Friday, January 29, 2010

Too much eating out....

School started two weeks ago! Sighs! And I've been too lazy to cook or take pictures of what I cook when I actually do. The lighting in my room is horrible! I have been eating though!! Lots of sooo good but very bad things! Lilly got me the cake book that i've been wanting for so long -
Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes by Alisa Huntsman. I was so excited that the moment I got it, I baked a cake the chocolate chip banana cake! Sorry there's no pictures bc I was too lazy to decorate it. We just ate it straight from the oven. I think I will make it again though, because it was definitely a keeper. There's Chinese 5-spice powder in it! Isn't that odd? Tasted good though!
It's Restaurant Week in new york and this year we actually participated. Me and Lilly went to Alto for their prix fixe lunch special - an appetizer, entree and a dessert for $24.00. It was a pretty good deal considering that's a 2 Michelin Star restaurant!
Here's a run down of the meal in case anyone wants to check it out before Restaurant Week is over!

So this was my appetizer! It was crudo with blood orange and a mayonnaise kind of dipping sauce. Yes it was as small as it looks. And to be honest, I didn't really like it. It was kind of plain and I didn't like the texture of the fish. The blood orange segments were good though!

Lilly got the Fagioli soup, which was the better of the two. The server poured the bean soup over a butter piece of bread.For the entree, I got the Vitello, or braised veal cheek. This dish was reallly good, but oh so tiny. The veal was like butter and it smelled like Thanksgiving.
Lilly got the Branzino on top of a cabbage salad. There was supposed to be preserved lemon in it, but I didn't really taste it. Lilly says she got bits and pieces of it though. I think the veal won this round.
The chocolate dessert was the best part of the meal. I got the Budino. Which had three layers. The bottom was like this really dense chocolate cake, the middle was a chocolate mousse and the top was this toffee jelly like thing. It was placed on top of some toasted marshmallow and served with reallly intensely dark chocolate ice cream on the side. The ice cream was so good. I highly recommend this dish.


Lilly got the Torta, which was a pistachio cake with lemon curd and lemon yogurt sorbet. I personally thought the cake was a lillte dry and that the sorbet was wayyy to tart! Choose the chocolate one instead!
The restaurant was soooo fancy, I really felt uncomfortable. It was hard taking pictures because all the waiters and stuff were staring at you and judging you. Oh god. I did manage to sneak in one last pic before we left though!
Afterwards, we were still hungy! So we went to get chicken and rice from Platters just a couple blocks down. So cheap and so much more fulfilling. To make the juxtaposition between uber fancyness and delicious cheapassness even more extreme, we proceeded to find the closest McDonald's to eat our meal in=)

Doesn't look very appetizing right? Don't let the looks decieve you! It was delicious. I got half lamb and half chicken smothered in white and hot sauce=) All for 6 bucks!And to be honest, I enjoyed eating street food in some grungy McDonalds more than sitting uncomfortably straight in some fancy high class restaurant. But that's just me.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy New Years!

Hi Everybody (Yawei especially since I think you're the only one that reads this) =)

I hope you had a wonderful New Years. Mine was mehh but I'm determined to start off the year on a positive note! My dad keeps pestering me to make my resolutions so I'm hoping that by blogging about them, I'll stick to them better???Hopefully?? I have three this year (I really have two but good things come in threes)

1) Get in shape! - This has been my resolution for like ever, but hopefully I can stick to it this year, I've been pretty good since summer so I will go to the gym more and whatnot.

2) Commit to something - If you can't tell by the state of my blog, I find it very hard to stick to anything. I always talk myself out of doing things and pursuing new opportunities or I simply get lazy. So I'm going to try and stop. Really. I'm gonna stop.

3) Explore New York City! - I've been in the city for 1.5 years and I've only explore .001% of it! I really need to get out and try restaurants and all that jazz. I haven't even done all the touristy things. Can you believe I haven't even seen the Statue of Liberty up close yet? Sighs* Hopefully, since I'll be working again this semester I'll have more money to go out. *Fingers Crossed*

So there they are. My resolutions. This year is going to be Legend...wait for it...Dary!!!!
Hehe watching too much How I Met Your Mother lately=)