Sunday, December 27, 2020

Dinner from Thai Essence in Nutley, NJ

We were in the mood for Thai food so we ordered from a place we had ordered from once when we first moved.  Their food seems very authentic and flavorful, even causing Dan to look pad thai which he normally doesn't enjoy.  Everything there is delicious, even better than the Thai food in JC.  Nutley constantly keeps surprising us.

Chicken Satay - delicious on their own, but even better with the peanut sauce

Tom Yum Koong soup with shrimp.  Great acid and sourness and sweetness

Crab Meat Fried Rice - some of the best I've ever had

Beef Pad Thai - delish

Our full order


Home-made seafood pasta

 We had a lot of frozen scallops in the freezer courtesy of my parents, so Dan pan seared them and put them on top of thin spaghetti with tons of garlic and veggies.  A super easy and delicious meal.




Dessert from Popeye's in Rutherford, NJ

 Dan and I discovered that Popeye's is making beignets!  So crazy but so appropriate given that Popeye's is a NOLA spot.  When we ordered online one night, our order was messed up AND no beignets, so I got a full refund.  But we still wanted the donuts so we drove the next day in person and got them through the drive-thru.  They were delicious, both for being from a fast food restaurant but also just generally good.  They were smaller than I expected but the chocolate filling was just the right amount of sweet.  The only con was they didn't put enough confectioner' sugar, but we obviously had our own so we added it ourselves.





Dinner from Tasty Fusion in Lyndhurst, NJ

 Dan and I were both in the mood for sushi so decided to order from a new spot - Tasty Fusion.  The menu, as expected from the name, has asian fusion food, so sometimes that makes me concerned that it won't be great since can't really tell what type of asian food it is.  However, the sushi we ordered was on point.  We didn't order anything complicated or super fancy, but good for simpler rolls for sure.

Crazy Tuna Roll, Salmon Roll, Yellowtail roll, Shrimp Tempura roll, and Eel Avocado roll


Saturday, December 5, 2020

Lunch from Carlitos Barbecue Taqueria in Lyndhurst, NJ

I'm finally up to date, and in fact, blogging the same day (within the hour) of eating.  Maybe one of my New Year's resolutions will be to try to blog in a timely fashion.  Within at least a month so no delays longer.  Maybe I'll even try shorter like two weeks, but we'll see.  I guess now that we're still at home, we're mostly cooking, and a lot of repeat dishes, so there's less posts, so I should be able to manage at least the month time frame.

Because I've ordered online from Carlitos, I'm on their mailing list.  I also follow them on Instagram, so am very up to date on their specials.  Today they emailed about their new Birria tacos.  They described as such:

"It is a tender combination of beef cuts (shank, brisket and chuck round) marinated and braised in a complex adobo. Comes with 2 oz (per taco) of rich slightly spicy, sweet and sour melted butter-like textured consome for your taco dipping pleasure . Our nixtamal tortillas are then dipped in the flavorful beef fat and warmed on a griddle until crisp and pliable. This might be the juiciest taco you’ve ever had, facts."

Obviously we had to try them.  So we each got these, plus brisket (my fav) and Dan got a carne asada.  Also had to get a side of sweet plantains, and churros.  Everything was amazing, and I am SO full right now I cannot move.  It's honestly a little dangerous having this so close.

The Birria Tacos were just as described.  So wet and juicy (sorry) and the meat had excellent smokiness.  It also came with a rather large side of extra juice (double sorry), which Dan proceeded to pour on or dip his other tacos in haha

Side of sweet plantains

Two brisket tacos + carne asada

Chocolate churros.  I was so full from eating I had to wait awhile to eat mine

Everything we ordered.  Side of juice on bottom right. For only one taco did Dan get the fixings on the side (pico de gallo, pickled onions, red and green sauce).  I love how they put stuff on the side rather than me having to write "no onions please" on the notes, which places get right about half the time.  I do wish we had gotten more green sauce.  It's more avocado forward than pepper, which I love.  Because otherwise, I'm just eating huge chunks of meat on a tortilla, which I'm happy to do, but nice to have that additional texture and juiciness with a sauce


Dinner from Tokyo Express in Elmwood Park, NJ

 I'm very excited to have found a place nearby with inexpensive yet delicious and fresh-tasting poke.  Tokyo Express looked sort of hit or miss, but the poke we got was excellent.  Very large portions, plenty of fish, and so many toppings available for free.  I wasn't sure what all of the sauces were so had some regret about my choice, but now I know for next time.

Both bowls.  Each only $11.25!

Dan got tuna and yellowtail with white rice, sweet onion, scallions, furikake, masago, dried seaweed, edamame, seaweed salad, cucumber.  With Tokyo sauce (soy basically) and house ginger, which was nice and creamy and balanced out the acid well.  

I got a bowl with salmon, yellowtail, white rice, furikake, crab meat, masago, dried seaweed, edamame, seaweed salad, cucumber, sweet corn and crispy garlic.  For sauces, I got Tokyo Sauce and Yuzu Ponzu.  The latter was definitely soy heavy, so kind of like getting two of the same sauce, hence my regret for not getting House Ginger.  Next time, I would to Toyko Sauce + House Ginger, and no garlic.



Bowl all mixed up.  So large I couldn't finish and had some the next day.  Only critique is they need to cut up the cucumber.  They were huge thick slices, like larger than you would cut for a salad.  WHY?


Home-made food with Thanksgiving leftovers

 Seeing how we had a ton of turkey and ham and did not want to just eat the meat straight (though we definitely did that various times w/both meats and leftover sides), we tried to think creatively of how to use the meat.  I think we did pretty good job with both.  We killed the ham and had a tiny bit of turkey left.

Dan assisted me with Quiche #1, which was like a quiche lorraine.  Ham, egg, cheese plus mushrooms

Soo yummy.  I have extra deep dish pie crusts in the freezer for pie but now realize how useful it is to have on hand for quiche

Arroz caldo with left over turkey and turkey stock.  Dan also added mushrooms and carrot

Also had to throw in some extra French's onions

This I think was my favorite use of the leftover ham - white bean, spinach and ham soup.  It reminded me of a soup my host mother used to make in Spain.  Super hearty but still light.  Dan also used leftover turkey stock in this


And finally, there was a little bit of ham left, so I added to Quiche #2 to be a broccoli, cheddar, and ham quiche.  Felt good to go through all the ham and not waste any of it


Home-made Friendsgiving and Thanksgiving Food

For Friendsgiving, I made various sides (green bean casserole, corn casserole) and pecan pie, and Dan did the turkey, which came out really well.  He spatchcocked it aka butterflied it, so it cooked in no time.  We had a ton of turkey leftover, which resulted in many Thanksgiving wraps.  For actual Thanksgiving, we made a ham and all the other fixings, plus baonanas pudding (ube and pistachio!).  Unfortunately my parents didn't eat with us, but we prepared to-go containers with everything so they could still enjoy the food from afar.

Friendsgiving potluck - green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole (Lauren), stuffing (Matt), turkey (Dan), mashed potatoes (Kavita), corn casserole (me).  Not pictured - cranberry sauce (Kavita) and pecan pie (me).  Everything was excellent!

Full plate

Thanksgiving Day meal given to my parents to go:


Beautiful ham.  My uncle shared his recipe, which doesn't have exact measurements haha




Besides the ham, had sweet potato cassesole, green bean casserole, garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pecan pie and Baonanas pudding (ube and pistachio flavors)





Dinner from OnDubu in Paramus, NJ

Dan and I were in the mood for some Korean food so decided to try a new place.  Unfortunately, the food overall was a bit of a let down despite all the rave reviews. The bimim-bam was solid although the chicken a bit sweet.  The pajeaon-seafood (pancake) was excellent, full of large pieces of seafood and well fried.  The ssam however was not good.  The pork belly wasn't fully cooked so we couldn't eat it, which put a damper on the whole meal.  

Bibim-Salad with chicken bulgogi

The ssam with pork belly.  The texture of the pork belly was very gummy and felt under cooked

The pajeon was excellent.  Cut into four pieces


Dinner from Pizza Hut in Clifton, NJ

I'm not ashamed to say that Pizza Hut is my fav chain pizza place.  I'm sure part of it is nostalgia since that's what I grew up eating in Queens, but their plain cheese pan pizza always hits the spot.  Also probably because when I was in Europe, this was the only pizza available so it gave me fond memories of home.  Also FYI European Pizza Huts have buffets with all you can pizza for like $5.  It is incredible.  Anyway, I digress.  Pizza Hut just started a collaboration with Beyond Meat, so we had to try it.  Of course, we knew what the "meat" tasted like, but it was definitely an excellent sausage substitute.  The pieces were pretty large though, so actually one slice was pretty filling.  For someone who hasn't tried Beyond meat, I definitely think they could be fooled into thinking this is real sausage.  Well done.

Beyond meat pizza

Cheese sticks aka deconstructed pizza since it comes with a side of sauce.  Never gets old

I restrained myself and only ordered two things, which was the smart move because this was a LOT.  I froze some left over pizza, which I'm not sure if you're supposed to do, but I recently had a slice and it was fine, just took awhile to re-heat.


Lunch from Open Market in NYC

 Once it's November, I'm always in the mood for fresh Turkey sammies.  Thankfully a place near my office has fresh carved turkey, apparently all year round though and I didn't know.  Their turkey sandwich comes with cranberry sauce, so very Thanksgiving-y.  The only con is they had no stuffing.  But it's okay, because later that month I def had my share of Thanksgiving sandwiches/wraps with all the fixings.

Huge pieces of turkey


Dinner from Bonchon Chicken in Nutley, NJ

The Bonchon in Nutley has a more expansive menu of Korean dishes, which is super exciting since it's so close.  Of course their fried chicken is why we order, but it was nice to be able to order some other dishes.  And again, they do not play with the spice.

Bull Dak - rice cakes with spicy sauce and cheese and chicken.  A little too much heat for me, so Dan was the only one really eating this but he thought it was very tasty

Excellent pork buns

And of course Korean fried chicken with rice and pickled radish


Dinner from Wayback Burgers in Secaucus, NJ

We felt like having burgers (ones we didn't make ourselves) and wanted to try something new, so ordered from Wayback Burgers, which appears to be not quite a chain, but there are 3 in NJ.  Very pleased with what we got.  It was just what we wanted, and came very quick, and was pretty cheap (like $7-8 each for our burgers).  Would definitely order again.

O'Fries, which are onion rings and fries.  Why choose when you can have both

Also had to get a side of tater tots since these are so rarely an option.  Excellent even despite having traveled

Dan got a classic burger w/American cheese, lettuce, ketchup, pickles, grilled onions and mayo

I got a custom burger w/American cheese, bacon, ketchup, tomato and mushrooms.  AKA exactly what I order at Five Guys haha