Back from the dead

I'm sorry for having completely gone MIA on you guys...I hope you didn't weep into your pillows too much! It is the beginning of the end for me and for many of you as well, meaning that COLLEGE is now upon us. Georgetown is wonderful in most respects and terrible in a tiny, few others, one of which being that all of you are not here with me. I've been spending my days going to class, running around campus and getting fat off the food in the cafeteria. The shopping/restaurant scene here is quite spectacular, as the area around the school is akin to our beloved 5th avenue in its astronomical prices for real estate. I strongly suggest applying here if you want to live and eat like a prince on a pauper's budget. I hope that all of you are doing well at your respective schools! :D

And now, on to the food. Emily sent me these photos from dinner about a week ago but I haven't found the time to upload them until today. Actually that's a lie, I HAVE had time but chose to spend it awkwardly socializing instead. -____- (forgive me! I need to make friends too!)

A bunch of us went to Saigon Grill in Union Square for a farewell dinner of sorts...I don't really remember the names of the entrees we ordered or how all of it tasted, but in any case, here are the pictures.
It was fairly dark inside, as you can tell by this photo.

Sarah's choice of appetizer...I'm guessing this is some sort of vegetable wrap?

The close-up! Look at how it glistens and beckons you to eat it! :D

Chicken skewers on top of clear rice noodles? I should have taken notes or something...my memory is really too foggy right now.

This was my entree so I can describe it a tiny bit better...Mixed vegetables in a spicy curry sauce with thin pancakes served on the side. I've recently realized that I order the same thing whenever I eat out. Boring, right?

This is the last photo from the night..Emily attacks her food with eager chopsticks!

Now I'm off to work on my very first college assignment! I'm trying my best not to fall asleep from sheer boredom....

Saigon Grill
91 University Place (bet. 11th and 12th Sts)
New York, 10003
(212)-982-3691

Of Bees and Bun Xao

First and foremost I'd like to thank all of you for actually sitting down and patiently reading my nonsense! I love reading your ever-creative comments ; ) I will try my best to surprise and delight as often as I can, though it remains to be seen whether or not I can maintain this blog at Gtown.

And now, moving on to today's events...After an arduous afternoon spent combing the Chelsea and Union Square areas for clothes/shoes/anything remotely useful in a dorm, Sarah, Emily, and I came across this little Belgian waffle place. As Emily put it, Petite Abeille is somehow both "comfortably dark" and yet sunny enough to cheer up even the most gloomy of downtown shoppers with its waffles and WONDERFUL wonderful coffee.

Lovely girls

I hope you can ignore the glare on the window and appreciate the cuteness of the logo. It's a little bee girl! Petite Abeille! Vive la France!

The lemon yellow interior was nicely decorated with french pop art, mainly depicting the adventures of Tin Tin, i.e. "Tintin contre Batman!"

These are the waffles I mentioned at the very beginning of this post. Though they were so temptingly displayed, much to our dismay, the waffles we ordered came in a sealed plastic bag labeled "Le Pain Quotidien". Amid our cries of 'Poppycock! Poppycock!" the cashier attempted to explain why it was really better for the waffles not to be made at the restaurant itself but bought elsewheres. He said that they were officially designated liege waffles, made specifically in the town of Liege in eastern Belgium and imported to countries where the waffle frontier is a bit grimmer and more desperate. I really didn't care for this explanation too much, except that the slim, trendy man next to us in line asked, "So is this like, you know, champagne? Like you know how champagne isn't like, champagne if it's not from Champagne in France?". Yet another reason why I love hipsters.

The unsuspecting waffle is ripped apart by the GAUFRE GODZILLA! raaaawr. (Please excuse my silliness as I am extremely tired right now)

I really think that I could have had about three more of these...the espresso was lovely in taste but surprisingly had no crema. I guess their espresso machine either drips too quickly or has a bit of a problem with its pressure gauge.

These girls are too cute for their own good.

Annnnd the last photo of this entry with a price menu- an important detail not to be left out! The prices were fairly reasonable and I would probably come here more often if it weren't for college and all that jazz.

Petite Abeille
44 West 17th Street
212-727-2989

P.S. Please don't let me forget to upload the apple turnover entry as well as the dinner part of tonight! I would have included the latter but I'm almost about to drop from exhaustion so I'll save it for a day when I can actually write coherent sentences.

Food Porn

Hey there guys!

I wanted to put up some photos of my fooding adventures, a la thegirlwhoateeverything, aka MY HERO and everything I aspire to be later on in life :). My family (minus the father) went to have lunch today at Ham Ji Bach, a little place near Bayside. Yes, I know...direct transliteration is so unappealing, particularly for a restaurant. In any case, here are the photos! 

Checking out the hustle and bustle
The male JenKo surveys the spread of side dishes...
My mom's choice, Yuk Ge Jang. It's a spicy sort of noodle soup with tons of vegetables and beef. Not recommended for the faint of heart. I think the steam rising up from it is why this photo came out so horribly...
My brother's dish, SanCheDolSotBiBimBap. (God I hate transliteration...) It's just vegetables mixed with rice and served in a hot stone bowl.
Andddd last but not least, the king of all inferior dolsots...the spicy squid rice bowl! This dish is violently spicy and delicious, not merely because of the severed tentacles (of which there are many included) but also because of the hot stone bowl that it's served in. This also applies to the dish my brother ordered, but I think it revealed its true tastiness better in mine. The heat from the bowl continues to cook the rice as you're eating it so that you encounter funny little crunchy bits now and then, which makes the whole experience so much better :)
Done!

My next post will be on my ever-popular apple turnovers. I meant to bake them this morning but woke up at ten, oddly enough. It seems that my insomnia has been vanquished for now...

Chiffon Cake

Hurrah!

This is my very first post- the first real one, that is. I don't think that introductory one really counted...

Here is a recipe that I've discovered recently thanks to Chika of www.shewhoeats.blogspot.com. Chiffon cake is a wonderfully light and airy dessert that's perfect for hot August days when all one can do is laze around in the comfort of one's air conditioning. I altered the recipe a bit to include a hint of coffee flavour and some unexpected sweetness with the addition of dried cactus sugar. Here is the original recipe (my changes are marked with asterisks).

Chiffon Cake

1 cup + 1 tbsp cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

6 egg yolks

pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup granulated sugar

**1 tbsp cactus sugar**

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup vegetable oil

6 egg whites

**2 tbsp instant coffee**

1. Preheat oven to 340 degrees. Prepare 10 to 14 unwaxed paper cups for filling.

2. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, and instant coffee. Set aside for later.

3. Beat the egg yolks, salt, vanilla extract, and six tablespoons of the granulated sugar until the mixture becomes a pale yellow and falls in ribbons from the whisk. Gently stir in the water and oil until barely combined, and then fold in the flour mixture from step 2.

4. Thoroughly wash and dry the whisk (Really, trust me on this one...step 5 will not be successful without this!)

5. Beat the egg whites with five tablespoons of sugar until stiff. When they are ready, the egg whites should be able to form peaks on the whisk.

6. Fold in the egg whites into the flour/egg yolk/oil mixture 1/3 at a time. The batter will immediately increase in volume and become much lighter.

7. Spoon the batter into the cups prepared in step 1 and evenly sprinkle the tops with cactus sugar.

8. Bake approximately 25 to 30 minutes. (This really depends on your oven and what kind of hot spots it has. I've found that rotating the tray midway helps in preventing the burning of innocent, sweet baked goods.)

9. Remove when the tops have puffed up nicely and cool the chiffon cake cups on their sides to prevent them from collapsing on themselves.

10. Enjoy!

As an added note, I would consider adding another tablespoon of instant coffee to the recipe. I originally intended for the coffee to disguise the taste of the egg yolks, which I found to be a bit bothersome the first time I tried this recipe. The quantity as currently specified in the recipe successfully masks the egg yolks but contributes only the faintest hint of its lovely, aromatic self.

**I'm really very sorry about the terrible format of this entry, but I've been struggling with the photos for nearly an hour and have reached the end of my patience. At first I wanted the photos to be seamlessly meshed with the steps to make it easier to follow, but it seems that the Blog gods are looking upon me unfavorably today. I will redeem myself by fixing this ASAP!**

Salutations!

Hey there y'all. This will hopefully be the first of many more entries to come, not just on oddities like carnivorous cupcakes, but on anything that really piques my fancy. Among the topics that are fair game are food, fashion, good books, and anything attractive and sturdily built, be it Michael Phelps or a chair from IKEA. We will see, my dear readers!