Joe's Shanghai

Down among the vegetable and fruit vendors of Chinatown lies as small yet popular Chinese restaurant called Joe's Shanghai (9 Pell St
(between Bowery & Doyers St). They are written up in all the travel guides as a great place for Pork Soup dumplings, which they will bring to your table in a bamboo basket lined with lettuce leaves. Don't worry, you won't be eating the lettuce - it just keeps these little guys moist. Inside each pocket of dumpling is a ball of minced pork meat and pork soup broth. Be careful as you eat these or else you'll end up with greasy soup in your lap. Hint, carefully place a dumpling in your soup spoon, add a bit of sauce, bite the top or side and quickly slurp up the soup inside. Then you're free to consume the rest of your now soup-less dumpling.

When you're on your own or in a smaller party, the hostess at Joe's Shanghai will put you at a communal table (typical of busy restaurants in the East. Sitting at a communal table with 8 other strangers makes it feel like you've ordered tons more food as you can see what your eating companions order that might tickle your fancy. When we sat down, a family of four were digging into a spicy looking noodle dish (pictured here). After a quick "Hey, what are you eating?" and some translation by their 12-year old daughter, they quickly pointed to Peking Noodles on the menu. We were sold. These noodles come slathered in a spicy sauce, thickened undoubtedly with cornstarch (the Chinese equivalent of a roux-butter and flour), minced pork and mini-cubes of tofu. While tasty and flavourful, the whole meal still left us with slightly uneasy stomachs (as most Chinese meals do). We had also ordered mixed veggies and tofu which had been fried in a wok with too much oil and oyster sauce. Maybe our iron stomachs can't deal with the oil, or we're just lightweights.

Otafuku (Osaka delights)

You don't need to fly across the Pacific ocean to get a quick taste of Osaka's well-known Okonomiyaki-お好み焼き(cabbage pancake) or Takoyaki-たこ焼き(octopus balls).

Instead, head down to the East village for authentically prepared street food from this tiny take-out joint on 9th street, btw 2nd and 3rd ave. Made of shredded cabbage, ginger, flour, eggs and green onions, Okonomiyaki (a Kansai-based pancake) comes topped with kewpie mayo, brown-okonomiyaki sauce, aonori (green seaweed) and bonito flakes. Try it as Combo B and you'll get a side of Tako-yaki with it.

Takoyaki octopus balls are a well-known street food in the Osaka region. Made on a hot skillet with circular craters, the chef adds batter, ginger, green onions and octupus to the skillet and deftly turns and molds the batter into a ball using chopsticks or a tiny, pointy needle-like object. Once ready and brown on all sides, 6 balls get put into a tray, covered in okonomiyaki sauce and kewpie mayo and topped, once again with aonori and bonito flakes. The hot steam from the takoyaki literally makes the bonito flakes come to life as they slowly sway back and forth as though alive. Be careful not to burn yourself as these have come right off a hot skillet.

Also prepared at Otafuku is yaki-soba, a standard saute of soba noodles, seafood including shrimp and octopus, sometimes meat, cabbage and yakitori sauce. Topped with aonori and a side of ginger. For noodle-lovers, this simple dish fills the stomach and satisfies your craving. The yakitori was tasty and flavourful, but nothing special.

We'd come back for the okonomiyaki and takoyaki, but may leave the noodles to one of the many other options in the city.

Halal - Chicken and Rice or Lamb and Rice

Halal meat is available in NYC from street carts on every other corner in the city. Anywhere from $4-6 per platter, might this tasty dish give the Hot Dog and Pretzel carts a run for their money?

These delicious smelling carts can be found all over the city with various levels of quality and flavour from each one. It would seem that there's a monopoly on this local, middle eastern cuisine, but with each stand putting their own twist on this veritable favourite, it's hard to compare one from another. Some offer variations on the type of rice you get (basmati, spicy, white, mixed) while others have a different consistency to their "white sauce". I shudder to think what's actually in this non-refrigerated white sauce. Best to leave that in the lower levels of your unconscious and act on blind faith hoping that you won't get sick. Truthfully, I think the turnover on this food is so fast and frequent that no food has long to go bad. All carts will offer a choice of chicken or lamb on rice or a combination of both.

One of the best and most popular carts is at 53rd street and 6th avenue from 7pm-4am (http://53rdand6th.com). This is the first place we went in the city for Halal meat and have been back twice already in our first month and a half. We've also tried stands near Bryant park at Madison and 40th - 3 out of 5 - and around Broadway and 18th 3.5 out of 5. Be sure to ask for extra white sauce and beware the spicy sauce. The first time we had the spicy sauce, we put it all over and our mouths were on fire. Again, each stand has a different spicy level for their hot sauce. The stand at 53rd and 6th is killer (you've been warned). The safest approach if you have a low spice tolerance is to ask for sauce on the side and dip as necessary.

hmmm... I'm getting hungry.

In search of the perfect cupcake

Not satisfied with our first cupcake experience at Crumbs, off we went through the Lower East Side and East Village exploring a previously unfamiliar area to both of us. Though we were not specifically looking for cupcakes, we did find two noteworthy bakeries - Sugar Sweet Sunshine and Butter Lane.

Sugar Sweet Sunshine was, as the name indicates, a ray of sunshine in our young cupcake journey. Fair prices, a delicately soft, moist cake and a not-too-sweet, but just-sweet-enough buttercream icing made this $1.50 treat a welcome sight. The Bob, a yellow cake with chocolate almond buttercream was delicious, so much so that we talk about going back almost daily. Our next venture to the LES will undoubtedly yield expanded waist-lines as we stuff ourselves on these delicate clouds of sugar sweetness. 126 Rivington Street (212) 995-1960 www.sugarsweetsunshine.com

Another standout cupcake shop is Butter Lane at 123 East 7th Street. This tiny shop in the middle of a quiet street offers local, organically sourced ingredients including real vanilla beans and local, organic dairy. You mix and match the bottom cakes (vanilla, chocolate, red velvet) with an American or French buttercream icing. American buttercream icing is the most common type of icing and does not require the addition of eggs - its main ingredients are powdered sugar, butter and milk, while French buttercream is made of granulated sugar, butter and eggs. The consistency of the French meringue icing is quite different than the American, but a smoother, more creamy texture makes for a nice contrast with the standard cupcakes found in the city. On par with the other prices in the city - $2.50-3.00 each.

Oh Taisho

This Japanese yakitori restaurant on St. Marks Place is a standard haunt for students and Japanese expats alike. Sit at the bar for a view of the Yakitori master grilling skewers of beef, chicken, chicken hearts, pork, negi, and scallops. Everything gets coated in the same sauce, but feels like you're in the heart of a barbecue.

We had an assorted yakitori plate of beef, tsukune, aspara bacon, scallop/bacon and mushrooms, kara-age (fried chicken) and spicy tuna on a bed of rice. While the yakitori wasn't anything special, the spicy tuna and kara-age were really nice. Not too greasy, big chunks of dark meat chicken were dredged in flour and deep fried. A big dish of spicy tuna on rice is easily shared by two or three people and is a nice texture and flavour contrast to the grilled meat skewers.

Crumbs Bake Shop

East 93rd and Lexington

Mint Chocolate Chip cupcake from Crumbs bake shop.

While wandering up the Upper East side, we stumbled up this bake shop, which we later found out was a chain throughout Manhattan. These dense, large cupcakes look sweet and delicious. They are definitely sweet, but too dense for my taste. I like my cupcakes light and fluffy with a soft butter cream icing.

That said, this was a nice treat on our walk up to 125th.

Paty's Tacos (Truck)

Longing for a quick snack as we wandered up to Harlem from the Met, we stumbled upon Paty's Tacos, a Mexican food truck on the corner of East 86th street and Lexington Avenue.

Served on the street, like much of the best food in New York, this place wasn't dirt cheap, but reasonably priced tacos ($2.50) and Sopes ($4) were homemade, fresh, and authentic. The bistec (steak) sopes had a thick tortilla shell and was topped with chopped lettuce, onion, and salso verde. Two enchilada (spicy pork) tacos were a bit dry, but made better by hot sauce and salsa.

With so many mexican choices in the city, we'll be on the hunt for more goodies to eat.

Greek food at Pylos & Tapas at Alta

Our first few days of eating were made up of a series of communal tables where we, along with the family, could share in some varied dining and order a number of different dishes. Since we had family in town for the first few days, we were looking for something low-key, fun and some atmosphere. Here are the two places that my brother-in-law booked for us and we had great meals at both.

Definitely worth checking out again, once we've gone through the other 15,000.

Pylos Greek restaurant (www.pylosrestaurant.com)
Busy, fun, Greek restaurant with a lively atmosphere that matches its delivery of food. Good service, good food and good company.

On order for our first dinner out included appetizers:
kolokythakia kai melitzanakia tyganita - crisp, fried zucchini and eggplant rounds served with tzatziki (light, fried slices of eggplant and zucchini, piled up on a single dish. Not too many on the plate, but enough to share as part of a series of apps.)
haloumi sote me stafylia kai tsipouro - thick slices of sautéed haloumi cheese finished with greek grappa and served with grapes (I've always enjoyed haloumi, a mid/firm cheese with a subtle flavour. Fried to a light golden brown on the outside, each bite is a little crunch followed by that classic warm, melty cheese texture.)
ta afrata keftedakia tis dianas - diane’s light-as-air meatballs, pan-fried in olive oil (if I had to chose a meal that was purely made up of meatballs, these would be them. Moist, flavourful and dripping with deliciousness.)
saganaki tou merakli - three greek cheeses meltedin a clay pot (more melted cheese, but this time, more like melted mozzerela)
poikilia - a trio of greece’s three best dipping sauces: tzatziki, the thick, tangy yogurt dip; taramosalata, the robust and
lemony fish roe dip; and melitzanosalata, a luscious eggplant condiment made with char-grilled eggplants and extra-virgin greek olive oil

Entrees:
arni kotsi me meli, gigantes skordalia kai psiti tomata - cretan-honey braised lamb shank served with giant bean and roasted garlic puree and roasted tomato
A soft, succulent, lamb shank, with fall-off-the-bone meat. Like little pockets of flavor bursting in your mouth. The subtle bean and garlic puree is a nice contrast to the rich, flavorful meat and helps cleanse your palate between bites.

Alta restaurant (www.altarestaurant.com)
A great restaurant for large groups to share many little dishes. If the tapas craze is going out of style, you wouldn't know it here as the kitchen delivers a broad assortment of tasty dishes that will satisfy any number of appetites.

Marcona Almonds Lamb Meatballs - spiced butternut squash foam, toasted sesame seeds and lebne
Grilled Japanese Eggplant - scallion gratinee, aleppo pepper & toasted sesame seed
Spinach Salad - dried cherries, toasted pine nuts & red onion, garlic cream
New Style Yellowtail Sashimi - passion fruit lebne, almond vinaigrette, guindilla, mint
Tuna Tartare - hearts of palm, chorizo, macadamia nuts
Crispy Brussels Sprouts - fuji apples, crème fraiche, pistachio nuts (crisply sauteed brussel sprouts in a fresh, blend of flavours.)
Crisp Chicken Wings - Agave glaze, chile spice blend, frisee & celery with Valdeon dressing
Sea Scallops - artichoke puree, yuzu mayonnaise, salmon caviar (plump, juicy scallops, cooked perfectly)
2 Enormous Whole Shrimp - simply grilled with sea salt
Ricotta Parmesan Gnocchi - parsnip lemon puree, Prosecco almond espuma, celery leaves
Skirt Steak with chimichurri - oven roasted Jersey Tomato & shoe string potatoes (medium-rare skirt steak, cooked and sliced, topped with a different take a chimichurri, made up mostly of olive oil and parsley in this case. In Argentina, everyone makes chimichurri differently - some with more chilis, some with none.)

Are you ready to grub?

We moved to New York City just before Independence Day 2009 and are on a one-year journey through the city and its boroughs.

This culinary journey will mostly consist of fun, local restaurants in New York and hopefully include some fine dining on special occassions. Everything from street food, hole-in-the-walls, fancy restaurants (if we can afford them) and random places to pick up groceries.

Eating is a way of life and life's too short not to enjoy it on a full stomach.

Enjoy the ride and strap on a bib.