For something more NYC-oriented for you, I had two lunch excursions during lunch last week – a solo outing to Pampano Taqueria and lunch with Drew at BLT Burger.
For the past week, I had a major craving for guacamole and I can’t explain why. I remembered from NYC Food Guy about his post, claiming that Pampano Taqueria serves the best pork and fish tacos in Midtown. Since it’s not too far from where I work (it’s just two subway stops and walk a few blocks), I dragged my butt over to the unmarked building with what seems like a good food court.
Cabrito, the former BarFry space where white tiles and the Japanese-inspired tempura that made this place, transformed into a loud, tequila-heavy bar that serves Mexican-inspired street food.
Lately, I’ve been on a run with eating out with new stomachs people recently, which is refreshing since Helen can’t join me because she’s all the way up at Columbia University for her rotation (in other words, internship for her pharmacy program). Robyn and Kathy are busy with work. So I met another reader, Drew, for lunch at Otto.
Prior to meeting up with Drew, we exchanged emails in terms of what he’s interested in trying. I found out he never ate gelato before. NEVER ate gelato?! That’s…sad. Since we’re here, this is the perfect spot to try out the best one, in my opinion for fabulous gelato.
This particular post is merging two different outings on one place and that’s the Little Owl. I decided to write about this place all in one shot since it develops a fuller picture on their lunches (and I do admit that I’m missing out on the dinner portion but I have yet to find a person or friend to eat there with me).
On a side note, if you would like (and I know you want to after seeing the food porn two posts ago) to read my burgers and shakes article from Gotham Digest, I suggest you to click here.
Back to the Little Owl. I remember reading from Grub Street’s post that the Little Owl was serving lunch. To me, that’s a huge deal since I can’t find any friend who can and willing to eat there for dinner. Don’t ask me why but it happens to be that way. Since Helen’s interning nearby (always up for good food) and it’s her last day there [insert wailing cry] we coordinated to have a bittersweet lunch there.
As some of you might know, I’ve done a few things for the upcoming debut of Gotham Digest. No, they’re not ready yet until May. If they’re up and running, I’ll let you know and show some love and support to me and my freelancing employer!
Frozen yogurt was the chosen topic by the assistant editor so I’m out to try out five different places for fro-yo. Since I wasn’t able to stomach all of that. I invited Helen, Ariel, Seungmi, Julie, and Joo He on this fro-yo expedition of finding the best.
I apologize for two reasons on this post: 1. I’m preposterously late posting this up. (It’s been nearly two weeks. TWO WEEKS?!) and 2. Some of my photos suck that I’m borrowing a few of Robyn‘s photos for the sake of saving you some of my dreadfully blurry photos. This post is continuing on the evening after the “amuse-bouche” at P*Ong (as Ariel called it) and moving on to the real dinner at Alta. So, here we go…
I’ve coordinated this dinner just because Jessica’s back in town for the weekend and Robyn told to me that she never tried tapas before. Since I’ve been to Alta last June and had a fairly good experience and that it’s a great for groups, I started rounding up people who can come and reserved a table for 9 people. But as the evening rolled in, it went down to 7 due to last minute happenings. Robyn, Jessica, Ariel, Doug, Patrick, and Helen were the lucky ones who were able to join in on the tapas feast.
Last Saturday was officially my last day of school. No more classes. No more quizzes, papers, and tests! Good riddance…at least for now. I’m giving myself a break from school for a year. Get a real job (but still go out eating, of course) and then go through the madness of applications of either law school or grad school. To kind of celebrate this event, I asked several friends to have lunch with me at Taïm.
Seungmi was in the city before the supposed time where all of us should meet, I hanged out with her, browsing through a few stores on Greenwich Avenue. That’s until our old high school friend, Si called me and said she’s here and can’t find her way in West Village since she doesn’t come down here often and she goes to Cornell.
Eventually we all met up and Seungmi’s ranting that she’s starving and threaten to pass out due to the lack of food in her stomach. Since it’s about fifteen minutes ’til everyone’s supposed to meet, we went into Birdbath just to warm ourselves up and Seungmi gets something to nosh on.
Notes: In case you haven’t noticed, I’m approximately a week behind what I should be blogging about. Somehow after finishing school, I’m becoming a lazy bum, just procrastinating the inevitable task of writing a post. Anyways, this is a post that’s taken place last Tuesday. If you want to jump to the review of my lunch at Fiamma, click here.
Somehow, I went backwards that I started my afternoon with dessert. A decadent, dense one in fact: a chocolate cheesecake at Birdbath.
This week or so was pretty much uneventful until yesterday, which I will get to soon. Why? Just because I meant to do that since I’m getting conscious (sorta) of what I’m eating since I joined a gym the past two weeks and I’m thinking to myself, I shouldn’t eat that much or I’m working out for almost NOTHING. So, I’m trying to limit myself as to something “interesting” for you guys to read about what I’m eating. I know, it’s a shame as a food blogger that I’m doing this to myself and in the end, you. But I’ll get over it once my birthday and the holidays roll in, where I have absolutely almost no guilt into eating a TON of food to my hardened, cholesterol-clogged heart.
Also, I have to tell you a little side note is that I acquired myself a new lens for the interior/zoomed out food photos so…from these photos on, it’ll be this lens instead of my dinky little kit lens since I’m fed up with the blurry, low-lit photos that look like utter crap! You’re getting more for your viewing pleasure. But I’m still using my usual macro lens for close ups.
On Saturday, Robyn invited me and a bunch of her friends to her extremely belated birthday dinner (since her birthday was on late August). I honestly have to say, this was my highly anticipated event of the season. I mean, you’re hanging out with the coolest and funnest food bloggers and her friends, and eating a huge hunk of pork, which will be spoken about later. On another note why I am saying it’s a highly anticipated event it’s because it’s my first time eating at Momofuku Ssäm for dinner; I hang my head down in shame for being the smallest minority who is a New Yorker, foodie, and a food blogger. It’s an embarrassment.
Since I was free around 3 PM, I texted and called Robyn if she’s out in the city before the dinner, she called me and said yes, she’s already visiting one of her friends at work in SoHo. She’s planning to meet another friend, Alex (who happened to be a vegetarian) soon, at the Spring Street stop. As I hauled my butt downtown, there’s a huge confusion in the subways where the E train doesn’t take the normal route of going to Spring Street and the C train goes express, (which I took since the announcement from the conductor of the E train said so earlier) and ended up in the Canal Street stop, where it borderlines TriBeca and Chinatown. Ugh, Don’t I just love the subways systems here…
TACOS
