Gai Pad Gapow (Chicken Basil)

This past week, I've been on somewhat of a Thai binge. Spicy Basil Fried Rice, Thai Basil with Chicken, and Drunkman's noodles have been my staple diet for the week. It got me thinking: can I replicate these wonderful Thai dishes? Well, I decided to choose one of these dishes and try everything in my power to cook it. So the dish I've chosen is: Gai Pad Gapow....or in layman's terms: Thai Basil with Chicken.

Ingredients: 

From left to right: basil, garlic, ground turkey,  2x tomato, and oyster sauce (with a cameo appearance by my cup of water)

1) Mince the tomatoes and garlic. I used about 5 cloves of garlic, so we're already off to a great start!

2) Next, rinse out the basil. It'll shrink, but don't worry about that. Basil will naturally shrink upon contact with water. Now, pluck them off their stems and dice them up. Pretty simple. So simple that even an amateur like me can accomplish this feat. 

3) Now, heat a skillet on high. Then, drizzle some olive oil when the skillet is all heated up. Now, place the garlic/tomato mix into the skillet and start stirring it around. 

4) When the garlic turns a brownish color, add the ground turkey. Ground chicken can also be used, but I've been eating so much chicken these last few weeks, so I thought I'd change the game up! 

* This looks soo gross...like mangled brains. Ugh! Good thing it tastes better than brains! 

5) Once the turkey has lost its raw pinkish color and turns into more of a tootsie roll color, add 2 teaspoons of oyster sauce to the turkey. This is a very fun process. It's also very easy. 

* The oyster sauce is very viscous, so just like a ketchup bottle, make sure you tap on the sides to get all that gooey deliciousness out of the bottle. 

6) Add the diced basil to the dish. Make sure to use your dextrous wrists to incorporate the basil flavor all over the dish! I love how the basil adds some color to the turkey! 

7) Once you've stirred the basil and the flavor has throughly diffused into the turkey, turn down the heat to a medium-low setting and let it simmer for about 5 minutes. Grab a beer and relax, while watching your dish cook to perfection! 

YOU'RE DONE!!!! Not going to lie, this dish was decent, but I didn't have any Thai chili peppers with me, so the dish did lack some of that kick to it. As well, I need to add MORE garlic and MORE basil! I definitely did not use enough. Maybe instead of 5 cloves of garlic, I'll use 8 cloves of garlic! And I'll use two packages of basil, instead of one package. Yet, despite these deficiencies, the dish was still a beautiful medley in my mouth. This is a very simple, quick easy dish to cook. I highly suggest adding this dish to your dinner plans in the near future 

Lime and Garlic Chicken Breast

Hey guys! Happy Saturday to everybody! I seriously can't believe Labor Day is a little over a week away! Crazy! Well, I'm coming to you with a new cooking post! My new apartment is equipped with a top-of-the-line gas grill and oven, so I figured I'd take full advantage of them. Today, I decided to make "Lime and Garlic" Chicken Breasts!

I've never made this type of dish before, but I figured I would combine my love of garlic with an ingredient I've never used before. Why limes? Well, why not? It's the cousin of the lemon, which I love to use to flavor up any dish, so I figured incorporating some nice citrus would elevate this dish.

Ingredients: 

 Left to right: Olive oil, soy sauce, garlic bulbs, lime, and chicken breast

*Make sure you have a measuring cup similar to the one in the photo

1) Pour 1/4 cup of soy sauce into the measuring cup.  Add 1/4 cup of sesame oil. Add 1/4 cup of olive oil. Simple enough. And if it's too difficult, I've attached a picture below to help ya'll out.

2) Squeeze the juice of one lime...or in other words, juice out one lime! I've found that instead of just cutting a lime into halves, cut the lime into smaller pieces. That way, it makes it easier to squeeze out all the juice contained in these limes!

 * I have good technique when it comes to squeezing bulbous objects ;)

3) My favorite part: dice the garlic. I went a little overboard and cut 5 cloves of garlic. Oops. I couldn't help it hehehe.

4) Now, add the minced garlic to the marinade in the measuring cup. Again, not too complex.
If you haven't caught on by now, this isn't a very difficult dish to make. As long as you can read, chop, and follow basic instructions, YOU WILL NOT MESS UP THIS DISH.

5) Now, place the chicken breasts in a gallon sized ziplock bag. Pour the marinade into the bag and let the chicken sit in the fridge for an hour. Because I'm smart, I flipped them over after 30 minutes had elapsed. So I'm telling ya'll to follow my lead.

6) Remember this guy? It's been a while since I've last brought him out. It's my George Foreman Grill. Yes, we're grilling these chicken breasts. Unfortunately, I don't have a grill at my current apartment, so this'll hafta surprise. The mark of a genius chef is improvisation. If you can't improvise, you will just peak as a chef....there's no room for you to grow and improve.

7) Grill the chicken on each side for about 5 minutes. You're looking for some nice grill marks and a golden brown outside. The breasts in the picture were just placed on the grill, so that's why they still look super raw. Don't worry, I made sure they were thoroughly cooked!

8) Dinner is served!

* Spinach, brown rice, 2 chicken breasts!

Overall, this was a nice dish. The lime threw me off a bit, but it didn't overpower the chicken. Personally, I'm more of a fan of lemon, so I'll be using lemon in this dish going forward. That's not an endorsement from me to use lemon, it's just personal preference. I still advice that ya'll should cook with the lime at least once, so ya'll can make the choice for yourself. I'm soo full now, so I'm gonna go into a food coma now. Au revoir!

Birthday Dinner!!!

Hey guys! So it's been a hectic past few months for me. After two and a half years living on the Upper West Side, I've finally moved out on my own to the Financial District. It's been very chaotic...from trying to coordinate times with building management and the furniture delivery company to figuring out when to take days off work, I 'm just glad that it's all finally over. I've accumulated a bunch of pictures from over this summer that I've been dying to show ya'll, so my next few posts will be based on my eatings and happenings that have occurred over the past few months.

Up to the plate today is my birthday dinner! My girlfriend, Angela, surprised me with a birthday dinner at a very nice Italian Restaurant, Ai Fiori! Oh my god, it just vaulted to the top of my favorite restaurants here in NYC. It was confusing to find because it's located on the 2nd floor of a hotel, and there are multiple avenues to arriving at the 2nd floor, so Angela and I missed our meeting point. But fear not, we found each other!

* That's my girlfriend! She cut it short since the last time you've seen her. She actually cut her hair even shorter than in this pic, so she looks a lot like Audrey Hepburn! Like an Asian version of Audrey Hepburn

 * We ordered a side dish of potato wedges. These were super delicious. Why? Well if you've followed me, you know that it only takes a few simple ingredients to win over my heart. Garlic, olive oil, and fresh herbs. And yes, these potatoes contained the holy trifecta! Plus, the main food was potato. Who doesn't like a "fried" potato anyways?

 * my main course: halibut! It was probably one of the best halibut dishes I've ever had. There was a nice basil sauce on the bottom of the fish. The fish was light and filling at the same time, as weird and contradictory as that sounds.

 * Angela got the sea bass. Excellent choice on her part as well. I only tried one bite, but it was a delicious bite nonetheless.

 *Angela got: Budino di Cioccolato, which is basically milk chocolate, hazelnut, amaro, and biscottino gelato. The great thing about this dessert is the fact that they were not super rich! So Angela just devoured her dessert like a T-Rex feasting on a baby dinosaur.

 * This was amazing. Angela never told the restaurant it was my birthday, but our sneaky waiter, Luis, overheard her saying happy birthday to me, so they surprised me with a personalized "happy birthday!" I ordered the Tartaletta, which is  Loma Sotavento 72% ganache, chocolate chiboust, tiramisu gelato! Sooo good, sooo delicious, made even better by the personalized message!

* Our cute amuse bouche! I have no idea what it is, but it consisted of four different "candy" bites. All delicious.

All in all, one of the better meals I've had in NYC. Would I eat here again? For sure. Would I take my parents here for diner? .....um, of course! So yeah, this is the place to take a loved one, or to even celebrate a special occasion!

It's been a while

Holy crap! I was looking at the date of my previous post, and it's been over two months since I've last updated my blog! I'm sorry for the wait...it's been a busy start to the year for me. Plus, I'm not gonna lie, I kinda forgot I had this blog. Oops. But anyways, I was out in Long Island a few weekends ago visiting my girlfriend, and her cousin from China was visiting. Anyways, long story short, the entire Lau clan, myself included, went out to "Congee village" in Chinatown and had ourselves a feast! It's been a while since I've had some delicious Chinese food, so this was a welcome treat!

1) First dish was a cold crab! We arrived at least 15 minutes before anybody else showed up, yet the waitress brought out this dish immediately upon our arrival. It was kinda awkward, because I wanted to eat it, but since I have manners, I waited for the rest of our party to arrive. This crab just kept staring at me. It was creepy.

2) This is the Congee Village's signature dish: Tofu in "delicious sauce." I don't actually know what the actual translation of the dish is, but in essence, this is basically fried tofu with a delicious soy sauce-based sauce...complete with scallions :). My favorite! I only had one piece of tofu, which made me quite sad.

3) This is the same tofu dish. I just enjoyed it soo much, I thought it deserved another photo in my post.

4) This was the soup we ordered. Dinner with the Laus is not complete without a nice hot bowl of soup! This soup was ripe with ginseng, so it was super bitter. I'm not a fan of that bitter taste, but I loved this soup. It was sooo good. Plus, it had a lot of my favorite vegetables in it. All in all, it was a great dish to have on a cold day.

 5) Oops. I forgot to take a picture of this dish, but it was pork chops. I guess the best way to describe it is "salt and pepper" pork chops. But as you can tell from the picture, everybody loved the dish, as there were only two pieces left when it made its way to my direction.

So yeah, apologies for not posting sooner, but hopefully this'll make up for it. I'm going to try to update this more frequently, so stay tuned for more exciting posts!

3 Year Anniversary

Hello folks! It's time for another update! Today's blog revolves around my 3 years anniversary with Angela! It's been such a short 3 years; I can't believe that we've been together for that long already. It seems like yesterday we had just met. But of course, such a milestone couldn't have gone uncelebrated, especially with food....so here's what we ended up doing:

Kouzan Restaurant 
I had previously taken my parents to this restaurant, and I thought that Angela would really enjoy this place. And I was correct :). It's wonderful because normally, Japanese food does not fill her up, but she seemd super content and full after our meal!

1)  Angela ordered a cocktail: the Midori Delight! It was served in a martini glass, with a slice of lemon, and had a very pretty green color, so you know it's going to be good. Angela certainly enjoyed it. I thought it was a little sweet for my liking...but hey Angela's very sweet, the drink is very sweet, it's a perfect match.

 2) This is the miso soup. This place makes very delicious miso soup. It's not super watery and has a lot of flavor. Delicious! I really feel like I should learn how to make miso soup; it's delicious, it seems simple, and I'm pretty sure it's healthy. I mean, c'mon, the soup has got seaweed!

 3) I ordered pan fried udon with chicken. Again, I find that many places drench their udon in soy sauce and the dish turns out very greasy, but Kouzan cooks it in a way that extracts the natural ingredients from the dish. I think I devoured this dish in 5 minutes; it was that good, and I was also super hungry haha. And it's healthy because look at all those pieces of broccoli...

Later on in the evening, Angela and I bought some Rose Champagne to celebrate even further. We thought we'd be able to recork the champagne and save it for a later day. Boy were we wrong; once you pop the champagne bottle, you can't recork the bottle because the cork expands to a point where it won't fit in the nose of the champagne bottle. So yeah, Angela and I finished a whole bottle of champagne together...that would be 3 glasses for each of us!

* look at that beautiful red color; I'm giving her a "rose" in a bottle. I'm very romantic


Yesterday, we decided to go to an Italian restaurant in East Village named "Supper." It's a nice, small restaurant that got very good reviews on Yelp. Unfortunately, we had a hard time navigating our way to this restaurant, because the MTA (New York's Transportation Authority) diverted our normal route. What should have been a 30 minute commute turned into an hour's commute. Oh well, the extra delay was worth the wait!

1) This restaurant has an open kitchen, and we were seated right next to it. It was great because we could see our dishes being cooked in front of us. The chef on the right in the picture was awesome; he was in charge of cooking the pasta dishes, and whenever he was cooking the pasta in its sauce, he would bob his head and carry a goofy grin as if he were listening to music. 

* I seriously can't believe that all the food comes from this kitchen; it wasn't tiny, but it didn't elicit the image of great works of art coming from that kitchen

2) My dish: Spaghetti Bolognese. This was a delicious meal. The spaghetti was cooked al dente, so I was able to finally experience exactly what "al dente" is supposed to taste like. I came to the realization that my previous attempts at cooking "al dente" was "all wrong!" There's a chewy texture to the spaghetti when it's cooked al dente; so instead of having your teeth sink right through the noodle, there's some chewing that needs to take place to break down the carb! The Bolognese sauce was fresh, tomato-ey, and ripe with basil. It's like the chef knew how I love my basil!

 3) Tagliatelle in Meat Sauce. This is what Angela ordered.  I can comment on this dish because Angela couldn't finish the dish, so she let me devour whatever was left over. I like meat ;), so the meat sauce was right up my alley. The Tagliatelle was tagliatelle: it was a flat noodle that tasted just like how it was supposed to...like carbs! And of course, all the ingredients were fresh, so I had no complaints.

4) This was the complimentary bread. There were two types of bread. I'm not sure what one of them was, but the other had a delicious garlic spread on it. Nevertheless, both breads were delicious, and both Angela and I finished them in a heartbeat! The dish also came with a complimentary dipping sauce, containing olive oil, beans, and vinaigrette. I'm not a huge fan of beans, but the beans gave the dipping sauce a nice flavor. Angela preferred eating the bread without the dipping sauce, so I was just dunking my bread all night long, no shame! 

Overall, this was a very great weekend for me; I got to celebrate a special moment in my life, and I got to eat at two very delicious restaurants. I've been very lucky to have been a part of all these wonderful experiences. Here's to many more good times to come!

Christmas with the folks

It's Christmas time! This is definitely my favorite time of the holidays....it's a time where society is happier as a whole, festive music is playing all day long, and people exchange gifts with their friends and loved ones. Again, being the adventurous young soul that I am, I went back to Texas to spend time with my mother and father....I really need to do something else besides always going to Texas for the holidays; at this point it seems predictable. Maybe I'll go to Jamaica and surf with the locals, or travel to the Maldives and soak in its natural beauty.

One thing I really enjoy every time I'm home is eating at Seasons 52. So, as one can predict, I went to Seasons 52 yesterday. I know, I know....I recently blogged about this place, but I promise, it'll be about new dishes. Give me some credit, please.

Appetizers: 
1) My mom actually saw the table next to us ordering this. It's 3 chicken skewers presented as a tower. Beneath it is a apple salad with a sour apple vinaigrette. The chicken skewers were delicious; perfectly moist and cooked. Not too dry, yet not too soggy. And yes, before you ask, I have had soggy chicken, and it's disgusting. Kinda like eating a slug. Unfortunately, I'm not too much of a fan of salads, let alone fancy salads with a sour apple vinaigrette. It wasn't bad (I'm sure salad lovers would adore its taste), but for me, it was ok. Luckily, I had my parents to help me finish it off.

2) Lemmongrass mussels. We ordered this last time...still as delicious as last time. It's nice to come back to familiar food.

 * from top to bottom: mussels, chicken skewers

Main course: 
1) now, what makes Seasons 52 unique is that in addition to their year round menu, they have a seasonal menu where, based on the month and time of the year, they will have dishes that are "in season:"...aka special dishes. Both my dad and I ordered from the seasonal menu; in particular, we ordered BRANZINO WITH LEMON, THYME, and VEGGIES/POTATOES, I really enjoy Branzino, and I rarely get a chance to eat it. What's great about this dish was that there was some table side service in that the dish is served ala this picture right here: 

Now the waiter will cut up the fish, and remove all the lemons and limes that are wedged in between the fish...ala this photo:

They say a picture's worth a thousand words: the picture of the fish above should describe just how delicious this fish was.

* Getting the branzino sliced open!

 

* My dad and I 

 

* My mom and I

* the family, we look so happy! Probably because of the delicious food we're about to have!



Dessert:
1) This was also a seasonal dish that I ordered...it was an Eggnog Mousse. I'm not gonna lie, it was very sweet..a little sweeter than I would have liked...but if you notice the container it's served in, it's tiny. So overall, this was actually the right amount of dessert to eat. If I had a normal portion that is usually served in steakhouses or other restaurants, I would have died. But overall, this dish was delicious. I love eggnogg; if there was only one thing I'd critique, it'd be the sweetness of the mousses.

2) I also ordered a cappuccino! It had the perfect ratio of foam to coffee. The foam was very light and fluffy that for a second, my mouth felt like it was floating on a cloud! This place definitely knows how to brew their coffee!

Again, if you can't tell by my review, Seasons 52 has crept up to my top restaurant in Texas. Rarely do you find a restaurant that serves an impeccable three course meal with nothing to really critique about. Yeah, the dessert was really sweet, but that was me nitpicking with a fine tooth comb. I highly recommend this place to anybody who's visiting the Dallas Area.

Thanksgiving 2013

I had probably the best Thanksgiving dinner of my life. And to nobody's surprise (I hope), it was because I spent Thanksgiving at home in Dallas, Texas, eating my mom's cooking. Holy !@$)(%, she really pulled out her guns this time and flexed her muscle! As a family, we decided to change the game up a bit from a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of the usual Thanksgiving spread, such as turkey, yams, and stuffing, we had more of an "Asian" inspired meal. The meal was inspired based on the teachings of the great Chinese philosopher, Ming Tsai. He is probably the most famous Asian celebrity chef and was a household name on the Food Network, hosting his famous show "East meets West." I must give my thanks to him, for dinner would not be possible without his contributions to society.

The meal was a twist on the famous Peking duck dish. However, instead of using duck as the main protein, the recipe calls for using Pork Belly. I have discovered that Pork Belly is probably one of my top 3 favorite foods in the world, especially when it's prepared the "Ming Tsai" way. So, without further ado, here is:

Ming Tsai's Pork Belly 

1) First, you need to gather all the ingredients together to make the rub. It calls for 2 Tbsp of Korean chile flakes. I cheated and used Japanese flakes instead. Oops. In addition, you need 1 Tbsp of sugar, and 1 Tbsp of salt.

* Then, you need to mix it all together using your "dextrous" wrists, so everything is evened out!

2) Next, you gots to rub the mixture all over THREE WHOLE POUNDS of pork belly. Then, you need to leave it in the fridge overnight...allowing the meat to soak in the delicious flavors of the rub.

* staring at this makes me very hungry!

3) I forgot to mention that you need to put the pork belly in the fridge uncovered. That is my bad.

4) Now, after you've had a good night's sleep, and pork belly has been sitting in the fridge over night, it's time to take it out. But before you do, you've got to do some prep work:
a) Find a roasting pan with a flat rack on the top. The picture below will perfectly display this.
b) Pour 1.5 cups of rice vinegar into this roasting pan.
c) Celebrate that you were able to accomplish this task

* From left to right: Rice wine and roasting pan

5) Place the Pork Belly on top of the flat rack, with the fat facing on top. Now, slice a DIAMOND SHAPE PATTERN into the fat. I like this recipe because not only are you cooking, but you're also getting a world class education. The recipe calls for Diamond shaped patterns, not triangular or rectangular shaped patterns. You need to have a prior knowledge of shapes before attempting this dish.

* I have expertly wielded the knife to slice diamond patterns into the fat.

6) Now, you need to cover the pork belly tightly with foil, and put in in a 359 degree oven for about an hour, until all the liquid has evaporated. The liquid = the vinegar. Keep up with me. Why 359 instead of the customary 375? Because that's what the recipe calls for, and you NEVER deviate from the recipe. After the necessary time has elapsed, let the dish cool.

7) This is what the pork dish looks like when it cools:

* SEXY!

8) Now, you've got to step it up a notch and take this cooking to the next level. The BBQ LEVEL!!! Step outside, brave the chilly weather that you're about to face, and walk to your bbq grill. Turn it on, and grill the pork belly on each side for the 6 minutes.

* Make sure the grill is clean. If not, you're gonna have to clean the grill before actually partaking in any grilling action!

9) This is my favorite part. Once the grilling is complete, cut the pork belly into two-inch squares.

The pork belly dish is complete. Just stop and admire this perfection...

Now, in addition to pork belly, we also cooked duck. SURPRISE!!! I didn't mention it at the beginning of my post because I wanted to focus on the pork belly, and trick ya'll.

1) This is the duck in the rotisserie. We bought a pre-marinated duck...to save time...and so that we could focus on the pork belly, the star of the Thanksgiving dinner!

* Duck in rotisserie

2) This is the duck after being cooked for about 30 minutes.

* I always feel sorry for the duck. It looks so helpless with its butt sticking up in the air.

3) I wanted to add this photo because it shows how badass my mom is. She is taking out the duck from the rotisserie machine all by herself. For those of ya'll who own rotisserie machines, ya'll understand how difficult it can be to remove anything from a rotisserie oven.

* Badass Mama Lee at work

4) Now, the meal wouldn't be complete without some steamed buns!

So as you can tell, this Thanksgiving was one for the ages. Good food, amazing family, yay to me! The pork belly was sooo succulent and flavorful. If anybody wants to come visit me for Thanksgiving in Texas next year, you will have the amazing opportunity to try this beautiful dish.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO EVERYBODY. HOPE YOU HAD SO MUCH TO BE THANKFUL FOR!!!! :)