Monday, 7 April 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Tuna teriyaki on rice and a bowl of hot soba for me. Pork belly don for HH.

Where from? Soba Totto

How much did it cost? $20~

How was it?
HH had her usual pork belly don. It’s always a lot of food for lunch considering it’s a bowl of meat and rice followed by a bowl of noodles. I tried the tuna teriyaki on rice for the first time. To call that sweet would be an understatement. I enjoyed it though but certainly you’ll need it to wash it down with a bowl of soba noodles. The soba noodles were the usual fare and paired well with the sweet tuna. I always enjoy Soba Totto’s little side dish of mashed potatoes.

Just a word of advice on lunch diners in Midtown. If you go around 12:30pm, just expect a bit of a wait on some days. Also the host/hostess can be real grouchy on some days. We used to have a favorite waitress there who’s Burmese but she left so no more freebie appetizers or desserts!

Rate it!
7/10

Sunday, 6 April 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Dim sum

Where from? Claypot something at New World Mall

How much did it cost? $10

How was it?
New World Mall in Flushing has a food court in the basement. There are plenty of choices for you, depending on what you’re feeling. There’s a large assortment of hotpot shops, dumpling shops, stirfrying shops and desserts. Just be warned that if you go during peak dinner hours, it’ll be hard to find a table.

I got my usual selection of dishes from this place: Congee, spare ribs with black beans, shrimp and pork shumai. They’re all OK. Nothing particularly special but the place is quick and cheap so I can’t complain. I didn’t like that they had corn in the pork shumai though. I thought that was odd. The congee had decent chunks of meat in it. The spare ribs needed to be a bit more tender too.

On the topic of the bubble tea, I’ll make another post eventually after I have taken photos of all the usual bubble tea places I go to: Cha-Time, CoCo, ShareTea, TenRen, Quickly and KungFu.

Rate it!
6/10

Friday, 28 March 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Dim sum

Where from? Jade Asian

How much did it cost? $27

How was it?
I haven’t been back to Jade Asian in over 2 months so I decided to hit it up with the bro-in-law. Surprisingly, we weren’t able to eat that much; the bill came out to be like $27 with tax and tip. Normally, I’d eat around $20 worth.  And damn, I just forgot to take the photo of the last dish, my favorite roast pork bun! Weekday lunches are the best time to hit up Jade Asian for dim sum. There’s no wait for seating and you don’t have to fight for your food as much since it’s not as crowded.

We had the usual dishes – chicken feet, spare ribs, shrimp dumplings, spring rolls (with mayo), etc. My favorite dish here as mentioned above is the roast pork bun. My second favorite is the spare ribs and as usual, Jade Asian’s did not disappoint; I had two orders of those. Somehow they ran out of the shumai, or the cart never came around, so for the first time in my dim sum visits, I did not eat those.

One thing which pleased us quite a bit was that this time, they left us a jug of water on the table. In previous visits, we always had to hail the waiters multiple times for water refills but this way, it was hassle free for us and them!

Rate it!
10/10

Thursday, 23 January 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Shrimp curry and rice

Where from? Woodside Aunty

How much did it cost? $6 per curry but sufficient for 3 meals.

How was it?
We haven’t ordered from Woodside Aunty in a while due to the weather and just bad timing on our part; she takes orders only for Wednesdays and Saturdays and we end up forgetting to order for those days. Plus the weather has been crappy and she said she wasn’t able to cook on some weeks.

This is another traditional Burmese curry. Just some shrimp made into a curry with some shallots. Growing up, I didn’t particularly like this curry as much. But these days, I think it hits the spot very well. Normally we order the large shrimp curry but apparently there’s a shortage of the large shrimps which Aunty normally cooks, so we ended with the smaller ones. The perfect way to eat this is to take some warm, fresh rice and pile on the shrimps, together with a bit of the oil/gravy; mix the rice up with the oil (as you can see in the yellow tint in my rice) and chow down!

Rate it!
8/10 Perfect combination for a lunchbox for work.

Tuesday, 21 January 2014 – Lunch

 

 

 

 

 

 

What did I eat? Chicken with basil, papaya salad, tom yum, BBQ sliced pork salad and Chan’s noodle soup

Where from? Sripraphai

How much did it cost? $40

How was it?
Thanks to the impending blizzard, we got to leave work at 1pm. So what do we decide to do? We decide to venture out to Woodside for lunch at our favorite restaurant in town. In spite of the snow coming down hard, I must say the trip was worth every flake of snow blown into our faces.

As usual, HH had her favorite noodle soup. Apparently she was going to write the review for it since I don’t know much about it. All I know is that she puts in a lot chilli, even though she orders it spicy. And as usual, I always steal one meatball from her soup. That’s the tradition.

We started off a BBQ sliced pork salad. Sripraphai makes really good meat salads for appetizers and this one did not disappoint. The flakes of rice powder adds a tingly feeling, like you’re munching some sand. The level of spice was perfect too and went well with the sour flavor of the sauce.

I debated between my usual chicken with ginger sauce on rice or BBQ chicken over coconut rice but went with the something on their lunch special. For $13, you get an appetizer, soup, main dish and a drink. You can’t be that value! I chose my usual Thai iced tea, a papaya salad and a shrimp tom yum soup, together with chicken with basil on rice. Since we had the other BBQ pork salad on spicy, I requested the papaya salad to be medium. The tom yum had more sour than spicy flavor with a liberal dose of mushrooms which I enjoyed. The server asked if I wanted the chicken minced or sliced; I picked the minced version. The minced chicken holds flavor much better than the sliced version; the fillets don’t absorb the flavors as well.

We took home some dessert, as well as some sticky rice and pork jerky for dinner, which will be mentioned in a subsequent post.

Rate it!
10/10. Rarely will Sripraphai be rated below this so get use to it!

Monday, 20 January 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Cheese ravioli, beef something (forgot the name but looked good) and potatoes

Where from? Pizza Rustica

How much did it cost? $8

How was it?
I haven’t been back to Pizza Rustica in a while but since they just followed me on Twitter, I decided to pay them a visit. They have different pasta and meat specials every day. First time that I’ve seen ravioli on the menu though. The beef had some Italian name but it looked like beef stew. Since I only wanted the ravioli and the beef, the guy at the counter gave me all the ravioli that was left. The normal platter consists of 1 pasta, 1 meat and 2 veggies but I normally end up with 2 servings of pasta and 1 serving of veggies.

The ravioli was a simple cheese one topped with some marinara sauce. I like ravioli and this one was decent. Don’t expect high-end Italian restaurant ravioli; this is meant for the working man and as such won’t be as “premium”!! The beef was interesting. There was a strange sweet flavor with the meat which I couldn’t identify. It could be the sweetness of the carrots or just sweet gravy but it was oddly tasty. The beef wasn’t that tender so I had to cut it quite a bit; I had to take care in cutting so I don’t puncture the metal container.

Rate it!
6/10

Thursday, 16 January 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Caesar salad

Where from? Cafe Olympia

How much did it cost? $3

How was it?
Since I had a big breakfast, I wasn’t particularly hungry for lunch. Plus I knew an epic dinner was coming up so I made the conscious decision to have something pseudo healthy. Hence, the salad. This was straight from the buffet bar, not a custom tossed salad. That is the reason why it cost so little. I added an extra bit of dressing since I like to drown out the taste of the lettuce. I picked out extra croutons too to add a bit more flavor. Caesar is catching up to ranch as my dressing of choice – yes I am fully aware that these aren’t the healthiest dressings out there but at least they help me eat my veggies.

Rate it!
7/10

Wednesday, 15 January 2014 – Lunch

 

What did I eat? Pho Saigon and dumpling soup

Where from? Boi

How much did it cost? $8 for the pho, $6 for the dumpling soup

How was it?
I did not have the dumpling soup so I can’t comment. I just figured I add this since the pho looks boring.

The pho today was exceptionally well made, even compared to other days. The noodles were at the right level of firmness and there was plenty of meat, assortment of sliced beef, stomach and beef balls. Since this was a fast food place, the sliced beef were served well done, and for good reason; I’d be wary eating a rare piece of beef. For a bowl of pho being served in a plastic container, Boi does a pretty good job. Their sandwiches are pretty good too.

Rate it!
7/10

Tuesday, 14 January 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? New England Clam Chowder and a piece of bread

Where from? Cafe Olympia

How much did it cost? $4.90

How was it?
Clam chowder is one of my favorite western soups. I love the rich and creamy texture of the soup, plus the bits of meat and potatoes.  Buying this from a deli, I’m fairly certain it came from a big bag of ready made soup which had to be reheated; I’ve seen these during my tenure as a cook’s help in the college dining hall.  Having said that, I still enjoyed the soup. I think it’s one of the better tasting ready to serve soups. The only down side to this soup is the level of saltiness. I don’t recall New England clam chowders to be this salty, and I mean it’s SALTY! I’d rate it higher if the salt level was toned down a bit.

The bread was fine. I mean, it’s a piece of bread, not much more I can say about it.

Rate it!
6/10

Friday, 10 January 2014 – Lunch

What did I eat? Dumplings, fried spare ribs, pork stew, Singapore mei fun and hot and sour soup

Where from? Shih Lee

How much did it cost? $9.00

How was it?
Relax, I didn’t eat all of the food. Htike Htike and I split this regular lunch combo. Previously, I would have finished all of it myself but in light of recent efforts to reduce a bit of weight, I’m splitting my lunches with the wife.

The regular combo of noodles with 2 sides come out to $8 but I added an extra side of dumplings for $1 (I think) more. HH picked out the mei fun; I’m not a fan of curry flavored noodles. I just don’t think masala and noodles mix well. The pork stew at Shih Lee has been going downhill over the past year but it was surprisingly good this time. My current favorite is the fried spare ribs. They’re fantastic! Similar to what you get from some hawkers in Bangkok. These would go well with a sauce of tamarind, chilli and fish sauce, and a bit of sticky rice. I did not have the hot and sour soup but from past experience, it tastes like any other hot and sour soup.

Rate it!
5/10