Papa Razzi, Yee Hwa, and Gooldaegee

It's 51 degrees right now and rising! Does it mean that spring is finally upon us or that we've been blessed with a brief warm spell? I have no idea since I don't know what to expect of DC weather but I hope that it's the former! It'd be nice to break out some short-shorts and celebrate with a cold bottle of Crush soda. Speaking of Crush soda, I was tabling with Derek Ahn to keep him company when Professor Marshall walked by and asked what we were doing. We tried to explain it to her but the only thing she really heard was, "You buy a soda for someone you like!" and insisted on buying both of us sodas. In a way, getting a soda from a professor is a lot worse than not getting one at all. It was a nice gesture on her part though....-_____-.

So yes, here are food pictures again!

About a week ago, Yeina, Eunae, and I really wanted to eat at a Korean restaurant but couldn't figure out how to get our butts to Virginia, so we decided to visit Yee Hwa. Now, I've heard some pretty bad things about Yee Hwa from different people, the biggest complaint being that the food isn't authentic. It might just have been the things that the three of us ordered, but I didn't think that it was bad at all. Spectacular, it was not, but definitely not subpar either.

Yeina and Eunae :)

The side dishes neatly lined up in military formation.

Tonkatsu!

The stews that Yeina and I ordered weren't too photogenic so they won't be included here. No one really wants to look at violently red beef broth up close, right?

After feasting on Korean food, we returned to the georgetown area to feast on non-Korean desserts at Papa Razzi.
The interior. For some reason the three of us ended up being served by two waiters at the same time.

My apple crisp with a scoop of vanilla gelato on top.

Eunae's chocolate gelato with an ornamental almond cookie.

The brownie sundae that Yeina ordered....you can't really tell from the picture but the glass was about the size of a small trophy.

And a close-up. You might be wondering whether we finished everything. The answer is no, but we were damn close.

And finally, the most recent restaurant that I visited. Gooldaegee, also known as Honey Pig, is supposed to be one of the best Korean barbeque places in the area and according to a review I read online, was recently featured in the Washington Post. When we went, Honey Pig was packed, utterly chaotic with Kpop blasting from every speaker and too noisy to hold a conversation without yelling- in short, everything a good Korean restaurant should be like. I do have to offer a precautionary warning for diners: do wear something that you don't mind possibly soiling and/or reeking of Korean food. One might avoid the soiling but definitely not the reeking.



The chaos!

Part of our dinner table.

In the process of grilling meat.

Haemool pajeon, a pancake made with scallions, seafood, and other veggies incorporated into the batter and fried until golden-brown and crispy.

Honey Pig (Gooldaegee) Korean Grill
7220 Columbia Pike
Annandale, Virginia 22003
(703) 256-5133

Yee Hwa Restaurant
1009 21st St NW
Washington, DC
(202) 833-1244

Papa Razzi
1066 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington, DC
(202) 298-8000‎

Super Bowl Sunday

What better way is there to celebrate Super Bowl Sunday than by writing up a new fooding post? I've been eating out a ton recently and have built up a good number of photos to show all of you! (That is, all ten of you readers out there. hehe)

Several nights ago Eunae, Derrick and I went to Bangkok Bistro for a quiet dinner. The funny thing about Bangkok is that I always feel as if I'm at home whenever I eat there but I've never been able to put my finger on the reason...until now. Bangkok Bistro is almost identical to the Saigon Grill in Union Square, which I wrote about sometime in August. The ambience is eerily similar, as are the menu and the waitstaff. This can't just be something about Thai restaurants, right?!

Are we in ny or dc? I can't tell!

The wonderful crispy tuna roll. There was some tension among the three of us as we realized that there were only two pieces left.

The pad thai that never disappoints!

Derrick's drunken noodles...I recall there being a small complaint on his part about the oiliness of the noodles?

Futomaki = Kimbab. I had no idea until I ordered it that night! There's really no point in ordering it at a place like Bangkok because the best kind of kimbab is made by middle-aged korean women with frizzy, DIY perms.

A couple days after Bangkok Bistro, CSA held their annual ball at Chinatown Garden.
Our lovely table.

Barbeque ribs with lots of sharp bone fragments hidden inside 0____0

The spring rolls.

The delicious cross section.

I found a small golden star on the rim of my soup bowl.

I was wondering what these little fried lumps were...

And it was shrimp! It would be nice if that happened more often...I mean, not knowing what something is and having it turn out to be shrimp. Yom.

The glorious fried bananas.

There were a total of ten dishes but a handful of them didn't look too appetizing, so I didn't take any photos. In any case, expect more posts soon!

Bangkok Bistro
3251 Prospect St NW # 1
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 337-2424

Chinatown Garden
618 H St NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 737-8887

Happy 2009!

I realized that I still have a few photos left from winter break...and that I should upload them before I forget about them entirely!

A candy stand that I stumbled across somewhere near the Saint-Germain metro stop.

:P Look at all the candy!

Dusk



The weather was frightful on the last day that we went exploring, so we popped into a warm creperie for a light supper.

Looking out the window

Bonne Femme-mushrooms, ham, grated cheese and bechamel sauce.

A buckwheat crepe with an egg.

La Basquaise- chicken, ratatouille, grated cheese, and an egg.

Anddddd back to ny!

Walking into Max Brenner always makes me feel like I'm gaining weight just by breathing the air, which smells intensely of chocolate. It's thick and dizzying but also kind of nice.

I really, really, really wish that I had one of these chocolate dispensers in my house/room/everywhere I go. They have spigots at the bottom that pour out CHOCOLATE! Sugoi~

Our ooey-gooey and utterly delicious chocolate pizza. I think it was some sort of light dough covered with melted milk chocolate and sprinkled with melted marshmallows and toasted minced hazelnut. Sadly enough, as scrumptious as it was, each bite of the pizza made me feel like my IQ was dropping and that I was slowly going into food coma, so we couldn't finish it.

Delicious but artery-clogging :(

The place was packed as usual.

Creperie Cluny Cafe
20, rue de la Harpe
75005, Paris

Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man
841 Broadway (Union Square)
New York, NY
212-388-0030

Holiday Favors

Here are a couple shots of my annual holiday packages...

To my dismay, no one seemed to get what these creatures were. Among the guesses hazarded to me were little devils (because of the spikes on their backs) and rats. They're porcupines, I tell you!!!!

The package itself.

The tag depicting a dog lost in the woods on a snowy night. :(

Macarons!

Here's a topic that I've wanted to discuss for a while. I recently made the realization that there is no such thing as the best macaron in the world. There are designer ones with exotic, unheard of combinations of flavors, chewy and slightly stale macarons, macarons that have been overbaked or underbaked, macarons with sloppy fillings, large and small macarons tinted with hues of robin's egg blue or autumn poppy, but it's hard to say that one is truly better than another because they all have their own charm. A macaron from a patisserie where the owner still has hair-curlers in if you go early enough doesn't taste quite like a Pierre Herme creation, but that's okay because it doesn't try to be anything more than it is- a cheap little macaron. My conclusion is that Jesus does in fact, love all the macarons in the world.

Now it's about time for some pretty pictures.

The little patisserie closest to our hotel. This also happens to the place where the aforementioned owner looks sort of funny before 8 am :P

The freshly baked selection.

Ah baguettes!

The weather was pretty horrible the day that we went (freezing cold rain mixed with ice if you were wondering), but the line outside Pierre Herme was still fairly long. I guess it's a good indication of what people will endure to obtain his macarons.

The display case with not even the trace of a fingerprint. Is it even possible to make fingerprint-resistant glass?

His wonderful cakes and their horrible price tags. If I ever became a patisserie robber this would probably be the first place I would hit up.

Pierre Herme's crowning glory- the Ispahan! It's a flavor combination of rose, raspberries and lychees that he invented as a young man.





And finally, the macarons! Just look at the craftsmanship!

AFter Pierre Herme we visited Laduree.

This was the only photo that I managed to capture of the pastries at Laduree before an angry woman with a polka-dotted bow told me to put my camera away. Needless to say, the people at Laduree weren't as nice as the ones at Pierre Herme.

The rose and pistachio macarons from Laduree...the pistachio was slightly chewy but the taste of almonds combined with pistachios was quite nice, and the rose was perfect.

The wasabi and grapefruit (wasabi cream and grapefruit confit) macaron and the eglantine, fig and foie gras macaron (fig cream with fragrance from the eglantine flower and foie gras jelly. The first macaron was tart with a slight spiciness but the second...oh dear. I don't think I ever want to taste flowery foie gras mixed with fig ever again.

We also got the mont blanc from Laduree and the Ispahan from Pierre Herme but my photos didn't come out too well so I won't post them here.

Pains et Passion
On the avenue d'italie, a stone's throw from the maison blanche metro stop

Pierre Herme
72, Rue Bonaparte


Laduree
21, Rue Bonaparte

Only oeufs!

When I was younger I hated undercooked eggs with a passion. Seriously. For a while back in elementary school my mom used to pack me these ham sandwiches with runny egg yolks and every single day by lunchtime the egg yolk had burned an acid yellow stain on the sandwich bread. To the younger me, the sandwiches looked tainted, inedible, and somewhat hazardous and I threw them away without thinking twice. It's really a sad story if you think about it and I feel too bad about my ungratefulness to ever tell my mom what became of her carefully constructed sandwiches. In any case, I think that my hatred of runny eggs disappeared the first time that I had eggs benedict and I discovered the joy of breaking a quivering, perfectly poached egg. If I didn't have to get a business degree and you know, succeed in life- I would really just stay in the kitchen all day and poach cartons of those little suckers. Wow I almost forgot what got me started on the egg train of thought...this introduction was supposed to be about croque madames, aka the croque monsieur 2.0. I think the egg adds a burst of gushy unborn chick flavor to the otherwise hum-drum ham and cheese sandwich.

This is where my mom and I stopped for a little break before heading out again. If you look carefully you can see KOREANS in the background hahaha.



I'm not sure why the croque madame came with such mountains of french fries...it looks like a lot of food, right? The scary thing is that it WAS and yet the two of us finished everything down to the last measley spinach leaf.

Melted gruyere cheese, a nicely fried egg with a delightfully runny yolk and warm ham on top of super-crispy bread...I can't complain!

Le Cafe Saint Honore
194 rue Saint-Honore
75001 Paris