Street Meat: Biryani Cart

Another 2009 Vendy Award finalist and winner of the People's choice Vendy Award in 2008, Biryani Cart was definitely on my list for street vendors to try. Located on 46th and 6th, it's surrounded by a lot of competition in the immediate area (Jamiacan Dutchy, 53rd and 6th Halal, Kim's Aunt, etc). I went just after lunch and there was basically no line so no trouble getting my food.

My lunch that day was their Kati Rolls. They're made in 4 different styles, each one available with chicken or lamb and wrapped in chapati, an Indian bread that is chewy and and crisp at the same time. I sampled the King Koti Roll - a spicy chicken tikka marinated in yogurt and spices, and the Channai roll - a sweet and tangy roll made with a spicy Thai style chili sauce. You can get any two rolls for $6, which is a pretty good deal. While I must say that they were quite good, I'm not sure if it has won me over to being a repeat visitor. I still think I would choose Halal food over a Kati roll, but I guess that depends on my mood. In any case, you won't be disappointed if you decide to drop by.

Pamplona

A couple of weekends ago, I ate at Pamplona, a Spanish restaurant in the Flatiron district. To start, we had the Pan con Tomate with Jamon (pictured below). The bread was toasted nicely and the richness of the tomato combined with the ham reminded me of how good simple things really can be. As my main course, I had the Cochinillo (pictured above), which was confit of suckling pig with green leaf lettuce, shiitake mushrooms and an apple puree. Pork-anything is definitely my weakness and this pork dish was exceptional. The combination of the sweetness of the apple with the saltiness of the pork (especially the skin!) made the dish satisfying down to the last piece. My only qualm was that there wasn't enough sauce on the plate. My girlfriend had a Mahi-Mahi dish (the last picture below) that was good in its own right (I forget what exactly was in it since it was a special that night) - a good mixture of sour and salty, but I think the pork won that night. Simply put, I would order the pork again, but maybe not the Mahi-Mahi.

Overall, I would say that the experience was satisfying, but the service could have used a bit of improvement as there were times when we had to wait for a noticeable amount of time between courses and when trying to reach the attention of the waiters. With that said, I would still recommend going to Pamplona, but just remember to schedule more time for dinner.

Eating In: Thai Basil Chicken with Cashews

Over the weekend, I decided to make my mom's recipe for Thai Basil Chicken. Whenever I cook I like to make things that have lots of sauce and can easily be scaled up to a large amount so that I have leftovers for the rest of the week. This is my first attempt at writing a recipe, so I'm sure there are going to be some things that need work. Ingredients needed are as follows:

1 pound minced chicken thighs / ground chicken
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons vegetable / canola oil
1/3 cup unsalted roasted cashews
2 cloves of garlic (chopped)
basil (about a small handful of leaves)
black pepper



1. Start by heating 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok on medium heat.
2. Once the oil is hot, add the chicken. You can use either chicken thighs that have been minced or ground chicken if you want to save time. Chicken thighs will produce better flavor, but having to chop them up adds time to the process.
3. Cook the chicken until all of it appears to be cooked through.
4. Remove the chicken from the pan and set aside. Also, keep any juices that collect in the pan as a result of cooking and set aside in a separate dish.
5. In the same pan on medium heat, add 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil and the garlic.
6. Cook the garlic until it starts to brown, then add the oyster sauce, fish sauce, sugar and lime juice and stir to mix all the components.
7. Depending on how saucy you want the dish to be, add some of the chicken juice set aside earlier to the pan (about 1-3 tablespoons should be fine). Water can be used as well.
8. Once the sauce starts to caramelize (gets thicker and starts to bubble), add the chicken and the cashews, and stir to coat with the sauce.
9. Add pepper to taste and cook for an additional 2 minutes.
10. Remove from heat. Add the basil and stir to combine.
11. Serve with steamed white rice.

Street Meat: Halal Food at 53rd & 6th

Probably the current most popular New York street food vendors at the moment, Halal food carts can be found all over the city. The most famous of which can be found on the corner of 53rd St and 6th Ave across from the Hilton and is aptly named 53rd and 6th. The cart is open from 7:30 - 4:00 AM each day, but there is an unaffiliated vendor (pictured below) there that is there during the day that is quite good as well. Every night the line for 53rd and 6th can easily stretch to over 20 people. In terms of food choices, I always get lamb over rice - lamb meat with lettuce and tomato over yellow rice generously covered in "white sauce".

Baoguette

Since my class schedule is primarily at night, I usually make it a point to grab some takeout on my way home for dinner. Last night, I was in the Cooper Union area since so I decided to pass by Baoguette Cafe, the sister restaurant to Michael Huynh's Baoguette in Murray Hill (pictured below), for some banh mi action. (For some reason, Baoguette Cafe and Baoguette have different websites, with the latter only listing the Murray location while the former listing both as well as a West Village location. Also, the Baoguette website allows for online orders, while the Cafe website doesn't. Very strange and confusing to say the least.)

I had the standard Baoguette (pictured above) - pork terrine, pate, pulled pork and fresh herbs all in a crisp baguette. As usual, it was extremely satisfying, a great mixture of savory, sweet, spicy and sour. You can't quite beat a mixture of three kinds of pork in a sandwich, especially for $5. I also had an order of Shrimp and Green Papaya Salad (pictured below). The papaya salad was basically the greens they had put in the Baoguette, but it was still light and refreshing as a compliment to my sandwich.