An Online Food Journal

I've been trying to write this post for the last month, but have failed time and time again.  Maybe it was because the sheer task was daunting.  Maybe it was because I knew that once I start, it would be hard to stop because it was such an eye-opening experience.  As a Northerner who has only previously ventured as far as North Carolina (Florida doesn't count), my knowledge of the South and Southern cuisine is embarrassingly narrow. I wanted to see the South, especially cities such as Savannah and Charleston that are so rich with history.  Although it lasted only four short days, I learned, experienced, and tasted a culture that was so deeply embedded in history. Savannah: Collins Quarter: In a historic city with a generally older population, you might wonder where the younger generation likes to eat.  Although people usually imagine the South as a place of unchanging, traditional home-cooking, it has been proven that global cuisine is no longer...

New York City restaurant week is a spectacle to say the least.  The number of participating restaurants is overwhelming, with over 350 places offering lunch, dinner or both.  There is also probably no other city that has as many Michelin star restaurants offerings these $25 and $38 prix fixe deals.  This all generates quite a stressful situation for me, because with a dizzying number of options and limited time, there are so many ways to go wrong, but also so many ways to go right.  Morimoto: I decided to try out Morimoto at Chelsea Market for lunch.  Although, I usually don't visit chain restaurants and Morimoto also has a location in Philly, the restaurant week menu looked enticing, so I gave it a shot.  The prix fixe was actually the same as their usual lunch bento sets, except at a slightly cheaper price.  Each bento set came with miso soup, mixed greens salad, pickled long beans, and pickled cucumbers. My friend got the Morimoto dry a...

Restaurant Week is both a beauty and a pain.  It's a great opportunity to try new restaurants and snag deals at old favorites, but this perfect excuse to eat out for both lunch and dinner can leave a hefty dent in your savings. For this summer's Center City Restaurant Week, I decided to exert some self control and only booked two dinners (I actually tried to book a lunch as well, but sshhhh, no one needs to know).  Here is my impression of Supper and Jamonera: Supper: As a fervent believer of Yelp reviews, I was a bit skeptical going into Supper because the restaurant only had three and a half stars (I know, I'm a snob) and there were complaints of the food being overly salty.  With my inexcusably limited knowledge of Southern cuisine, I was expecting the meal to be on the heavier side, salty, and with lots of fried components.  The predictions came true, but surprisingly, I ended up loving these aspects of the meal. For appetizer I ordered the devil eggs. ...

The hustle and bustle of the New York City food scene, with its artfully decorated plates, foreign fusions, unpronounceable ingredients, and ever-changing fads, though usually exciting and innovative, can at times feel trite and disconnected. Don't get me wrong.  I'm one of the biggest proponents of adventurous eating and inventive cooking, but there are times when I crave something local, something humble. When I talk about New York, I usually talk about the city, which I love unabashedly and fervently.  However, my near-obsession with the city causes me to make the unforgivable mistake of forgetting the great upstate, specifically the Catskill Mountains, a southeastern portion of New York state that holds some of the richest natural resources, making it an agricultural paradise. I would not know of the Catskills' beauty and bounty if it were not for the recent food festival The Catskills Comes to Queens at Flushing Town Hall.  It was an event that showcased 20 renown c...