Happy Thai New Year!

April 13th is Thai New Year’s day or Songkran Day.  In Thailand, April 13-15th are national holidays and, much like Christmas holidays in the States, people will travel home to spend time with their families.  April is the hottest month of the year in Thailand, so the most fitting way to celebrate is with water.  Traditionally, you would pour a little bit of scented water (with jasmine or perfume) over other people’s hands or shoulders as you give them well wishes.  Very calm and respectful.  Nowadays, it is more like public street water fights, with powerful water guns or plain old buckets of water.  It’s a lot of fun when you want to be part of the Songkran spirit.  Otherwise, it’s actually really annoying (who wants to get wet when they are, let’s say, on their way to work or a date).  

I couldn’t do any of that in New York – definitely no water fights.  It’s still pretty cold here and people would surely look at me funny if I shoot somebody with a huge water gun.  So, Jeff and I went to a nice Thai dinner instead.  We tried a new restaurant called Lotus of Siam, on 9th Street and 5th Avenue (where Cru used to be).

The décor was plain but nice.  The bar is situated at the front of the restaurant next to the host area.  The dining room is sunken down.  It has a bamboo floor, bamboo-looking tables, and matching color chairs.  Everything is actually pretty matchy-matchy.  I do like the ceiling though – it looks like the old tin ceiling.  The kitchen is off to the left of the dining room, with partly frosted automatic glass doors.  They look kind of odd. 

I had read the New York magazine’s review of the restaurant, which says that they have an impressive wine list. I would have to agree, especially for a Thai restaurant.  I ordered a glass of Reisling. 

Their menu was quite extensive though most of the dishes are what you would normally see at any other Thai restaurants in Manhattan – a lot of fried rice and stir fried noodle dishes.  Because they are higher end and pricey, I was hoping that they would have more of the family style dishes.  Anyways, the food was delicious.  We shared a Som Tum (green papaya salad) as an appetizer.  This dish is so simple and every Thai restaurant in Manhattan offers it, but it could be a hit or a miss.  It definitely was a hit here.  The flavors were right on – sour, sweet, salty, but not too spicy.  Jeff then ordered a soft shell crab “drunken” noodles and I ordered prawns with tamarind (i.e. nam pla wan) and chili-lime sauce.  Jeff said that his dish was alright.  I really liked mine.  I haven’t had Nam Pla Wan sauce in a very long time and it’s not something that you can find easily in New York.  So I was really excited when I saw it on the menu.  My dish came with 5 big prawns grilled to perfection.  I finished the whole Nam Pla Wan sauce – it was very good.  Though I have to say that it’s still not as good as my grandma’s :) 

We decided to skip desserts.  They have about 5-6 items on their dessert menu – traditional Thai desserts like Tum Tim Krob and sticky rice with sweet custard (sang ka ya) and ice cream – but we weren’t in the mood for those.  So we looked up bakeries in the area for some cookies or cakes.  We ended up going to Milk and Cookies on Commerce and 7th Avenue South instead. Jeff got 2 cookies and I got a chocolate whoopie pie and a white chocolate macadamia cookie (this has been my most favorite cookie these days).

Overall, a good night of eating (as usual).

Tonkatsu

Tonkatsu with the Bull-Dog Tonkatsu sauce :), served with sauteed red onion and Shiitake mushrooms.

Jeff used pork tenderloin breaded with panko bread crumbs, so the tonkatsu came out really light, crispy, and tender. It was so good.

Barney was sitting by Jeff's legs, as usual, while we were eating.  Jeff showed him the Bull-Dog sauce bottle and encouraged Barney to follow the lead of the bulldog on the bottle and start making money :)

Atlanta

We went to Atlanta a few weeks ago.  It was overcast and rainy while we were there, but we had a great time nonetheless.  We didn't take too many pictures, but here are some of them. 

We stayed in a Fabulous room (i.e. the smallest room) at the W hotel in Buckhead. Thom Felicia is the Interior Designer and I think he did a great job.  Our room really looked fabulous.  I like that this property didn't look ultra modern like the other W properties that I have been to. It was contemporary, with old charms mixed in with modern pieces.  The rest of the hotel has the same look as well.

The next day, we visited CNN and were given an insider tour of the studios.  We went inside a control room while a live show was on air and, in front of a different studio, waved to an anchor who was preparing to go on air.  It was super cool.

The World of Coca Cola was right across the park from CNN.  I was so excited to go there, given that Coke has been my most favorite drink all these years. 

This is what "Mr. Coke" (aka Mr. Pemberton, the inventor of Coca Cola) looked like.  He was hanging out by the entrance.

 There were a few rooms filled with original ads from the 50's, 60's and 70's from around the world.  Look what we finally found in the last room.  Look at the guy and the girl dancing in the back... hahaha.

An old fire station from the 1920's.

Milk

I bought a bottle of unhomogenized (whole) milk from Whole Foods the other day.  I actually didn't know what unhomogenized means but the milk looked farm fresh, so I bought it.  As you would expect with fresh milk, there is a layer of cream sitting on top.  The instruction on the bottle says to "shake it, baby!" so that the cream layer is mixed in with the milk.  It did taste different than the usual whole milk that I normally get from a supermarket.  It has that kind of funky/organic kind of taste - but I like it.  I've been thinking that I'll only get unhomogenized milk from now on.

So what is unhomogenized milk?  I googled it that night and what I found was pretty interesting.  Homogenization is a process by which fresh milk (with the cream layer on top) is put through a machine in order to break the cream layer into tiny particles.  The cream particles are then mixed back into the milk in order to make whole milk (I think that 2% of the cream is mixed back in if they're making 2% milk but I have to look it up again to be sure).  They do this because research has found that consumers find the cream layer unappetizing.  Homogenization is not to be confused with Pasteurization though.  Unlike pasteurization, homogenization doesn't kill bacteria or extend the shelf life of milk.  All it does is break down the cream layer and mix it back in.

Here's the interesting part. It turns out that those cream particles that are mixed back into milk are so small that they can now be absorbed into the blood stream.  This causes high cholesterol.  Can you imagine?  This won't happen with unhomogenized milk because the particles of the cream layer are too big to get into the blood stream.  Who would have thought?  More reasons to buy unhomogenized milk!

Birthday

Last Wednesday was my Birthday.  Yayyy!!!

I have started, a few years ago, to take my Birthday off.  (I highly recommend it.  It feels really nice to be able to enjoy the day and not get stressed out at work.  Plus, this guarantees that I will not get stuck at work late.)  This year, I decided to go into work for a couple of hours in the morning for an important meeting.  It was not ideal, but  hey, sometimes I can be responsible too :P

As soon as I finished, I headed over to Clinton Street Baking Company, my most favorite brunch place in the city.  They have AMAZING blueberry pancakes that they serve with maple butter (yes, that's right, this melted maple syrup and butter concoction is what you pour over your pancakes or, in my case, dip your pancakes into).  The pancakes are very soft and thick.  The blueberries are cooked in the pancakes and some are put on top.  They are divine.

On my way home, I picked up some carnations.  I love it when there are fresh flowers in my apartment.

I spent the rest of the afternoon watching our wedding videos that we've just received the night before (perfect timing!).  Barney was not too happy about that because I was practically glued to the TV.  The video highlights are fantastic and watching all the footage brought back all the happy feelings from the wedding day.  I'll have to post some wedding pictures in another post.

Then, I met up with Jeff, Jessie, and Josh for dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar.  We feasted on steamed pork buns (with pork belly), Fuji apple kimchi, seasonal pickles, a huge plate of ham, and spicy pork sausage with Korean rice cakes.  Oh. My. Gosh.  They were sooooooo delicious.  For dessert, we went next door to their Milk Bar and got a whole banana cake, some crack pies, and some cookies.  There was no seating at Milk Bar, so we brought them home.  We sampled a little bit of everything before calling it a night.  A perfect night in my opinion :) Thank you everyone so much again for making my Birthday so special!

A Perfect Dinner

Orzo with andouille sausage, broccoli, and parmesan. A perfect Sunday dinner.  Thanks, Jeff!!!

Snow Pea Leaves

...by Chef Jeff.