Entrees at appetizer prices: Dojo

A "turkey burger dinner" from Dojo. This fusion-y, Japanese-flavored place used to be a godsend in my college days because of its disturbingly cheap prices for somewhat "real" food, but at some point it hit me how grody the place was and I stopped going. Nonetheless, the thin turkey burger, here served with chunks of fried potato and a small salad, is surprisingly juicy, flavorful, and delicious. It's also $5.25 for the whole plate. With these prices, Dojo might still be worth walking into once in a while; it's the kind of place that inspires you to order several entrees at once just for the hell of it.

Beard Papa's: On the way to Think, a few puffs of cream

Before meeting up with TC, JL, and MH at Think Coffee, I stopped by Beard Papa's to pick up a few cream puffs for everyone. Others are fans of their chocolate, strawberry, or green tea filling flavors, but I like their delicate vanilla cream the best.

Fresh pâte à choux and a generous dollop of light, creamy custard. I don't know about them being the best cream puffs in the world, but it's definitely kind of dangerous how close the place is to my favorite coffee shop.

Casellula: Big, rich flavor on tiny plates

I hadn't seen JH in years, and when he contacted me randomly through this very blog, it was nothing less than appropriate for us to meet again over a delicious meal. Of course, the surprise of seeing one another after nearly seven or eight years was hijacked when I managed to run into him at a bar just days before our actual planned reunion.

This turn of events didn't lessen our desire to hang out though, and while bustling and a little bit loud, the cheese-oriented Casellula seemed like a fine place for a catch-up date. I was a little apprehensive as six months earlier I had tried to plan a small dinner for DL here, but Casellula had insisted on a rather large minimum, an upfront payment of half, and would only allow me to book a table at the ridiculously early hour of 5:30pm. I opted not to make a reservation then, as the whole process left sort of a bad taste in my mouth, but after reading more and more reviews about this restaurant, I wanted to try it anyway.

We started with a cheese plate, the selection of which we left up to the restaurant's cheese gurus. I don't remember the names of the specific cheeses anymore, but the condiments that came with them were memorable: a pesto of sorts (mint?), apple butter, and a thick, grainy mustard. Each matched perfectly with its corresponding cheese.

We decided to split an order of the goose breast reuben, pressed with fontina val d'aosta, a house slaw, and horseradish aioli, and the mac 'n' cheese, made with three cheeses: fol epi, comte, and chevre, as well as lardons and caramelized onions. At first I was dismayed at the size of the tiny skillet of bread-crumbed pasta, but as I dug in I realized how very rich the dish was. Both dishes were, actualy, but their small portion sizes kept them tasty instead of overwhelming.

We were still hungry though, so JH ordered the stuffed peppadew peppers and an order of morcilla and roasted pepper crostini. The former turned out to be another dish that was surprisingly tiny, but the peppadews, stuffed with buffalo mozzarella and wrapped with speck, packed a wallop of flavor that far surpassed their diminutive size. As for the latter, it was good but nothing special, and as our stomachs had begun straining we left the last one on the plate.

Casellula isn't cheap (at $7.00 for the plate, each of those stuffed peppadews cost $1.40 each), but it's still a nice choice for a menu focused on making cheese shine. And they're generous with their wine, too: because they had asked us to switch to another table midway through the meal and we had ambiably scooted over, our server decided to keep on pouring even after our bottle was finished. With a bottle and a half of wine between the two of us and plenty of cheese in our bellies, JH and I definitely had a fine time.

Thai in the 'hood: Leng

In sweltering 100 degree heat, four of my friends got together in Astoria Park to see who could run the fastest mile, a demonstration of just how brilliant men can be sometimes. After the loser was named (JSK, who will have to wear a dress to a bar at some point in the near future) and the four collapsed on the ground for a while, they showered at my place and we ventured out again seeking a place to eat before our ten year high school reunion.

Leng is a handsomely decorated Thai joint that recently opened not far from my apartment, and JSK had heard from another friend that it was pretty good. So off we went, sweating again as soon as we hit the sidewalk, but luckily five blocks isn't enough to make repeat showers necessary.

When we sat down the server brought over a bamboo vessel filled with a heaping mound of thin, crispy noodle threads that had been coated with a sweet, tangy sauce with a hint of spiciness. As you can see, the boys were so hungry they just dove right in with their forks. The pleasantly crunchy, sticky clumps reminded me of a cross between Chinese sachima and Indian bhel puri.

My green tea came in a nice little pot of its own, which I liked.

Predictably, most of us ordered noodles. My pad see-ew was the usual: not terrible, not awesome; standard NYC Thai. This one was too sweet and edged on mushiness, though it was still palatable. A bite of BH's pad thai was better. Judging from this and other recent experiences, I just might have to go back to that most popular Thai dish as my go-to noodle order.

Veselka: Tired Ukranian for tired partiers

People go to Veselka, by now an East Village standby for late-night Ukrainian grub, seeking dishes like bigos or blintzes or goulash—or the special combination plates. But why? This above plate, which included a meat-stuffed cabbage with mushroom sauce, one each of cheese, potato, and cabbage pierogi served with sour cream and onions, and a heaping pile of kasha, was far from special. Sure, we were there at 4 am after RT's birthday party, which I guess is not the same as being there during regular lunch or dinner hours. But the pierogi was tough-skinned and heavy, the stuffed cabbage mediocre, and the kasha dry, flavorless, and almost—dare I say it?—a bit like dog food.

My bison burger, which was a special that night, wasn't bad, but it wasn't the greatest, either. It wasn't as juicy as it could have been (though from what I understand bison meat in general is drier than beef, albeit with more flavor). At least the sweet potato fries I asked for instead of regular fries were decent, especially once I doused them in Tabasco sauce.

Cross-section, bad and sloppy. Sort of like the food.

Like so many others, this wasn't the first time I'd ended up at Veselka for a late-night meal. But the place seems to be getting more and more mediocre, and the place itself, like a lot of other 24-hour establishments, has a taken on a bit of the down-trodden weariness of a bus or train terminal. This is one place I'd be sad to see close, but only for the memories and not for the grub.

A pre-nuptial feast at Tung Yi Fung

Yes, yes, I know LB and JL got married over a month ago, and that it's fairly ridiculous that I am posting about their rehearsal dinner now. In fact I thought about just skipping this one so that I wouldn't reveal exactly how delinquent I have been with these postings. But the meal was so enjoyable, it seemed wrong to not write about it.

The dinner took place at Tung Yi Fung restaurant in Flushing, a restaurant I'd passed many times but never entered. Clacking along the grubby streets in high heels and cocktail dress, I made it upstairs to join the wedding party, where LB and JL had reserved several tables for friends and family. At each setting there was a scattering of folded origami cranes and a single flower wrapped around our napkins. And once everyone got settled, there was food—a lot of it, and all of it delicious, too.

We started with a dish of what I swore of was chopped pork but was really chopped clams, mixed with noodle threads and water chestnuts and spooned into crisp lettuce cups by our waiter. The contrast of textures and flavors was excellent, and though I didn't, I was tempted to make myself another one.

Shrimp with walnuts is always a crowd-pleaser, and here its reception was no different. Alongside the plump, snappy shrimp were batter-covered squares of what I later learned was "fried milk," the insides of which tasted like a creamy coconut custard. One was all I needed of these, though, as they were a bit cloying.

Afterwards came a light, perfectly balanced soup brimming with bits of tender beef, a generous swirl of egg, and chopped cilantro.

Following a dish of sauteed pea shoots and whole, fresh-killed fish steamed with ginger, scallions, and soy sauce, these large, tender pieces of beef and pieces of crispy, garlicky chicken nearly put us over the edge.

Until the lobster in black bean sauce came out, that is.

Eventually, out came the rice and noodle dishes, which as I mentioned here for Chinese banquets usually signifies the meal is drawing to a close. In many cases the rice dish is just a generic fried rice, but LB and JL chose a fried rice with salted fish and chicken, which had a great pop of complex, briny flavor with each bite or two. Though I was full, I was really glad they opted for this one.

After they cleared away our dishes everyone took the opportunity to table-hop, chat, and snap maybe a million photos of one another. But finally there was red bean soup to finish—a sweet end to a sweet beginning for our lovebirds. The next day was the wedding!

More on the meal here.

Lettuce eat lettuce

Just thought I'd post up a few snapshots from my parents' garden at their house in Bellerose, Queens. My folks have always been pretty eco-minded, so we collect rainwater for watering the plants and bury most of our organic garbage as compost. Over the decades we've planted lettuce, yam shoots, kōngxīncài, tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins, purple wax beans, chives, strawberries, and a bunch of other veg I can't remember.

I went home a few weeks ago and encountered a bed of baby romaine...totally out of control. At my mom's direction I pulled up a huge pile of the greens in order to give breathing room to the tomato plants, but even when I was done it looked almost the same.

Aside from making giant leafy salads from the romaine, I like slicing up the lettuce into ribbons and topping them with soba and soba's usual accoutrements. I also like using the big, flat leaves as a wrapper for grilled meat, Korean-style.

These greens are super fresh, pesticide-free, and grown with love. Small wonder that occasionally I get a batch with a little "friend" still nibbling on them...sluglet, you can always have a leaf of my lettuce.

A frozen, tooth-cracking sweet at Cafe Zaiya

I met up with MH in Times Square, but rather than brave the crowds at the most annoying intersection in the city, we opted to take a stroll east to the Lexington Ave-59th Street station. On the way over I maneuvered a detour to Cafe Zaiya. This green tea ice cream sandwich looked all delicious in its refrigerated case, but once we bit into it we realized the textures were all wrong—this was hard ice cream between two even harder shortbread cookies. Altogether it was too rich and heavy...though make no mistake, MH and I gobbled it down anyway. Waste not, want not, right?