Lunch at Ahri's Kitchen in Jersey City, NJ

The 'rents and Dan and I had lunch at a new Korean restaurant near Hamilton Park.  It was delicious and fresh, large portions and inexpensive.  The dessert was also incredible and I usually don't even like bananas, let alone banana pudding.  It was so delicious that we ordered a second one to go.  Definitely psyched to have another Korean option in JC.  Ahris was also at Project Eats where they had some things not on the normal menu.  We tried the fried chicken wings and they were tasty, though not double fried like Bon Chon. The menu is a little bit different than Kraverie.  This is definitely solid  Would love to come back to try a few more things on the menu like ramen and short ribs.

Bad shot of wings from Project Eats.  Tasty and slight heat with mostly sweet sauce

Seafood pancake.  Delicious if not a tiny bit burned

Chicken dumplings - nicely fried and not greasy.  Great flavor

Giant bulgogi rice roll.  Like sushi with cooked beef

Bulgogi bibimbap.  Fav thing I ate. Vegggies were so fresh and loved the meat.

Pork Shoulder over rice with some veggies.  Nice heat and great flavor

Seafood bbq with calamari, shrimp and mussels.  Same sauce as the pork, so kind of a lot of the same flavor

Surprisingly I loved this.  Made from white sweet potato bananas and vanilla wafers.  Crazy good

Dinner at Smashburger in Clifton, NJ

Dan was craving a burger so we went to Smashburger since we hadn't been there in awhile.  As usual I got the New Jersey burger to get my blue cheese bacon fix on, and Dan got one of his usual combos.  We also got veggie frites, which were awesome as usual, and tried the fried pickles.  I guess anything fried really can be tasty haha.

Dan's burger with bacon, American cheese, pickles, lettuce and tomato

Fried pickles

Veggie frites

New Jersey burger with fried haystack onion straws, blue cheese, bacon, lettuce and tomato

Dessert at La Churreria in NYC

We were feeling ambitious and ended up going to La Churreria for dessert.  It happened to be monsooning out, which was awesome.  But we made it and had some delicious churros that are as close to Madrileno-style as you can get in America.  They also had some intense stuffed churros, which were super rich and hard to eat after Sweet Chick and all the normal churros and chocolate, but glad we tried it.  Best Churros in NYC bar none.

Churros y chocolate

Churro stuffed with vanilla cream

Other side so you can see the cream

Nutella stuffed churro covered in white chocolate and hazelnut crumbles.  Ridiculously rich

Dinner at Sweet Chick in NYC

Dan and I went to Sweet Chick on the Lower East Side for the best chicken and waffles I've ever had.  Seriously.  They have so many varieties and I loved the different butters that come along with.  I definitely need to come back because lots of other flavors that I would like to try.

Fried Green Tomatoes - the only mediocre thing we ate

Three kinds of complimentary butter - berry, lemon honey, and herb.  I am in LOVE with the lemon honey.  That plus the hot honey on my waffles was mouthwateringly delicious. 

Duck Confit with foie gras sauce and dried cherry waffle  Incredible as well  The duck was so well cooked and the slight cherry taste was perfectly complimentary

Mike's Hot Honey Chicken and Waffles - the hot honey was incredible.  I got rosemary mushroom waffles.  The mushroom was hard to detect but the rosemary added a perfect herby compliment to the hot chicken.  The sauce was on the side and I forgot to take a picture with it on the chicken but it is necessary!

Lunch at Domingo's Bakery in Kearny, NJ

Nicole took me to Domingo's Bakery and we had a lovely lunch outside.  Food was super cheap and tasty.  Good coffee as well.  I'd definitely come back to try some of their baked goods.

Arepa with pernil and avocado.  Tasty but Caracas has even better ones

Cachapa - cornmmeal pancake with cheese.  Delicious and sweet with a hint of savory from the cheese.  My fav of the two dishes

Dinner at Hudson Eats in NYC

There's an awesome new food court called Hudson Eats in a mall called Brookfield Place by World Trade Center.  There's so many options, included Mighty Quinn's BBQ, Num Pang, Dos Toros, Tartine Bakery, Little Muenster, Northern Tiger, Umami Burger, Chop't, Blue Ribbon Sushi, Parm, Le District (French Eataly) and many many more.  I've probably tried half of the vendors there but so many future trips, especially because it's connected to the PATH so wouldn't even need to go outside to eat there.  From Grove St. it's like 10 minutes.  Crazy.

Beef Brisket Sandwich at Num Pang - excellent as usual.  Never had a bad sammie from there

Carnitas Bowl at Dos Toros - rice, pinto beans, tomato salsa, cheese, and carnitas of course.  Simple but well done.  Still prefer Chipotle just because I'm used to them, but this was good

Manly Burger from Umami Burger - house beer-cheddar cheese, bacon lardons, smoked-salt onion strings, Umami house ketchup, and mustard spread  Heaven.   I only wished this wasn't called manly because this is a typical HP style burger

Dirty Frites from Mighty Quinns - fries smothered with burnt ends, chile-lime sauce, red onions and scallions.  Definitely tasty but less good than Dino's poutine.  With all the wonderful meats at Mighty Quinn's I prefer the straight up meats

Lunch at Top's Diner in East Newark, NJ

The parents and I went to Top's for Father's Day.  There was a ridiculously long wait but the excellent food made it worth it.  Top's is so good for breakfast, comfort food, and pasta.  The problem is always narrowing down what you want because the menu is so massive.

My dad's order of meatloaf with broccoli and carrots

My mother's order of Penne Vodka with shrimp.  Excellent sauce

My order of Steak and Eggs with giant portion of hash browns.  I finished the meat and eggs but re-purposed the hash browns for two breakfasts that week

Dinner at Bo's Kitchen and Bar Room in NYC

I went to Bo's for dinner with Karem and her boyfriend.  Bo's is a New Orleans inspired Southern restaurant in the Flatiron section.  It was great especially since I felt like I hadn't gotten my fill of southern style food when were in NOLA.  I enjoyed the meal though wished there had been even more seafood dishes like a boil or jambalaya.

Crispy Alligator with red bell pepper and chili aioli.  Perfectly fried and as usual tasted like chicken haha.  Loved this dish

Pork Belly - coconut and cola braised, smoked cabbage slaw and grape.  Meat was very tender and liked all the different flavors together

Savory beignets with maple bacon devils delight.  Wasn't spicy but loved the salt sweet mix

Sea Scallops with lollipop kale, oyster mushroom and gremolata.  Great flavors together and scallops well cooked.  A little pricy for the number of scallops though

Mac and cheese - housemade cavatelli, grana padano and cheddar cheese, cornbread crumbs.  Amazing! So cheesy and the pasta was excellent.  Super rich though so it made dessert hard

Mardi Gras Sundae-  purple velvet cake, burnt honey vanilla ice cream, bourbon caramel sauce, and candied pecans.  Soo incredibly rich.

Beignets - cayenne spiced, frozen maple custard. I was basically dead at this point and couldn't eat very much. Too bad because I love beignets

Dinner from Gina's Pizzeria in Harrison, NJ

Dan and I ordered delivery from Gina's Pizzeria, which is known typically for it's giant cheese slices. However since we didn't go to the actual store but instead did delivery, we couldn't choose that.  We still got some delicious and super rich pizza.  We also got a salad because I wanted to feel a little bit healthy.  And a cannoli, because I am obsessed with cannolis now.  The pizza itself was giant; I had to freeze the leftovers.  It was tasty but so much going on that couldn't eat too many slices.  It took awhile for the food to get to us despite the fact that the restaurant is prob less than a five minute drive away.  Good thing we're moving out of Harrison soon so that we can just walk when we have a pizza craving.

Carbonara pizza - alfredo sauce, chicken, bacon, and peas.  On pasta it's rich. On pizza with all that cheese it's crazy!  Delicious but I only ate one piece

Grilled chicken salad with peppers, tomato, and fresh mozz.  Delish

Cannoli! LOVE