a huge plate of pasta means the weather has cooled down enough to finally boil a big pot of water!

m made this huge platter of shell pasta with tomato sauce & sausages - so good!!

although gluten intake is catching up with us and we couldn't move for a while after eating.

holy cow, il porto, do you guys know how to make pizza. dang.

we got 2 margheritas and a cheese slice, along with a garden salad. so delicious till the last drop.

i believe they put crack in their tomato sauce (and the dough).

for the first time in my adult life (possibly), i didn't have breakfast due to some blood test today. O_O

so by the time i was done with my appointment, i really wanted breakfast food (even though it was late lunch time), so we went to a promising looking place, Couleur Café, in lieu of our usual, hanco's, in the  vicinity. 

and dang, this was one of the biggest rip off of lunch i've had in recent days!! teeny teeny amount of food (the mini chicken sandwich with soup really was mini) and each dish was $11 & $12 above.

i got baked eggs with roasted veggies, which was decently good, as was the red lentil soup m got with the sandwich, but definitely nowhere near worth the amount they were charging.

awww silly cute place, you were not worth it at all! next time i crave something like this, i'll stick to our new & nearby place.

early dinner at café 232 - we got a spicy pork bibimbap and Ojinguh Bokum (spicy squid stir fry) with rice, and shared. Something about this combination was so delicious today.

homemade janky elote for dinner.

we waited for pequeña to call us for about 15 minutes, but got too hungry/impatient and walked over to habana outpost instead. we'd almost forgotten about them, so it was a good reminder to try them again on a day like today (=66ºF, grey, super cool crisp weather!! yayyyy!!!) when there are less people in their patio area. m got a chicken burrito, and i got 2 tacos, catfish & steak, and an elote corn (aka jimmy-crack-corn). everything tasted pretty darn good and fresh, i loved the charred roast flavor of all the veggies and chicken in the burrito - the catfish was excellent, with super crispy yet fluffy texture. but as always, with habana, the corn takes the cake! (mmm cake...)

the weather was amaaaazing this evening - crisp, cool breeze was almost chilling while riding our bikes over the bridge. we finally went and had a proper meal at cutting board in chinatown - i got uni (sea urchin roe) cream pasta, m got "beef patty"(hamburg steak) with egg & rice, in black pepper sauce.

my pasta was really delicious, of course, nothing to even compare to my favorite version in california, but for $9 (less than half of what you'd pay for an uni dish at basta pasta), it was so good. m's hamburg steak was good too, although the pepper sauce was a bit too strong & spicy for me. but also, so cheap!

we got sour cream cheese cake as well (presented above in a puddle of condensed milk!?!), which was just so so - seems that most of their dessert is, but we need to come back and try other things next time!

breakfast for lunch at mikes - steak & eggs with grits, pancakes with bacon & scrambled eggs.

so yummy and satisfying.

it finally rained! we rode our bikes through the lightning shower after a hot day, through the cool breezy air. we sat outside on the bench at choice market and got ourselves a burger w/ fries and a veggie burger w/salad.

the veggie burger was yummy though wasn't easiest to eat (fillings kept falling out). m's beef burger was a tad overcooked (more like a medium well than a medium or medium rare) but it tasted good to me.

holy doozy of a day today! around 4-5pm, it was actually 100ºF with a 106ºF heat index here in brooklyn. so we stayed in the cool cave that is café 232, me armed with my wire crochet stuff and books, and m with his work and computer, then tumbling downstairs for a familiar meal yet again.

today we got one warm and one cold dish - ojinguh bokum (spicy squid stir fry) with rice, and jolmyun  again (the bottom is post-mixing).

not as satisfying as the other night when we got jajangmyun with spicy mandoo and kimbap, but also it was much cheaper and still filling.

 hot hot day again but since we were already out and sweaty (and the sun was on its way down), we decided to ride down a bit for some vietnamese food. we got a grilled pork vermicelli salad, and 2 banh mi's (shown in each halves) - classic and grilled chicken. deeeelicious, as always.

then we tried to get some desserts at one girl cookie, only to find it closed already. so we went back and got 2 scoops and an iced coffee at van leeuwen. we got our favorite flavor there, mint chip, then tried pistachio as well. very very good, although after finding out the $3 cones at cammareri, it would be hard to justify the cost of van leeuwen anymore. >_<

 too bad all i got are dark, crummy photos, but this was one of the best meals we'd had at café 232.

after hanging out at the upstairs café for hours to avoid the heat, we wanted something light-ish to eat so we ordered kimbap, bibim mandoo (fried dumplings with spicy slaw and sauce), & jajangmyun. 

also we got some pancakes as banchan, which was an extra special occasion.

they were all so delicious! tartness of the slaw that came with bibim mandoo was good with the rich jajangmyun and also on top of kimbap as well. mmmm~ good.

not having been able to order a pasta dish the last time we tried cammareri caffe, we returned tonight hoping for some pasta. unfortunately the one i wanted (pasta al forno, baked pasta with meat sauce) wasn't available, so i got pasta nest, at the server's recommendation. and m got an iced coffee and caprese panini. we quickly discovered that the sandwiches are their forte, since their bread is good (as are the cheese). noodles were a bit on the gummy side, but still very simple with cheese & ham, nonetheless. at $6, there wasn't anything much i could complain about - it was good with the salad that came with the panini.

 we were up in tivoli (upstate NY), hanging out at a friend's rental summer house for a day, and after a long bike ride and failed swim attempt (got too chilly), we stopped by this super cute burrito stand with amazing view. they offered probably 4 things, 2 burritos and some other things, and we all got guacamole burritos. i can definitely say this was the best burrito i've had on the east coast, hands down, maybe even my favorite of any burritos i've ever had! just simple guacamole, rice, black beans, cheese and sour cream, with home made chipotle sauce, salsa verde, and perfectly charred tortilla (almost like a malaysian roti consistency), it could easily be the best. so so delicious.  

then we got back into the city late at night, past midnight, without having had any dinner after the above burrito (though that was at 4-5pm). so we walked over from port authority to k-town for some delicious 24-hour food. since we weren't super hungry, we got a soup & fish combo and split it between the 2 of us - seafood soon dubu jigae(spicy tofu soup) and grilled mackerel. the mackerel was so amazingly fleshy and perfectly grilled, with moist insides and crispy skin.

great way to expel the bus ride out of our system and before our journey back to brooklyn.

on our walk one day, we discovered a newish bakery near the park called cammareri caffe (offshoot of their bay ridge bakery, i imagine). today wasn't too steamy so we decided to walk down there for a bite. we split 2 panini sandwiches - parma (prosciutto & mozz) and coppa (capicola, fontina, dijon aioli) paninis. they were both amazing - simple but full of good flavor. the bread was amazing and crisply cooked, and the salad was simple but tasty, drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

mmmm~ i couldn't stop talking and thinking about these sandwiches for hours after.

we got their gelato as well (panna cotta & mint chip flavors) and they were yummy & cheap!

i had an odd craving for pasta today but didn't feel like cooking a huge pot of boiling hot something at home. we went over to our usual pizza & sub joint, 3 luigis, and ordered their pasta dish for the first time. we got a garden salad & spaghetti with meat sauce to share, and split a hawaiian slice before these as well. :D the pasta could've been a little more al dente, but the sauce was delicious - they gave us 4 rolls of pesto garlic knots that we used to sop up all the yummy meat sauce. so perfect for under $20, and totally hit my cravings.

today was still hot, but so thankful it didn't index over 100ªF like yesterday.

much more tolerable as long as we duck from the sun. we had biked down to a bookstore and we walked around the block to get some food at national thai. we skipped the specials (though they looked good) and went for som tom (green papaya salad), squid in chili basil sauce, and green curry with chicken, all with brown rice. the squid was our first here but it was cooked so perfectly with copious amounts of them in fleshy, meaty form. curry was delicious, as always. so satisfying.

very uninspiring meal at zaytoons. shawarma wrap and falafel wrap.

we only went in there instead of our favorite place down the street because of their a/c.

at least it was so cheap ($10 without tip).

an unbearably hot day... hung out at café 232 all day then not being able to come up with anything clever to eat or wanting to travel anywhere, we just stumbled downstairs for some korean food.

we got jjol myun, dukboki, and kimbap, a boonshik (snacky food) trio, so to speak. dukboki was so spicy but it was so good with kimbap dipped in its sauce. 

jolmyun was excellent, cold and refreshing. good to get something different within a cuisine!

another day of appointment means pho day at hanco's, park slope!

on this hot day, m got a bowl of pho - it's a good thing we've only been going to super a/ced places.

i got vermicelli noodle salad with grilled pork. we also shared a delicious banh mi dac biet (classic with cold cuts and pâté) which i failed to photograph as i was busy eating.

hot day, nearby meal at castro - m got a goat dish, and i got 2 fish tacos.

very satisfying.