FOODIE YOODIE FOOD FOTO DUMP

A long silence of blogs, but the good eatin' keep moving along and I'm just going to do a photo DUMP! :)  Some recent treats range from comfort, elegant, priceless and Southern food.

Southern-A recent treat was from our friend who cooked us some amazing Southern Chicken Bog and beer biscuits! Yum. 

Comfort-Cold drinks in a frozen glass mug that actually makes the drink freeze along some piping hot food to celebrate family achievements.

 Priceless-Some unexpected fresh homemade kimchi came through our front door from our neighbors!

Elegant - a dinner party for 9 in our own little home, with table cloth, soft lighting, new silverware, table settings, and a multiple course menu. Missed pictures for most because of serving (thank you to those who helped prep and serve. I couldn't have done it without you!), but here's what we got.

First Course: Amuse Bouche

Deviled tarragon, dill and salmon quail eggs. (really small!)



Pallete Cleanser: lemon sorbet
Salad: Michale Psilaki's  tomato, haricot vert and cucumber salad.

Main course:Beef Bourguignon and a side of potatoes

Dessert: Molten Lava Cake with 3 melon ball scoops of ice cream

Tail End: Kee's chocolates







 Some decor



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Misc weekday meals:

This is a meal that can only be made by a man. It's as big as the plate!

In discussion with our friends it seems as if men believe that bigger the protein, greater the love.

DRIVE TO OHIO FOR A WEDDING

Seti's Polish Boy - This is a food truck that Chef Michael Simon mentioned was one of the "Best Things I Ever Ate". We got 2 polish boys and shared between 4 ppl. A polish boy is a polish dog topped with french fries and finished with a drizzle of sweet BBQ sauce. Scrumptious, but to be eaten in moderation.

To Hot Sauce Williams, known for their fried chicken. Split 2 servings between 4 ppl. Everything at this joint was good except for the chicken which was out of this world! Perfectly crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside.

Decor? Quite interesting. It's pretty ghetto with vases of fake flowers planted in clear gel. Appreciated the effort to make it look nice because the outside of the building was PINK!

Michael Symon's Restaurant : LOLA

Alaskan Halibut
sweet potato, cippolini onions, chorizo, lime, cilantro

Rib Eye
smoked garlic bone marrow butter, perserved lemon, arugula

Pauline's

Banana bread, caramel sour cream ice cream, caramelized doughnuts

6AM Special
Briche french toast, maple-bacon ice cream, caramelized apple

 A scoop of honey ice cream

Lola's impressive wine display behind us

MELT

HUGE grilled sandwiches! None of us finished our whole dish. I only got through half of my sandwhich, all the coleslaw and a few fries.  Very good for a very reasonable price. These dishes were $7-$10! Service was very friendly and helpful, not sure if it was because we were further west or she was just a really nice person. :)

TUNA FISHING

We went to tuna fishing quite a few weeks back and it was an adventure! Tuna swim way out in the deep waters so our boat actually had to ship out for 5 hours before we were able to fish. The further out the boat, the bigger the fish, I think.Amuse Bouche- Deviled taragon, dill and salmon quail egg. Really Small. It's a new experience tuna fishing because you leave the dock at 5PM, sleep on the bunks on the way out and wake up to fish through the night until the morning. The fish come out the most during the night and morning times.

So we shipped out, slept, woke up to eat dinner and fished. It was pretty chilly way out there, but luckily for us, we brought some pasta and were able to heat it up piping hot in the microwave.  We took some squid ink pasta and italian sausage and it's quite a coincidence that huge schools of squid were swimming by in the water as we ate! We packed sandwiches for lunch, bananas and yogurt for breakfast and drinks. One thing that came in handy was the instant packets of korean coffee that have the coffee, cream and sugar all in one. It got pretty chilly out there so the hot coffee was a welcome gift.  It was hard to drink that hot stuff while the liquid in our cup imitated the ocean we were cruising on. Aiy!

The scenery was so beautiful. You can't see any city lights that far out so the stars are so incredibly present. One of the flippiest illusions was that when looking out in front of us, the water constantly seems as if it swells above eye level! It's like we were chilling in the center of a contact lense! So neat... and while we were fishing, it felt like we were in the middle of an episode of National Geographic. There were all sorts of wild life! There were schools of squid, dolphins, lots of birds, a shark (jumped out of the water by our fishing line!!) and some sunfish.

Sunfish are pretty cute.

And in the wee hours of the morning, no one on the boat caught a fish but the sunrise was so gentle and sweet as we were sitting on the boat. Makes you think of nothing other than God and how awesome he is...

As we were all enjoying the peaceful sunrise after looking out into dark all night,  someone on the boat struck tuna! After a harried slew of boat crew headed towards the action with huge hooks,  this is what we saw. The guy catching the tuna was really close by us!  Here is a clip of a longfin tuna being caught. This one looks sort of like a penguin so you hear a guy getting excited about catching one of these. "It's a ******* penguin!" Pardon his profanity and also, pardon the guy pulling up his pants in front of the camera. If you get weary of blood, I caution you from watching since the tuna naturally bleeds "a bit" once it's on board.

So, though we didnt' catch anything, we were in conversation with the captain during the course of the trip he gave us a cut of some fresh tuna and some of the guys on the boat who had more than they could keep gave us some too. So what did we do? We cut it up right there on the boat and ate it super fresh with the wasabi and soy sauce that we brought. People on board joined in trying some too since they'd never tried it. :)

and later when we got home, sashimi with chogochujang (red pepper paste with vinegar) and spicey tuna rolls!

and the next day, we grilled it and had it wish wasabi mayo.

And shortly after dinner, we passed out. The sleeping schedule on the boat was a little new for us and we slept like Rip Van Winkle. So after we took our long slumber, we woke up to find that it was our 1 year anniversary already!

Niagra Falls

We took a drive out to Niagra Falls on the Canada side. The drive was about 6 hours through beautiful treescapes of firey trees. We stopped in Buffalo to get some wings. Now, this isn't an ordinary wing place. It's the ORIGINAL wing place where the concept of chicken wings was created! Anchor Bar proudly sported the story of how the wing came to be.

And if you know my husband, we know that his name is synonymous with chicken wings.

Chicken Wings +  Cold Beer =  Happy Kee

And finally, after a long drive, we reached Niagra. Here is the view from our Hotel window. At night, they turn the lights on the falls.

Morning View

Strolling by the falls.

And for dinner, the hotel gave us a voucher for their restaurant called Watermark. It's located on the 33rd floor of the building, and the food was good, though it didnt' blow us out of the water, but gave us an amazing view.

And finally, back home, we got dressed to go to Daniel, New Yorks 3 Michelin starred restaurant. It's owned by Daniel Boulud who has quite a few, Daniel being his best.  We've never been to one of these, but we took out our long coats and dressed up to head to this place. This place is known for their excellent French Food and we tried their six course tasting menu with a bottle of wine.

Lots of Desserts! They started out by bringing out a freshly baked basket of Mini Madelines.

Then after the dessert that was part of the tasting, they brought out more petit fours....

And then our complementary anniversary dessert....

Then mini mini chocolates to finish off.



My goodness, the food and service were excellent! You can be sure we won't make a habit of dining like this all the time though because we'd be broke, fat and spoiled. haha. It's nice for the most special of occassions like a 1 year anniversary. :)

 Best memory from our honeymoon a year ago? When he caught the 140lb Blue Marlin! Here he is with our boat captain celebrating the catch. So proud him. Thank you God for the goodtimes and yes...the bad times too. :)

Another great memory was meeting our Italian friends Pino and Grazia.  A year ago, when we were on our honeymoon, we met couple in Bora Bora who were also on their honeymoon. Their home is Italy and as we learned it, the second leg of their honeymoon was to be California and the third would be New York! After Kee and I stopped in Texas for a wedding reception post honeymoon, we came back just in time to meet Pino and Grazia in New York and show them around. Over dinner that night, they invited us to Italy and a year later... we will be seeing eachother again next week! One little suprise they have to share with us is their newest son, Saverio.  Honeymoon baby! :)

Here we are after a day of swimming with sharks, tuna, turtles and stingrays.

We will be back with more adventures in Italy where there they don't say Bon Appetit, but....

Bon Appetito!

Foodie Yoodie