Eating in a box

As promised I'm posting what I can from my travels since my kitchen is still being renovated and various travel will keep me away from being able to cook. First stop: a quick weekend trip to New York. I've been here on a half day jaunt in the past so I'm glad to have a chance to spend a few days to get to explore a bit more. This was our first night straight off the plane and an hour plus commute fighting traffic to get into the city. We stayed just down the street from the New York Stock Exchange which was kind of neat to snap pictures of. For dinner we went to the Smorgas Chef a Scandinavian restaurant (I've never been to a Scandinavian restaurant). It was located just a few blocks from us in the financial district. As you can see Smorgas has a very cozy interior, tables were set elbow to elbow and even the window boxes sat tables for two. It seems the restaurants in the area are located in tiny spaces and they spill out into shared alley/common street filled...

I actually made this bento a few weeks back and only managed to post it today. With a kitchen remodel and running into some health issues I've not really had much time to cook let alone post so my apologies for the sparse content. After our visit to the Afghan restaurant Helmand during our trip to Boston I decided to dig a little deeper into the cuisine. Much of the middle eastern cuisines have a lot in common, they share a lot of the same cooking techniques as well as ingredients. Yet as you move across the geographical regions each country has its distinct spin as new ingredients become incorporated and others go unused. This first dish is called Mashawa, it's a lentil beef stew/soup. It's seasoned with dill and normally served with yogurt. I left out the yogurt since the dill provided plenty of sour "tang". Although technically it's a soup it came out more like a indian "dal" curry dish as it's pretty thick so I served it with a bit o...

We had half a day left in Boston and it happened to be Easter Sunday so our friends helped get seats at their favorite brunch spot near their place, T.W. Food by chef Tim Wiechmann. (The picture above was from our duck tour of Boston the night before) The restaurant was a small 12 top labeled as a New American/ New French cuisine featuring local ingredients. The staff was very knowledgable and professional. The restaurant was tucked away right in the middle of the neighborhood. I'll just dive into the food there's not much commentary to be had. I opted for the Charcuterie plate with Chicken liver mousse, mushroom pate, whole grain mustard and pickled vegetables. I know I said New French, my wife got the Italian Wedding Soup, it's a very different style than we were use to. The poached egg was quite good. Our friends got the sweet potato pierogi with cilantro pesto. For my entree I got the Spring Lamb, slow roasted leg of lamb with braised shoulder ove...

Day 2 of our trip to Boston, above is the famous Fenway Park home to the Boston Red Sox. I caught this shot during our first day viewing the panoramic scene on top of the Prudential building.  That morning we were preparing for our segway tour and took a walk thru Quincy Market. Quincy market houses a huge "food court" (much like you would find in any mall just lots bigger) with every type of food you could imagine. Next to it was an open air farmers market. We didn't get a lot of time to linger here since we were heading out to lunch. There were lots of street performances and I could see this being a nice "make a day of" shopping eating and entertainment.  We made our way to lunch at the Union Oyster house. It makes the claim to be "The oldest restaurant in America" and the plaque from the national park service (pictured above) confirms it.  As expected they had fresh oysters as well as littlenecks and cherrystone clams. Sitting in the...

My wife and I took a long weekend trip to Boston to visit some friends. We had a fabulous time visiting various historical sites and getting to try out some great food and experience "big city life". There's definitely a greater degree of hustle and bustle in Boston compared to Austin. The one thing I wish we could have in Austin is a mass transit system. The "T" was a wonderful way of getting around Boston and our friends told us that it was basically un-necessary to own a car.  Warning, lots of pictures on this post but this unexpected find at the end of the day generated most of the photos and made me dump some of the other pictures. We saw a bunch of stuff, but I'm keeping it all about the food here. We stayed at the Omni Parker House. It's apparently been a hotel with it's doors open continuously (this is what the clerk told me) since 1854. It definitely has a lot of that "ancient" feel. It's located right outside of ...