A's Favorite Food Memories 2014

So like the last few years, M and I have decided to write up our favorite food memories for the past year. 2014 was different from previous years. We didn't have a big, food-centric vacation that dominated our lists, but we did get to explore the world through our World Cup eating challenge and M's 52 week cooking challenge. Here are my top 10 favorite food memories of 2014 in no particular order:

1.   Uni Tostada - Cosme (NYC)

This was a dish that opened my mind up. I love uni, and I love bone marrow, but I had never thought to put them together. The crisp blue corn tostada provided an amazing crunch and base, and the bone marrow salsa added a beautiful richness, but the true star of the show was the uni. It was so fresh, and you could definitely taste the sea with this dish. When you paired everything together it all melded into a seamless, perfect dish.

2.   Lobster Pibil - Cosme (NYC)

I usually don't go out of my way to get lobster. I find that, for the price you end up paying I just don't find the value to be worth it. Sure it's tasty, but I'd rather split the cost of a lobster dish into two dishes to try. I'm really glad we got this dish, though. The lobster pieces (claw, knuckle, half tail) were so sweet and tender. There was no chewiness to them at all. The black bean puree mixed with the avocado leaf puree offered richness and body, and the chorizo added some saltiness to balance out dish.

3.   Gorgon - Otto's Tacos (NYC)

After M showed me a picture of what this special "off-menu" item looked like, I knew we had to try it. It's a San Antonio style puffy taco filled with their carne asada, chopped onions, cilantro, guacamole, and a serrano chile crema. It's a gut bomb, but at the same time it's one of the most delicious things ever. I would eat this again in a heartbeat, but you need to make sure to only order when they're not busy. Since it's a special order they have to make it fresh so it takes some time.

4.   Cevapi - Cevabdzinica Sarajevo (Astoria, Queens)

As part of our World Cup eating adventure, M and I were fortunate enough to try food from some new countries. One was Bosnia, and we made a special trip out to Astoria for cevapi, which are a homemade sausage. The spice mix is obviously a secret, but it was delicious, and when paired with their homemade bread, chopped onions, and ajvar was an amazing dish.

5.   Crab Spaghettini - Jamie's Italian (Quantum of the Seas)

On our big vacation of the year, we found ourselves on a boat in the Atlantic with limited food options. All that said, we did find a really nice meal at Jamie's Italian, the restaurant designed and created by Jamie Oliver. This dish tasted and felt really clean and fresh. The crab was sweet and delicious, and the pasta was simply prepared with olive oil and garlic.

6.   Herbs Spring Rolls - Chada (Las Vegas)

The reason this dish resonated with me so much this year was that it was so different than anything else I had ever eaten at a Thai restaurant. Sure, I'd had fresh rolls and summer rolls in the past, but this was something entirely different. I couldn't quite place the flavor, but the herbal nature of the vegetables was so refreshing and so bright. The filling was warm and added a nice balance of salt to the dish. It's something that I would love to have again.

7.   Nam Prik Ong - Lotus of Siam (Las Vegas)

This is something that is something else. It's often described as a spicy pork and tomato dip that gets served with sliced vegetables. Obviously there's much more to this than just being a simple dip. In the end, the only way I know how to describe this is as one of the best and richest bolognese sauces ever. I would pour this all over pasta and eat this every day if I could.

8.   Hungarian Pancake - Smak-Tak (Chicago)

On our most recent trip back to the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago for a wedding, we made a trip into the city to get some Polish food. Chicago has a thriving Polish community so we knew our best chance of getting something for the World Eats Challenge would be there. I'm not sure why it's a Hungarian pancake in a Polish restaurant, but it's a specialty of Polish cuisine apparently. It's a massive potato pancake folded over and filled with gulash with red cabbage slaw and sour cream on the side. It's hearty, it's filling, and it's amazingly delicious. This is one of those dishes where you eat it and instantly need a nap. I'm also pretty sure that's exactly what I did.

9.   Arepa Con Queso - Arepa Lady (Elmhurst, Queens)

M and I have always talked about how we want to find the Arepa Lady in Queens. She's famous for her amazing arepas and also for her insanely inconsistent hours. Often times she doesn't even show up to her spot until right around midnight. Recently she had also opened up a brick and mortar store, and we really wanted to check that out, but people always said that the cart was still better. Luckily for us we were able to get to the Viva La Comida street festival where she and her cart were vending. She has two options available, one made of corn and one made of choclo (a Peruvian large kernel corn). The one I selected was the corn version. It has a subtle sweetness from the corn, but it's stuffed with cheese, griddled, and then covered in more cheese. 

10. Home cooking (NYC)

This year M did a lot of cooking at home. She unofficially participated in the Reddit 52-week cooking challenge, and it turned into a lot of amazing meals. I'm highlighting four of them here as these were my favorites. For TV inspired she made Hawaiian Garlic Butter Shrimp inspired by Hawaii 5-0. It was such a rich, amazing flavor. You could really taste the butter and garlic paired with the sweet shrimp. For street food she went Mexican and made esquites. Charred corn mixed up with chilis, garlic, scallions, cilantro, spices, and mayo ended up being one of our most favorite things she made all year. For "American" she made Hoppin' John and Collard Greens, and the collards were unbelievable. I'm a huge fan of collards, and these rivaled almost every other one I've had in restaurants. For Belgian week she made Carbonnade and Stoemp, Flemish Beef (M used chicken) and Beer Stew and Mashed Potatoes with mixed in vegetables. We'd had carbonnade while in Belgium, and this was just as rich and sweet as we remembered. The stoemp was filling and a perfect complement to the rich stew.

M's Favorite Food Memories of 2014

I can't believe it's the end of the year and time for another top 10 food memories list already. We didn't travel that much this year, which is probably why half the list is from New York, but we still had a lot of great food memories to choose from. So here's my top 10 (in no particular order).

1. Cevapi from Cevabdzinica Sarajevo (Astoria, NY)

The cevapi we got for our Bosnia visit during the World Cup challenge was probably my favorite meal of the challenge. It was the first time I'd had Bosnian food and I was hooked. I was ready to ditch the rest of the day's food crawl plans and just eat more cevapi. The grilled sausages, raw onion and ajvar together were such a delicious combination. Add in the soft and fluffy lepinja and it was an excellent lunch that I can't wait to have again.

2. Spicy herbs spring roll from Chada Thai (Las Vegas, NV)

This spring roll got penciled in on the top 10 list back in January when we tried it at Chada. The spring roll consisted of a soft rice paper wrapper lined with lettuce leaves and stuffed with ground pork, ginger, onion, lemongrass, wild cilantro, mint, kaffir lime leaf, and basil vinaigrette. Tons of herbs but all complementary and not clashing one bit. Somehow they combined to form a roll that was both delicate and full of intense herbal flavors. It tasted like something I had before and liked, but I couldn't quite place it, maybe something from Jitlada. All I knew was that I could eat this every day, given the opportunity. It was so light and fresh, exactly the type of thing I want on vacation.

3. Garlic grilled chicken from Charlie Brown's Fresh Grill (Staten Island, NY)

I'm probably as surprised as anyone reading this to find a dish from a chain restaurant on this list, but I can't stop thinking about this garlic chicken. The chicken breast was cooked perfectly, and was juicy and full of garlic flavor. It was accompanied by some roasted potatoes that were completely covered in garlic, as well as brussels sprouts, which I had expected to be roasted but were instead lightly fried and drizzled with balsamic. This dish just screamed rustic to me and it's the type of thing that I wish I could recreate at home. (How do they get it so garlicky?!) We had just disembarked from the Quantum a couple of days before and this dish was better than almost everything I'd had on the cruise. It was also my first "real" flavorful meal after recovering from the food poisoning/stomach virus/bug thing I picked up on the ship, so it was especially good.

4. Uni tostada from Cosme (New York, NY)

We planned to eat at Cosme from the minute we heard it was in the works and obsessively followed it until its opening. Once we finally got there, it absolutely surpassed our already high expectations. The dish that was the best for me and completely transporting was the uni tostada. A tostada made in-house from their usual purple (or blue?) corn and fried up, topped with bone marrow salsa, avocado, jalapeño, and a very generous amount of uni... It was so good. I took one bite and I could taste the salty air and almost feel the sea breeze, as if we were indulging in the tostada while sitting on the beach. It was a perfect bite and just zapped all of winter's cold right out of my mind.

5. Flying fish sandwiches from Cuz's Fish Shack and Harbour Lights (Bridgetown, Barbados)

The one thing we knew we wanted to eat in Barbados was flying fish and our first stop was Cuz's Fish Shack for a flying fish sandwich. It was really good, as was the fried flying fish sandwich we got later in the day at Harbour Lights, but that's not really why they're on this list. This is one of my favorite food memories because it was the perfect beach day that I had daydreamed about the entire time leading up to vacation and the perfect summer day that I didn't really get to enjoy all year because of my various ailments. Flying fish sandwiches on the beach, rum punch in hand as we basked in the sun, perfect turquoise water and soft white sands. This was everything I wanted our vacation in the Caribbean to be. This was a day that I was extremely thankful for every minute we were there and one that I will never forget.

6. Camarones al ajillo con trifongo from El Jibarito (San Juan, Puerto Rico)

A picked this one out when we were at El Jibarito (we were sharing and I ordered the alcapurrias and bacalaitos) and I can't stop thinking about the trifongo. I can't put my finger on what I liked so much about it, but it's a mixed mofongo with sweet plantain, green plantain, and yucca. Somehow that combination, mashed together and fried up, just won't get out of my head. It was better than I ever imagined it would be. It was paired up with some super garlicky shrimp, peppers, and onions in butter sauce, and together, they were great.

7. Garlic prawns from Lotus of Siam (Las Vegas, NV)

One day we'll get around to recapping our visits to Lotus of Siam. This time, we got something new - the garlic prawns. Everyone talked about the garlic prawns and I was expecting some good, crispy fried salt and pepper shrimp, but what we got was so much more. In addition to frying the shrimp, Lotus also fries the shells. The result is a thin crispy shell that tastes just like you're eating a shrimp chip. I love shrimp chips and I was so surprised by how great those turned out to be. I'm not sure how we're going to handle subsequent visits to Lotus because our "must order next time" list keeps getting longer and longer. This is definitely on mine.

8. Gorgon taco from Otto's Tacos (New York, NY)

We've already posted about the amazing "secret" Gorgon taco that you can get at Otto's Tacos, so you know how much we love it. It's completely unhealthy but I love these puffy tacos.

9. Super onion chips from Superdawg (Chicago, IL)

I love onion rings so there was no way we were leaving Superdawg, the famous drive-in hot dog joint in Chicago, without getting their super onion chips. They're like onion rings but in smaller pieces, so you don't have that problem where you bite into a ring and the onion separates from the breading. These were perfectly breaded and fried. I could have eaten an entire meal of these super onion chips and was so sad when they were gone.

10. 52 week cooking challenge

Home cooking has really become a part of my life and this year I took part in my first 52 week cooking challenge (even if I did it unofficially). I'm pretty proud of sticking with it and finishing it, and I learned so much along the way. Over the past 52 weeks, some of our favorite meals have come out of dishes that I made for the challenges. Among our favorites were Southern night (Hoppin' John and collard greens), Belgian night (carbonnade and stoemp), Hawaiian night (garlic shrimp and mac salad), and the incredible esquites that we've gone on to make several times because we love them so much. I am so glad I decided to do this challenge, and it definitely deserves a spot on this list.

So much good food in 2014. Bring on 2015!

Cevabdzinica Sarajevo

Our favorite thing about the World Cup eating challenge (and also WorldEats) is that it can introduce us to a cuisine and a culture that we've always wanted to learn more about but just never tried. In 2010, that was Paraguay. This time around, the one new cuisine we tried and loved was from Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

We were rooting for Bosnia during their games, mostly because this was their first time in the tournament, they were huge underdogs, and it would've been so amazing for their nation if they were to progress in their first chance. Unfortunately (and probably unfairly), things didn't go their way but we were really looking forward to when we could try out Bosnian food to honor them.

The day after our Independence Day food crawl, we decided to undertake another mini-crawl, this time in Astoria. Our first stop and the one we were most excited about was Cevabdzinica Sarajevo, a spot that specializes in cevapi, a grilled minced meat sausage. Walking down the block, we spotted the Bosnian flag proudly flying outside and knew we were in the right place.

Cevabdzinica Sarajevo is a small and casual spot. They had a TV set up for the World Cup (but we were there between games) and lots of football paraphernalia around, including jerseys for Dzeko and Ibisevic. Lots of Bosnian pride. We took a seat, scanned the menu (even though we knew we were just going to split a plate of cevapi), and placed our order.

The first thing to arrive was a basket of bread called lepinja, a traditional bread in the Balkan region. It was warm, soft, and chewy. We couldn't wait to eat it with our cevapi.

The drinks at the restaurant all come out of a self-service refrigerator. They had the usual stuff you could get anywhere, like sodas and teas, but they also had two drinks that appeared to be imported from Slovenia. We went with the Jupi orange soda, mostly because they had an article on the wall about celebrating the World Cup and how they were all going to be drinking orange soda during the Bosnian games. This was pretty good. Unlike some orange sodas, the orange flavor was natural and none of that artificial stuff.

We went with the larger plate of cevapi, which came with 10 sausages. The accompaniments on the side were chopped raw onions and ajvar, a type of spread (or sauce or relish) mostly made with red peppers. The sausages are made in-house and grilled after you order them, so everything is very fresh and you can taste the difference.

The cevapi was incredible. We joked that this was like the best breakfast sausage we've ever had. The meat was grilled perfectly. It wasn't hard or chewy or tough, but just right so that it was a little bit pink inside. The spices mixed in with the meat aren't overpowering at all, but very complementary. The sausages were good on their own, but even better when mixed with the onions and ajvar.

We were so happy with the cevapi that we briefly considered ditching the rest of the food crawl and getting another plate of cevapi. (We didn't do that but it was so good that we thought about it.) Even though we hadn't yet finished our World Cup journey, we knew that, without a doubt, this was going to be a contender for our favorite meal of the challenge.

Cevabdzinica Sarajevo is located at 3718 34th Ave in Astoria, Queens.