Cafe at Two70

We've really been slacking on our Quantum recaps. We wanted to get them done before the Quantum left the NYC area for Asia but that was over 6 months ago. It's now been so long that M's parents have even taken a cruise on the new Anthem of the Seas and been back for weeks. Oops.

Photo credit to whichever of M's parents took this, since we forgot to take one

When we last left off on our trip, we had gone for an early character breakfast which was largely unsatisfying and then had a couple of sandwich snacks on the promenade. When it was finally time for lunch, we headed over to the Cafe @ Two70. The Two70 venue was located at the very back of the ship, had 2 floors, and tried to evoke the vibe of a lounge. They also held shows there, both a big production called Starwater and mini "roboshows" using these fancy screens. We had heard good things about this cafe and thought it would be good, fresh food. Instead what we encountered there were very long lines, lots of premade food, and then uncomfortable and limited seating once we finally had our food. We tried to keep an open mind about lunch, but in the end, it was fine but didn't live up to our expectations.

We started out with 2 soups - bouillabaisse and potato leek. The better of the two was the creamy potato leek soup. But there didn't seem to be much of a difference between getting a soup at Two70 and getting a soup at the Windjammer buffet. In fact, we found the exact same soups up at the buffet later on.

M had been really interested in the salads at Two70 from before the time we boarded the ship. We sailed on the Quantum before they put the build your own salad bar in the dining room for lunch, so M thought this would be a good way to get a nice, healthy salad for lunch that would be better than what was on offer at the buffet. From before we got on the ship, she knew which one she wanted to try first - the Thai chicken noodle salad. The ingredients were listed as grilled chicken, mixed greens, peppers, glass noodles, toasted almonds, mandarin oranges, and sesame-peanut dressing. Sounded tasty.

After seeing all of the various salad ingredients laid out at the bar, she was expecting them to take a bowl, add the ingredients, and mix it. But after ordering, the worker just opened a refrigerated case and handed her a premade boxed salad. That was disappointing. We're guessing you could have done a build your own salad there instead, but the menu board didn't say that. Maybe you just had to be "in the know" like all the RC devotees we sailed with. On top of that, the salad itself was also disappointing. The chicken didn't have a ton of flavor, those noodles were definitely misrepresented as glass noodles, and just overall everything in it was kind of bland. The Thai chicken salad at Panera is so much better than this one.

One of the things that was being freshly prepared at Two70 was the Kummelweck sandwich, and it of course had the longest line. The Kummelweck had freshly carved roast beef with horseradish mayo on a cumin roll. The roast beef had good flavor, and the jus and horseradish mayo rounded out the flavors nicely. Roast beef and horseradish is a classic pairing, and Two70 did a pretty good job on this. M tried a bite of the sandwich and thought it did taste pretty good, but it just isn't her favorite type of sandwich to eat. At the end of the day, the sandwich was worth the wait to try, but A didn't feel the need to wait in line again for another.

We also got a Cuban pita pocket, which was filled with ham, pork, Swiss cheese, pickles, and mustard. This was fine, but nothing special. After they toasted it and gave it to us, it also seemed fairly empty inside. The combination had the classic Cuban sandwich ingredients, so that was okay, but we've had better Cuban sandwiches on land.

Since the cafe area was so crowded when we were there, there were absolutely no seats in the cafe section of the venue, the area with the big tables. Instead we had to go into the area that was more lounge-like, with tiny tables and chairs that aren't really meant for eating this much food. It was awkward and uncomfortable attempting to share what we got, and on top of that, we were within earshot of a group of passengers having a somewhat racist discussion about all the Asian workers on the ship. That added another layer of unpleasantness and didn't help our already increasingly negative feelings about lunch. We never went back to Two70 for lunch after that, and the food was so uninspired and flavorless and unremarkable (other than the Kummelweck) that we went up to the Windjammer afterwards to get other, better things to eat. We wanted to try every venue we were able to on the ship, so we're glad we went there, but it really wasn't anything that special in our opinion.

Fusilli with Vegetables and Basil Pesto

When I first started picking up lunch from Trader Joe's, one of my favorite things to get was this fusilli with vegetables and basil pesto ($1.99) from the frozen section. It reminded me of some of the quick boxed pasta lunches my mom and I used to eat when I was home during summers, and for all I know, they could be made by the same company. Trader Joe's has an entire line of these microwave pastas in boxes, and they are so easy to make. 4 to 5 minutes in the microwave, then you pull off the cover and it's ready. Doesn't get much easier than that.

The fusilli is one of my favorites in this line, mostly because it has so many vegetables in it. There's zucchini, cherry tomatoes, yellow bell peppers, and onions, along with a basil pesto. Even though it comes out of the frozen section and the microwave, the vegetables and pesto give it a fresh and healthy flavor. The texture of the pasta is also pretty good for a microwaved box. Perfect for lunch.

Buy Again? Of course. I hadn't gotten it in a while, but picked one up during post-Christmas shopping for today's lunch, and was reminded of just how much I like it.

Pre-Roast Snacks

We got a bit of a later start than we planned on the second day of our trip, our first full day in London. Originally we had thought that maybe we'd go out for a Sunday roast for lunch and then grab some beers while watching the Manchester derby, but we were so jet lagged and just plain exhausted. Also, the place we had targeted as our first choice for the roast, a pub called The Pig and Butcher, didn't have any reservations left, only some walk-in tables, so we figured there was no way we'd get out in time for the game. Turned out that missing the derby for the roast wasn't an awful thing since the game was pretty terrible.

We started the day with a breakfast bar (more on all of our breakfast bars in another post), and then eventually ventured out to load up our Oyster cards with weeklong passes and start exploring London. On our way to the train, we stopped by some people giving out free mini cans of Coke on the street. We're not sure if they were there because of the Rugby World Cup that was happening during our visit or some other reason, but we would see cans of Coke being given out all over the place during the week we were in London. The only not so great thing about it was that they always opened the can for you, meaning you couldn't save it to drink later.

We made our way over to Islington where the pub was and found out that the wait was about an hour and a half. After arriving in London, we had decided that we absolutely, 100% wanted to go for a Sunday roast in England (and this would be our only chance), so of course we decided to wait. It was about a half hour walk each way to the Emirates from the pub, so even though we're not Arsenal fans, we thought it would be a fun excursion while we waited for our table. We did get a little hungry along the way though, so it was good that we had packed some of the snacks we bought from Morrisons the day before.

For our pre-roast snack, we both split a couple of those Cadbury Dairy Milk Oreo bars. We've always been fans of the Milka Oreo bars, and this one was very similar, but it had a better shape. The Milka ones are flat, but these are sort of dome-shaped, so they have more filling. It was basically a milk chocolate shell with cookies and cream inside (although I guess we can say Oreo since it's actually co-branded thanks to their common Mondelez ownership). So good. It was creamy but not super heavy. We liked it so much that we went back to Morrisons and bought a couple more to bring home, since we were pretty sure we wouldn't be able to get these at home.

After a long walk around Islington, it was time for one of our favorite meals of the trip - our Sunday roast at The Pig and Butcher!

Indian Chickpea Salad

The second time we made the chana dal recipe, I made a chickpea salad to go along with it. I may have mentioned on the blog that I love chickpea salads, so I was excited to try one with an Indian twist to it. I mostly followed a recipe for Indian-spiced chickpea salad with yogurt and herbs by Chef Jerry Traunfeld that I found on Food & Wine, making just a few adjustments.

The ingredients I used were (amounts from original recipe here, but I mostly eyeballed it):

- 2 cans of chickpeas, drained and rinsed ($1.56)

- 2 spoonfuls of coconut oil ($0.20)

- 1 tsp brown mustard seeds ($0.20) *

- 3/4 tsp cumin seeds ($0.05) *

- 3/4 tsp fennel seeds ($0.20) *

- 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes ($0.05) *

- 3/4 cup whole milk yogurt ($1.50)

- 1 tbsp lemon juice ($0.15)

- 6 scallions, finely chopped ($0.43)

- handful of chopped cilantro ($0.40)

- handful of chopped mint ($0.90)

- salt to taste ($0.05)

With estimations for the approximate amount of the spices, the dish was approximately $5.69. We ate it with the dal and a little bit of rice for a tasty, affordable dinner. Compared to the original recipe, I swapped out peanut oil for coconut oil (since we don't own peanut oil) and used a lot more scallions (since ours were nearing the end of their life and I wanted to use them up). Otherwise, I mostly kept to the original other than not measuring amounts. In the future, I would use more of the starred spices (see last paragraph of this post), so the price would be slightly more, but not dramatically so.

The most time-intensive part of the salad was the washing and chopping, which I expected, and the fact that I was trying to do all that while working on the dal at the same time. Anyway, the basic steps were:

1. Drain, rinse, and dry chickpeas.

2. Make spice oil in small skillet. Heat coconut oil. Add mustard seeds. Cover skillet with a splatter guard and heat mustard seeds until they stop popping. Add cumin seeds, fennel seeds, and red pepper flakes. Cook until fragrant (but not more than 30 seconds). Remove from heat and pour on top of chickpeas.

(As a side note, after making this, I'm starting to wonder if I was always "under-toasting" mustard seeds. I remember before the first time I cooked with mustard seeds, I had read something which warned about mustard seeds tasting really unpleasant if you heated them for too long. I don't recall them popping as much as they did this time the other times I made them. Now I know!)

3. Add cilantro, scallions, mint, yogurt, lemon juice to the chickpeas. Add salt to taste. Mix together well and eat.

(That's the order you're supposed to do them in. Did I mention we have a small kitchen and not much counter space? In order to get everything chopped, I ended up adding the scallions and cilantro before the hot oil, and then just tried to pour the hot oil directly on the section of the bowl that only held chickpeas. Seemed fine.)

This salad was really good. It was light and fresh because of all the scallions and herbs and yogurt, and the flavors of the spices were a nice change from the chickpea salads we usually make. The only change I think I would make in the future is to use more of the spices, probably double the amount. It was good as it was, but we think that would make it even better. We would definitely make this again.

Chicken and Green Chile Tamales

Every year around the holidays I've noticed that Trader Joe's starts selling lots of tamales in the refrigerated section. Maybe they're there year-round and I just haven't noticed, but this year I decided to pick up a bag. There were a bunch of options but I went with the chicken and green chile tamales, which came in a bag of 6 tamales for $6.99.

I've tried some of the tamales from the TJ's frozen section before (even if I never got around to blogging about them). They're usually pretty good, but I think these premade tamales from the refrigerated section are actually better in both texture and flavor. The main ingredients in the filling of these tamales were tomatillos, chicken, onion, cilantro, serranos, garlic, epazote, and cumin. It's been a while since I've gotten similar tamales from the frozen section so I'm not entirely sure how close the two are in terms of filling, but these tamales were really good. They basically tasted like chicken stewed in a great salsa verde and stuffed into a tamale. Pretty easy to make too. Just wrap the tamales in a wet paper towel, put it on a plate under plastic wrap, and microwave for a few minutes. Super simple.

Buy Again? Yes. They're a super quick lunch/dinner, and tasted great. I'm a little apprehensive about making my own tamales since it's supposed to be quite labor intensive and take many hours, so $7 for 6 tamales seems like a pretty good deal to me.

Our Feast of the Seven Fishes

Happy Christmas to all who celebrate! Our holiday has been filled with lots of good food and some low-key family time, which has been nice. Last night for Christmas Eve, we went to my parents' favorite sushi place on Staten Island, Genki Sushi, for dinner. Sushi has been our tradition on Christmas Eve for years now, as a way to honor the Italian-American Christmas Eve tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes (there were a lot of Italians in my neighborhood growing up). Sushi is a pretty easy way to eat at least 7 different fish or seafood types, so we've been doing that for as long as I can remember.

We started our Christmas Eve dinner with this special appetizer that had eel and avocado wrapped in some cooked whitefish (not sure what type since it was off-menu). This was a really tasty way to start the meal and we were already up to 2 fish: eel and whatever that white fish was.

One of our favorite appetizers there is the dragon ball, which is spicy kani and shrimp wrapped with avocado and topped with a special sauce and some roe. We don't think it's real crab, but that sea legs imitation crab stuff (which I guess is mostly pollock usually). Either way, 2 appetizers in and we were already up to 4 different types of seafood: eel, whitefish, kani, and shrimp.

Next came the tuna pizza, a crispy tortilla (like a flatbread) topped with tuna, crab (the same stuff that's in the dragon balls), and avocado (spread). Pretty good, but we like the dragon balls better. The tuna pizza brought us up to 5 fishes.

Every so often my parents like to order the pineapple fried rice which comes served in a pineapple with a sauce that tastes a little like a pineapple mayo, kind of sweet, kind of tangy, kind of creamy. The fried rice mixes in shrimp, crab, chicken, and scallop, so that brought us up to 6 with the scallops before the sushi rolls even arrived.

We ordered a whole bunch of rolls, both "regular" and "special" rolls, and I'm pretty sure we covered at least 7 fishes with the rolls alone. 

The first roll on the plate was the dragon roll - eel, masago, avocado, wrapped with avocado and topped with roe. This is a classic roll that you can find at most sushi places, but this is a good version. We already counted eel so we were still at 6.

These 2 were the spicy scallop roll and the rainbow roll, a California roll wrapped with avocado, tuna, salmon, and white fish. The inside of a California roll is usually that same imitation crab stuff, and we've already counted scallops, tuna, and white fish, but salmon hit the magic number of 7 fishes. That said, I always thought the "white fish" here was yellowtail instead of white fish like the menu said, which if it were would take us to 8. Not a big deal though, because there would be more yellowtail to come later.

I didn't remember ever trying this roll before, but this one was the Halloween roll. I'm not entirely sure what's in it since it's one of the newer special rolls that's not listed on their takeout menu, but it seemed like spicy tuna and avocado on the inside, with white tuna and peppered tuna on the outside. The peppery flavor of the tuna made this one really stand out, and with the white tuna, our fish total came up at 8.

Three rolls in this picture - salmon/avocado, yellowtail/scallion, and spider roll (soft shell crab). The yellowtail took us to 9, and the soft shell crab (different from the kani stuff in the other dishes) took us to 10. These were all pretty standard rolls from the "regular" section.

One of the special rolls we really like at Genki is the Ichiban roll - spicy tuna and crunch on the inside, with lobster tempura, avocado, and special sauce on the outside. The lobster took us to 11!

The current seasonal special roll was called the new year's roll and consisted of tuna, salmon, and avocado on the inside, and a lobster salad on the outside. This one was really good, and while containing rich lobster, it was fresh and bright and light, exactly what one would think of for a good start to the new year. Since there weren't any new fishes here, we ended Christmas Eve night at 11. Success!

We actually went back again to Genki tonight for Christmas dinner, getting a couple of the same things like the fried rice, but mostly ordering all new things. Some of the biggest hits from tonight's dinner were the spicy girl roll (spicy salmon crunch and avocado inside, with tuna, white tuna, scallions, and spicy sauce on the outside), the volcano salad (spicy tuna, kani, shrimp, tako, and seaweed salad, wrapped in avocado and special sauce), and the yellowtail guacamole (crisps topped with avocado, tomato, and seared yellowtail).

We've never had a bad dish at Genki, even when they're experimenting with new dishes and combinations. It's definitely the sushi place we visit most often since my parents love to go there, the staff is friendly and attentive, and the food tastes good. Is it some sort of high end traditional omakase? No. But the sushi rolls and appetizers are tasty, the quality has always been good, and we love seeing what new specials they're going to come up with next!

Genki Sushi is located at 150 Greaves Lane in Staten Island.

Week 33 - Indian

Finally... The last overdue post before I'm finally up to date on 2015 cooking challenge recaps! Just in time for the final week...

It was tough choosing what to make for the Indian cooking challenge. The most logical thing to do was to make something with this giant bag of chana dal that I had bought a long time ago from the Indian grocery store. I love dal and for some reason thought that a supersized bag of dal, when I had never cooked it before, was a wise purchase. It sat in the pantry for months and months and months until I finally cracked it open for the challenge (and luckily it was still fresh).

I decided to make a multi-part Indian meal for the cooking challenge dinner (although the naan part of that was going to be store-bought, because I just really didn't have time for that). For the dal, I adapted this recipe I found for easy chana dal, and on the side, chose to make a salad based on this recipe for kachumber salad. Unfortunately I made all this about 4 months ago so it was pretty hard to write a post about what I did. So that this post wasn't completely unhelpful and just full of "I don't remember how I did XYZ," I decided to make the dal again now and then do the write-up while it was fresh in my mind.

The first step for the chana dal was to prepare the dal itself, which needed to soak overnight. I doubled the original recipe and used 1 cup of dal instead. As it soaked, I just kept hoping that the dal wasn't so old that it would screw up the recipe. (I haven't always had the best of luck starting with dried ingredients that needed to be soaked.) When it was time to make dinner the next day, I started out by draining and rinsing the dal, and then adding it to a saucepan with a little over 4 cups of water, and cooking it covered for about 30 minutes over medium heat.

The first time I made this, while the dal was cooking, I worked on the tomato mixture, using the following ingredients (although beware, the spice amounts were estimated by sight):

- 2 tomatoes, finely chopped [or 1 can of diced tomatoes, which is what I used the second time]
- 1/2 head of garlic, minced
- about 1 inch of ginger, minced
- a couple tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp cayenne
- pinch of salt

When I made it the second time, I didn't bother putting together the tomato mixture, but just prepped the ingredients and added them in one by one to the pot of dal after the 30 minute cooking mark.

The instructions in the original recipe noted that all of this should be blended until smooth. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I absolutely hate breaking out the food processor or the blender unless absolutely necessary. (Maybe we should invest in an immersion blender...) Our kitchen is tiny, we have very minimal counter space (barely enough room for a cutting board on the prep side), and dishes pile up very quickly. If I don't have to lug out an appliance, I'm not going to. Would this have been better blended? Maybe. Instead I just chose to chop everything finely, mix it all together well, and then let it cook. If our dal had more "texture," then so be it. I could live with that just fine. Since it worked well the first time, I didn't even bother mixing it the second time. It would all mix with the dal anyway when stirred. Why make more work for myself and waste another bowl?

Once the tomato mixture was done, it got added to the dal, and then I let it cook some more. I don't remember exactly how long. The recipe said 15 minutes, but I'm thinking it was longer than that, because I thought the dal wasn't as soft as I wanted it to be. Basically you're supposed to cook it (covered) until the dal is tender enough to be mashed up a little bit (and then mash up some of it), and then simmer it until it's the consistency you want it to be. I don't know how long that took exactly.

If I were smarter, I would have watched the clock the second time I did this to see how long I let it cook, but I didn't. I just know I cooked it on medium low to low heat for a while since I was prepping herbs for a salad and also cilantro for the dal. I'd like to say 30 minutes, but it might have been longer than that. At one point, I added about 1/2 cup of hot water since most of the water had evaporated/been soaked up already, and I wanted it to be softer. I forgot to mash it up, but it didn't need it anyway. The more I cook, the more I realize that I cook based on texture and taste (and sound and smell) instead of measuring and timing things precisely. Even though that's not helpful for the blog, I think that's probably a good thing for developing my cooking skills.

While the dal was simmering, the last thing to do was to work on the "tempering." This was a new concept to me. I did this completely differently each time I made this, primarily because the first time I made this I didn't have asafoetida. We bought some in London and I couldn't wait to break it open and try it since it is supposed to make such a difference. I had always heard that asafoetida smelled horrible but tasted good. I didn't think it was that bad when we opened the container. It's not fragrant like sage or rosemary, but it wasn't that awful.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure (but not 100% sure) that the first time I did this, I followed the oil-free option in the recipe since I didn't have asafoetida. I just dry roasted the cumin seeds until they were fragrant and then added them to the dal. This time, I heated up a small spoonful of coconut oil, added about a tsp of cumin seeds, cooked them until they changed color, and then added a pinch of asafoetida and let it cook in the oil for a little bit. Then I added the entire thing to the dal while splashing some of the oil on my shirt (don't do that).

For the tempering, in addition to the cumin seeds/asafoetida, you add about 1 tsp of garam masala and 1/2 tsp of cayenne to the dal as it's simmering. Since I didn't have asafoetida the first time, I added garlic powder and onion powder at this point. Not the same thing, but the best I could do at the time. Once it all mixes together well, you turn off the heat and stir in about 1/2 cup of cilantro (or as I did the second time I made it, a couple of handfuls of chopped cilantro).

The first time I made this, I think (if I remember correctly) that we thought it lacked flavor, so I kept adding more spices to it, maybe during the process of cooking before tempering and then maybe more after. I don't really remember. But the second time I made it, I didn't have to change anything from what I wrote above and it seemed to have so much more flavor. Is that really all because of the asafoetida and doing the tempering with the coconut oil instead of dry? I didn't have to do any seasoning to taste after it cooked for a little bit to meld the flavors. I'm an asafoetida newbie, so maybe someone can tell me if this stuff really has that much awesomeness or if I just cooked this better this time.

I also made the kachumber salad while the dal was simmering (the first time only; the second time I made a chickpea salad - post coming soon). The ingredients I used, adapted from the original recipe, were (to the best of my 4 month old memory):

- 1 onion
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 hothouse cucumber
- 1/2 bunch of mint leaves
- 1/2 bunch of cilantro
- a couple tsp of lemon juice
- 1/2 tsp cumin powder
- 1/4 tsp cayenne

Since this was a salad, the only real steps were to prep and then mix. For prep, I chopped the onion, tomatoes, cucumber, mint leaves, and cilantro leaves, and then I mixed them all in a large bowl with the lemon juice, cumin powder, and cayenne. After that, all that was left was just tasting and adjusting the seasoning (which I don't remember if I had to do any).

It was a very simple salad but I wanted something fresh and clean to go alongside the dal. This definitely fit the bill, and I found myself snacking on it until dinner was ready.

The last part of dinner the first time was this paneer masala naan from the frozen section at Trader Joe's. This wasn't the first time we had gotten the frozen naan from TJ's, but it was the first time we ever tried this version. I don't remember if the paneer masala was new or just new to us, but we were excited to try it.

This naan was "stuffed" with paneer cheese, but that wasn't really that obvious when eating it. It just seemed like regular naan but a little bit chewier due to the paneer filling. The texture was pretty nice that way. The naan also seemed to have some onion and garlic flavors, if I'm remembering it correctly. We did like it, but didn't find it as different as we had expected from the other naan types we've had before. At least I remembered to make the naan for this meal unlike the garlic naan I bought and forgot about (until days later!) for a different challenge meal. To make up for that time, I made the garlic naan with the dal the second time. It was good, but not as garlicky as I thought it would be.

Overall, it was a really good and very complete dinner. We put the dal over basmati rice (brown rice the second time) and served it with sides of salad and naan. We don't remember as much about the flavor of the dal the first time, but the second time, it was quite good. The spices were vibrant, there was a mild zing to it from the cayenne, and it was hearty and comforting. It would be a relatively easy dish to make again as long as we had ginger, garlic, and cilantro on hand. I didn't price this out because we made it so long ago the first time, but by my estimation, it would be pretty affordable. Maybe dal will become part of our regular rotation. We certainly have a big enough bag of it.

Turkey Carnitas

When we came back from Thanksgiving, we returned with giant bags of leftovers, both stuff from the actual Thanksgiving dinner and other produce that my parents had in their fridge that they wouldn't be able to use in time. Lucky for us, Kenji had posted a recipe on Serious Eats on Thanksgiving for leftover turkey carnitas. Sounded like the perfect way to get rid of some leftovers.

Everything we used for this meal came from leftovers except for the canola oil for frying, bay leaves, and the sour orange. The local markets didn't have any actual sour oranges, but they did sell bottles of naranja agria, so I went with that. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of the naranja agria so it doesn't go to waste. (Suggestions?) It was nice to be able to make a meal without spending too much money!

We pretty much followed the recipe as written (as much as possible, anyway), mostly because we've had good luck with other recipes Kenji's put up since they're the result of so much research. The biggest difference though was that the turkey meat in the recipe was all dark meat chicken, but ours was a combination of dark meat and white meat, and probably mostly white meat, since that's what was left. I didn't want to just use the dark meat and then have to figure out what to do with the rest of the white meat, so I just made it all, prepared that it might be a little drier and might need more hot sauce to counteract the drier meat. (On top of that, my family got a different turkey this year for Thanksgiving and it turned out drier to begin with, so I was prepared for the meat to be drier and less juicy than most people mentioned in their reviews.)

It was pretty straightforward to make the carnitas. The turkey, sour orange (I think I used about 2/3 cup or so), quartered onions (used 1 red and 3/4 yellow, since that's what was left over), and bay leaves get combined in a pot, and everything boils together for at least an hour until the turkey is tender and easily shredded. Once it was done, it was time to shred the turkey, and then to brown it in a skillet until crispy. Along the way, I also heated up some tortillas in the oven and made some toppings for the tacos, including sauteed onions (we had sliced onion leftovers) and an onion/cilantro/lime garnish.

The turkey carnitas tacos were pretty good, but the meat was definitely dry. I think that's a combination of the large amounts of white meat and the fact that the turkey was on the dry side to start with, so I'm not going to fault the recipe for not delivering juicy carnitas when the original meat wasn't really very juicy. We were expecting a little more flavor from the carnitas after boiling with all those ingredients for so long, but they were just okay. Combined with the onion toppings and copious amounts of Cholula and green dragon sauce though, the tacos were pretty good. While we did like the tacos, we didn't like them so much that we would roast some turkey just to make these again. But if we did have roast turkey leftovers, we might try this again. It was nice to be able to do something different with turkey leftovers.

Green Dragon Hot Sauce

One of our greatest discoveries this year at Trader Joe's was this green dragon hot sauce ($2.99). It came out sometime in the summer, and we knew we had to try it. We're kind of addicted to green hot sauce, whether it's Colombian or Cuban or Yemeni or Peruvian or from wherever else. We were pretty sure we'd like this once we read the ingredients - jalapeños, tomatillos, cilantro, garlic, habanero, and lime - and we loved it from the first taste. It was so good that I even commented that I wouldn't mind doing small shots of it for a snack. Yup, we're addicted to green sauce.

So far we've tried the green dragon sauce with corned beef hash, eggs, omelettes, chicken nuggets, mini tacos, and countless other things that I can't even remember since we've been using it for months. It's a slightly sweet, slightly herbal, slightly tangy hot sauce that delivers a medium kick that we really enjoy. It's so good.

Buy Again? Obviously yes. We already have, just in case it was a limited run or got pulled off the shelves as a seasonal item. We hope TJ's never lets this one go.

Abu Zaad

One thing we loved about being in London was all of the international cuisines. Being from New York, we love that we have restaurants representing so many different cultures and countries, and that we can learn more about them through their food. (After all, that's a big driver behind our WorldEats quest.) London was very similar to New York in that way, lots of options, lots of countries represented. We were pretty excited that the neighborhood where our hotel was located, Shepherd's Bush, had a bunch of new options for us. We were especially interested in the Syrian food there, since this would likely be the closest we would ever get to experiencing Syria in our lifetimes.

After a (very long) nap at the hotel which made us feel much, much better, we headed over to Abu Zaad, a Syrian (Damascene) restaurant. We were pretty hungry so we ordered a lot of stuff (probably more than we should have). We started off with drinks - ayran (£1.50) for A and Abu Zaad tropical juice (£2.75) for me. I wasn't sure what fruit juices constituted "tropical juice," so I asked the server before ordering it. He thought maybe it was mango or apple, but what arrived didn't look like mango or apple juice. It tasted more like strawberry banana juice with a hint of mango. Whatever was in it, it was good, nice and sweet. If you're not familiar with ayran, it's a yogurt drink that tastes a little bit like cheese. It's thick and rich, and it has a hint of saltiness to it. It's a bit heavy/rich for me to drink more than a few sips, but A really enjoys it. This one kind of tasted like a liquefied goat cheese.

On the Yelp app (which we mostly use for the bookmarks and maps), A noticed that we could get a free starter if we checked in. Free appetizer? Yes, please. The choices were hummus, tabouli, falafel, or an Arabic salad. We love hummus, so we went with that. The generous portion of hummus came with a basket of 3 thin wheat pitas. The hummus was pretty good - rich and full of chickpea flavor, topped with some olive oil, parsley, and a little bit of red spice/seasoning (maybe paprika). While it might not be the best hummus we've ever had, it was certainly quite good. Unfortunately there was much more hummus than we had expected, and we already ordered a lot of other food, so we weren't able to finish all of it, but we tried our best.

After the hummus we tried the mosakhan, also called chicken sambousik, which came in an order of 4 pieces for £4. These were described on the menu as fried pastry stuffed with chicken, fresh sumac, onion, and spices, basically the Syrian variation on samosas/sambousik/sambusa (which we love).

The first bite of these reminded me of these chicken samosas I used to get at Costco years ago for New Years and really loved. As I ate more of it, it became a little more distinct in its spices and seasonings, but it was still relatively reminiscent of those, in size, in shape, in crispness, also stuffed with well-seasoned minced chicken. We're guessing that maybe the sumac made the difference. We love sumac, so this was fine with us.

The other appetizer we got was the fattet makdous (£5), described as "baby aubergine stuffed with minced meat, marinated in yogurt and tahini sauce, mixed with fried bread, infused with garlic and topped with pine nut, paprika, and butter ghee." This was different from anything we had eaten before, even though some of the flavors of the roasted vegetables, the eggplant, the yogurt, and the tahini were familiar. It was kind of like comfort food, like a creamy stew of yogurt and tahini with soft eggplant and meat and bread, the flavors all mixing together so well. We made sure to finish the entire thing since we weren't sure we would find anything like this at home.

For our entrees, A and I each got something different from the grill section of the menu. He chose macmour (£10), a special lamb dish that was only available on the weekends. It was a charcoal steamed lamb thigh "prepared and cooked in a traditional and unique way," in a gravy with some roasted potatoes and carrots. The lamb was incredibly tender, easily pulled off the bone and shredded without much effort, and the roasted vegetables and gravy had so much flavor. On the side was a basmati rice pilaf topped with carrots, which tasted like it had currants, cardamom pods, cumin, and cinnamon mixed in as well. Each individual part of the dish was really good, but together, it was even better. A really liked his choice.

I chose the farrouj Abu Zaad (£9) for my entree, which was grilled tender boneless baby chicken, marinated with Abu Zaad's special sauce. It came with another pita (which I only ate part of because I was already so full of pita) and a small side salad of lettuce, cucumber, red onion, and cilantro. The salad didn't seem to have much dressing, but that was okay because there were also 2 dips/sauces on the side of my entree - hot sauce and garlic whip - which made up for any lack of dressing. The hot sauce reminded us a little bit of the (very hot) hot sauce that we get from some of the Ethiopian restaurants at home, tomato-based with chili peppers, tasting a little bit like salsa, very fresh and clean with a bit of a kick to it. The garlic whip was like the Lebanese toum (which makes sense since they are neighbors), a thick spread with a very heavy garlic flavor (although not as heavy as some other garlic whips we've had before). We ate all of the garlic sauce, putting it on everything we could. We did not eat all of the hot sauce, but we did like it.

As for the chicken itself, it was pretty good. It seemed like a Cornish hen spatchcocked and grilled with the skin on. I liked the white meat pieces a little more than the dark meat (which is typical for me), and some of the wing pieces were just too much work with the cartilage so I gave them to A. I'm not exactly sure what was in the marinade for the chicken (the Abu Zaad special sauce) but it had a nice flavor. Without the hot sauce or the garlic sauce, the chicken would probably have just been okay, but that's why they give you the sauces, right? They complemented the flavors of the marinated chicken really well and took it to another level.

Reflecting after dinner, I was pretty amused that this was a rehash of what we had ordered on the plane - A with an order of meat with roasted vegetables and me with an order of chicken - but luckily for me, there wasn't as great a disparity between how we felt about the 2 dishes. They were both good. A loves lamb, so he was fairly sure he would prefer his dish to mine. For the most part, he did, except the balance tipped in favor of my dish because he loved the garlic sauce so much. I thought his lamb dish was good, but I usually prefer chicken to lamb, so it's no surprise that I liked the entree I picked better.

Overall, our first (and so far only) experience with Syrian food was excellent. Abu Zaad was a wonderful first dinner in London - generous portions, decent prices, friendly staff. We would definitely go back.