Ethnic eats

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Wat can be found in hidden corners of NYC

Written by Emmy on 10 May 2012

Just as the checkpoint has spread its way up the east coast, so have its friends. Following our time with newfound friends Fred and Carrie, we were able to catch up with a mix of friends from all places over Sunday brunch, every New Yorker’s favorite activity.

We gathered roommates, high school, college and study abroad friends and met up for a classy mid-morning meal of excessive amounts of coffee, fresh banana walnut bread, several classic brunch favorites, eggs stewed with tomato, and an unusual offering of breakfast pizza.

The brunch itself was good, but it was really most notable because we were able to bring so many friends together at one time in one place.

We spent the afternoon catching up and playing competitive card games, and preparing for an evening adventure. Since returning from our summer jaunt to Thailand, we’ve experimented with all varieties of Thai take-out cuisine in our respective cities. But nothing quite measures up, and honestly we suspected nothing outside the borders of old Siam could. Los Angeles has its own Thai Town and as an east coast elitist, I assumed New York had to have one too. We just had not yet looked in the right place.

Sure enough, 45 minutes away from lower Manhattan, a winding ride on the R train, is a little Thai enclave in Elmhurst, Queens. The neighborhood is so authentic as to include metro New York’s only operational wat. And as we learned on the streets of Bangkok, where there’s a wat, there’s a way, and usually an impromptu restaurant or two.

The title of most authentic Thai restaurant in Elmhurst is seemingly a competitive one. It’s a topic that has been debated by the best of New York’s food writers and at least for now, the honor rests with a small family-run restaurant on bustling Woodside Avenue. As one New York Times food critic wrote, “I knew Ayada was a serious Thai restaurant when I started weeping at my table.”

We had company on our journey in the form of Chaz’s high school friend Kim and her boyfriend Bing because we had not seen them yet — and also we thought Kim’s Thai heritage might come in handy when deciphering the menu. A perk of bringing a bigger group meant more ordering. But on our walk to the restaurant, Kim and Bing commented that they were not that hungry. We decided that would not impact our decisions.

We started with a fairly aggressive number of appetizers based on food-critic guidance and recommendations from Kim. The long parade included a papaya salad, fish cakes, crab rolls, chicken larb salad and E-sarn sausage. Before you judge, there were four of us and we just sampled. (Sort of.)

But to be a little more discriminating: The papaya salad pictured above nearly blew our heads off in true Thai style (and was still just as good the next morning out of its plastic container). The crab rolls were a fascinating and unusual composed item. With an inside of crab and pork and an outside of crispy tofu, the rolls were definitely unusual, and also very delicious. We wrapped the E-sarn in pieces of lettuce with onion, chili peppers and peanuts, in a style somewhat reminiscent of betel leaves.

The fish cakes and chicken larb were my least favorites… the former was a little too bland compared to the other items on the table. The larb had a little bit of a gritty texture, and as far as composed salads go, just gets me less excited than shiny, spicy, brightly-colored papaya.

We were nearly full when the main courses arrived, but that’s irrelevant when there’s a Thai feast on the table. We ordered two of my favorite dishes, both of which were completed to perfection at Ayada.

Pad see ew is one of the simplest Thai dishes to prepare — something we learned at the hands of Big Mama — but that doesn’t mean it’s always done well. The dish is simply composed of rice noodles, Chinese broccoli and in this case, chicken. But the secret lies in the sauce, a delicate balance of black soy, sweet chili and several other critical items that I sadly do not remember from my one day of pad see ew expertise. Thankfully, the chefs at Ayada did have that list handy.

The other winning item on the menu was the penang curry. My occasional objection to curries is that they are too liquidy. Penang is my personal favorite because it is spicier and thicker than the typical curry, meaning it sticks more to the protein but still provides a big oomph in flavor. We ordered ours with chicken and it was delightful.

We chose a third entree at the suggestion of the New York Times — chinese broccoli with crispy pork. I was interested in the dish for the broccoli. The dish was spicy and flavorful, but just didn’t do as much for me as the others. I might have been more into it with a different protein — I could see it working well with tofu — but that’s a dish for another day.

I did not actually even try to the other entree on the table, but that was largely because I was so full by the time it even reached my side of the table. Plus it was the most daunting looking: spicy frogs’ legs ordered by Bing. I’m not saying I would be unwilling to try them… there were just several other things I wanted to get to first.

By the time the entrees had all been cleared, I felt like I could barely move. Conveniently, most Thai desserts feature the two foods I like least — milk and bananas. However, everyone else seemed to really enjoy the palette cleanser of fried bananas with ice cream, the sweet ending to a fantastic meal.

Ayada provided the most Thai food I’ve had outside of Thailand. And compared to a 24-hour journey to Bangkok, a 45-minute train to Queens is definitely something I can do on a more regular basis.

Posted in New York City | No Responses »
Tags: Culinary odyssey, Ethnic eats, Friends

Put a bird on New York

Written by Chaz on 6 May 2012

As has been discussed extensively before, Emmy and I think the show Portlandia is pretty great. It’s clever, funny and catchy. But one of the biggest reasons we love it is the relationship between the two actors who star in the show, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. It’s very clear that they’re best friends who are having a really good time making something together.

“We would email a link [of our sketch-comedy videos] to our friends, but they were mostly for us. It was very understated and silly, and we were just sort of reveling in the absurd.” — Carrie Brownstein to NPR

Reveling in the absurd mostly for our own selves is essentially what Emmy and I do on this blog, so we naturally feel some kinship to Fred and Carrie, who, even though we’ve never met them, feel like our really good friends. So when Fred and Carrie announced that they were taking Portlandia on tour, I immediately emailed Emmy and told her to get tickets for the New York show, promising that I would find a way to be there.

We actually attended two Portlandia events in one day. The first was a panel discussion with Fred and Carrie at the Paley Center for Media. I had never heard of the center, but it seemed like a pretty neat media organization.

The moderator left a lot to be desired — she didn’t really get the pair talking about anything that mattered, and considering that we were at a center for media, it seemed like a missed opportunity to ask searching questions about their contribution to pop culture. But we were still in awe of being in their presence, and during the question and answer session at the end, Emmy asked them a question that we have frequently pondered ourselves: What makes your friendship different from other friendships you have? Carrie called it the hardest question they have ever gotten.

Seeing the two of them in person was just about everything we had imagined it would be. And the afternoon event was just an appetizer, to use a technical food-blog term.

After the panel, we walked over to Pure Thai Cookhouse, which Emmy and I had visited once before when it had a different name thanks to a recommendation from our most reliable source for everything under the sun. At first, we just ordered curry puffs and a papaya salad with salted blue crab, because we were just having a snack, really. But we were still a bit peckish afterwards, and we were intrigued by the sound of pad kee moa with calamari.

Though the curry puffs were state of the art, both of the other two dishes were lackluster. This doesn’t speak very well of our food blogger credentials, but we were literally unable to figure out how to eat the crab in the papaya salad, and the texture of the calamari was just a bit off for our taste in the noodle dish.

We retreated to Emmy’s apartment to rest up for our evening, and took the subway down to the Bowery Ballroom for Fred and Carrie’s evening performance. It was, essentially, a live version of their sketch comedy television show — they joked, they sang, they told stories, and they were all around awesome.

Fred and Carrie also welcomed Kyle MacLachlan, who played Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks and plays the mayor of Portland on Portlandia, and jammed out on the Portland theme song that the Portlandia version of themselves wrote at the mayor’s behest.

And they dressed up as two of our favorites characters from the show — feminist bookstore owners Toni and Candace, who are more exclusive than inclusive in their attempts to create a safe space for women. At this point, we were just about losing ourselves with delight.

But perhaps the moment most relevant to us came during a slideshow of old pictures of themselves, including an adorable one of the two of them. They talk a lot about how they live on opposite sides of the country, Carrie in Portland and Fred in New York, so they need a project to keep them together. This resonates a lot with us.

In short, seeing Fred and Carrie in person didn’t do anything to dispel the idea that we know them really well without knowing them at all.

After the show, we met up with some friends before heading home, still giddy about our day in Portland in New York.

Posted in New York City | No Responses »
Tags: As seen on TV, Ethnic eats, Food, Friends, Portlandia, Sentimental reflections, Starstruck

Ringing in the new year

Written by Chaz on 23 March 2012

After Christmas in New Mexico, I winged over to Washington for New Years with my friends Joanna, Seth, George and Ben. The visit had two culinary highlights, an authentic Szechuan feast and a great brunch, but one of our first activities was a chilly picnic at Gravelly Point Park right next to National Airport.

Our Szechuan feast was at Sichuan Pavilion in Rockville, Md., though it has apparently since changed its name to Sichuan Jin River. It was unsurprisingly a recommendation from the ever-reliable Tyler Cowen, who started it all. It was my first Szechuan food since our Szechuan meal in Hong Kong, and I was curious to see how the two compared, as our Hong Kong meal was unlike anything I’ve had or seen in the United States. It was much, much spicier and generally more willing to experiment with very strong flavors.

We began the meal with four terrific appetizers: dan dan noodles, which were extremely spicy in an unusual and different way; jelly noodles, also very spicy and of a texture I have never before encountered; dumplings; and Chinese pizza, which was actually delicious even if the scallion pancakes were the most vanilla thing on the table. The two noodle dishes were really the highlight of the visit, though. Both were recommendations from Tyler and he did not mislead us.

Our entrees were equally impressive. We had a ginger pork with crispy rice cakes that was phenomenal both in its flavor and its textures, a chicken dish that was thankfully not as spicy as the dish it most closely resembled in Hong Kong, an eggplant dish that Emmy would have loved, and and a duck dish that came with these Michelin-man-like puffy buns.

The food was really fantastic, and I say that as someone who is very disillusioned with eating Chinese food in the U.S. It had distinct flavors, textures and combinations that I’ve never had before at a mainstream Chinese restaurant. This was the real deal, and it was great.

Our brunch was at Kramerbooks, the Dupont Circle institution known for its hybrid excellent bookstore and excellent restaurant. Between us, we had a crab quesadilla (great and surprisingly large), eggs Benedict, a lox and egg scramble, and oatmeal.

Though not nearly as exciting and adventurous as our trip to Rockville, it was still a great brunch. And, of course, it was great to welcome the new year with my friends in D.C.!

Posted in Washington, D.C. | No Responses »
Tags: Arrivals, Ethnic eats, Friends

Southwestern charm and cuisine

Written by Chaz on 18 March 2012

After Christmas, my aunt, uncles, grandmother and I went exploring in both of New Mexico’s most well-known cities. First, we drove into Albuquerque and split along gender lines — my uncles and I drove just west of downtown to Petroglyph National Monument, where we took a short hike through ancient rock drawings that also afforded us a great view of the city.

Albuquerque is well-known for its annual balloon fiesta, and while I have never made it for the festival itself, we got a glimpse of what I’ve missed as we were driving away from the monument.

We drove into Albuquerque’s historic center, the Old Town. The business hub of the city moved east many years ago with the arrival of the railroad, but the square is still fun to see for the old San Felipe de Neri church. We stopped in at a nearby restaurant, the Church Street Cafe, for some chips and margaritas, which were fine but not as great as we were hoping.

My uncle was very amused by a dog on the roof of a shop, spotted as we walked back to the car. Dogs were always on roofs when I spent four weeks in a small Mexican town several years ago, but my uncle still loved it.

The next morning, my uncle whipped up some delicious huevos rancheros, a common breakfast dish, to fortify us for the day’s travels.

We drove into Santa Fe, beginning our visit at the city’s central square, which probably looks nicer in summer.

We headed over to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum, which was very cool but not that big. O’Keeffe spent much of her life in New Mexico and drew inspiration from its landscapes. We then walked over to the Loretto Chapel, famous for its miraculous spiral staircase. The church had originally been told it was not architecturally possible to build a staircase to its choir loft, until a mysterious carpenter came into town, built it, and left before he was paid. That’s a very nice story, but the staircase is nothing special, I thought. It has no visible support structure, which people think is miraculous in and of itself, but obviously staircases can be built this way or this one would fall down.

We couldn’t get into the best Mexican place in town for lunch, so we headed to a little place off the square for tortilla soup and enchiladas.

On the way back to my uncle’s house, we stopped in Madrid, N.M., for a drink at the Mine Shaft Tavern. Madrid, pop. 149, has become something of an artists’ colony, with galleries lining the small highway. The bar was actually pretty hopping.

I had to work the next day, but my grandmother and cousin spent some of the afternoon make pizzelle, which we all enjoyed.

My uncle grilled mahi mahi for tacos for our final dinner in New Mexico, with some shrimp to go with it. We had all the fixings, and I made margaritas to accompany them.

The resulting tacos were light but full of flavor. Fish tacos are one of the best things about the success of my seafood odyssey.

The next day, my uncle drove my grandmother, my other uncle and me to the airport for our flight out of town. We got one last photo together in the airport lobby to commemorate a wonderful and very memorable holiday together.

Posted in New Mexico | 2 Responses »
Tags: Ethnic eats, Family, Food, Holidays, Nature, Sightseeing

The reunion before the reunion

Written by Chaz on 29 January 2012

After Thanksgiving in Washington, I headed back home to Philadelphia for my fifth high school reunion, which was a bit unreal. It wasn’t a real reunion — just basically an informal get-together at a bar in Center City — but it was supposed to be my class’ first time gathered together since graduation, and of course that’s bound to be an interesting experience.

At the end of my senior year of high school, I went out to dinner every Monday night with a few friends, including Gabi, who is no stranger to the checkpoint, and my friend Julia. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we obnoxiously called ourselves Monday Night Club. So before our class reunion, it seemed only fitting to have a reunion of our own. We chose Lolita, a Mexican restaurant on 13th Street.

Lolita is known for their BYOB margaritas: You bring the tequila and they do the rest. This results in every table having a bottle of tequila on it.

We started with a blood orange margarita with wild mint and moved onto a pineapple margarita. I’m not the biggest margarita fan, but they were definitely state of the art.

Dining with Monday Night Club was great from the blogging perspective, as our rules were always the same as the checkpoint’s: everything is shared and nobody can get the same thing as anyone else. We began our meal with a few appetizers: guacamole with chipotle and mango, served with different chips, including some plantain chips; a salad of beet, mango, arugula, sweet plantains and goat cheese; and fundido con queso y chorizo, essentially melted Mexican cheese with sausage and homemade corn tortillas.

Of those, only the fundido was particularly outstanding. The sausage was spicy and delicious, and even the cheese was something more unusual than your usual Mexican cheese blend. We moved on to our entrees: orange-ginger pork carnitas, served with pico de gallo, guacamole, and homemade corn tortillas; hazelnut-crusted duck breast with jicama-orange slaw; and my personal favorite, grilled mahi mahi with more chorizo sausage and a shaved apple salad.

Though I’m not usually the biggest fan of red meat, something about the combination of fish and sausage was really doing it for me. I continue to grow and learn to love seafood, and I think mahi mahi is among my favorite fish. The others were big fans of the duck, which was also very good.

Fortified by both the food and the margaritas, we headed over to the Black Sheep Pub for our class reunion, which was a very good time. It was strange to see high school friends in an adult setting, and hear about what everyone’s up to. But it was great to see people I hadn’t seen in forever.

Posted in Philadelphia | No Responses »
Tags: Ethnic eats, Food, Friends, Reunions

A different Thanksgiving flavor

Written by Emmy on 8 January 2012

Thanksgiving is firmly an American holiday. No one else celebrates it and to all other nations, it’s just a random Thursday in November. So then you might wonder how the Liss family wound up in the international terminal of JFK the night before Thanksgiving. Well, along with turkey and parades, the other important feature of Thanksgiving is family. And since the Liss family was split across two continents this fall, we decided to meet somewhere in the middle. The Pilgrims escaped England and came to Plymouth Rock; we opted to go back.

Given that we were going to London, I did not anticipate the traditional feast of stuffing and cranberry sauce. Everyone at work joked that I would be having fish and chips for Thanksgiving dinner. But when going to London, I would not put British food at the tip-top of my eating to-do list. Sure, shepherd’s pie and bangers and mash may have their moments (not necessarily moments I would opt to take part in), but the real appeal of London eating is the ubiquitous presence of ethnic food from all corners of the globe.

From the moment we landed, that could not have been more apparent. One of our first stops on Thursday morning was Borough Market, where restaurants and chefs from all over the city had set up stalls and were preparing gourmet offerings of all varieties. After sampling several different curries, I selected a Vietnamese spicy chicken dish for lunch. The widespread offerings appeased the various spice thresholds of all members of my family. While I was sweating through my curry, my mom enjoyed a veggie frittata.

Another Liss had a duck sandwich and we all sampled our fair share of baked goods and cheeses.

We did plenty of sightseeing and museum-going on our trip to London, but given what blog I’m writing this recap on, I’m really just going to jump from meal to meal. (Which is essentially how we conducted our vacation anyway.)

Our meals really varied in terms of their country of origin. I don’t think two of them overlapped. For Thanksgiving dinner we checked out Gwyneth Paltrow’s favorite French restaurant. She was not there, but her cookbook was very much on display. It was not a venue made for taking food photos, but suffice it to say that we had a very delicious and very atypical dinner for the third Thursday in November.

On Friday, the fact that we were all mentally in different time zones and in different physical states of exhaustion meant that some of us ate breakfast at 10 am, some of us ate brunch at noon and then we required lunch and afternoon snacks at varying times. It wasn’t the most coordinated or recorded day in eating history, but we managed to tuck in a few good items and explore a few fun London neighborhoods along the way.

At dinnertime we headed to a collection of streets known as Shepherd Market, which are lined with ethnic restaurants from around the globe. We passed Irish, Italian, a Polish-Mexican bistro and several other unexpected nationalities. We settled on Turkish, always a big hit with the Liss family.

This summer exposed me to depths of Southeast Asian cuisine that I never could have imagined and it is definitely one of my favorites, but the only type of food that potentially beats it in my mind is that from the Mediterranean. I love the fresh salads, the mezzes, the heavy use of eggplant and the presence of spices found in few other places than the Mediterranean coasts and the Middle East.

My love for mezze is shared by the entire Liss family and so we went a little aggressive on our appetizers. We started with hummus, which was served with a thick baked bread (as opposed to the pita we typically see in Turkish restaurants in the U.S.); a shepherd’s salad (greek salad sans lettuce); falafel; eggplant roasted with tomatoes; and babaganoush, eggplant dip served with pomegranate seeds. I love babaganoush and on occasion it falls a little flat. This rendition did not disappoint.

We had ordered full main courses too (isn’t Thanksgiving supposed to be about gluttony?) and I was quite excited about mine. Not surprisingly, I had ordered the item red-flagged as spicy: the chicken meatball pot. My meatballs, which had first been grilled to fiery perfection, were served in a spicy broth alongside several roasted vegetables. The entire dish was delivered to me with a side of rice to serve as a much-needed buffer. All in all, delicious.

Despite the disclaimer above, you still might be perplexed as to why this post about London features no pictures of the London Bridge or mentions of the changing of the palace guard and only discusses food. Well, actually, you read this blog. So maybe not. But in actuality, the Liss family has been to London before and we have done the famous museums and sights. On this trip, we really tried to take a different approach — one of exploring more untouched neighborhoods and places — and that just happens to coincide well with the general theme of the checkpoint.

On Saturday, we strolled around one of the city’s more hipster neighborhoods and wandered into a department store filled with oddities and funny art installations. Familial hilarity ensued.

Three-fifths of the Liss fam amuse themselves in front of a series of mirror-plated walls.

On the top floor of the department store is an adorable restaurant — adorable both because it is impossibly tiny, with all patrons crowded against one wall at skinny tables, and adorable because of the beautiful fresh foods bountifully on display. Most of the dishes are organic and veggie-heavy and provide a somewhat updated twist on classic British techniques, like stuffing your food into pie form.

After waiting a while, we squeezed into a table in the back. (We had been ready to give up and try for something else, but a local native who now lives in New York told us that this was his favorite lunch place in the whole city and the spot he always returns to when he comes back to visit.) I tried one of the veggie pies, filled with cauliflower and cheese, and it was delightful.

In my experience, Christmas decorations start springing up in New York right after Thanksgiving. Since Thanksgiving isn’t officially celebrated in London, the holiday season appeared to already be fully in bloom. All of the avenues were lined with beautiful lights and twinkling snowflakes and a Christmas festival had completely taken over one of the major parks. Between meals, we managed to observe some of the local festivity.

On Saturday night we partook in a little Chinese food, flinging our palettes further around the globe. Chinese food in London is really quite similar to Chinese food in New York, though both are quite different from the native version we saw in Hong Kong. It’s funny how that works.

Our quick trip to the old continent ended Sunday afternoon in order to get everyone back in place for school and work on Monday. So on Sunday morning we got up early to make the most of the day.

We headed to the Columbia Road flower market, in a neighborhood of East London outside the central city that none of us had been to before. The main avenue of this up-and-coming neighborhood was lined in flowers for purchase. Locals picked up Christmas wreaths, red roses and — my favorite — big, bright sunflowers. Tucked into a back alley we found a local flea market, coffee shop and neighborhood musicians. As tourists, we were definitely in the minority. Most people appeared to be locals partaking in a weekly tradition.

From the flower market we wandered into other uncharted territories, determined to seek out one final epicurean adventure before departing. We found ourselves in food hall that reminded me almost of the giant food halls we visited in Bangkok. Vendor after vendor was crammed into the covered space, each hawking their products and offering samples. Communal picnic tables could be found in the back for diners of all establishments to use. The only major difference was that in Bangkok, all the vendors were proffering the exact same foods — pad thai, basil chicken and other wok creations. The diversity here in London was a bit wider…

Chalk it up to the deja vu I was feeling for the Siamese capital, but I made a beeline for the stall titled “Thai Delicious” and made friends with the Thai transplant chef and her British husband. I sampled their wares before going with the green chicken curry, served atop a bed of noodles and accompanied by a do-it-yourself toppings bar. I was quite pleased as I recognized the little peppers Big Mama taught us to add to our sauces for a very particular hint of spice.

From the market we headed almost directly to Heathrow, ending our whirlwind of a long weekend in London. It may not have been the traditional Thanksgiving, but the five of us were all together, which is in essence the important part of the holiday. So this year it was over French fish and Chinese noodles, but we can always have turkey next year. And as a small token of the tradition we were commemorating by all being together on a random Thursday in November, we did have pecan pie.

Posted in London | No Responses »
Tags: Ethnic eats, Family, Food, Holiday, Thanksgiving

Feliz cumpleaños, Chaz

Written by Emmy on 21 December 2011

As I once mentioned in the early days of Absurdity Checkpoint, I believe birthdays to be very important. And though I could not be in Boston for the actual day of, I journeyed up north in order to take part in at least the celebratory portion of Chaz’s 23rd.

I arrived on Saturday afternoon in time for some last-minute party planning efforts and, of course, dinner at a neighborhood Thai/Vietnamese restaurant. As is apparently tradition with a checkpoint birthday dinner, little photographic evidence survived. (Monochromatic dishes in a dark restaurant just don’t pop well on a cellphone camera.) We celebrated afterward with Diana and many of Chaz’s new Boston friends.

My visit was brief, but there was obviously as much food stuffed in as possible. Sunday’s main event was brunch. We went to Masa, a southwestern restaurant not far from Chaz’s apartment that I had been to with friends the year prior and remembered as being quite excellent. There was a wait to be seated, as is often the case with a Sunday brunch expedition, and so we had coffees at the bar. At the peak brunch hour of 1 p.m., Masa was packed entirely with twenty-somethings just like us.

By the time we were seated, we were both feeling ravenous and so quickly devoured the homemade cornbread, served with three different spreads — apricot and habanera jam, molasses honey butter, and cranberry and chipotle jam.

Chaz had the stuffed Mexican omelet, filled with fresh veggies and cheese.

I ordered the “ultimate” breakfast burrito with black beans, veggies, cheese, chorizo and eggs. Much to Chaz’s chagrin, I ordered it with egg whites.

We powered through our meal so that we would have time to take a tour of Chaz’s office before I set off on my train back to New York. The trip, though very brief, gave me a quick glimpse into Chaz’s new grown-up life. This was the checkpoint’s first reunion since we bid farewell in the Detroit airport and so much had happened in the few short months since. Since the checkpoint began, we’ve gone from college kids to carefree summer adventurers to “professional,” working “adults.” But the moral of the (still-evolving) story is that we’re still best friends, despite the daily separation of about 225 miles. And so the checkpoint lives on — one adventure at a time.

Posted in Boston | No Responses »
Tags: Birthdays!!, Emotions, Ethnic eats, Reunions, Sentimental reflections

How do you say 23 with a Boston accent?

Written by Chaz on 20 December 2011

My friend Diana came up to Boston for my birthday right before Thanksgiving, and having not explored much of Boston’s restaurant scene, I was excited at the excuse to go out for a nice dinner. I picked Prezza, an Italian place in the North End.

Of course, the checkpoint has a long history of birthday coverage. Though this one fell under very different circumstances, and in fact on the other side of the world, I figured it was as good a time as any to bring the camera.

We began with prosciutto served with roasted red peppers, buffalo mozzarella, olive tapenade and aged balsamic vinegar. Frankly, I think both of us could have done without the prosciutto, but the toppings were delicious, especially the mozzarella.

We shared two entrees: potato gnocchi in a veal ragout with wild mushrooms and parmigiano cheese, and roasted halibut with butternut squash and sage risotto. The gnocchi were really good, as homemade pasta usually is, but it was not exceptional, especially considering my high expectations. The halibut, on the other hand, was out of this world.

I didn’t even know you could cook fish like this halibut. The top was perfectly browned, while the rest of the filet was still tender. The butternut squash and risotto made a great mild complement to the fish. Though all of the ingredients were different, I was reminded of the composition of the amazing chicken dish we had at the Ahwahnee.

After dinner, we took a walk down Hanover Street to Mike’s Pastry, where we contemplated our dessert options. Despite the late hour, the place was packed with people just like us, looking for a sweet bite after dinner.

We ditched the crowds — always a questionable choice — to head next door to Caffe Vittoria, where we got a quiet table and shared a piece of tiramisu.

Possibly the best birthday cake — and, in fact, birthday evening — that I could have asked for.

Posted in Boston | No Responses »
Tags: Birthdays!!, Chilling with the locals, Ethnic eats, Food, Friends

Final destination

Written by Emmy on 7 October 2011

After our picnic, we bid farewell to the Grand Canyon and hit the open road.

Although the Grand Canyon was our last real destination, the remote North Rim is a bit far from all commercial airports. Since we planned to fly out of Phoenix in the early afternoon the next day, we had decided that we would get a bit closer to reduce pre-flight rush. So we drove the deserted highways of Arizona and made our way to the first real city beyond the canyon, Flagstaff.

Along the way, we passed mesa after mesa, cactus after cactus, and very few other cars. These are the roads that 75 miles per hour speed limits and cruise control were made for.

The only real landmarks along the way were two national monuments, neither of which I had ever heard of before picking up the area map. Contained within the same 35-mile loop detour off the highway, the Wupatki National Monument and Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument are definitely removed. Wupatki, where we stopped for an emergency bathroom visit and a NPS passport stamp, is considered a sacred place among many Native American tribes. Sunset Crater, where we arrived after the visitor center had already closed, was formed by several volcanos back when Arizona was a more fiery place.

We pulled into Flagstaff with storm clouds looming overhead. I had read all about a hotel in historic downtown Flagstaff and so reserved us a room. The Weatherford Hotel was definitely unconventional. I think there were more barstools than rooms in the establishment. Flagstaff lived its heyday in the 1800s during westward expansion. The town was christened on the country’s centennial — how it came to be named after the pole hoisting the stars and stripes. The Weatherford was a relic from that era, which meant that it lacked some more modern amenities. But upon arrival, all we really needed was a long shower to wash the canyon off of ourselves.

After washing up, we headed to Beaver Street Brewery, a restaurant highly recommended by all of our usual sources. We ordered a couple of the local brewery’s wares and tried to stick to local fare as well. We started with the thus appropriately named Arizona quesadillas, which were filled with chicken and served with sides of fresh guacamole and salsa.

We asked our waiter what he liked best and he recommended any of the flatbread pizzas and one of the house platters. We had already decided he was pretty awesome, so we followed his directions to a tee. We split a southwestern chicken pizza, which was topped with a chicken, tons of veggies and a cilantro pesto (take that, cilantro haters — even if you might not be able to help yourselves). We also had the shrimp taco platter, which we both thought was phenomenal.

After dinner, we strolled past the Flagstaff train station and decided to check it out. Amtrak was my primary mode of transit between home and Brown, so I became quite accustomed to delays on the Northeast Regional line. But we’re talking 15 to 30 minute delays. Apparently on the western lines, like the one that runs through Flagstaff, delays of one, two, ten hours are basically par for the course. Without an agenda for the rest of the night, we decided to sit on a bench and wait with the angsty passengers of the evening Southwest Chief.

While we were waiting, we must have seen ten giant freight trains roll through. Flagstaff sits on the highly trafficked Los Angeles to Chicago route of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, more commonly known by its acronym, BNSF. I’m not sure I have ever seen so many large aggressive freight trains before. We discussed the politics of transcontinental trains until the Chief finally arrived about an hour after schedule. We waited till the train had departed the station and then we retired for the evening. However, the freight didn’t stop just because we did. The trains ran all night, which was a bit more disruptive than our prior few nights under the stars had been. Price of capitalism?

We woke up in the morning and undertook our largest challenge to date. More strenuous than Half Dome, more tiring than the Grand Canyon, completed on less coffee than Angels Landing: unpacking, cleaning and repacking Dorothy. We managed to do quite a number on her in two weeks. If you happen to rent a black Dodge Grand Caravan in Phoenix anytime soon, just don’t open the stow ’n go compartments.

Before leaving Flagstaff, we managed to sneak in a quick and authentic breakfast at MartAnne’s Burrito Palace. Chaz ordered based upon the restaurant’s name and had a breakfast burrito.

I followed their tagline — “the house that chilaquiles built” — and went with the traditional Mexican dish of scrambled eggs, tortillas, cheese and green salsa. Both portions were enormous and came with beans, rice, potatoes, lettuce and tomato, and tortillas. Breakfast was delicious, and I’m not sure I ate another full meal for the rest of the day.

After finishing breakfast, we powered south to Phoenix. Over the course of the drive, we dropped almost 7,000 feet in elevation, a shocking accomplishment considering it never looked like we left the desert. We stopped briefly for gas and then pulled up in front of the Delta terminal at Sky Harbor International Airport. We couldn’t both bring Dorothy back, much as we would have liked to bid her a teary farewell together, because of the sheer amount of luggage we had. So Chaz took our girl home while I babysat what can only be dubbed a mountain of baggage.

The final count on Dorothy’s odometer was 2,417.3 miles — a fairly awesome feat for two weeks. (Never mind that we flew more miles than that just to get to our starting point.) From the windows of our minivan we had seen deserts and the ocean, packed freeways and empty country roads, mountains and vast flat expanses. We had eaten (and spilled) countless meals in her confines, possibly broken a GPS system we never asked for in the first place, and listened to the same classic songs on infinite repeat. (And happily, we managed all this without damaging the car or earning a single traffic or parking ticket.) But now it was time to board our plane back east.

We flew together to Detroit, where another journey once began and others are likely still to come. “You don’t get to be silver without going to a hub a few times,” Chaz said, when I pointed out this symmetry. And so we hugged goodbye and ran to our separate planes, ending yet another fantastic voyage for the checkpoint.

Posted in Flagstaff, Travel | No Responses »
Tags: Departures, Ethnic eats, Food, Friendly natives, Sentimental reflections, Transportation

From the PCH to the freeways of LA

Written by Emmy on 2 October 2011

We woke up in Pismo Beach on Thursday morning, packed up the tent and headed into “downtown” Pismo for a quick stop at Old West Cinnamon Rolls before hitting the road. The spot had been recommended by one of our books, so naturally we obliged and ordered one with pecans and one with almonds.

Continuing our drive, we passed through Lompoc, where nearly three-quarters of the world’s flower seeds are grown, and drove by an enormous air force base. We drove through the campus of the University of California at Santa Barbara, where we gave ourselves a self-guided tour. We parked in Santa Barbara and took a brief stroll along the city’s historic State Street. We considered taking a hike into the hills but the morning fog was still obscuring the view. So instead, we went to lunch.

We were far enough south to get authentic Mexican food and so we visited the acclaimed La Super-Rica Taqueria, a brightly colored but tiny restaurant on a street filled with tacos.

Always eager to prove that we can, in fact, handle spice like the natives of any cuisine, we ordered a selection of authentic items from the menu and enjoyed them with a triad of homemade salsas. Chaz tried two different types of taco, while I sampled two less common items — chorizo super rica, a baked casserole meant to be wrapped in tortillas, and a spicy bean gordito.

From Santa Barbara we drove to Ventura, where we stopped by the visitor center for the Channel Islands. Channel Islands National Park is, as the name suggests, in the middle of the ocean. Even though we couldn’t visit the actual park, Chaz still got a stamp in his national parks passport.

From Ventura, we continued down the coast on Highway 1. The scenery was still beautiful, though far less isolated than the hills we’d driven by the day before. We passed through Malibu and its oceanfront homes and eyeballed a few more beaches before turning off PCH in Santa Monica.

From here we hopped from freeway to freeway. I have never seen so many highways in one place before, and they were all SO FILLED with cars.

Back in an urban metropolis, we conducted a few errands. Chaz’s pillow was a casualty of our stay in the Bay Area, so we headed to IKEA in Burbank to pick up a new one. We visited the first ever Trader Joe’s in Pasadena, where Joe himself apparently shops. And then, because it’s hard to resist a giant supermarket, we strolled through the largest Whole Foods I have ever seen.

After another hour of freeway driving, we arrived at our friend Joanna’s house, where her parents graciously hosted us for the evening. We showered and did laundry, the simple luxuries of life, and had a delicious dinner of steak, quinoa, roasted peppers and fresh corn with the Wohlmuths. We ended dinner with fresh figs, which were incredible.

We unpacked and repacked Dorothy, filled her with gas and headed to bed early in order to prepare for our big drive the next morning.

Posted in Los Angeles, Pacific Coast Highway | No Responses »
Tags: Chilling with the locals, Ethnic eats, Food, Markets, Shopping, SO MANY PEOPLE

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