rickshaw dumpling truck

locations

website

in the world of food trucks, i guess the rickshaw dumpling truck is kind of a cheater. they have "brick and mortar" stores - the rickshaw dumpling bars - which means that they can prepare the dumplings in the restaurant in order to stock the truck. other truck vendors have to rent cheap space in one of the outer boroughs and then drive the food into manhattan. whatever. i'm not a huge fan of the dumpling truck, but sometimes i'm in the mood for dumplings and today they happened to be parked a block away from my office building. i didn't get a break from work until 2 pm today, so i knew that there wouldn't be a line.

i picked up an order of pork+chive dumplings and an order of duck dumplings. quality-wise, these don't come anywhere near to being the best dumplings in the world (that honor belongs to my mom's homemade dumplings.) in fact, they taste pretty much like the dumplings i make myself - kind of overcooked and a little bland, but when dunked in sufficient amounts of soy sauce, they're quite satisfying. the duck dumplings are unique and i like the hoisin dipping sauce, but they're not spectacular. anyway, when i'm in the mood for dumplings and the timing is right, the rickshaw dumpling truck is a pretty good option.

cafe zaiya @ kinokuniya

new york, ny

website

m and i were braving the icebox that was manhattan last week in order to finish up our christmas shopping at bryant park's holiday market. at some point, however, m's toes froze and we decided to seek shelter. fortunately i remembered that kinokuniya (the japanese book and stationary store) recently moved from rockefeller to bryant park. i also remembered that jenny introduced me to cafe zaiya located on the second floor of the bookstore.

it wasn't very crowded, so m and i were able to sit down with our snacks. i had chamomile tea, which was served in a very cool clear tea-pot with an attached cup. i also ordered a strawberry shortcake, which was very tasty. i love asian-style cakes which use whipped cream (instead of frosting) layered between dense sponge cake and fruit. very light and not too sweet. just perfect.

bar room @ the modern

new york, ny

website

the modern is the super fancy restaurant attached to the MOMA. derek thinks its overrated and overpriced. fortunately, the casual "bar room" at the modern is much better and more reasonably priced, though still expensive. fellow food blogger m was visiting, so we decided to splurge on lunch at the bar room before viewing the special tim burton exhibit at the MOMA (which was wonderfully creepy).

the menu is divided into three parts. the first is soups and salads, the second is seafood and pasta, the third is meat. i tend to choose one each from the first two parts, so i can save room for the bar room's amazing desserts. i started with the mushroom soup which is served with fried chorizo dumplings. second course - scallops with pear slices and beets. for dessert, we shared the beignets with three dipping sauces - caramel sauce, mango chutney, and maple ice cream. as part of danny meyer's empire, the bar room has fantastic service. a bug drowned in the remnants of my lychee soda. i didn't say anything to the waitress about it - but she saw the bug, apologized profusely, and comp'ed both the lychee soda and my chamomile tea!

bali nusa

new york, ny

website

my friend y can speak indonesian and i always rely on her when ordering from this restaurant. derek and i went without her once and we ordered the same nasi goreng dish she usually gets - but because we are not indonesian, we ended up with a bland tasteless version. it's really amazing that indonesian food can end up bland and tasteless, but somehow they managed.

therefore i would not recommend going to this place without an indonesian-speaking person. earlier this week, with m visiting from out-of-town, y ordered delivery from bali nusa. after lots of lovely indonesian was spoken, we ended up with curry tofu, spicy eggplant, chicken satay, fried rice, and crispy onion chips. delicious!

obao

new york, ny

link to yelp

finally felt well enough to go back to work, which meant that i could finally try the recently opened obao. it's one of michael huynh's many restaurants - he also runs baoguette. i was happy to hear that a branch of the empire sits just a block away from my office. obao took over the old bunchberries space so there's some casual seating in front near the window but more standard seating in the back.

the food tends to be a twist on standard asian dishes. for example, the appetizer pork belly is served with traditional char siu sauce (although it ended up being more pork than belly.) eric joined me for lunch and as usual, i liked the dish that he chose better - the spicy radish noodles with shrimp, oyster, egg, chives, and bean sprouts. it was obao's version of the popular cantonese dish - stir-fried luo buo gao - very good. my pad see ew was pretty good. the twist was supposed to be the use of bulgogi, but it tasted like normal thai-style beef to me. still, very good and reasonably priced for midtown east. i will definitely be back.

karendipity cooks: congee

unfortunately i came down with a nasty cold after my trip to asia (thus the lack of updates). my mom used to make me congee whenever i got sick, except we called it "xi fan" and it's usually thicker than the HK-style congee. my friend CR mentioned that the steam from boiled chicken is a natural decongestant so i decided to get some chicken stock and make myself congee. ingredients: ground chicken, rice, chicken broth, scallions, soy sauce, honey, rice vinegar, sesame oil, olive oil.

stir together soy sauce, honey, rice vinegar, and a smidge of sesame oil. pour over ground chicken and thoroughly mix. heat olive oil on stove and cook chicken, breaking it up into small pieces while cooking. in a large pot, add chicken broth and rice (go easy on the rice - it expands a LOT when cooking into congee.) add whole green scallions for flavor (i remove these before serving). bring to a boil then simmer for at least half an hour. cooking time depends on how much you want the rice to break up - i usually leave mine on the stove for an hour or so. stir every 15 mins and add chicken broth or water as needed. it is very important that the heat is low, otherwise the rice will stick to the pot or burn. once the congee has reached the desired consistency, add chicken and sliced thousand year old egg. add soy sauce to taste. cook for another couple of minutes then serve. i like to top mine with marinated turnips. yum!

old airport road

singapore

51 old airport road

after a series of faux-hawker centers (i.e. mall food courts), we finally got a chance to go to a real hawker center on our last night in singapore. it was massive - rows and rows of vendors selling all different kinds of food. it was a little overwhelming and we only had an hour. derek and i decided to take turns. first, he guarded our table while i searched for my meal. i walked up and down each row looking for indonesian fried rice but didn't find it. i ended up going with a bowl of minced meat noodles.

on my way back to the table, i noticed an oyster omelet stand but my hands were full. so i asked derek to order a plate to share with the table. really good. the oysters tasted fresh and the chili sauce was delicious. after we finished our meal, we went back to get soybean milk and almond jelly for dessert. derek and i loved the hawker center - next time we go to singapore we'll definitely visit more hawker centers and less food courts!

my humble house

singapore

website

my humble house is located in the esplanade, a giant durian-shaped arts center in downtown singapore. it serves high-end chinese food with southeast asian influences. very fancy and very tasty. pictured is the lobster salad with dragonfruit and melon balls in a wasabi dressing. it's served in a dragonfruit shell with rose petals. that's just an example of the amazing dishes that we ate here.

we had lunch here but i think it would be a very nice place to eat at night. it looks like the walls are designed to sparkle at night and there's a great view of the city. there's a sign outside that says no shorts, no sandals, and no photography. they didn't complain, however, when i walked in shorts and flip-flops and took pictures of every dish. a sidenote - the waitresses have very strange uniforms. they look like traditional chinese outfits except for the fact that there's fabric missing around the waistline. you can see the waitresses bellies and belly buttons. it's rather disturbing but if you can ignore the waitresses and focus on the food, it's fine.

food opera

singapore

website

food opera is a massive food court in the basement of the super fancy ion mall that recently opened on orchard road in singapore. derek and i actually stopped in the food opera twice - once for lunch before we started shopping and again for an afternoon snack before leaving the mall. i don't even think we managed to look at every vendor before deciding which one to order from. for lunch - derek ordered hainanese chicken, roast duck with rice, and a side of roast pork. i wanted something a little lighter and went to the dim sum vendor and ordered an egg tart and fluffy white pork buns.

lunch was just okay. it was more expensive than other food courts, but the food wasn't worth the bump in price. unfortunately i forgot to take a picture of our afternoon snacks, because those were much better. derek had bon chon chicken (yes, that's considered a snack for derek) and i had belgian chocolate ice cream mixed coldstone-style with sponge cake and strawberries from a japanese ice cream shop.

long beach seafood

singapore

website

east coast park in singapore is a beautiful park by the water with a hawker center for street food, a huge man-made lake with a waterskiing machine (a rope will pull you in a loop around the very large lake), and the east coast seafood centre which contains several seafood restaurants, including long beach seafood. we saw a few people ordering the black pepper crab, which was apparently invented at this restaurant, but we wanted the chili crab.

fatty crab in nyc has its own version of the dish, but it is more expensive and uses one small crab. plus, the singapore version has crab meat in the chili sauce itself. the sauce is extremely spicy. for me, at least. derek and the rest of the table happily dug in. i enjoyed the fact that the chili crab was served with fried mantou and i used that to dip into the crab-laden sauce. a much milder option, but still delicious. for dessert, they served an amazing almond jelly with longan pieces - very refreshing after all that spicy food.

din tai fung

singapore

website

my lonely planet guide recommended this place for its dumplings and noodles. it's a taiwan restaurant with branches throughout asia and i think they also have branch in los angeles. the singapore branch was (big surprise) in the basement of a mall on orchard road. we went on friday for lunch and it was packed - we had to wait about a half hour to get seated.

the xiao long bao is their specialty, so that's what we ordered. very very good. unfortunately there wasn't as much soup in the dumplings as i would normally like but the taste was phenomenal. that said, i think we can get the same quality of xiao long bao from joe's shanghai in nyc's chinatown. my noodle soup with pork and pickled cabbage was good, but not as good as the version my mom makes. all in all, it was a fantastic meal but between joe's shanghai and my mom, i think we've got this place beat.

food republic

singapore

website

for thanksgiving dinner, the newylweds, derek, and i had a feast at the food republic food court in vivocity mall. it's a huge food court with all kinds of food. it took quite a while for all of us to make our initial lap around. there was one vendor who just sold various fried items, another who only sold meat buns. women push around carts with more food and drinks - like dim sum and fresh juices. it's quite a spectacle.

first we commandeered a table and made sure that one person was guarding our stuff at all times. then we separately visited the various vendors and brought back plates to share. i found the taiwanese food vendor and ordered all my favorites - zha jiang mian (pictured), scallion pancakes, fried mantou, and fried red bean pancake. derek picked up beef soup with hand-shaved noodles and chicken+pork buns. in true thanksgiving style, we ate and ate until we were stuffed. it was an excellent way to celebrate the american holiday.

prima tower

singapore

website

derek and i had lunch at prima tower's revolving restaurant. as it was our second lunch of the day, our focus was mostly on the awesome views of singapore. the restaurant is located at the top of the prima company's flour silo and the entire restaurant slowly rotates so that during an hour-long meal you can move about 180 degrees. we saw mount faber, sentosa island, and the port of singapore (the busiest port in the world).

dim sum was pretty good. i took a picture of the lovely chicken feet. unfortunately it's been a while since we ate there. we didn't pay for internet while in singapore because i found a mall near the hotel that had free internet kiosks. that's why i waited until we returned to new york before posting about the many singapore restaurants we went to. so i can't really remember what else we had other than the fact that it was dim sum, but i do remember the incredible views being the focus of our meal.

bread talk

singapore

website

i love chinese pastries - the big fluffy buns filled with various pastes and the not-too-sweet cakes topped with whipped cream rather than frosting. the versions i find in nyc's chinatown are usually greasier and heavier than the pastries i find on the west coast or in asia. i didn't get to go to very many bakeries while in hong kong so i spent much of my time in singapore searching for chinese bakeries. unfortunately, most of the bakeries are french-style with a lot of tarts and croissants. good, but not what i was looking for.

breadtalk is a chain of bakeries that can be found in singapore malls. although it was mostly french pastries and breads, i did find a few asian-style buns and cakes. nothing with red bean paste or anything like that, but the almond bun (pictured) from the breadtalk in paragon mall was close enough. it was delicious - filled with a light white chocolate cream and topped with toasted almonds. it was so good that even derek liked it - in fact, he ate half of it ...

lucky plaza food court

singapore

lucky plaza on orchard road

as you will see, derek and i ate in a lot of food courts. every mall in singapore had a basement food court filled with all kinds of food - indonesian, korean, indian, chinese, etc. - there's even usually a stand devoted solely to hainanese chicken rice. although not as cheap as the hawker centers, it was still great food for reasonable prices. every time we went to a food court, derek and i took a preliminary lap to survey all of the options.

pictured is the duck and wonton noodle dish that i ordered from "roasted delight" in the asian food court. we were drawn to the hanging roasted meats displayed on the counter. i was surprised to find out that the wonton noodles are not served in soup. instead, the plate is covered in a sweet soy sauce that you can mix into the rest of the ingredients, while the soup is served on the side. it really highlights the taste of the noodles and wontons.

pu tien

singapore

website

pu tien is an area in the fujian province in china and also a restaurant in a mall in singapore serving food from the region. it seems like all the good restaurants in asia are in malls. this was yet another feast with dishes i have never had before. some highlights - the deep fried thousand year old egg with sweet and sour sauce, the steamed cold pork belly with garlic, deep fried yam, and butterflied shrimp with massive amounts of freshly chopped garlic on them.

my favorite, however, was what the natives at our table referred to as the "singaporean hamburger." stir-fried beef strips with caramelized onions as the "patty." the "bun" is a deep-fried mantou pocket (the kind they serve with peking duck at most chinese restaurants on the west coast.) the restaurant also provides a plastic glove and a knife. directions for eating: place the plastic glove on one hand, use it to hold the very hot fried mantou and use the knife to slice open the pocket portion. then fill with the stir-fried beef and enjoy. delicious and a little dangerous (try not to burn your mouth on the hot oil still coating the mantou pocket).

hang heung's kitchen @ HKG

hk int'l airport, hk

level 8 of T1

derek and i were craving one last bowl of congee before boarding our flight to singapore. thankfully there's a full chinese restaurant in terminal 1. it took a few escalators to get up there, but the interior looks and feels like a normal restaurant, which was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the airport.

we both ordered the preserved egg and pork congee and an order of you tiao. our congee came out immediately, but our you tiao took a while. turns out they were frying it fresh. it was worth the wait -- crispy and delicious. congee is a perfect pre-flight meal -- warm and comforting. i wish they had a branch in JFK.