september
On Monday I was invited to attend SHARE's 12th Annual A Second Helping of Life Tasting Event at Pier Sixty in Chelsea Piers. It's an annual event to raise money to help those with breast and ovarian cancer. I'm embarrassed to admit that I have never heard of this event and it has been around for 12 years! It was such a great event, great chefs, great people, great cause. Here are some snapshots from that night.
Ah.....last time I was in Philly, it was the winter of 2003. My friends and I took a day trip. We basically did all the touristy stuff. We had a cheesesteak, saw the Liberty Bell, went to Chinatown (well the bus stopped at Chinatown), took the subway...etc. I can't believe it's been 12 years since I last went to Philadelphia. I should really go more often, it's only a 2 hour bus ride. Oh boy and the food....the food scene is so awesome there. Great hummus, GREAT FRIED CHICKEN, awesome Vietnamese food, excellent cocktail bars, and so SO good Italian food.
I was only there for 3 days. I took the 10:45a Bolt Bus and arrived around 12:30p. Walked to my Airbnb (my first Airbnb, it was a weird feeling staying at someone's actual apartment) in Center City and went straight to Cafe Diem for some super delicious Bun Bo Hue.
Next I stopped at the Big Gay Ice Cream shop.
Then in the afternoon, I met up with Mo (friend and old roomie) for some happy hour pizzas and beers at Nomad Roman Pizza. For happy hour, they have $5-$7 pizzas and $4 draft beers. The pizzas were alright but my favorite was the one topped with cherry tomatoes.
And then we hopped over to Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co. for a flight of tiki drinks.
The next morning, I made sure to trek over to Federal Donuts (on Sansom St) right at 11am for their famous fried chicken. I got a half order of fried chicken with a dusting of buttermilk ranch. I finally understand the hype. THE HYPE IS REAL. So freakin good.
After fried chicken, I went to COOK, where Doug and Bryan were doing their multi-dessert tasting event.
When I was looking up pie places (like Four & Twenty Blackbirds and Petee's), I didn't find much except for Magpie. Their special September pie is a Nutella cream pie. !!!!
For dinner that night, I went to Cheu Noodle Bar (thumbs down). I should've gone to Little Nonna's for pasta.
On my final day, I woke up early for some hummus at Dizengoff (same chef as Federal Donuts and Zahav). WOW, just wow. I never had hummus this delicious before. Chef Michael Solomonov is a treasure.
To make myself feel better about the mistake I made the night before for not getting Italian food for dinner, I trekked over to Amis for brunch. Got the rigatoni with sausage and an egg yolk. Mighty delicious.
And then just before leaving, I stopped at Federal Donuts for 6 donuts to bring back. =)
A while back when Mile End took over the kitchen at Threes Brewing, they had a super delicious salad of bulgur and kale. I can't remember ever having bulgur before then but this really stuck on me. Then one time I found myself in Damascus on Atlantic Ave, buying a bag of lentils. And right underneath the lentils were bags of bulgur. I didn't think about what I'll make but decided to buy it anyways.
After cooking bulgur in way too many miso soups, I kind of got bored eating it and left it alone. Then one day, I had a craving for fried rice but of course I had no rice in the apartment. BUT I did have half a bag of bulgur.
So I came up with this... 1 cup of bulgur 2 cups of liquid (water, stock, whatever you like) 2 Chinese sausages Handful of dried shrimp (soak for 10mins and optional) Handful of any leafy green Couple peppers Couple scallions 2 cloves of garlic 1 heaping tablespoon of miso paste 2 tablespoons of soy sauce Sesame oil Salt + pepper
I wanted to SPICE up the bulgur so instead of cooking them in regular old water, I cooked them in miso soup.
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil and add a tablespoon of miso paste. Stir to dissolve the miso paste. Then add in 1 cup of bulgur. Once the liquid is boiling again, lower it to a low and let it simmer for 15-20mins, covered, or till the bulgur is cooked through. Make sure to know which type of bulgur you have. I bought the uncooked version. There are bulgur that has been parboiled already.
While the bulgur is cooking, chop and dice the rest of the ingredients. When the bulgur is done cooking, drain the liquid if there is any. Though, save the liquid, it is miso soup pretty much.
Add oil to a hot pan and toss in the Chinese sausages and dried shrimp. Cook for 1 minute and add the garlic. Stir to mix. After a minute, toss in any vegetables you like. I had couple sweet peppers and some baby bok choy. Give everything a good stir and cook till the peppers and veggies are done.
Add in the bulgur, soy sauce, dash of sesame oil, and stir. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Turn heat off and add in the scallions.
The great thing about fried rice or chow mein or stir fried bulgur is that anything can go in it. It's great to cook when you have lots of random stuff in the fridge. A little bit of this...a little bit of that.
This past Saturday I attended the first ever Gentry Chicken NYC pop-up at the Old Bowery Station. Gentry Chicken is run by Leonard Shek, whom I've known through the internet but have only met the first time on Saturday. He told me he was doing a fried chicken pop-up. Oh, you can't say no to fried chicken meals. Leonard did fried chicken 2 ways, original and Japanese (toshiro mifune). Both were mega delicious, crispy....juicy fried chicken. There were also pickles, salad with tomatoes, mac n'cheese, and corn.
Hit up Gentry Chicken if you want to find out where's the next pop-up.
