Eating in a box

There once was a bento with the greatest of hope but something terrible went wrong. Twice there were attempts to recover it, even substitutions were considered but after a chain of colossal failures it was locked away forever to be known as "the bento that never was" (I considered the "bento that shall not be named" but I may try that as a theme one day). I mentioned in my last post I bought a cookbook from one of the owners of Masala Zone , "50 Great Curries of India" by Camellia Panjabi. I picked out four items and went to work giving it no thought since I've done Indian themes in the past. I prepped all of the food and created my cooking plan the day before just like any of my meal preps. And then..... I will state up front that I do not blame the book whatsoever. Several things contributed to "the great fall" 1) metric measurement conversion which were subsequently upscaled for 4x (so math error and cooking a dish at large scale...

Yes, I'm long since back and I've even got a bento that I've done queued up. So I quick post on my final days in London. The picture above is from the ancient city of Bath. It's an ancient Roman city that was the site of a restorative mineral spring. (no interesting food pictures) Went spent a day at Hampton Court Palace. We happened to be watching the series "The Tutors" and it was actually pretty nice to attach a back story to the names that we were reading about on the historical plaques. Granted we had not finished the series so there were a few spoilers. (we were only on King Henry's wife/queen #2) Anyhow a great find for us was a neat Lebanese restaurant called Mezzet . They had a delicious lunch special where you picked out an appetizer and a main for a very reasonable price. (We got more of course.) Above is the Lentil Soup my wife got. My appetizer was the Muhamara, a nut puree you eat it much as you would eat hummus. Very rich and fi...

I'm continuing my post of foods we had while in London. I'm now in the "vacation" phase of the trip. I say "vacation" in quotes because it was a whirlwind tour of London and surrounding areas so coming back I feel like I need a vacation from my "vacation". We had a lot of fun. Here's a shot of Big Ben and  Parliament shot from the London Eye. I got a steak and kidney pie at the Berry Bar at the hotel. They offer an afternoon tea service (if you can't get into the fancier Ritz afternoon tea down the street). So for those of you that haven't had "pie" think chicken pot pie where the crust encases a yummy stew of meats (in this case chopped steak and kidney) in a brown gravy. We went by Harrods and visited their food hall (one of my must do's when I come to London). The Pan Chai Sushi bar was revamped with a bigger menu and we had this BBQ duck and watermelon salad. Very tasty, the shredded duck must have been ei...

Ok more traveling, this time to London, first week for work (above is our view of Buckingham Palace from our office) and second week for vacation with my wife. Lots of pictures of a lot of different food, I've manage to cut the number of photos to the highlights of what and where we ate. I've put links to the various places just in case you're in the area and want to check out some of these places. Sorry in advance about some of the photos I shot everything using a Galaxy S3 mini android phone that I acquired while on this trip and it does a pretty good job, but under low light it gets a bit grainy. Got off the plane bright and early 6am and dropped my bags at the hotel. While there I started my trip off with a classic English breakfast. Bangers (sausage) mushroom, roasted tomato, potato cake, hash browns, vegetarian sausage (which was quite nice), eggs, beans (heinz I believe) and some black pudding (blood sausage, a little dry but tasty) Since my room wasn...

Our last full day in NYC. I had my obligatory I (heart) NYC t-shirt, seen a broadway show and ate at some cool places. So our last day in was reserved for meeting with friends and one last bit of walking around.  We made it to Grand Central station which is an amazing place, there was even a very ethnic food court located downstairs. Very hustle bustle I need to print out that picture and hang it in my office. We were originally going to meet my wife's friend at a brunch location, but it had a 45 min wait which we weren't up for and I took the opportunity to suggested Brasserie Les Halle that we passed on the way. I had to explain to my wife Les Halle was where the "tall guy on the travel channel goes around the world eating and swearing a lot use to work." the light of recognition hit her eyes. (we're both big fans of Anthony Bourdain). Of course Les Halle's executive chef is no longer Anthony Bourdain but Carlos Llaguno. We opted for the classic f...

Day 2 was a bit uneventful food wise, but I'm writing it up none the less since I need to get back on the blogging habit. We went and saw the Spiderman Broadway show (the picture is Time Square at night, we stayed right off Broadway). The show was quite good, the wire work to swing Spiderman thru the audience was pretty spectacular. Our seats were within 20 yards of the stage and we managed to get them at half price. I could have stayed a few more days just to catch a few more of the shows, they have a "day of" ticket counter where they sell excess tickets at half price and if you're willing to "get what you can get" it's a great value. I got my obligatory slice of NY pizza. I have since cruised past several pizzerias and I regret taking the first slice I got. The pizza was still pretty good, but not anywhere near some legendary step beyond what I've had. I blame the fact that we didn't have many days in NY and there were a lot of food ...

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...