NY eats: Momofuku Noodle Bar

My second night in NY, my mom and I met up with some old family friends. The story of how we know them is an interesting one, so I'll tell it briefly. When I was 5, we met them on the plane going to China. They, meanwhile, were heading off to Beijing to live there (I think they lived there a good 6 or so years), and their parents were journalists. I became friends with their daughter Cara, my age, and her brother Andy was 2 years younger than us.
MEANWHILE, I got the chicken pox. On the plane. It sucked. My mom didn't want to scare me or anything, but Libby, the mother, had been a doctor before being a journalist, so she knew the symptoms. Her kids had already had chicken pox, so I could still hang out with them. We kept in touch and the year I lived in China when I was 7, we hung out nearly every weekend. Cute story, huh?
Anyways, when they heard I had a food blog, they wanted to make sure we went to dinner somewhere interesting. They chose Momofuku Noodle Bar, a trendly little no-reservations place in the East Village. Momofuku has two other restaurants: one is called Ssam Bar-Bakery, and the other is Ko, which is one of those Omakase-type deals with no menu and a crazy price.
The waiting time wasn't bad at all, but when I walked into the restaurant it immediately struck me that this looked nearly exactly like Avec, the Chicago restaurant that looks like a wooden box.

Just like at Avec, there you could sit at the bar, but if not, there was communal seating on wooden benches. Just like at Avec, the menu was short, seasonal, and organized into sides, small plates, large plates, and dessert.
And unfortunately, just like Avec, the menu was NOT vegetarian-friendly in the slightest. Like Avec, there were many delicious-sounding seafood options that happened to be cooked with sausage.
Momofuku is, I suppose, Asian fusion, but that description makes it sound much less original than it is. For example, the night I was there, here was the menu (short enough to fit the entire thing into a photo):

noodle bar etc.

steamed buns – chicken / shiitake / pork

smoked chicken wings – pickled chili, garlic, scallions

ramen – chicken / shredded pork

momofuku ramen – pork combo, poached egg

kimchi stew – braised kimchi, rice cakes, shredded pork

ginger scallion – dressed noodles, seasonal vegetables***

***(no broth, our only vegetarian option)

market

roasted skate wing – brussels sprouts, kimchi, bacon

bouchot mussels – miso garlic sausage, black kale, fennel

roasted tri-tip steak – nugget potatoes, kimchi butter

dessert

cousin leroy & arlo’s soft serve ice cream – quince / smoked maple / twist

The raw bar online has already changed, so squint and see if you can read it.
I ate very lightly that night. I ordered the hamachi and the only vegetarian noodle option.
The hamachi was refreshing and the fish was good quality-- unfortunately, it was really cold that day and sashimi wasn't what I was in the mood for. The grated horseradish was an economical but effective alternative to fresh wasabi, and the apple was a nice touch. Somehow they managed to turn the beets into a kind of jello. I'll admit, I wasn't in love with this dish, but I was fascinated by the different tastes and textures-- the acidity of the apple, the bitterness of the horseradish, and the sweet and slippery beets, were very unique and minimal adornments that highlighted the fish itself.

The noodles came in a huge bowl and were garnished with lots of ginger, sliced cucumber, roasted cauliflower, scallions, mushrooms, and a nori sheet. However, in an attempt to add flavor to an otherwise bland dish, they were drenched in sesame oil. If eaten in a much smaller portion after eating a spicy dish, I would have enjoyed them more. I mainly just ate the vegetables.


Everybody else took advantage of the carnivorous menu, but according to my mom, the ramen that they ordered was too meaty, and the pork too fatty. All the same, It would have been nice to drink some hot broth.
They also ordered the mussels, but the sausage, rather than being a garnish, was served in huge chunks and apparently overpowered the dish.
Everybody ordered steamed buns: chicken and pork. Interestingly, rather than the classic bao zi, the filling, instead of being minced and wrapped inside, was in block form and sandwiched within the wrapper. I wonder if this is to save time or simply for originality's sake.

I know it sounds like I'm being critical, but it was dessert that saved the day, although I only had a little. The only option was homemade softserve in quince and smoked maple, available separately or in a twist. The adults smartly ordered the twist, whereas my friends and I ordered one of each. We discovered that the ice creams were too overpowering to eat on their own, but with a little bit of each on the spoon, tasted wonderful. On the other hand, it did allow us to try each flavor first. In addition to the impeccable texture (it was topped with crushed candied walnuts), the quince took me straight back to the crisp I made on Thanksgiving. The maple was a little too sweet for me, but my favorite part was the saltiness of the smoky flavor. Really, just incredible. Amazing. The best ice cream ever.

I think as a whole, this place is great for meat-eaters, contrary to what my mom says. meanwhile, I looked at their other restaurant's menu online, and they have some non-meat dishes that sound incredible, such as:
diver sea scallops (ri) – xo broth, orange, snow peas

charred squid salad – ginger scallion, mizuna

pumpkin chawanmushi – grana padano, kelp, pepita

PUMPKIN CHAWANMUSHI? In case you don't know, chawanmushi is the Japanese version of ji dan geng, the steamed egg custard my dad often makes. Grana padano is a Parmesan-like cheese and pepita are pumpkin seeds. Don't know if this dish would be good, but the idea of it fascinates me.

bouchot mussels – nigori broth, pickled ramps, grapes

poached chatham cod – matsutake dashi, pinenut, black garlic

grilled long island monkfish – savoy cabbage, kimchi, pistachio

And so on... as you can see, if you don't eat fish or seafood, do not come to any of these restaurants.

MINUS 2 DEGREES?

Yes, that is how cold it was today. So freezing that the wind was blowing chunks of hail in my face. The outside running is postponed once again. My mom and I went to the workout room, but for some reason it was also FREEZING in there... guess the radiator was off? Also, something is seriously wrong with my knee. Probably shouldn't have pushed myself when I knew it was hurting, because now I feel like I have shin splints. I wonder what's wrong...
I only did 25 minutes on the elliptical, then did a faster mile on the treadmill... I don't understand. it seems like I can run a 7 minute mile outside, but when I do that on a treadmill, it feels like I'm full-out sprinting...
(Before I left I had half of a rotting banana)
Breakfast was a pretty small bowl of oatmeal-- strawberries, the other 1/2 of the banana, 1/2 cup skim, 1/2 cup water, 1/4 cup cottage cheese (cept then I went back and got more because it didn't really fill me up), vanilla, strawberry jam, and peanut butter.

I TOOK MY MOM TO SEE TWILIGHT TODAY! Before the show, we stopped at the most awesome place to open in Hyde Park yet: Zaleski and Horvath Market Cafe.

I knew there was a gourmet foods store opening, but not that it would be so AWESOME! Check out the shelves:
They also have great coffee, sandwiches, soups, salads, and cookbooks.
My mom got a ham sandwich with a bunch of fancy spreads and cheese (She really is eating more meat than usual) and a cappucino.
I ordered a panini on whole wheat with eggplant, red pepper spread, muenster, and greens.
Both sandwiches came with a side sample: my mom got coleslaw and I got veggie slaw, which had chickpeas, raisins, carrots, and all the things i love.
I fell so in love with this place that I APPLIED FOR A SUMMER JOB! I'm not sure what I would do, but that would be amazing if I could work there... put my blog URL on the app...


I rarely eat cheese, but that little bit of cheese in the sandwich kept me full for a good 7 hours! Is this the secret of life?
After Twilight (Which my mom loved, but she kept laughing during all the romantic/suspenseful scenes and I had to keep yelling at her. It would be "hurry! she only has minutes left!" and my mom would start laughing loud enough that everyone could here... I see where I get my cynicism from) we went shopping... I got some amazing Lulemon leggings on sale. It was so unbelievably cold...
While I was cooking, I had an apple.

Happy Hannukah!

For dinner, I made Deborah Madison's lentil-chestnut soup with fennel, which I've made once before. It's perfect for winter, with the chestnuts giving the same starchy sweet flavor that sweet potatoes do (we use Chinese vacuum-packed chestnuts).
We also had brown rice and stir-fried watercress.
It's been ages since I really indulged in some dessert, so tonight I had a big bowl of ice cream: Purely Decadent Cherry Nirvana (nondairy) and nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt (I may or may not have gotten another scoop of this afterwards)... my sweet tooth is now at peace.

Home Alone

Well, I'm alone this week! Not exactly... my dad left today, is coming back tomorrow, leaving the next day, and my aunt is coming to stay with me during the weekend.
I'm pretty excited... planning on cooking for her and dragging her to see TWILIGHT! 3rd time's a charm (for me-- page has already seen it 4 TIMES!).
I actually enjoy being home alone. the only annoying thing is that I can't drive, so it's the bus and walking in this terrible weather.
Breakfast: For some reason I just haven't felt like oats as much, although I plan to have them tomorrow.
I had 2 pieces of toast with 3 tsps of peanut butter total... I know I'm a moron, but how many tsps in a tbsp? is it 4? I might just look it up. Anyways, there was half a sliced banana on the toast.
I also had 1/2 cup of cottage cheese with blueberries and wheat germ.
Plus Chai tea because I was tired, which I had with STEVIA! I can't believe that this is all natural... not that it doesn't taste natural... but why doesn't it have calories?
Snack once again was carrots, but with celery this time. I find that I just need something to munch on, and this does the trick.
Lunch: leftover eggs and tomatoes over brown rice with more string beans. And an apple.

I got home from school on the bus and it was gorgeous outside, but way too slippery for me to even consider running (I saw my friends' running, but I was afraid they might accidentally fall and kill themselves). Instead, I went home and worked out on the elliptical. That's 3 days in a row that I've done the same machine! Normally I HATE machines... but since I'm getting a workout, I won't complain, although I wonder what caused this sudden change. Because I was finding it a little hard to read actual books, I took some cookbooks and leafed through all the pictures. The time went by super fast! I did 40 minutes doing not exactly intervals, but every five minutes I would go up a level until I was almost on the highest level. I burned 380 something calories. Then I felt I hadn't cooled down, so I walked for 11 or so minutes on the treadmill. Then I did some upper body weights and some bicycle sets.
When I got back I had a pear.

For dinner I couldn't wait to cook! What's awesome about home alone is that I can cook whatever I want... weird vegan things my parents would find strange, make pancakes, whatever!
I decided to experiment with some more Western-style tofu and make a kind of oven-baked tofu, like oven-baked chicken, which is the healthy version of fried chicken.
This was mainly because we have buttermilk in our fridge that I would like to get rid of... I didn't end up using all of it, though. I combined a couple recipes: one from Running with Food and an Ellie Krieger one. I was stupid, though! I took Ellie's idea of using grape nuts and crackers, but I didn't crush them first, so of course they wouldn't stick to the tofu! I dipped the tofu in a combination of buttermilk, mustard, honey and egg whites, but because the coating didn't stick, it became more like a crunchy topping, that was still pretty good.
And this was the most exciting part of the whole evening: KALE CHIPS! I have heard so much about these, but I've always been skeptical. I just baked them for a little under ten minutes with olive oil, salt and pepper, and they actually tasted exactly like potato chips! I haven't even really been craving potato chips, but if I had been, this would have satisfied that craving. I wonder if I could eat them with some vinegar to bring back salt 'n vinegar memories...
I ate the chips and tofu with ketchup.


I really wanted to bake a potato or something, but we don't have any! :( I thought my usual brown rice would make this seem to Asian, which was the opposite of what I was going for, so I resorted to canned butternut squash, which I heated up with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, maple syrup, and salt. The problem was that I always overdo the ginger, which gave it a slight bitter aftertaste... but no big deal.
What a fun dinner! Very unlike the things I usually cook... I used to cook very mushy, soupy food-- mainly bean-based soups and stews. There's nothing wrong with that, but this is more interesting. I've gotten back in the groove!
And because I didn't really have any substantial snacks today I thought it was justified to satisfy my sweet tooth: hence, a nice bowl of the last of the vanilla frozen yogurt and some more Purely Decadent Snickerdoodle.

Good night!
The house is quiet.

Thanksgiving countdown!

This is hilarious... Page put up flyers all over school with MY FACE ON THEM, advertising for Renaissance, our lit magazine. I'm not even on the board... although I did submit some food things from this blog, edited to seem slightly literary. This flyer was on the door of my first period class... she wanted to make sure I saw it.

Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday... it's secular and there's a lot of food, and it happens to be during the fall, which is the time for the foods of paradise: pumpkins, apples, carrots, and the like.
I FOUND MY CAMERA, and all I can say is that I'm lucky nobody took it. It was in my French room (no breakfast or lunch pictures because I didn't have my camera then).
For breakfast, I had exactly the same thing as yesterday (my sweet tooth has been running wild!). Maybe it's not the healthiest thing ever... God knows how much sugar is in it, but it holds me over better than oatmeal, if that's even possible: 2 pieces of banana bread with peanut butter, berries, and hot chocolate.
Today the hot chocolate was true Parisian style: I used my special occasion Vosges hot chocolate, which has chiles and cornmeal. I also used 2%, because I feel that this is an instance where it really counts, and boy, could I tell! It was so chocolaty and intense that I couldn't believe this was hot chocolate from home.
Lunch: Leftover vegetables and tofu with brown rice, Kashi crackers, an apple, and a Clif Nectar bar (I ate the Kashis in French).
I so felt like going for a run after school, and we took a nice, long run to the 43rd street playground. Once again, I'd say 5-6 miles, which is long for me, definitely. I'm actually pretty proud of myself that I'm able to run with the cross country people... I'm not the same pace as the fastest, but these workouts don't actually tire me. Compared to swimming, pas de probleme. Speaking of which, guys swimming has started! There are some pretty hot guys on the team... you can better believe that I'll be helping them time at some of their meets.
When I got home from my run I realized I was pretty hungry, and I had almost the same snack as yesterday (all about repeats today...), cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, grapenuts, and a chopped up pear.
My dad and I have been cooking a lot this week, as you can see, so we went our own directions for dinner. After he got back from swimming in the pool downstairs, which I would use more often if it weren't only 15 or so yards long, we made dinner: he just had a Trader Joe's frozen pizza, I made a salad for him, and the best burrito ever for myself! This was my first experience actually folding the burrito so that it didn't fall apart! Whoohoo!
We're trying to get rid of this massive bag of mushrooms, so I grilled up some of the smaller portobellos and actually made portobello burritos.
Inside the whole wheat tortilla, which I toasted: a sliced, grilled portobello that I brushed with sherry vinegar and olive oil (we're out of balsamic!!), homemade guacamole, brown rice, black beans, and a dollop of Greek yogurt. This was so much fun to eat... messy in a good way!
On the side I had my salad and some mango, which went perfectly with the whole Tex-Mex thing.
However, later on I was really in the mood for some dessert (I usually am on exercise days) and had my usual combination of vanilla frozen yogurt and the Purely Decadent Snickerdoodle. I have got to stop going back for seconds! It's almost Thanksgiving and I'm going to stuff my face anyway! Bad idea!
Speaking of Thanksgiving, I spent tonight fabricating my menu.
Tomorrow, Wednesday, grad students are having a potluck, and we're bringing cranberry sauce (my dad just made it-- it smells great, with lots of orange zest and even some blueberries in it!) and I'm making Mark Bittman's Autumn Millet bake.
Thursday, we're inviting back some more grad students and this is what I have in mind:
Salad-- greens with pear, feta, candied pecans, pomegranate seeds, and pomegranate molasses dressing (my creation... the dressing just has lemon, pomegranate molasses, salt, pepper, and olive oil)
Main course from the Flexitarian Kitchen-- Cornish game hens/ pumpkins with a quinoa and dried fruit stuffing
My dad's stir-fried string beans
Cranberry sauce
Cornbread

Dessert: I really wanted to try Gourmet's pumpkin souffles with bourbon molasses sauce, but 1) it only serves 8 and we have 9 people in total and 2) I don't want to screw up a souffle on the first try. My mom is known for making the best apple pie ever, but I guess that's not happening this year :(
I think we'll settle for apple and quince crisp with rum raisins (this was from Epicurious)

How does it sound? Good? I actually have a lot to do over this break-- in addition to finishing Moby-Dick, math, and a French reading, I have 2 ART HISTORY PAPERS to write, although I suppose it's my own fault for procrastinating...

Sunday... I saw Twilight again

I want to confess that last night after dinner I went back for some ice cream and raspberries.
I had both Stoneyfield nonfat vanilla frozen yogurt and Purely Decadent non-dairy SNICKERDOODLE ice cream. I don't think I've eaten any ice cream so delicious for a while... It's definitely not health food, and I couldn't help going back for some more.

I did see the movie again, dragging my dad to it this time. All I can say is that it was even better for me the second time! I relished every scene with Jacob, and was excited because I didn't have to be worried that they were going to change the ending.
Plus they showed a trailer for Harry Potter 6! It looks pretty good... but July is way too long to wait!
Today I just didn't feel like running, and I didn't feel like making myself. Yesterday was just not fun, and it kind of took the appeal out of it. Running with people is better for me, unless I'm in the right mood.
For breakfast I wasn't starving, so I had some cereal: Annie's cocoa vanilla bunnies with 1% milk (we currently have 2 things of skim, 1 thing of 1% and 1 of 2% in the fridge and I don't know why! So I must use them up), a banana, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, almonds, and a drizzle of peanut butter.
I worked part of the morning, then made some banana bread!
I made Kath's recipe, but added lots of spices and replaced the honey with maple syrup. It's amazing that this has no added oil whatsoever!
My dad and I went for a walk by the lake. It felt nice to get some fresh air. By the time we came back it was already lunchtime. I must confess that although I was eating a nice, organic, vegetarian meal, it was ironic how pure my dad's lunch looked compared to mine. It was all I could do not to start eating it right then and there.
Mine:
A wrap with hummus, spinach, and leftover tempeh.
A carrot with hummus and grapes
A big chunk of banana bread
A glass of milk


Him: a giant, zen, peaceful bowl of cabbage and sparerib soup with rice. It looked so utterly wonderful, and I never used to eat the pork in it anyway... it was just such a nice flavoring agent. What do I do? If he uses organic pork to make it next time, we'll see what happens.

We went to see Twilight at 1:45... the theater was pretty empty and I think he liked it.
When I got home I had an apple and some tea.
Dinner was great tonight, and we didn't really put any thought into it! It's a rare occasion that my dad does non-Chinese food, but he did a great job! He'd bought 2 sea bass filets from Whole Foods, and he pan-fried them with a sauce of tomatoes, olives, and oregano, which we ate with brown rice, arugula salad, and an eggplant dip that I made.
I roasted an eggplant whole for 45 minutes, but it was pretty stringy, so the flesh I could salvage wasn't right for what I was intending to make. Instead, I turned it into a dip with pomegranate molasses, olive oil, parsley, salt and pepper, a sprinkle of sumac (love that stuff!), pomegranate seeds, and a spoonful of full-fat Greek yogurt, because my mom is the only one who eats it and I need to find a way to get rid of it while she's away... situations like this, where you only use a little, are a good idea. If I do say so myself, the complexity of the flavor in this dip was amazing! I only wish there had been more... 1 eggplant certainly doesn't make a lot when you peel off the skin.





What a great dinner! It's too bad I still have a lot of work...