Tchau Brasil

The 2014 World Cup (and our challenge) has been over for almost 2 weeks now and it was an intense ride! We tried to make it to as many countries as we could for our eating challenge, and we watched a very high percentage of the games themselves, so the past month was pretty much overtaken by the World Cup. (Fairly sure we're not the only ones.) It was exciting and thrilling. Congratulations to Germany!

If you haven't been following along with our status post or generally reading the blog, we visited 20 out of 32 countries, for a 62.5% showing. Not too bad, considering our World Cup eating time was fairly limited. There's an alphabetical list of the countries we hit on our journey in the status post, but if you want to read them in the order we traveled, here's the list of countries we visited in order:

Italy

South Korea

Chile

Australia

Japan

France

Spain

Netherlands

Uruguay

Argentina

Portugal

Belgium

Germany

Mexico

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Colombia

Brazil

England

USA

Greece

We did fairly well with our challenge, but just ran out of time to hit up more spots. We had places picked out for every country (other than Algeria and Cameroon), but when we had to start doing food crawls or only had limited travel time, that eliminated a bunch of the more interesting cuisines we had never tried before. Our biggest disappointments in our performance were that we never made it to an African restaurant (and therefore didn't go to one country from each confederation) and didn't make it to all the nations of any particular confederation (we got close with CONMEBOL and AFC, only missing one country for each). Maybe next time.

We have no idea where we'll be in life during the next World Cup in 2018, but we always look forward to this event every 4 years. We love the World Cup!

Poseidon Bakery

The last stop on our 2014 World Cup eating journey was for Greek food at Poseidon Greek Bakery. This is one of our absolute favorite places in Hell's Kitchen and we love stopping in there for sweet and (mostly) savory treats. They've been there for generations, and it's a good thing they own the building because otherwise I bet they'd already be pushed out of the space with the crazy rents these days.

To celebrate Greece in the World Cup, we picked up one of each of their savory pies to split for lunch. We love Greek pies, even if they're not really the healthiest things to eat. We still dream about the pies we had at Ariston in Athens.

We think we've had all of the savory pies before (except for maybe the cheese) but we've never had them all at the same time to see which one was our favorite. I cut them all for us to split and heated them up a little bit in the microwave before we delved into our lunch.

The four pies were:

Kreatopita (meat pie with ground beef, leek, onion and scallion)

The meat filling was very flavorful and tasty. The leek, onion, and scallion additions livened up the ground meat, and they offered a fresh spring flavor to the whole pie.

Tiropita (cheese pie with feta, ricotta, cream cheese and mint)

As with many Greek cheeses we've tried, this was a touch on the salty side. The overall flavor of the pie was very good though. The mint really came through nicely as an accent to the cheese which helped temper the salt a bit, and it also added a refreshing coolness to the flavor.

Menina Mash (vegetable pie with spinach, potato, leek, dill and onion)

We've written about the menina mash before, and I had this as part of my Greek journey at the last World Cup. We loved the rich flavors of the vegetables in the mash and this was probably the pie that tasted the healthiest to us.

Spanakopita (spinach pie with feta cheese, leek, dill, onion, scallion)

Like with the tiropita, the cheese added a nice saltiness and richness to the pie. The spinach was full and hearty, and the dill was a nice addition, but the amount of spinach made this a little more bitter than the menina mash pie.

If we had to rank the pies in order from the one we liked best to least, A's order would be tiropita, kreatopita, menina mash, and spanakopita, and mine would probably be kreatopita, menina mash, tiropita, and spanakopita. Although we ranked the spanakopita in last place, I should probably note that it's still quite a good pie. All the savory pies at Poseidon are good. We just liked the other ones more that day at lunch.

If you find yourself in the area, definitely stop in for a pie. They're a great snack and a few would make a great meal!

Poseidon Bakery is located at 629 9th Ave (between 44th and 45th) in Hell's Kitchen.

Chicagoland Weekend

We just returned from a long weekend trip to Chicago to celebrate a friend's wedding, which means we have lots more recaps! We're not very good at finishing these on a timely basis, but maybe this time will be different?

Fluffy clouds over O'Hare from our hotel room in Rosemont

Unlike some of our more recent trips to Chicago, this one is probably more accurately classified as "Chicagoland" than Chicago, since over half of our meals were outside the Chicago city limits. We stayed in Rosemont, the village right next to O'Hare, and decided to make the most of our location by exploring areas of Chicagoland we've never really ventured to before. Can't wait to tell you about some of our adventures!

USA! USA! USA!

Last time for the World Cup we bundled USA in with Slovakia. This time we did better about splitting up all of the countries. For this summer's tournament we opted to do a BBQ run to celebrate America. I had been to Daisy May's before with some coworkers for a pork butt extravaganza, but M had never been. So it was decided!

Daisy May's is a BBQ joint that draws from multiple regions of the US for all of its fairly authentic BBQ styles. You can get the Texas pit-style brisket and beef ribs, Carolina pulled pork, Memphis dry and St. Louis wet ribs, Cajun dirty rice, collard greens, and many other variations of smoked, grilled, and sauced meat products and sides.

M opted for the pulled pork platter with a side of burnt ends baked beans and mac and cheese (we shared all the sides). She thought the pork was pretty good. The sauce was mixed pretty well throughout the portion of pork, and she really liked the flavor of the BBQ sauce. (To be fair, BBQ sauce is one of her favorite condiments, and she likes most of them.) I found the pork to be a touch on the overcooked and dry side especially compared to the really moist pork butt I had before. (M didn't find it dry but she also didn't have that comparison to make.) The sauce they use isn't the Carolina Gold style of sauce that's common in South Carolina. It's more of a mustardy North Carolina type of sauce. It's a little sweet, a little spicy, and even a touch sour from a bit of vinegar.

The baked beans were really good. The burnt ends added smoky flavor to it all, and the beans were hearty and sweet. The mac and cheese was creamy and cheesy. It didn't have that baked top crust that we both enjoy so much, but sometimes you just want this type of mac and cheese. That being said, the pasta was cooked well, and the cheesy flavors were good.

I opted for the combo platter which was apparently some sort of special. You get to choose 2 of the meats to pair and two sides like every other platter. I chose the beef brisket and the Memphis dry rub ribs. I also got the creamy, cheesy corn and the collard greens as my sides. The collard greens were good, but nothing special. We did need some sort of vegetable matter, though, and these definitely fit the bill. The creamy, cheesy corn was delicious as always. It's like creamed corn but jazzed up with cheese. How can you go wrong? 

But the star of the show? Obviously the meat. The brisket was nice and moist, and the BBQ sauce was sweet and tangy. It had a nice smoky and salty flavor on the meat itself from the rub and smoking, but it's not the best brisket I've ever had. The ribs, though? Wow. They take these ribs, double rub them with their special spice blend, and then smoke them as is proper in Memphis style BBQ. They were tender and juicy and fell right off the bone when you bit into them. M doesn't usually like ribs but she really liked these. She had never had dry ribs before but really preferred them to the kind you can more easily get, which are sticky and messy.

BBQ isn't the most affordable cuisine, and because of its red meat heavy menus, it's not something we plan on eating that often. It's really nice to have so many amazing options in NYC, though, for whenever we do get the urge, and it's even nicer to have such a great option so close to our apartment. If you're not looking for a particular style of BBQ and you just want something awesome, definitely head out to Daisy May's.

Daisy May's, 623 11th Avenue, Hell's Kitchen.

Cock and Bull

When you hear English food, what do you think? Fish and chips? Bangers and mash? Shepherd's pie? Yeah, us too. For our English World Cup visit, we headed over to Cock & Bull, a British pub in Midtown that opened sometime in the past year or so, to indulge in some British favorites.

A got a pint, and he opted for a Young's London Ale ($8) to celebrate the English theme. He really enjoys the Young's Double Chocolate Stout so he thought he'd see what one of their other brews was like.  He wasn't all that impressed by it. It was a lighter flavored beer, but it was crisp and refreshing. In the future he would get something else instead.

I decided to get a sandwich called the "British Bulldog" ($12.95). The menu said this was a "grilled banger, bubble & squeak, whole grain mustard on a toasted bread roll" and would be served with a side of hand-cut fries. My bubble & squeak experiment didn't turn out so well, so I wanted to see how the professionals did it. We also are big fans of bangers and mash, so I thought I would try this out to see how they went together in a sandwich.

The plate that I got seemed more like a plate of hand-cut fries with a side of a banger sandwich. Perhaps the menu should have mentioned that it was the size of a half sandwich, as it certainly seemed like half a bread roll. Crazy small portion size aside, the sandwich was pretty good. The banger had good flavor, whole grain mustard matched it well, and potatoes on a sandwich usually work in whatever form (mashed, fried, etc). I was expecting a mashed potato patty like the type I tried to make for bubble and squeak but these were more like loosely griddled potatoes. It tasted good. The fries were nice and crispy too. I liked them and the fries were the reason I walked out of lunch stuffed. It certainly wasn't from the banger sandwich.

A got the fish and chips ($19.95). The menu said this would be "ale battered cod, thick hand cut chips, and tartar sauce, served on a bed of mushy peas with bacon." Often, fish and chips comes with more than one piece of fish, but not here. We had seen a photo online of this dish with only one piece of fish and thought the person had eaten the rest before taking the picture. Not the case. 

The fish was fairly standard - white and flaky in a thick batter. But the real star there was the tartar sauce that accompanied the fish. We're not sure but it tasted like it was freshly made in-house. We really liked the tartar sauce. The chips weren't bad, but they were less like skinny fried potatoes (like the standard fast food kind) and more like steak fries. They had no distinct crisp to them, and they were soft and full of potato. Also, this must be the World Cup challenge of mushy peas after this and our Australian adventure. That said, the mushy peas were really, really good. They were very fresh and clean tasting.

The food at Cock & Bull was good, and it seems like the type of place where you could go, hang out with some friends, have a beer, and catch the game. It wasn't overrun with tourists and we were grateful for that break. But while the quality is good, the food is a bit pricey for the amount you get. We didn't leave hungry like after our Japanese excursion, but what we were really full on was just potatoes.

Cock & Bull, 23 W. 45th Street (between 5th and 6th Aves), in Midtown.

Pão de Queijo

During our research for the World Cup challenge, we noticed that it was actually a little difficult to find a casual Brazilian spot. Most of them weren't really a place we could stop for a quick snack or a casual lunch, but would have been more of a full meal with entrees over $15. Thankfully we were able to find one - New York Pão de Queijo in Astoria - which seemed like it had been around for quite a few years. We were really excited to visit them as we like pão de queijo a lot. We've mostly had small sized ones, like the Brazi Bites ones, which were cheesy and easy to eat.

We got our cheesy rolls to go since we were running short on time. They gave us the option of a big cheese roll for $2, or 7 small rolls for $3. We decided to get one large roll each. They were about the size of your palm.

This was a solid block of cheese wrapped in dough before being baked. It was, in all sense of the word, a gut bomb. After our mini-crawl throughout the day, I'm not sure how A actually finished his whole one as we went to the train. I could only finish half during our food crawl, and saved the rest for a late night snack.

We had hoped to get more than pão de queijo when we were originally looking at our World Cup options, so we would definitely go back and see what this hamburger and snack joint is all about. It looked like the type of casual "cheap eats" place that we really enjoy, and the pão de queijo was so good.

New York Pão de Queijo is located at 3190 30th Street in Astoria, Queens.

Carolina Gold

One of our favorite BBQ sauces is Sweet Baby Ray's out of Chicago. We get the giant bottles from Costco and use them for pulled chicken, BBQ chicken pizza, chili, everything. We really like it, but Trader Joe's has a whole shelf full of BBQ sauces and when we finally had a break where our Sweet Baby Ray's had run out, we decided to take the opportunity to try something new. Trader Joe's was sampling their Carolina Gold BBQ sauce one day awhile back and we thought that might be a good one to pick up.

Perfect accompaniment for Champions League soccer ... Yes, I started this post a long time ago but we're still using the sauce

We pretty much only eat this sauce with chicken nuggets. That's not to say it doesn't go with anything else, but that's its primary purpose in our household. According to the bottle, it's a "golden-hued, mustard-based sauce that's sweet and smoky with a hint of molasses and just the right blend of spices." That sounds about right. Like with other Carolina BBQ sauces, you definitely notice the vinegar base in addition to the mustard. The biggest difference between our usual sauce and the Carolina Gold is probably that the Carolina sauce is a little more sour and mustardy, while the Sweet Baby Ray's is much, well, sweeter.

Chicken nuggets and Carolina Gold BBQ sauce

Buy Again? Yes, even though we have a giant jug of Sweet Baby Ray's in the fridge. Trader Joe's has some other BBQ sauces, so we might sample some others before we buy this again, but this was definitely good.

Week 25 - Stone Fruits

I wasn't particularly looking forward to Week 25 of the 52 week challenge. The theme was stone fruits which I like as a general matter (happy it's pluot season again!), but I wasn't very excited about cooking with them. The theme presented a few issues: (1) I am really not a fan of mixing fruit into savory dishes, (2) I could make dessert with stone fruits, but I prefer making dinner items for the challenge, and (3) I wasn't inspired by any challenge meals I saw using stone fruit. (As a side note to anyone following along, I didn't forget to post Week 24. I went out of order and didn't do it yet.)

After much thought, I finally found something that I thought I could be satisfied with - a fish taco topped with homemade peach salsa. (We all know I love tacos...) The version of peach salsa at Natasha's Kitchen looked good, so I decided to do an adaptation of that. Other than peaches and peppers, I really didn't want to buy any other new ingredients this week so I tried to work with what we had at home instead.

In my adaptation of the recipe, I used:

- 14.5 oz can of diced tomatoes with green chiles, drained ($0.78)

- 1 red bell pepper, seeded and finely chopped ($0.99)

- 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded and finely chopped ($0.15)

- 1 medium red onion, finely chopped ($0.50)

- 24 oz jar of sliced peaches in light syrup, drained ($2.35)

- 4 cubes of frozen chopped cilantro ($0.40)

- 4 garlic cloves, minced ($0.08)

- 2 spoonfuls of lime juice ($0.40)

- 1.5 tsp salt ($0.05)

- 1 tsp black pepper ($0.05)

I would have preferred to use fresh cilantro (and would have used approximately 1/2 a bunch), but I didn't want the rest to go to waste during our short cooking week this week. I don't really think fresh cilantro and the frozen cubes are comparable, but the frozen stuff will do in a pinch.

The recipe came out to about $5.75 for a giant bowl of peach salsa, but we only ate about 1/2 of it for dinner. The entire meal (with tortillas and fish), counting only the peach salsa we ate, was probably $6 or so, which was a great price for a dinner for 2. Of course, for dessert, we ate an entire box of Costco blackberries, which cost about the same thing, so in the end, the night as a whole wasn't that cheap!

Making the peach salsa is pretty easy. First, you have to prep all the ingredients (chop the peaches, pepper, onion, jalapeño, cilantro, and garlic) and throw them all into a bowl together with the canned tomatoes. Then add the lime juice, salt and pepper. Stir thoroughly until it's all mixed well. Let it sit for a bit to meld together (I didn't chill it because we were eating it within the hour, but I suppose you could do that). Done!

For our first plates, we each made a fish taco with the tortillas, a couple of fish sticks, and a few generous spoonfuls of peach salsa. After that, it was just fish sticks topped with salsa. Both ways were good. Fish sticks work quite well with this salsa.

The peach salsa wasn't exactly what we were expecting it to be. I had thought that it was going to be really sweet since I was using an entire jar of peaches in syrup (even though the syrup was drained). As A noted when I had him try one, the peaches in these jars aren't as sweet as the canned or jarred peaches you usually get, which helped a lot with the salsa. Also, the sweetness of the peaches was offset by the sharpness of the red onion. I guess the onion I used was a little big, since there was a ton of onion in the salsa. Not a bad thing, but it did make it a bit sharp. There was also a little bit of a kick to the salsa from the jalapeño that we liked. Overall, it was a successful challenge dish.

Would I make this again? Maybe. It seems easier to just make a regular pico de gallo without fruit to put on tacos, but if we're ever in the mood for peach salsa, at least we've got a good recipe to use!

Topaz Thai

Our neighborhood, Hell's Kitchen, has a lot of Thai restaurants, most of which offer lunch specials (some even on the weekends). Most of them don't just serve discounted entrees, but also toss in a free appetizer or salad. We're really used to that, so when we went with family to Topaz Thai, which is located over in the center of Midtown near Carnegie Hall, we were surprised to find that their lunch special was just a cheaper main course but no extras were thrown in.

There was a basket of shrimp chips on the table (I guess that could be considered an appetizer?) but I didn't try them. They looked kind of oily and stale. A did try them though, and he can confirm that they were in fact oily, and even if they weren't stale, they certainly weren't crispy.

When trying a new Thai place with a lunch special, A and I will often gravitate to the rice and noodles, so we can more easily compare with other places we've been. I ordered the Bangkok fried rice, which was fried rice with chicken (what I picked), basil, onions, green peppers, carrots and scallions. This was pretty good. The portion size was filling and the taste of the rice was good. Similar to other places, I found that they used less vegetables and basil in the rice than in the noodles, and I still can't figure out why that is.

A got the drunken noodles, which is a common order for us. These were flat rice noodles stir-fried with chicken, basil, Chinese broccoli, carrots, onions, green peppers, and a "bean sauce" (according to the menu). The basil was much more present in the noodles than the fried rice I got. It also had a decent kick of heat despite being a lunch special. Most Thai restaurants tone things down for lunch specials in case people can't actually take the heat.

The food at Topaz was pretty good. Since we're spoiled by Thai choices near us, I'm not sure when we'll be back to Topaz, but they're one of the only Thai places in that area. If only they also included free dumplings!

Topaz Thai is at 127 W. 56th Street (between 6th and 7th Aves).

La Sabrosura

Colombia was one of our favorite teams in this year's World Cup and we were sad they didn't make it further in the competition. We were hoping to honor them with a nice dinner with some of our favorite Colombian foods, like rotisserie chicken and arepas, but we just didn't have time to fit that into our schedule. If Farmers were still around, Colombia would have probably been the first country we crossed off the challenge list. But since they're not and since we only had time to hit Colombia in a food crawl, we decided to stop at the La Sabrosura Bakery since we were already in Astoria for Bosnian food.

We ordered one buñuelo and one Colombian empanada with hot sauce on the side. It cost $3 total.

They had a bunch of empanadas in the window at the bakery and they seemed to be popular with all the people stopping in that afternoon. I originally asked for the Colombian empanada in chicken, since that was an option on the menu, but she said I could either get the chicken or the Colombian one. Since we were at a Colombian bakery, I, of course, opted for the Colombian empanada. I have no idea what type of meat was inside it but the combination was tasty. It was even better with the hot sauce.

A buñuelo is a fried dough ball which, in Colombian cuisine, often has cheese mixed in before it's fried, making it even richer and giving it a unique texture. This buñuelo was a little on the sweet side, but the texture was nice. A liked the buñuelo better than the empanada, and I was the opposite.

We thought our snack at La Sabrosura was okay, but there are so many Colombian restaurants and bakeries throughout Queens that I'm not sure we'll be back here. If you're in the neighborhood and want a quick pastry or empanada, it wouldn't be a bad choice but it's not so much of a destination place in our opinion.

La Sabrosura Bakery is located at 3802 Broadway, in Astoria, Queens.

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.

Otto's Tacos

Since we were food crawling through the East Village, we decided to make our last World Cup stop of the night at Otto's Tacos, part of the wave of excellent new taquerias in the city. We've been to Otto's before, but of course, have never blogged about it before (since that seems to be more common than actually recording our memories on time).

We were starting to get full after indulging in waffles and currywurst, so we just got 2 tacos ($3 each) and a side of chips and guacamole ($3.75).

The chips tasted like they were fried in-house and not pre-made, which gave them a nice crispness. The guacamole wasn't bad, but we liked the one A makes at home better. This one was mostly avocado with some cilantro and onion, but not much else. I think in the future we would skip this and get another taco instead, since we enjoyed the tacos more than the guacamole.

The two tacos we picked were the chicken and mushroom tacos. We had the chicken one before (although last time we got it the chicken was in bigger pieces, less marinated and more grilled). It was a little salty this time, probably because of how much marinade and sauce there was, but it was still good. The mushrooms in the taco were really buttery and rich (sort of like the way A thought the mushroom tacos I made at home would be back in May). The chicken taco had a green salsa and the mushroom one had red. I'm not sure how they choose which salsa goes with which taco, but the red one has a little bit more kick. Both were topped with plentiful amounts of onion and cilantro, which we like to see.

One of the other interesting things that Otto's serves is masa fries ($3). We didn't get these on this visit since we definitely didn't have the stomach space for that, but we got them another time. These weren't exactly what we were expecting. I thought they would be more like the chickpea fries we've had elsewhere - thick and soft - but they were thin and crispy. We do love the taste of masa though. These are quite interesting if you've never had them before and are worth a try.

We enjoyed our snack at Otto's Tacos and along with Taqueria Diana a block away, there are some great options for tacos down in the East Village. Mexican food on the West Coast may still be better, but at least you can't say anymore that there are no good tacos in Manhattan!

Otto's Tacos, 141 Second Ave (between St. Marks and E. 9th), East Village.

Chivito d'Oro Again!

Just like in the last World Cup, we headed out to Queens for Uruguayan food at Chivito d'Oro. We knew that this time wouldn't be the same experience as Uruguay had been eliminated the day before so there would be no ultra-festive and nationalistic pride atmosphere. In fact, there was no singing at all. The only plus to this was that there was much, much less of a wait to get a table this time.

The meal started out with a basket of grilled bread and their version of chimichurri sauce. The sauce was loaded with parsley, garlic, and finished off with olive oil and some form of vinegar. Despite the charred looking exterior, the bread was perfectly soft on the inside with the right amount of crispness on the crust. The grill also added a smoky flavor to the bread which was really nice. M and I both agreed that the "burnt" part was the best part of the bread. We don't know if it's supposed to be eaten this way, but we really like putting the sauce on the bread and eating it together. We know it's supposed to go with the meat, but, to be honest, the meat tastes just fine on its own. On that note...

I, on the recommendation from one of our front desk staff with whom we chat with all the time, got the Parrillada para 1 (Grill dish for 1). The platter is loaded with beef steak, sweet bread, chorizo, morcilla, and veal steak. I dug into my pile of meat upon meat upon meat with gusto. Everything on the grill is seasoned mildly with salt and pepper to allow the flavor of the meat to come through, and everything is brilliant. The first thing I tried was the sweet bread as that and the morcilla intrigued me the most. They were soft and mineral-y, and they were beautifully grilled up to have a bit of bite right at the onset. The morcilla was also a bit mineral-y, but it was spiced wonderfully. The only issue I had with it was that the casing is a little tough to cut through, and because of the texture of the filling, it falls apart a bit every time you try. The beef steak was really tender and juicy even as it was cooked to medium since it's so thin. The chorizo is a touch salty, but it's chorizo. It's flavorful, spiced nicely, and has a bit of snap to the casing. The short ribs are really really nice. They're cooked well, and the meat around the bones pulls off easily enough if you know what you're doing. The only disappointing thing on the plate would be what I can only assume is the veal. It's thick and a bit tough, and it has a rather large fat cap on top. The flavors are good just like everything else, but the texture just isn't quite right. That, and you really can't (shouldn't) eat about a third of it.

So in case I wasn't full from the giant platter of grilled meat, my order comes with a side as well. I always opt for the potato salad (ensalada rusa) since it's really tasty. It's creamy and loaded with carrot pieces and peas. The minor issue is that, on top of all of that meat (and under, around, intermixed, etc.), the potato salad can be really heavy. It's a very tasty side, though, and one that I wholeheartedly recommend.

M got two chorizo and one morcilla (blood sausage). She admitted later that, she perhaps ordered one too many chorizo, but she was more than happy with what she got. She also found the morcilla to be very rich. It was tasty but she preferred the chorizo. It was just too much meat though and she couldn't bear to eat any meat for days.

We love the flavors from all of the food you can get from Chivito d'Oro, but it's not something we could eat on a consistent basis. The one thing I was really worried about after plowing through a lot of my endless platter of meat was that the waitress misunderstood me and gave me the order for 2 by mistake. When the bill came we thankfully saw that it was just the order for 1. However, that opened up another question of "how can one person eat all of that food?" We took home a good amount of leftovers that I was able to use for lunch for a couple days following our feast.

Wechsler's

One German snack we really enjoy (and which we hope to get someday in Berlin) is currywurst. So we continued our food crawl into the East Village and made a stop at Wechsler's to get some!

A started out with a beer - the Köstritzer dark pils ($5), which is brewed at one of Germany's oldest breweries in Bad Köstritz (back to 1543!). It had a lovely malty flavor, and had a nice bit of sweetness to go along with the subtle bitterness of the hops. A had never had a schwartzbier before, but if this is what they're supposed to taste like, he might have to get more of them.

Wechsler's has all sorts of sausages on the menu - lots of German style brats, as well as some from "around the world." But we were there for their signature dish, the currywurst, sliced up bratwurst with their homemade curry ketchup and hand-cut fries.

This dish was everything we hoped it would be. The thinly cut and salted fries and the sausage were tasty, but the star was that curry ketchup. We dipped everything in it. Curry ketchup is great with sausage, but it's also fantastic with fries (which we discovered a few years ago in Amsterdam).

We only got the small size of the currywurst (for $7), and decided to also get a pretzel as a side dish ($4). This was a Bavarian style pretzel with sweet mustard on the side. The mustard to us tasted more spicy than sweet, not quite horseradish mustard but not really that sweet. It also had a bit of a vinegar hit to it. The pretzel was more hard and salty and less soft and buttery like the ones we had on our PA trip. This was a good side, but the currywurst was better.

We really liked the currywurst at Wechsler's and would definitely go back for some more. Maybe next time we'll also try some other brats or maybe the sauerkraut or potato salad!

Wechsler's is located at 120 1st Avenue (between 7th and St Marks) in the East Village.

Brazi Bites

While we were out in Portland last year, we had a discovery in the form of Brazi Bites. They're frozen Brazilian cheese bread (pão de queijo) snacks that come in various flavors and are made by a company based out of Portland. A's mom had bought a few bags and they became part of our Thanksgiving dinner. We love cheese breads, including pão de queijo and the similar French gougeres, so it's not surprising that we kept eating these.

We got to try both the original and jalapeño flavors. We think we liked the jalapeño one better, but both were excellent, cheesy, soft and chewy.

It would be great if we could get these at home, but sadly they don't appear to distribute where we are. Back in November, they only went as far east as the Plains, but it seems like they've now expanded to Florida, so maybe they'll be here soon! I guess we could buy them online, but we don't usually buy frozen food online. Hopefully Whole Foods up in the Northeast will carry them soon!