The Smith

Ursy, Nikki and I had a fabulous pre-holiday dinner at The Smith. Nikki had some subway complications and showed up at the restaurant looking a wee bit tired, but the bread, butter and wine melted the stress right out of her! I've read multiple reviews of The Smith by various bloggers and New York Magazine and was really excited to try this place out. I always have to wrack my brain when I try to think of a reasonably priced restaurant that serves a good mix of pasta, seafood, steak and other miscellaneous entrees in a laid-back and fun environment. The Smith fits the bill perfectly and I think I might have found a new favorite place!

I was the first to arrive, so I took a seat at the bar and waited for the others to arrive. The bar takes up the entire length of the right side of the restaurant and can seat approximately 25 people. While I sipped my glass of wine quietly in the corner, I had time to note the details of the decor. The Smith is located in what used to be the Pizzeria Uno on 3rd Avenue and 11th street. And although I never stepped foot inside the Uno, the floor tiles in the restaurant looked similar to the floor tiles of Uno's that I have eaten in: small dingy white octagonal tiles with pieces of black tiles interspersed throughout. The walls are also covered with shiny white tiles, sort of like bathroom tiles, which sounds gross but it looked quite nice actually. Once the others arrived, we were seated in a cozy wooden booth that had wooden hooks on the side (thank you! All restaurants should have more space to hang coats and bags!)

Ursula and I split the green bean salad, which was really delicious. Crisp green beans tossed with thin slices of ricotta cheese, cherry tomato halves and toasted almonds, the dish was delightfully cool with several different layers of texture. For my main, I ordered the chopped steak with a side of salad. The chopped steak looked like a cross between a meat loaf and a hamburger patty. It was a small round of meat that had a stiff and thick crust-like texture on the outside. When I cut into the middle of the steak, the meat was crumbly and juicy, like a hamburger almost but only much better. The mushroom gravy that came with my dish was thick and flavorful and I generously slathered the sauce all over my steak. Another great dish I need to note is the side of roasted brussels sprouts. The Smith's brussels sprouts have a, to quote Nikki, "great citrus-y flavor, there's lemon rind in here or something." For dessert, we split the Pink Pussy Cat: red velvet cake with two scoops of strawberry ice-cream, fresh strawberries and whipped cream. REALLY good. Who can hate strawberry ice-cream and whipped cream?

I want to come back here again for dinner, for brunch, for drinks at the bar, for drinks AND dessert at the bar! Our waitress was friendly, attentive and came at all the appropriate moments. The whole place just made me really comfortable and I left completely satisfied, and you can't ask for much more than that.

Dos Caminos

We went to Dos Caminos last night to celebrate Kashmira's birthday...she wanted to have dinner at a place that was "fun and fabulousth". Walk through the heavy red velvet curtains at the front entrance and you'll find yourself on the ground floor of a spacious bi-level restaurant. The walls are painted a soft pink color and chandeliers hang from the ceiling. The crowd is a mix of tourists, couples old and young and many groups of females in sparkly tops out for what appeared to be mostly birthday dinners. We were seated at a long table on the basement level of the restaurant and directly in front of me was a DJ in a fedora and tight v-neck tank top spinning Britney - lots of it. The music gave the restaurant a clubby atmosphere, although most of the diners were pretty quiet and reserved, eating and chatting away. Even though the music was quite loud, we were still able to talk across the table without too much yelling...ahh the magic of good acoustics.
I'd read numerous reviews lamenting the poor quality of service, but our waitress was very polite and prompt, taking our orders right away and making sure our water glasses were always full. We started with the famous guacamole (which you can see bits of inside Kashmira's mouth) and it was quite good. There were plenty of sizable pieces of avocado and the texture was a perfect balance between smooth and chunky. I ordered the Pescado Tacos, served with grilled filets of mahi mahi, spicy cabbage slaw and fresh tomato salsa, all wrapped up in two warm flour tortillas. The fish tasted great - fresh and meaty. The thin strips of cabbage was tart and crunchy, with the fresh tomato salsa giving the dish a nice cooling effect.

My favorite part of the meal came at the end in the form of a pistachio flavored chocolate cake served with a scoop of pistachio ice-cream. The ice-cream had a nutty texture and the chocolate cake was rich but not too thick, with a few pieces of pistachio in the middle.

Dos Caminos is a fun spot for group dinner, festive and loud, but no so much that you can't hear your friends.

Chocolate Truffles

Twas Amar's birthday last week and I made he-who-has-a-major-sweet-tooth (seriously, the dude belongs in a Cathy comic) bittersweet truffles. I tried to make truffles last year and all I got was a hard lump of brown goo. This year, I measured everything to the T and hunkered down for 6 hours to make these damn things. Truffles aren't particularly hard to make, just extremely time consuming. So if you're just lounging around at home on a blustery winter day, tis a good time to make truffles. My truffles tasted pretty good but looked a bit off...I got sick of waiting for the truffle base to solidify, so i started rolling the chocolate concoction into balls before it was fully firm...thus my little balls of chocolate wouldn't hold up..it started to droop and flatten out as soon as I placed them back in my baking dish. So, wait at least 4 hours before you start rolling them into truffles...you can try to put them in the freezer for an hour, that might speed up the process.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
9 1/2 ounces of bittersweet chocolate (70% cocoa), chopped - for the truffle base
8 ounces of bitter sweet chocolate (70% cocoa), chopped - for the outside shell
3-4 handfuls of walnuts, finely chopped

Instructions:
Bring cream to a simmer, remove from heat and pour over the 9 1/2 ounces of chopped chocolate
Stir until the mixture is smooth and the chocolate is fully melted
Refridgerate the base until it is firm enough to roll into balls, at least 3-4 hours
Once it's firm, take a large spoonful of the chocolate mixture and roll into a small ball, repeat until you've used up all the mixture
Chill the balls for another hour
Place the other 8 ounces of chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of boiling water and melt the chocolate by stirring the chocolate chunks until its smooth and completely melted
Take each ball of truffle base, roll it in the melted chocolate and then roll in the chopped walnuts
Refridgerate the truffles for another hour.

Spaghetti Bolognese

I craved pasta and meat the whole time I was in Spain...one can only eat some much ham, cheese and hard as rocks bread. I wanted to feel the comfort one gets from eating a bowl full of heavy pasta. Cold little bocadillos just don't do it for me. So i made Spaghetti Bolognese at my earliest opportunity. This dish was both tasty and economical. Recipe makes enough for 4. Prep and cook time: approximately 50 minutes.

Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 boxes of whole wheat pasta
- 1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes
- 1 lb of ground beef
- 1 medium sized yellow onion, diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 1/2 cup of chopped basil
- 1/4 cup of grated pecorino romano cheese
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 1 green pepper, chopped
- olive oil
- salt and pepper

Instructions:
- Heat the olive oil in a pan, saute onion and garlic for about 3 minutes or until the onions become translucent
- Add carrot and green pepper and saute for another 5 minutes
- Add ground beef and saute for about 10 minutes or until the meat is no longer pink
- Salt to taste
- Add can of crushed tomatoes, simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes (sauce should thicken up)
- Salt to taste
- Add chopped basil and cheese at the end

Molly's Birthday and Red Velvet Cupcakes

Most of the gang was down in DC this past weekend to celebrate the disappearance of Molly's youth and the onset of middle age. We had a great meal at Indique, although I spent of the rest of the night feeling my food slosh around in my stomach alongside champagne, bloody mary mix and birthday cake shots. Yum.

During the day we made a batch of Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. For my first attempt at baking red velvet cupcakes, it came out decent enough, although it was more pink than red and was a little bit on the dry side. It also didn't have that hard to pinpoint red velvet "flavor". I used a recipe from Epicurious and had to substitute skim milk for buttermilk. After doing a bit of research on the web today, I think that the lack of buttermilk was the cause of the pink-ness of my cupcakes. Apparently, the chemical reaction from combining white vinegar and buttermilk is, in addition to the red food coloring, what gives the cupcakes that deep red color. (See! I told you people there is some sort of chemical reaction involved!) Also, most recipes called for three eggs and I only used two. An extra egg and buttermilk is probably what gives the cupcakes that moist and rich texture. Word to the wise: don't think that skim milk is an acceptable substitute for buttermilk.

Click Here to read the recipe I used. I would recommend adding an extra egg and another 1-2 teaspoons of red food coloring. Makes 12 cupcakes.

Chicken and Vegetable Orzo Stew

Daylight Savings Time is in effect and that means the sun sets at approximately 4 in the afternoon. Which means that it's soup season! This soup is very easy to make, takes only about 45 minutes. If you like hot, steamy soup and mushy vegetables, then this dish is for you.

Ingredients:
- 2 chicken breasts, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 zucchini, diced into big chunks
- 1 package of frozen chopped spinach, defrosted
- 1 can of diced tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons of tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon of thyme
- 1 teaspoon of oregano
- 1 teaspoon of basil
- 2 chicken bouillon cubes
- 2 cups of water
- 1 cup of orzo
- salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
- Sautee the diced onion in olive oil for a few minutes, until the onion pieces are translucent.
- Add the chicken and sautee for another few minutes
- Add the zucchini and spinach and sautee for another few minutes
- add the can of diced tomatoes, 2 chicken bouillon cubes and 2 cups of water
- add all of the spices
- bring to a boil and simmer for about 20 minutes
- stir in the orzo and simmer for another 15 minutes
- add generous amounts of salt and the tomato paste at the end
- stir continuously throughout the cooking process

Sariwa

I noticed a new restaurant...actually I wouldn't call it a tiny restaurant, it's such a tiny space...it's more of a take-out place, on 16th street at Prospect Park West. The new restaurant, a Filipino place called Sariwa, has a short menu and serves up foods like Chicken Adobo and Beef Empanadas. Best part has to be the fact that it delivers to my neighborhood! Amar and I decided on an order of Chicken Adobo, a beef empanada, Vegetable Lumpia (spring rolls stuffed with green beans, jicama, carrots and tofu) and Pancit, a traditional Filipino dish of rice noodles sauteed with cabbage, carrots and green beans.

Overall, the food was pretty good but it appears that Sariwa is still working on its delivery skills. The food was a bit late and while Amar's food was piping hot, my Chicken Adobo was icey cold.

The Chicken Adobo reminded me of a dish my Dad often cooks back home: he stews chicken or pork, potatoes and hard-boiled eggs for hours in a soy sauce mixture until the the meat is falling off the bones. It's the ultimate comfort food and is just the right thing on a chilly and windy night. Anyways, this Chicken Adobo had a very similar taste. The Chicken is stewed in a soy sauce, vinegar and garlic mixture until the meat is tender and has both a salty and tangy flavor. The extra soy sauce and vinegar sauce was a perfect dressing for the rice. I thoroughly enjoyed my dinner, too bad I had to reheat it first.

Amar decided to order a mish mash of things: two empanadas, spring rolls and a noodle dish. The Pancit was very good - the noodles were also cooked in vinegar so it had a very tangy and tart flavor. The spring rolls had a very distinct taste - different from Chinese, Vietnamese or Thai spring rolls. The spring rolls are lightly deep fried and stuffed with green beans, so the flavor is light and subtle, but has an almost meaty texture. I can't say much about the empanadas - it was dry and cold by the time I got to it.

Given a few more weeks, maybe a month or two, I think Sariwa will be really good. I'm just so excited that there's a new delivery option in my neighborhood! Click here for the menu.

PS - the Izzy/George storyline on Grey's is really getting on my nerves.