside bun was sesame seed cracker with an inner burger of chocolate covered in what tasted to be an almost peanut butter cheese top. It was surprisingly good (and look at Mr T's fingers....he could be a hand model no?) They came about 25 mini guys per box and had all the crunchy, salty sweet goodness I enjoy in a Take 5 candy bar but in better wrapping. Not only that it looked like my favorite food in a candy treat!!! Happy Late Halloween!!! And Yay Obama!!!!!

Brooklyn Diner

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I had a day off of work on Monday and spent it, unfortunately, doing work stuff :( I had a LOT of things to buy to get ready for a conference I'm going to present at this week. I found myself in Times Square, which is not exactly a great place for food. Once I got what I needed from the Hershey store and a few other places I started to look around for some lunch options. I was actually planning to grab a cab down to Prune to FINALLY try out their burger but then I stumbled across Brooklyn Diner. It looked pretty empty and I was starving, so I decided this would be a good lunch place. I went inside and grabbed a seat at the bar. The whole place was bright and shiny and quite a bit bigger than expected. I looked at the menu and was a little shocked at the prices. Even for Times Square they were pretty high! Oh well. I ordered a beer and the Brooklyn Diner specialty cheeseburger. The beers on tap were pretty impressive. They had everything from an Ommegang Abbey Ale to an Abita Lig...

More Cupcakes From Amai

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I talked about Amai bakery WAY back when they first opened on 3rd avenue. I’ve been there multiple times since and have come to love the little tea and cookie shop. The other day I swung by and decided to forgo my usual green tea cupcake and instead got a caramel chocolate and a pumpkin. They all have the same style, a small cupcake with a heavy, somewhat lopsided swirl on top. The chocolate cake was light and fluffy with a nice coca flavor. The cake could have been a little bit moister but it was still quite fabulous. The one thing I love about Amai cupcakes are that they aren’t very sweet. You know how you can almost feel the sugar eating away at your teeth from some of the other bakeries in the city (And I DO love Magnolia, I just have to be in the mood for a super sugary treat when I go) There is none of that here. The frosting was light with just a subtle taste of caramel. It actually reminded me of the flavor of a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks but not as sweet. The pumpk...