we made the café 232's lunch special with about 4 minutes to spare - we got bulgogi bibimbap and ojinguh bokum (spicy squid stir fry) with rice to share. both delicious and surprisingly filling.

then for dinner, right about when i was about to skip dinner due to nauseousness in my stomach, m concocted this amazing dish in probably 5 minutes. italian sausages we picked up earlier, with canned beans, kale, chard and carrots - and it was amazing!! how could this be so healing - my nauseousness immediately subsided. the best part wasn't even the sausages - it was everything else that he'd made.

so good, so comforting and all healing.♥  

 kept m company while he sold some bike parts on a stoop - and walked over to the brooklyn flea to get these delicious onigiri from Rice & Miso Everyday stall - we've gotten their miso soup and onigiri before, so i knew to beeline straight there. i got the garlic miso we've tried before, as well as their daily special (right) with ground beef in soy sauce, etc. they were both incredibly delicious. i especially love how they make it with brown rice.

then after the successful day of sales, we biked around the neighborhood and ended up for a real meal at national thai - we got our usual green curry with chicken and salmon filet (buried in their somewhere) with sautéed vegetables in basil sauce over rice from their special menu. 

the salmon dish was delicious, perfectly cooked vegetables and brown rice were just what i wanted.

their green curry is always on the spot - so perfectly creamy and spicy with generous amount of everything.

after a long line at the post office, i was too hungry to bike to another place (i really wanted an onigiri from ash box) and we couldn't decide where else or what to eat for lunch. famished, we just walked across the street for sandwiches at pillow café. i got my favorite garden bagel sandwich (cream cheese, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, and pesto on bagel) and m got a tuna salad sandwich on ciabatta. they were both good, but my favorite there still remains to be the bagel.

then for dinner we met up with friends at menkuitei - people got all kinds of noodles & tapas type food, but i stuck with my usual shoyu ramen and m got his mabo-don. both were so delicious, of course!
so satisfying after a long wait.

we've been talking about this hanco's since we last ate there, and finally made our way back there today for lunch - it was so beautiful to ride our bikes through the park on such a full-on warm spring day. 

even though i was a bit too hot after the bike ride to be eating a hot bowl of pho, it was still so good and cleansing feeling that it didn't stop me from eating it - we noticed that their pho comes with about 2-3 times the meat than other places! and the grilled pork banh mi was as good as ever. i love their banh mi's for being so full of pickled veggies and the crisp yet soft baguette. 

late lunch at café 232 (missed the lunch specials, dang) - the last time we had yookgaejang was so amazing that we ordered it again, along with spicy pork dolsot bibimbap for the first time there. 

unfortunately the yookgaejang fell a little flat today, but the bibimbap was amaaaazing. we always go cheap and eat the regular (cold) bibimbap, which is still really good, but sometimes we forget how much difference that hot stone bowl makes for the flavors and texture and everything. mmm~ so good...

it'd been awhile since our last katsu curry, so we went back to sakura tokyo for a cheap meal.

i got teriyaki chicken, although i had second thoughts, and m got the pork katsu curry over rice.

my instinct was right, i was quickly overpowered by the flavors of the chicken, but the pork katsu curry was as good as ever. i should've switched to salmon when i got the idea!

these pink beans had been soaking in water for days, and finally m turned them into the most AMAZING concoction that is this bean soup - dang, maybe it's the mirepoix he started off with, or maybe the pinches of different spices he used (unusually, for him), or it was some magic he put it, but it was so incredible that it put the pasta e fagioli we had the other night to shame (imho). he even made some fresh garnish to go with it with tomato, cucumber, pickled jalapeño, and parsley. i ate it with some black rice and it was unbelievable. so glad he made a huge pot because my bean-crazy belly can't wait to be filled with this again. :D

m made this amazing celery salad - we've even on a veggie kick lately and i can't seem to get enough of it. i have been wanting to make some celery salad like the one i love from olea, and m added some extra veggies to fill it out (cucumber, red bell pepper, carrots) and it was soooo addictive that i couldn't stop eating. we made a huge salad bowlful and maybe because there were no filling leafy greens, we ate most of it except for a very small bowlful.

burger & veggie platter at zaytoons. the burger was very yummy, kinda like shawarma, lamby & beefy, a bit reminiscent of the mogador burger. my grilled veggie kebab platter was pretty satisfying without being too much - the falafel platter was a bit too much to digest last time and sat in my stomach for a while. also, stuffing my belly with a bunch of vegetables was so good. exactly what i'd been craving all day! 

m's birthday dinner celebration (just the 2 of us, due to work) at il porto! it was a drizzly, grey day so we opted to stay local and get dishes we normally skip. we got our favorite, baby octopus salad, which came chopped up, tossed in olive oil & lemon, with tomato, celery, garlic, parsley, and onion. so amazing, fresh and delicious, as well as texturally excellent (contrasting chewy, meaty vs fresh crunchy). then we got our usual pasta e fagioli soup, which seemed so minestrone like at first, but the beans couldn't fool us, i guess. very hearty and tomato-y today.

our last dish was pasta alle vongole, one of my favorites. the flavor was light yet pungent, noodles were cooked perfectly al dente - aside from being bit to heavy on olive oil (pooled at the bottom), it was overall an excellent dish.

had i not sopped up all the juices with an extra basket of bread at the end, i would've left with some dessert in my belly, but we were too full. instead, we walked over to the bakery inside fresh fanatic down the block and stocked up on some desserts for later. :D

another great, satisfying meal at café 232 - we got codfish maeuntang and jeyook bokum (spicy pork), which i think i inhaled as i was so hungry. :D they were tasty, and as usual, i wished that the pork dish was just a tad bigger.

after an appointment, we ended up in park slope, looking for food. we decided to go for some banh mi at hanco's 7th ave location... which surprised us with their huge space and pho offerings. we'd tried hanco's pho at their brooklyn heights shop but it was just ok, so we never went back. but this location was excellent for both banh mi and pho - the pho broth was very clean but umami, and still  there were 2 banh mi sandwiches as well, which got in our bellies before i had a chance to photograph them.

i made some natto, mentaiko, ohba leaves, on quinoa pasta. it was so good, very savory but light, perfect late night food.

beautiful, glorious spring day (59ºF finally), we went for a nice cup of real coffee at la colombe after an early morning appointment i had. my cappuccino was so smooth and rich, it was perfect, and as always their iced coffee is the best.

after, we headed over to our old favorite, café mogador :

m got his favorite burger (has lamb & some greens in the patty, giving it the shawarma flavor), with excellent fries, and i got my crack avocado sandwich - i don't know what they do to it, but it's so delicious! best part of this great meal was that we ran into the owner, who we've been acquainted for many years, and got invited to their 30th anniversary lunch/dinner event in a week or 2! yayyyy!!! :D

now this was a great day. 

this looks pretty sad in this photo (with the chipped bowl and all) but i swear it was one of the best things ever as of late. i made kimchi miso soup with some left over silken tofu for dinner, as i had a strong jonesing for some deeply cleansing kind of broth or soup.

first, while waiting for my black rice to be done, i cooked some udon noodles (1/3 of the block, so not too much) with the soup and ate with the soup, and it was so good. probably my favorite part. then i had a bowl of rice with the soup as well, which was just as good. udon noodles were definitely my favorite.

pequena's usually always delivers, but today we left feeling a little too full of... something too rich or too much? m got his pork enchiladas with both roja & verde sauces, and i got a grilled fish taco with rice & beans. i think i should've just been content with the tacos without the whole platter of extras, since i was beyond full and uncomfortable after. delicious, nonetheless!