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In celebration of my one and a half year with my wonderful boyfriend, we decided to treat ourselves to a nice meal at a delicious and very reasonably priced Greek restaurant on the UWS – Kefi. The restaurant is situated in a nice, residential part of town and we enjoyed a nice walk along Central Park west (and admired the beautiful real estate along the way) before dinner. The dining room itself is quite small and cozy, although it probably could get pretty crowded on a busy night. Luckily for us, the Columbus Day holiday and our anniversary date coincided on a Monday, so the restaurant was comfortably full with only a few empty tables and best of all, no wait (since they do not accept reservations). Also a handy note – make sure to hit the ATM before because this is a cash-only establishment! The food is really amazing – fresh, and with generous portions. The calamari was crispy and well complemented with cool yogurt sauce, the branzino – crisp and sweet from the grill, the lamb so tender that it falls from the bone. All in all, one of the better dinners that I have had in New York. Read the rest of this entry »
The best sauce packets are made by Lee Kum Kee, and at $0.88 a packet, a great deal. Unfortunately the only place that I’ve found that sells them is Asia Supermarket in Philly, so I always stock up when I go to visit. The ma po tofu sauce that they sell in New York are both expensive (over $2.00 a packet) and not good at all. With ma po tofu, the key is the “ma la” flavor, where you feel the spiciness numb your tastebuds … mmmmm mmmmmm!
Something that I always look forward to in the fall is restaurant week in Philadelphia. Unlike NYC restaurant week where chefs basically create a new menu using cheaper ingredients and unimaginative flavors, restaurants in Philadelphia actually include items from their normal menu and serve their normal portion sizes. This makes restaurant week in Philly a great way to enjoy the fine dining experience while avoiding inflated food prices. Although the pre-fixe price has gone up to $35 for three courses and the really high-end restaurants (such as Le Bec Fin) do not participate, there are still a few restaurants that are definitely worth dining at. This year, I chose Amada, and I have to say that this is probably my all time favorite restaurant week meal that I have had in Philly (and I have had a lot — to name a few: Alma de Cuba, Le Bar Lyonnais, Zanzibar Blue, Red Sky). Since Amada is a tapas restaurant, the bf and I both got two tapas for the first course, two tapas for the second course, and a dessert course! Another plus: since we got reservations for 11:30pm (to accomodate for my travel time from NY to Philly), the restaurant ran out of the dessert that I ordered and we got another complementary dish. In total, we had 11 small dishes between the two of us over the course of the night! Absolutely delicious.
Garrotxa with Garlic Dulce de Leche
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