Ninja New York 8/16

Chris: About a year ago I was spending some time with friends in NYC and I was asked if I had heard about 'the Ninja restaurant'. Ninja restaurant? No. I had never heard of such a thing! All I was told initially was that 'the food is supposed to be great....and its brought to you by ninjas'. Sold. Ninjas are sweet, no two ways about it. We pulled its location from their website and set out to find it. It was a dark while we were walking around, so perhaps that led to our 'navigational difficulties' but I swear we walked around for an hour looking for it. Then we saw their lantern, which incidentally is the only thing marking its location. How...ninja...of them. I'll not discuss that meal, as it is not the subject of this post, but suffice it to say, that for my return visit to Ninja New York, I HAD to bring Sera.

Sera: Nina New York was one of those places of lore to me for the longest time. I'd had friends who've gone and told me vaguely of how awesome it was, but since it was in an undisclosed area in New York city, I never felt the need to track it down. That doesn't even take into the consideration that I had anyone to go with either. Regardless, I was pretty excited when Chris had experienced Ninja's tasty wonders first hand and seemed pretty intent on taking me. I was only too eager to get swept away on this eating adventure.

Chris: This time it was during the day, and we located 'The Lantern' much more easily. Behold its mystery!


Chris: Once you enter Ninja you are in a small room with faux rock walls and plants. A single hostess ushers you down an elevator and once you step off of you are in a equally small room with no doors...and no one in it. Confused, the patrons stand waiting for some instruction. This instruction comes in the form of a black clothed Ninja jumping from the shadows. The wraith opens a hidden door in the wall and you are taken to one of two dining area. The first is a fuedal Japanese village, with each table set up like its own house. Their are rock walls, wooden pathways, plans, and some serious design magic. The second would be the 'rock garden'. Tables are situated in alcoves cut into faux rock formations, with plants lining the ceiling and walls.

Sera: All I can saw is, WOW. Despite how many detailed descriptions I've gotten on what the interior on Ninja looked like, I still wasn't prepared for how freakin' cool it is. It's *really* like walking in an old crowded Japanese town at dusk. They captured the light so perfectly.

We were lead to a house where our table was. It was low and the seating was traditional Japanese fashion. We tried our best to sit seiza on the cushions we were given.

Chris: Sera and I both decided to go with set set menus which augmented each others order. Certain courses of the set menu are dishes selected by the patron from a series of options so we simply chose the opposite of each other.

Sera: We figured this was the best way to experience the maximum amount of tastiness Ninja had to offer us.


Sera: My first course was crispy plantains served with guacamole and a garnish of broccoli dusted with matcha powder. The plantains were light, flavorful and slightly salty. The guacamole was zesty and very rich. Both were polished off with ease.



Chris: My first course was a tofu salad with broccoli and sesame dressing. The salad, while impressively presented...was a salad. Meh. However, the tofu is where this dish made its impact. It was honestly some of the best I've ever had. It was flavorful (which is sometimes tricky with tofu), fresh, and had what I consider to be the perfect tofu texture.


Chris: I also had sushi as my second course; there was no other selectable option, but I love sushi anyway. The dish came with a spicy tuna and an unagi rolls. Incidentally, those are my two favorites. What providence! I thought the rolls were well constructed and I particularly liked the...crunchies?... that were on the spicy tuna rolls. None of us could identify them, but they added to the presentation and texture!

Sera: Oh gawd. The rolls were so good.


Sera: Chris' friend Josh and Katie who also came with us got a wonderful selection of foods a la carte. Here you can see their meal came out on a giant plank of wood. How cool! The got steak wrapped in teriyaki zucchini, crab cakes and crab rangoon.


Sera: Ok, here's my third course. It's a fillet of salmon topped with slices of portobella mushrooms and served in a light cream sauce. The salmon was perfectly flaky and soft and the mushrooms added an extra level of savoriness to the fish. It was so delicious.


Chris: Pictured below is quite possible the most delicious pork dish I've ever tasted. Seriously, I do not kid. I had it the first time I went there, and the very thought of getting it again made me excited the entire week prior. This dish is simmered pork coated in a squid ink tempura batter and served in a sauce very close to teriyaki. It was heavenly. The outside was firm and formed a little bundle housing the meat. It was soft, a bit chewy, and was perfectly sized. The pork center was tender and full of flavor and seemed like it had been simmering all day. Every element of this dish worked together in perfect harmony and when I tell you that I would venture up to NYC for this dish specifically, it is no exaggeration.

Sera: This pork was one of the first Ninja's dishes that Chris ever gushed to me about. It sounded so unique, so mind blowing. And it was. The texture was so perfect: crisp outside with a melt-in-your-mouth interior. By far the star dish of the meal.


Last but not least, of the savory dishes at least, was the steak. It came with a Parmesan crusted grilled tomato and covered in a sweet salsa. It was nicely cooked with a pink center and charred outside (I like my steaks medium)!

The meal was finished off with dessert, but alas we have no pictures as the lighting for them was terribly dark and none of them came out well. Chris had a chocolate mousse cake in the shape of a ninja star and I had a three chocolate mousse.

Both of us wished there was more to it. It was so tasty we ignored out "we're full!" signals from our tummy. If you ever get the chance to go to Ninja, by all means go, go, go!

Chris: Emphatic OM NOM NOM. Seriously.
Sera: *head exploded from such OM NOM NOM* Can my rating go higher?

Ninja New York
25 Hudson St
New York, NY 10013
(212) 274-8500

Mexican Food in Princeton

Sera: I don't eat out in the Princeton area often, as there aren't any good interesting places to go. I did recently hear that The Taste of Mexico, a small place at the Princeton Shopping Center had some really awesome online reviews.

Since we had limited time (grrr, weeknights!) we figured this would be a quick, tasty option. We wanted to get to good noms and not have to spend loads of time waiting in a traditional sit-down place.

Chris: We went inside and placed our order and then picked a table outside on the patio. It was a nice late summer evening and eating outside just seemed like the thing to do!

We first started out with a basket of chips and salsa. The salsa was very chunky, fresh and had a good spicy kick to it.

Sera: This is my dinner, the Chicken Mole. It was well cooked with the chicken perfectly charred and still moist. The sauce was complex and had a nice balance of sweet and spicy. As this was the first time I had a Mole, I wish I could have something to compare it to. I enjoyed it a lot regardless, and I plan on trying it again someday.


Chris: For my entree I chose one of my Mexican favorites, Chile Rellenos. For those unfamiliar with the dish, it is a fresh roasted chili pepper stuffed with meat and cheese. This one was served with beans and a fresh salad. To me, they are comfort food and this one did not disapoint. It was flavorful and poked that little spot in me that makes me feel good.

Sera: I had never paid much attention to, much less eaten, Chile Rellenos before. Chris has yet again introduced me to something new and terribly good.

Sera: OM NOM

Chris: OM NOM


The Taste of Mexico
301 N Harrison St
Princeton, NJ 08540
(609) 252-1575‎

Cooperstown NY Noms

Sera: Ahh, Cooperstown. A small rural town in the middle of nowhere (well, it does have that Baseball Hall of Fame) where I spent my middle/high school years. My parents still live there, so it was inevitable that I'd go up for a visit and have Chris tag along.

Despite the fact that I abhorred it when I lived there, I now enjoy visiting Cooperstown. The land is still unspoiled by developments, so there's rolling hills covered with lush forests and fields. Perfect for all the "running, jumping, climbing trees" that I love to do. I feel very calm and refreshed when I visit, and I've often overcome with awe and nostalgia. I was really looking forward to showing this to Chris, as I know it's something he'd appreciate.


Sera: Breakfast is hard to do in Cooperstown as there's no real "winner" amongst the various places to go. I decided on Doubleday Cafe, as they always had tasty and reliable fare. The place itself has an interesting rustic/diner/sports bar vibe.

Chris: We walked to the Cafe from our parking spot about a half mile away and I became instantly aware of the influence of the Baseball Hall of Fame. The whole area was filled with baseballs fans, baseball memorabilia stores, baseball attractions, and in this case, a baseball themed restaurant. However, the Doubleday Cafe did it in a way that wasn't as silly as the rest.



Chris: Pictured above is my breakfast! I decided upon the Huevos Rancheros; a breakfast dish that I have become more fond of as I've aged a bit. It was actually very well balanced. I expected it to be a bit spicy, and it was, but not so much as to overwhelm the rest. The cheese looked less plastic in person than it does in the picture, I assure you.



Sera: My omelette of the day: ham, tomatoes and mushrooms. The eggs were well cooked yet still fluffy. The toast was great too; browned and lightly buttered.


Sera: Side of bacon. BREAKFAST COMPLETE!

Chris: I like bacon. A lot. Shut up. So after we had breakfast we worked up our lunch hunger by walking around a peaceful park and boat dock. We stopped at a farmers market and purchased some Welsh pastries to carry with us (which we had forgotten to photograph). The reason there are no pictures of these delightful cookies was...ducks. Lots of them. We stumbled upon a pack of the little guys and couldn't help but feed them. They looked so...hungry. One of them was a huge jerk, seriously. After the ducks had devoured our snack and we finished our tour of Cooperstown proper, we headed to lunch.

*DRAMATIC SWIRLY CARTOON LUNCH LOGO!!*

Sera: I decided that Brewery Ommegang was a must visit, as Chris is a fan of Belgian ales.

Chris: I am, yes. They are yummy. You should try them. The main difference with the Belgian ales is the use of cooking spices in the process. This leads to many interesting and complex flavors.

Sera: We took a tour and went to a tasting that was offered to the participants. Despite the fact that I don't like alcohol, it was fun to see how my chocolate "nose" dealt with the flavors of these ales. I liked the Rare Vos the best.

I found it funny that in the gift shop we spent more time looking at the chocolate than the alcoholic stuff. I also started to feel really woozy after that small tasting. Chris had to drive after that. Whoops.



Chris: Out of the beers that we tasted, I do agree that the Rare Vos was the best and I wasn't surprised to find that it was one of their best sellers. I'm a BIG fan of wheat ales, but was mildly disappointed with their wheat offering, the Witte. It wasn't bad but it certainly wasn't memorable either; I found it lacking the lighter complexities I had come to love about wheat beers. The Three Philosophers lambic was VERY flavorful and a great 'after meal' beer. However, it was extremely rich, thick, and filling that I couldn't see drinking a whole lot of it in a single sitting.

We returned to the house for a few hours and before we knew it...it was dinner.

*DRAMATIC DINNER SEGWAY!!*

Sera: Brooks BBQ is a local favorite. It specializes in a special molasses sauce based BBQ, with the BBQ chicken being a favorite. Brooks has been around for generations and when visiting Hillary Clinton and Rachael Ray both made a point to come eat here.

The only problem is that when coming here, you're bound to run into someone you know. We were soon joined by relatives and at the same time cowering in hopes of not being recognized by my high school art teacher.

We also saw a dude with a pretty rad mullet.

Chris: It was mighty! He was also jacked. REALLY JACKED. I think he was a stone mason. Pretty much the kind of gentleman that could get away with having such a profuse mullet.




Chris: I had the sampler dinner with some BBQ chicken, a rib, and some roast pork. It was all fairly tasty, but it was basically 'take our one sauce and slather it all over everything' and the items tasted somewhat similar. Additionally, I prefer a more smokey BBQ sauce with more of a tomato/vinegar base; this one was REALLY sticky.

Sera:
Breakfast: OM NOM
Ale: OM
Dinner: OM NOM NOM (biased!)

Chris:
Breakfast: OM NOM
Ale: Mixed, some OM, some OM NOM
Dinner: OM NOM

Doubleday Cafe
93 Main Street
Cooperstown (607)547-5468

Brewery Ommegang
656 County Highway 33
Cooperstown, NY 13326
(607) 544-1800

Brooks Bar-B-Que Restaurant
5560 State Highway 7
Oneonta, N.Y. (607)432-1782

First Dinner at Nadia

Chris: In the relatively small town of Lansdale, PA there used to be a quaint, family-run Italian restaurant. I liked it very much. I would go there for dinners with friends and family on a regular basis. One day, to my surprise, it was closed. The windows were covered in boards and there was a small paper sign that said 'Under New Ownership'. BWAH!? My Italian spot had closed?! Who would ever do such a thing? Months passed. I saw people with paint buckets and hand tools working busily away. Eventually a banner was put up that announced that it would soon become 'Nadia'; a Thai/French eatery. Well...I said to myself, '"Self, perhaps you should give this place a shot when it opens". And I did. And...well, lets just say that if anyone was to fill the shoes of the former owners, I'm glad it was Nadia.

Sera: Very early on when we were dating, Chris, yet again with his knowledge of all the local awesomeness that I was obviously missing out on, suggested we try Nadia at some point. Knowing fully my strong foodie tendencies, he couldn't hold back his enthusiasm for the place, especially their Lemongrass soup. "It'll blow your mind" he assured me. So the weekend for our Bucks County Adventure came along with our first fated dinner at Nadia. Oh, the anticipation!

BEHOLD! THE FOOD PORNS!



Sera: The soup, yesh? IT IS INDEED A LIFE CHANGING EXPERIENCE (OR AT LEAST WORTHY OF TYPING IN ALL CAPS ABOUT).

Chris: It has the right kind of spice that makes your mouth tingle and urges you to come back for more. There are wafer thin slices of onion, pepper, mushrooms, and lemongrass a delicate, reddish broth. You can have your soup with chicken, shrimp, or tofu, and while I haven't tasted the tofu option I'm sure its just as fantastic as the rest.



Sera: This beauty is my Tropical Gangoon: shrimp, pineapple, peppers and onions all slathered in a sweet/spicy coconut based curry sauce. NOM! Ohhhh, it was goooood.



Chris: As for me, I selected a dish that I had eaten before but had come to love; Kang Ped. It is a red curry with pieces of simmered duck meat, peppers, onions, a little pineapple, and slices of bamboo. It was a bit spicier than Sera's dish, however, I'm in love with its perfect balance of heat, sweetness, and complimenting textures. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Overall: Unanimous OM NOM NOM!

Note: Additionally, I've addicted my family to the place as well, and they have repeatedly asked, 'When are we going again?!'

(Now, I know what you're thinking. All of their ratings have been the highest. Well...these places are worth it. They're great. If we come across something 'Ok'...we'll let you know. PINKY SWEARZ!)

Nadia Thai-French Cusine
113 Walnut St
Lansdale, PA 19446
Phone: (215) 855-3256

Our First Dinner Out - Mixx Asian Bistro 7/25/08

Sera: One of the first places Chris insisted that we eat at together was an Asian bistro called Mixx in Philadelphia's Chinatown. It's a favorite place of his and he couldn't wait to take me there. We finally had the opportunity to go before an MGMT concert one evening back in July.

Chris: My roommate in college introduced me to this little gem after he had returned from a semester in Japan. He was craving a little piece of his overseas trip back in the states and said this place made him feel a bit like he was back in Tokyo. It has a relatively small dining area with an extremely welcoming atmosphere. Subdued lights. furniture and shelving of different colored woods, and flowing drapes on the ceiling create a sort of inner warmth.

Sera: Chris just couldn't stop raving about their Chow Kueh Teow, a dish that I was unfamiliar with, but considering my foodie tendencies, couldn't wait to try.

Chris: I had tried it once on a whim (to just have something different from their menu) and it blew my mind. I had never had a specifically Malaysian dish and this one completely wow'ed me. After looking into its history I found it to be a relatively common dish in its native country, and that it had been catching on in many countries! HOW DID I MISS IT?!



Sera: So we ordered it. Isn't it pretty? I assure you, it's terribly delicious. Chris knows how to pick 'em.



Sera: We always "family style" it when ordering out (for maximum tasting purposes of course!) so I ordered some sushi to balance the heaviness of the Chow Kueh Teow. Chris was unfamiliar of the wonder of inari sushi, so I made sure to order it so he too could experience intense new food deliciousness. I ordered some sashimi and shrimp cucumber roll (it had mayo in it, and I'd been craving the stuff like mad at the time) to round things out.

Chris: I've always been very fond of the sushi at Mixx and these items were delicious. They routinely have very creative special rolls (both in name and ingredients) and they are immaculately prepared. The variety and freshness are also quite impressive! I'd also like to note that the service at this establishment is some of the best I've ever received. Their staff is friendly, attentive, and makes you feel like family. Every time I go there I recognize the same faces and they are always accompanied with a smile. I've never once felt rushed and I get the feeling that they really enjoy placing a dish in front of you that you'll enjoy. I highly suggest that if you're anywhere around 10th and Arch on an empty stomach that you stop in and say 'Hello!'

Verdict? OM NOM NOM!

Mixx Asian Bistro
1002 Arch St
Philadelphia PA 19107
Tel: (215) 923-1180

Roast Chicken Dinner

O HAI!

This looks nommy right?

CAUSE IT WAS.

This dinner came about because I, Sera, was not very good at the whole walking thing for a weekend. To make a long story short, bike+falling+toe surgery=bad. Chris and I had originally planned on spending the day in Philly, but since I was a gimp, I had to spend the day indoors. *tear*

So instead of going out to eat like most normal people (again, walking, why you thwarts my funs? *shakes angry fist*), Chris insisted we get all domestic and cook dinners. DAAWWWWWWWWWWW!

So this is what we made: roast chicken with peaches, steamed green beans and kabocha no nimono (the latter I *insisted* on, since Chris was a Kabocha virgin. CAN YOU BELIEVES THIS?!?! That had to be rectified ASAP).

LOOK AT THE FOOD PORN AND WEEP YOU DID NOT EAT THIS. IT WAS THAT GOOD.









If you want recipes so you can try and recreate this awesomeness, comment and let us know. We'll be kind and share!


RATING:

Sera & Chris: Unanimous OM NOM NOM

Om Nom Nom Intro

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