l'avant comptoir

paris, france

website

love this place. super busy spanish tapas bar in the saint germain district in paris (apparently anthony bourdain featured this bar on his show). pigs decorating everything everywhere, which is usually a sign that the food is going to be excellent. menu items are helpfully hung from the ceiling with pictures. a small chalkboard lists two wines - one red, one white. my glass of red (arbois 2011 pascal et evelyne clairet) was an amazing complex wine - almost savory in flavor. my favorite dish is pictured - the ouef au plat champignon with a rich red wine sauce which only got richer with the warm yolk mixed in. we also ordered jamon croquetas and a slice of spanish tortilla. when i asked for the check (in french!) the bartender laughed and told me no. which just confused me, but eventually i got a check and he let us leave. although jenny and i would have been happy to stand there all day in the crowded bar drinking fantastic french wine and eating small plates of porky goodness.

1331 bar & lounge

washington, dc

website

in town for a week of meetings, i managed to escape long enough to have drinks and snacks with anthony at 1331, located inside the marriott near the white house. it was surprisingly spacious and modern for a hotel lounge. instead of booths, the lounge has small couches set up that face eachother, with a coffee table in between. it's a little awkward for eating, but theoretically we were only there for snacks.

but we were hungry, so we ended up ordering grilled vegetables, hummus, bruschetta, and buffalo wings. it didn't sound like a lot at the time, but our little coffee table was overflowing with food. everything was good, the bruschetta was probably my favorite. 1331 also had a decent and reasonably priced list of wines by the glass. overall, a nice quiet spot to hide from the summer DC heat and catch up with a friend.

joya

palo alto, ca

website

one problem with living in the south bay is trying to convince your SF friends to drive an hour down to meet you for dinner. lennon and april graciously made the trek to meet derek and i for dinner at a spanish tapas place a few blocks from our apartment. i loved the vibe of this restaurant - modern interior, fun atmosphere, interesting menu items, and lots of great drinks.

the food itself was just okay. guacamole with taro chips was alright, but i've had better guac (i.e., jinny's homemade guacamole which is amazing). paella was kind of soggy, missing the crispy rice edges that should be a paella requirement. but i loved their homemade white sangria with fruit - delicious. the sangria and the fact that it's walking distance from the apartment (which means we can drink as much sangria as we want without worrying about the drive home) will probably be sufficient for me to come back here, but i'll try something different from the menu.

bar pilar

washington, dc

website

my meeting ended up getting extended to a second day so i had time for a quick late night snack with anthony. we went to bar pilar, a drinking spot in his hood. i had an excellent glass of wine and anthony enjoyed his cocktail. he had already eaten, so i just ordered a couple of tapas for my meal - arugula salad, sausage, and octopus.

my favorite was the grilled octopus (pictured). it's hard to cook octopus correctly, but this was done perfectly. just the right amount of char on it, the texture was chewy and tender, and it had a hint of spice from the smoked paprika. delicious. this is definitely a good spot for some late night snacks and drinks.

pipa

19th (park/bway)

website

located in the basement of ABC carpet & home (there's also an entrance on 19th), pipa uses the store's merchandise as its decor with price tags hanging from the chandeliers. it kind of feels like you're dining in an antiques store, which is a little weird. service is also a little slow. but the food makes up for it.

pipa serves spanish tapas, but XYZ and i were there for brunch. we both ordered the salmon eggs benedict - two poached organic eggs, smoked salmon, potato pancakes, mascarpone cheese and traditional or poblano hollandaise sauce. i recommend the traditional hollandaise sauce, which i asked for on the side. but i suggest dumping that sauce over everything - it's buttery and has a hint of truffle flavor - it's really the highlight of the dish. it was an expensive-tasting brunch for a reasonable price.

casa mono

new york, ny

website

this is not a place to take vegetarians. or people on a diet. this is a place for meaty fatty gluttony. and wine. derek and i are big fans of batali and i love wine bars and tapas, so we've been trying to get into this restaurant for a long time. but there's always a long wait, so we usually pass. memorial day weekend at 10 pm, however, turned out to be a perfect time to snag a table. derek ordered a lovely glass of red wine and then we tried to figure out the menu. we ordered fried pork croquetas, pork belly, fried sardines, and bone marrow. the waiter actually laughed out loud and said "wow" when we finished our order.

that should have been a hint that we needed to order something lighter. oops. it was a very very heavy meal. the fried sardines were good (and reminds me of the free fried fish that bcd tofu house gives as banchan). the meaty fatty gluttony highlight, however, was the bone marrow. amazing. its served with crusty crispy bread covered in garlic, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. this is the best version of "meat jelly" (as a from y&a fame refers to marrow) that we've ever had. next time, to lighten things up, i think we'll stick to wine and marrow.

accademia di vino

new york, ny

website

i love the atmosphere of the downstairs portion of the restaurant. the upstairs portion is a wine bar and tends to be loud and crowded. the downstairs is spacious and quiet - it feels like we're dining inside a wine cellar. perfect for a girl's night out with jenny and vanita. note - a danger/benefit to the downstairs area is that there is no cell or blackberry service. it's quite nice to get away, but i did have a few urgent emails waiting for me when i emerged from the cellar.

vanita, as always, is our designated wine selector. she did a great job with the red she choose (recommended by the sommelier) - robust, full-bodied, and all those other words that you're supposed to use to describe wine. we started with an excellent cheese plate - a remarkable la tur, a not-very-aged aged gouda, and an unremarkable third cheese. i ordered the pasta tasting plate. it's unfair to compare accademia's pasta to del posto, but i believe that restaurant pasta should be del-posto-amazing, otherwise i might as well just make it at home with a jar of rao's. next time, i'll stick to the small plates on the menu instead.

oh! taisho

new york, ny

website

while vacationing in japan, derek and i generally avoided the yakitori spots - they were always small, cramped, and filled with cigarette smoke. but in new york city, yakitori places are just small and cramped. oh! taisho is one of jinny and kurt's favorite restaurants, so derek and i joined them there a few nights ago. in an effort to make it out of the office in time for our 8:30 pm dinner, i decided to work through lunch. so i was very hungry and tempted to order everything off the huge menu at oh! taisho - there are all different kinds of meat on skewers, bowls of ramen, tempura, other deep-fried items, and various other japanese pub specialities - like okonomiyaki.

thankfully, jinny and kurt took charge and ordered their favorites. two platters of a variety of grilled skewers (including chicken, meatballs, scallions, chicken skin, pork, and chicken gizzards), chicken teriyaki, french fries with spicy cod roe mayonnaise, noodles topped with the same spicy cod roe and sliced nori, and a pitcher of kirin. i loved the spicy cod roe mayo, both with the french fries and the noodles. the chicken teriyaki was surprisingly good - almost as good as seattle's teriyaki - but it was missing the essential thick sweet sauce that seattle teriyaki has. the dining room is small, but it makes for a lively atmosphere - if you can manage to squeeze yourself into the restaurant, oh! taisho is a good spot for food and fun.

super star seafood restaurant

tsim sha tsui, hk

website

downtown hong kong seems to consist of a maze of malls and shops. you could probably walk from one to the other without ever seeing the sun. at the top of one of these malls, harbour city, was the super star seafood restaurant. it's a chain of restaurants and when we visited other malls later in the day we saw other branches. and it was 50% off before 12 pm - discount dim sum!

if only US malls had food this good. the best tofu i've ever had. it has a salty, crispy, lightly fried exterior. the tofu interior was like a creamy silky pudding. amazing! also: fantastic stir-fried turnip cake with XO sauce, cheong fun, fried chicken with taro, and sticky rice. we also ordered taro cakes, which are like turnip cakes but with taro. my mom used to make these for me when i was younger - delicious.

casellula

new york, ny

website

highly recommended by kate and y&a. the three of them suggest ordering the amazing truffle fries, but i have yet to see it on the menu (and i've been three times already...) the cheese plate is my favorite part of the menu. before casellula, i didn't even know that fromagers existed. they do. and the one at casellula is brilliant. you tell your server your cheese preferences (derek and i don't like bleu or stinky cheeses) and how many cheeses you want (at $6 each, be cautious). then the fromager works her magic and throws together a cheese plate that delights and surprises. each cheese comes with a specific condiment that matches the cheese perfectly. our gouda came with a vodka mustard sauce - amazing. our middle cheese came with a sweet brittle - delicious. and derek loved the corn pudding that came with the brie. so good - if you like cheese you have to try this place.

oh, there are other things that are good too. the pig's ass sandwich. it tastes as good as it sounds. the mac and cheese has comte and bacon in it. ridiculous. for dessert - order the chocolate cake. just before you dig in, your server will pour a cup of cool fresh cream over it. a few months ago, my sister cindy and i dined here with y&a before our broadway show. we nearly missed the start of the show because we were in chocolate-cake-fresh-cream heaven...

initially posted 8/31/2009 -- reposted with better photo (but different cheeses...)

'inoteca

new york, ny

website

'inoteca was one of the first small-plates restaurants that i found in the city. the LES original is better than the gramercy version, but tends to be more crowded and lacks the "liquori" drink selection. when we first started going to 'inoteca, the entire menu was in italian and we had to have the waiter explain every single item. the waitstaff was always friendly and helpful, but its an unwieldy system. now they have a translation guide, but it only translates certain terms. oh well. by now, i've been here enough times for me to know what to order.

and that would be - the truffle egg toast with asparagus (pictured). it has declined in quality lately, but it's still good. derek likes the spicy spaghetti with pomodoro. my favorite drink is the luce del sole - grapefruit vodka, aperol, honey, freshly squeezed lemon & orange juices. it's served with these absurdly large ice cubes which i love and which keep the drink icy cold. so good. 'inoteca is reliable and close, but i think alta, sorella, and casellula are better choices for small-plates restaurants.

sorella

new york, ny

website

wow - what a find! a fantastic little restaurant that was highly recommended by new york magazine. the front half of the restaurant looks like a typical wine bar - jenny and i laughed as we saw someone ordering a meat and cheese plate with their wine - but the back half of the restaurant is completely different. the ceiling is made of glass with little hanging crystals sparkling in the sunlight. all the benefits of an outdoor patio without the bugs. it's a lovely space, although i recommend coming before sunset. super comfy chairs too.

the food was amazing. pictured is the summer squash. sounds simple enough, but the crusty bread, seasoned zucchini, fresh ricotta, fried basil leaves, and olive-oil sauce together made food magic. seriously, squash has never tasted so good. the corn-bacon risotto was so rich and flavorful that we nearly licked the plate clean. dessert - the orange genoise (cake) - light and creamy and yummy. sorella also has an excellent wine selection with a long list of wines by the glass. jenny's gavi was quite tasty and my dolcetto something-or-other had a remarkable flavor. we will definitely come back here again. and again. and again.

sofia

new york, ny

website

tried to make this picture look different than cello's picture, but i'm pretty sure i failed. another late-night-after-work-wine-meat-cheese "meal" for jenny and myself. we just went to cello last week, so we couldn't help but compare the two and try to determine which should be our regular wine & whine destination. the result? i'm not sure - but here's the analysis:

sofia easily wins on better wine selection - multiple pages describing each wine as opposed to cello's index card-sized list. my red was yummy, jenny enjoyed her sancerre. cello wins on meat & cheese selection because you can actually choose from a list (mmm, comte). cello also wins on atmosphere and location. sofia was too loud - we heard more from our neighbors (about their strange love life) than we heard from eachother. plus, sofia is a good 3 block hike down the street and even more if you're looking for the erroneous address that google maps has (note: sofia is not in st. bart's cathedral). hmmm.

cello

new york, ny

website

at the end of a long day at the office, sometimes you just want a drink. food becomes a secondary consideration. such was the case last week when jenny and i met up at cello. the short wine list seems to change frequently, but they generally have the basic grapes with a couple of is-that-the-grape-or-the-name-of-the-region choices. fortunately, the owner let me taste the cote du rhone before purchasing a glass. not good. i then tried the super tuscan, which was pretty good. jenny thought her riesling was okay.

for "dinner" we had the meat and cheese platter. we liked one of the 2 cheeses (the comte) and one of the 3 meats (no idea) and tried to order more of each. but no one could figure out what we had ordered and we ended up getting more of the 2 meats that we didn't like. eh, whatever. by that point jenny and i were each on our second glass and were therefore quite, um, amenable.

boqueria

new york, ny

website

lovely tapas place recommended by opal. it's a bit crowded and loud on a thursday evening, but it definitely quieted down by 10 pm. again, i love small plates and my favorites here were the meat & cheese platter that we started with and the churros dipped in chocolate that we ended with. sorry for the fuzzy photo - my berry was running out of juice...

in addition, the service was awesome. our waitress regaled us with unique food and wine recommendations and funny stories about devious grapes. boqueria is spanish tapas, as opposed to the italian small plates of alta. but again, two bottles of wine, a dozen plates of good food, and excellent company make for a great night out.

alta

new york, ny

website

the problem with this picture is that there's too much whitespace on my plate - it fails to capture the overwhelming quantity of amazing food that was consumed tonight. we had: beef rib, octopus, pork belly, chicken wings x 3, crispy brussel sprouts x 2, lamb meatballs, lamb skewers, roasted eggplant, fried goat cheese, deviled eggs, cheesy flatbread, beet salad, and pulled pork empanadas. oh - and two bottles of red wine. every plate was delicious. every plate.

i love the small-plates/tapas craze that's spreading through nyc. it's like a high-end buffet. thanks to puri for the excellent restaurant recommendation and excellent wine selection and to puri/vanita/jenny/derek/babyk for the excellent company.

saint's alp tea house

new york, ny

link to yelp

best bubble tea ever. my fav is the taro bubble tea. although i have to remember to order the regular size next time. there's a chinese saying - "eyes bigger than stomach" - every time i go i order the jumbo size and i'm overwhelmed by bubbles. about 10 mins after eating said bubbles, they start to expand in my stomach, which can be painful. anyway - this is a reminder to myself - order the regular size!

pic is derek's minced meat + rice. good cheap small plates - anything with the minced meat is delicious. noodle soups with mi fun are also very good.