dinner with kana at chuko -  kana's friends there comped our meal for us! O_O (left the full amount for tip, but still!) she got a veggie ramen with chicken topping, i got their special of the day, pork bone (tonkotsu) ramen. i actually preferred my usual shoyu ramen there, but it was good to change it up with super buttery pork meat. they even gave us amaaaazing crispy, spicy fried chicken before the ramens arrived! really really excellent.

then this amazingly fluffy, buttery chocolate chip scone from earlier in the day, made by audrey.

soooo good fresh out of the oven!!! thank you for such a good food day!!! ♥  

delicious meal at cafe 232 - ambivalent choice, but eaten ravenously (by me, especially). we got spicy squid stir fry (ojinguh bokum) and soon dubu stew that were both so good and satisfying.

could've had 2 more rounds of this. 

hot miso soup (with bok choy & tatsoi from our last csa share of the season) over black rice, topped with a poached egg. the egg, especially, was perfectly cooked! :D 

i had it with kimchi and it was deeeelicious. all i've been wanting to eat lately is hot bowls of soup.

the color of the miso soup looks odd because of the black rice. but it tasted good all the same!

 after scouring to see if we wanted to eat shanghainese food for a late dinner, we ended up with our first choice, great NY noodletown, our regular spot for the past 8+ years. we got our usual seafood congee, yuchoy with oyster sauce, soy sauce chicken over rice, and roasted pork & duck over rice. (someone was very hungry). we'd never had soy sauce chicken here before, and it was so good - combined with the pickled vegetable thing that it came with, it had a very layered flavor of spices and garlic. though similar, it contrasted pretty well against the roasted pork & duck, which is slightly on the sweeter side.

so yummy and comforting for a chilly night & a bike ride through it.

breakfast food for late lunch/early dinner (ha!) at mike's. cloudy wet days are so good for this kind of food. i got scrambled eggs for the first time at a diner, instead of my usual over-easy eggs - and was reminded why i never order them scrambled! grits was good, and their sausages are better than any fancy brunch place i've been to. m's pancakes were cooked well today (probably because there were no other pancake orders! at this time!).

beef pho & grilled pork chop banh mi from nicky's - noodles were quite perfect (california style!) today, and the broth super delicious & full of umami.

banh mi was good too but it was better the last couple times (at hanco's).

this was a delicious disaster (way too much food) at il porto tonight. we got a arugula-mushroom-parmigiano salad, pasta e fagioli soup, and a LARGE (16") 3-mushroom pizza. the salad and soup are our favorite combinations here, pairing the tangy/sharp flavor of the salad with the earthy, bean-flavor of the soup. so good - we had never tried this ortolan pizza before, and we should've ordered a 12" one, since it was a bit too rich to be eaten in this quantity - not to mention how full we were by this point. still, much too filling and all, it was, as always here, delicious.

feeling like hot bowls of noodles (but having missed our window due to a late dinner), i made some ramen - semi-from-scratch style. i used regular shin ramyun, but i did make the broth (dried fish, kombu, green onion whites), added some crispy garlic, carrots, bok choy, tatsoi, as well as some tinned tuna. pretty dang good topped with some super ripe kimchi!
then, almost as an afterthought, instead of dropping the eggs into the ramen soup, i made the gaeran-mari (or tamago-yaki) super quick. the green seen in the photo is piddly csa brussels sprouts, and the orange is, of course, carrots. pretty dang satisfying for a whirlwind meal!

a huge meal at castro's on a cold night that filled up to the brim (or above, even) that we didn't feel hungry for about 20 hours - m's mole poblano platter, rich mole on dark meat chicken, with rice and beans... yummy & smoky. i got a burrito for once, with chicken - delicious but so so filling and huge!

cold snowy night, m made us some sammich & soup combo - lentil & veggie soup, and some ham sammies to dunk and dunk. so delicious and comforting.

taken late in the afternoon (5pm) the snow was starting to pile on the grown. now it's at about 3-4 inches, it seems. all blanketed in the snow - i love snowstorms, but i hope this one is a gentle one - please don't add more misery to those who are already hurt by Sandy. 

amazing meal at national thai again - this time, in the first real blustery cold night of the season, we got our usual green chicken curry and a fried catfish in garlic sauce over chinese broccoli - in lieu of the
red snapper we got last time (they were out). fluffy and crispy, with great garlic sauce, and the bittery/mustardy flavor of the chinese broccoli, it was just amazing. green curry was, of course, solid.

then it was election night - stopped by pillow cafe election party, until i couldn't bear the crowd + nerve-racking race (at the time, it was tight) only to come home to see that obama won already after half hour or so!!! O_O yayyyyy!!!!!!!! so relieved!!!!!!

yumm meal at café 232 - it's been chilly after the hurricane and with an imminent nor'easter around the corner - this spicy tofu maeuntang soup and spicy grilled chicken was a very satisfying and super filling dinner after a cold walk.

also i learned on some random video that you can dehydrate a lot of things in the microwave to chip-ify them as long as they're thin - i mandolined a few mini sweet potatoes i picked up before the hurricane (which i meant to bake), sprinkled with coarse sea salt, and microwaved for 3 - 3.5 minutes, and voilà!

super simple, yummy, grease-less sweet potato chips!!

so yummy and addictive.

riding around dumbo/brooklyn bridge area, we were surprised to see that there were absolutely no line formed at grimaldi's - which was definitely the first time we've ever seen this, it's usually packed with tourists at any given time. we ordered a cheeseless mushroom for our favorite vegan friend as well as a regular margherita - it was pretty darn good, but i can think of myriad of places around nyc (even brooklyn alone) that i'd rather eat pizza at without ever worrying about lines.

then for dinner, we met up another friend at taro sushi - which we hadn't been to since being there last time only to be disappointed for the changed food/service about 3 years ago. they had since moved to a new location, fancied up, and obviously went back to their good old quality.

we split some kara-age (japanese fried chicken) and agedashi tofu (fried tofu in broth), and got a sushi regular combo and a sushi deluxe combo. everything was excellent, super well-cooked, sushi was fresh and with perfect amount of rice.

 big big salad from all our csa veggies from last week - only to learn that we won't be getting a share this week due to hurricane sandy. lettuce, choy, spinach, fennel, potatoes, radishes, chili, and deliciously cooked eggs - then with some tinned smoked herring for extra kick. yummy!!!!!

after dinner we went for a walk and went by a huge halloween block party in the neighborhood, with live band and all kinds of dressed up people. 

and poor bento had to wear a temporary cone made out of a yogurt container (FAGE brand since it comes in the largest tub, to fit his fat head) - to keep him from licking a scabby wound on his front leg.

silly kitty!!