Off the Beaten Path

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

Sometimes a little bit of research pays off, and other times a spontaneous choice will yield great results when looking for a place to eat. I spent the weekend in New York City and had time for one good dinner, so I did a little research ahead of time to find somewhere relatively inexpensive but still nice. It can be hard to find those mid-range restaurants in NYC; it seems like the majority of places are either super-cheap (pizza, subs, etc.) or extremely expensive, but not too many are casual and reasonably priced. When it comes to the city, I'm less than a native but more than a tourist. I've gone there at least a couple times a year but usually more throughout my life, so I'm pretty familiar with the layout and try to avoid the extremely touristy areas. My boyfriend, who is a Manhattan native, wanted to bring me to some areas I hadn't really explored before, so we planned on walking around the Lower East Side and Little Italy, and then we planned on having Italian food for dinner. A quick bit of research online reminded us that Little Italy is really aimed at feeding tourists overpriced poor excuses for Italian meals, so I checked out the lively Chowhound forums for advice on good Italian near, but not within, Little Italy.

A restaurant named Bianca kept popping up in the discussions, and it was just a short walk from Little Italy. Perfect! I glanced at some reviews and found the menu on Menu Pages, and everything looked promising. Nestled on a quiet bit of Bleecker St. between Bowery and Elizabeth, Bianca serves simple, inexpensive Italian in a comfortable, nicer-than-casual setting. We arrived at around 5:30 on Saturday night and had no trouble getting in. In fact, the place was almost empty. I was shocked to find that everything on the menu was $15 or less. I settled on the traditional spaghettini al pomodoro with a mesclun salad; my friend Kim got a spinach salad with apples, walnuts, and pecorino cheese; and Ben got the special, a Mediterranean fish similar to sea bass that came with spinach and fried potatoes. We also got a bottle of champagne to celebrate my impending birthday. The food was simple but delicious, and the place has a lot of charm. It's definitely a hidden gem. The bill came to less than $80 for the three of us, including the $30 bottle of champagne. Not bad for NYC!

We left the city around 5pm on Sunday night for the drive back to Rochester and got hungry for dinner around 8:30 as we passed through a small town named Hancock, located on the Delaware River. A restaurant search on the GPS led us to what appeared to be the center of Hancock, home to a couple Chinese take-out places and a diner. Not in the mood for either, we took a couple random turns. Suddenly, I spotted a brightly painted house with a sign out front that said, "Bluestone Grill: Eat, Drink, Laugh." Well, that sounds fun, doesn't it? Best of all, it was open late on a Sunday night, eventhough the rest of the town seemed pretty dead at the time. We stepped inside, weary from the first part of the drive, and we were greeted cheerfully as we walked in. We wound through a series of rooms and were seated by a window in a pleasant, dimly lit dining room. You can get an idea of the ambiance by checking out the photo gallery on the restaurant's website. (Warning: Music autoplays when you open the gallery.) It really felt like an unexpected oasis in the middle of the small, quiet town.

The menu had everything from a "five buck chuck" (a simple hamburger with a choice of sides) to fancier entrees in the $15-$25 range. I opted for a house salad and the five buck chuck with shoestring fries, and Ben chose a pan-fried skate wing with a side of cornbread. The cornbread was described as "insanely good" on the menu, and it lived up to its description. The presentation was lively and appetizing, and everything tasted excellent. The service was very friendly. If you're ever passing through Hancock for whatever reason, definitely check this place out. It was really a lucky find, and it energized us for the rest of the drive home.

Spontaneity can definitely be rewarding while restaurant-hunting. Not only do you get a great meal, but you also get a little jolt of excitement that you took a chance on a random place and everything worked out. If you prefer to do research ahead of time, some helpful sites are Chowhound, Yelp, and RocWiki (for Rochester). We used both methods this weekend and ended up with two really great meals.

Bianca:

Bluestone Grill:

Spicy Orange Garlic Shrimp and Cold Melon Soup

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

My dining companion was on a business trip last week, leaving the kitchen in my incapable hands once again. In honor of the sweltering heat (and the miserable cold that had been keeping me sneezing all week), I decided to go with a light and healthy fruit theme for dinner one night. I've always been intrigued by the idea of cold soup, and I've had a few that were pretty good. One that stands out in my memory is a cold watermelon soup from Veselka, a popular Ukrainian restaurant in NYC's East Village. A quick search for "cold melon soup" recipes turned up a bunch of results. I ended up settling for Cool Melon Swirl Soup, curious to see if I could actually accomplish the "swirl" part of the recipe. (Keep reading to find out if I succeeded!)

I didn't really measure out the amounts of the ingredients as listed in the recipe; I haphazardly threw melon chunks in the blender and liberally added the honey and lime juice. This may have contributed to the unfortunate thinness of the finished soup. I expected something a little dense, but my soup was rather, well, soupy. As you can see below, the swirl didn't really work. Big surprise, right? Maybe if I had used the correct amounts of everything, the densities would have been different and the orange part would have stayed separate from the green part. Anyone out there know how to make something like this work? Anyway, here's the finished product, garnished with whipped cream and berries. A mint leaf would have been a nice embellishment too, but the store was out of fresh mint. As you can see, I had some trouble forming a perfect dollop of cream, and the berries quickly began to topple into the soup. The presentation didn't work out so well for this meal.

Man overboard...

In addition to the soup, I made shrimp and rice. I decided to be daring (generally a bad idea) and improvised a shrimp marinade. I plucked some random things from the cupboard and ended up with a marinade consisting of the following:

• 1/4 cup orange marmalade
• 1 tsp lime juice
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• dash of chili oil
• dash of chopped garlic (the kind that comes pre-chopped in a little jar full of liquid)

This was enough for about 8 small to medium shrimp. For once, something worked out for me in the kitchen. This marinade was actually really tasty. The chili oil added just a bit of heat, the soy sauce and garlic gave it an Asian flavor, and the orange marmalade added some sweetness, but not too much. I let the shrimp marinate for about 30 minutes, grilled them, and served them over white rice, which I managed to burn slightly. Well, I guess it's just not possible for everything to work out perfectly in one meal.

This meal was less of a disaster than some other things I've made in the kitchen, but there's definitely room for improvement. The thin texture of the soup wasn't wonderful, although the whipped cream helped a lot. There are a lot of other recipes out there for cold fruit soups, so I might try a few others this summer. The shrimp was the best part of the meal, and I'll definitely be making the marinade again, maybe with a little bit more chili oil next time. The spicier, the better!

A Taste of New England

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online,  I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!   ~Rachel, 6/28/10

Last week I spent some time eating my way through Massachusetts and hitting up some of the major tourist attractions. I grew up in a small Massachusetts town called Sharon, located about 25 miles south of Boston and home to one of the ten best ice cream places in the world, Crescent Ridge. Due to the short and relatively easy commute to Boston, I used to go into town often, but this was the first time I really got a chance to walk around on my own. I walked pretty much the entirety of Boston, took a painful amount of photos, and of course, ate some tasty food.

One of the most touristy places in Boston (but still worth a visit even if you're trying to avoid the typical tourist attractions) is the Faneuil Hall Marketplace. (The most common pronunciation of "Faneuil" rhymes with "manual.") The marketplace consists of Faneuil Hall itself, which is a historic building known for a whole bunch of things you can read about on Wikipedia; Quincy Market, which is the main food section; North and South Markets, which both house a lot of fun stores; and the outdoor areas between all the buildings, where you can find tons of carts selling a variety of crafts, t-shirts, and other items.

Quincy Market (that's pronounced quin-zee, not quin-see) is where you'll find most of the restaurants. The indoor area consists of a long hallway of to-go food counters featuring every type of food imaginable (see a full list here.)

In the middle of the hall of food, there's a large rotunda where you can battle other eaters for a seat at the long wooden tables on two floors.

There are also some large sit-down restaurants scattered around the marketplace, but the cheaper (and more fun!) option is to pick up food at one of these counters and go find a seat in the rotunda or outside. The empty space on either end of Quincy Market is usually taken up by performance artists, so there's always plenty of entertainment.

You can usually find people in interesting costumes.

No matter what you eat, make sure you leave some room for cookies. The Boston Chipyard, located along one of the outer hallways of Quincy Market, has the best cookies in the world. They typically have about ten flavors available on any given day, and you can order them in half-dozen increments. Last time I was there, I bought a half dozen chocolate chip cookies and a half dozen oatmeal raisin cookies.

Excuse me a moment while I wipe the drool off of my keyboard.

Of course, Quincy Market isn't the only place to eat in Boston. For authentic, delicious Italian food, be sure to stop by the North End. (Surprise! The North End isn't the northernmost area of Boston. East Boston and Charlestown are actually further north. Yes, East Boston is north of the North End. The West End is also in the northern part of town. Confused yet? One more interesting point: South Boston and the South End are two entirely different areas. Southie refers to South Boston, and the South End isn't the southernmost part of the city.) Anyway, back to the food. While you're in the North End, be sure to try a cannoli at Mike's Pastry, which has existed forever. The history part of the website is under construction so I'm not sure exactly how long it's really been there, but Mike's is definitely a North End landmark, so no matter how much you eat for dinner, save room for dessert and head to Mike's. Many North End restaurants are pricey, so be on the look-out for early bird specials. Recently, I ate at G'Vanni's Ristorante, which has an excellent early bird deal where you can get two large dinners AND a bottle of wine for $30, with various upgrades available for a little bit more money.

New England is known for seafood, so if you're anywhere in the region, be sure to eat some fish. Sadly, one of Boston's seafood landmarks, a store called James Hook and Co. that has been open since 1925, burned down several weeks ago (full story here, so cross that one off your list for now, although the owners do plan to rebuild.) Legal Seafoods, although a fairly large chain now, is still a great place to have a wonderful seafood dinner. You should venture outside of Boston as well, if you get a chance. Last week I spent a day on the North Shore of Massachusetts, which includes towns and cities such as Ipswich, Salem, Essex, Gloucester, and Rockport. I started out the day in Gloucester (pronounced Gloss-tah, not Glow-chester). First, I went to the Hammond Castle, a medieval-style castle built by inventor John Hays Hammond, Jr. in the 1920s that now serves as a museum.

Next, I stopped for lunch at The Gloucester House, a fifty year old restaurant responsible for popularizing fried calamari (thank you Gloucester House!!!) and specializing in North Atlantic seafood.

My mom ordered a lobster roll (pronounce it "lobstah" if you want to sound like a local), and it was enormous and delicious.

My dad got some tasty fried clams.

I had the baked haddock, lightly breaded to perfection.

After Gloucester, we headed to nearby Rockport, a coastal town full of little shops and art galleries. Once we were tired of shopping, we stopped by The Ice Cream Store for a little afternoon treat.

I got peppermint ice cream with jimmies. See the glossary if you're confused.

Eating in Massachusetts requires some specific food vocabulary, so here's a little glossary to help you out.

Glossary

• Frappes vs. Milkshakes: Frappes are what the rest of the country thinks of as milkshakes--milk, flavored syrup, and ice cream--while milkshakes in New England are made with just milk and syrup but no ice cream. So if you're from out of state and looking for a milkshake, you probably want to order a frappe. By the way, that rhymes with "rap." Don't pronounce it "frapp-ay."
• Jimmies vs. Sprinkles: You've probably had sprinkles before--the little candy pieces that you can get on your ice cream--in either the rainbow or chocolate variety. In most parts of New England, rainbow sprinkles are known simply as sprinkles, while the chocolate ones are called jimmies.
• Scrod: You will see "scrod" or "schrod" on the menu at almost any seafood restaurant. It's not a real fish. Scrod does not actually exist. The word "scrod" is a generic term used to refer to whatever whitefish is the catch of the day, most frequently cod or haddock. For more information about scrod, including a grammatical joke that will make you laugh if you're a grammar dork like me, check out the Wikipedia page.
• Tonic vs. Soda vs. Pop: Soft drinks are referred to as "soda" in Massachusetts. Never, ever "pop." If you call it "pop," you will probably be laughed at. Some Bostonians call soft drinks "tonic," but this isn't as common. "Tonic" isn't the same as what you might call "tonic water" (a carbonated beverage with quinine.)

I took way too many photos on this trip, and all the time spent sorting through and editing and uploading them is what held this blog post up for so long, so do me a favor and go take a look at them :)

• Rockport
• Gloucester
• Museum of Science
• Butterfly Garden at the Museum of Science
• New England Aquarium
• Miscellaneous Boston

Pomegranate Mojitos and Banana Xangas: Tasty Treats at Tapas 177

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

Tapas 177 gets crowded on the weekends, but I prefer to go at odd times so that I can savor the candlelit ambiance while dining on small unique dishes and drinking a refreshing mojito. Dessert and drinks became a Tuesday night routine for awhile, a nice way to unwind after one of my band rehearsals. Their mojitos are the best in town, but one evening, I asked the bartender if he knew of any variations, maybe incorporating some kind of fruit. He made a pomegranate mojito for me, and it was amazing. I'd usually pair a pomegranate mojito with the house special dessert, banana xangas, but more on that later.

I hadn't been there for an actual meal in awhile, so I headed there a couple nights ago with my boyfriend, who is finally back from vacation, thus saving me from my odd kitchen experiments (for example, Blueberries + Steak = Delicious?) We got there early, and we had the whole main dining room to ourselves for awhile. The bar is on the main level, and the dining room (as well as a second bar and a patio) are down a narrow, creaky staircase. You'll need a minute for your eyes to adjust when you arrive downstairs. It's almost cave-like, lit mainly by candles. Tapestries are draped over the walls, and several tables are enclosed in private alcoves by velvety curtains. I was seated at a table that has one chair and one seat on a long, cushioned bench. My seat on the bench included a couple of throw pillows for reclining. Here's a view of the main dining room.

Sorry for the blurriness; it was pretty dark down there, and it's probably rude to take out the tripod in the middle of a restaurant :)

To start, Ben got a glass of Chateau Luxeuil Cote du France Bourdeaux, a well-balanced red wine with hints of cherry and banana, and I got my favorite pomegranate mojito.

We were also given a basket of tasty focaccia bread.

Rather than order entrees, we decided to split three tapas and then get dessert if we were still hungry. (Ok, that's a lie. We were definitely planning on dessert, regardless of hunger. The banana xangas is irresistible.) In case you've never experienced tapas before, 'tapas' is a Spanish word that refers to small appetizer-like dishes that can be hot or cold. Outside of Spain, restaurants have popped up everywhere centering around tapas in a slightly different way than in Spain. They're still small dishes, but customers make meals out of them by ordering a bunch and sharing with the rest of the table. Tapas 177 offers a variety of these small dishes as well as some larger entrees. You can find tapas ranging from calamari salad to sushi. Entrees include some fish, pasta, and meat options. If you're feeling daring, try the pan-seared ostrich. A sampling of the menu is available on the Tapas 177 website here.

For our meal, we had the steamed chicken dumplings, beef braciola stuffed with chorizo and gouda, and egg rolls. The dumplings arrived in a bamboo steaming basket with a couple of dipping sauces (soy and spicy mustard.) The filling was made of chicken, cilantro, scallions, and ginger. The best thing about the dumplings is the simplicity. Many other dumplings seem to have lots of mystery ingredients squished together to make a filling, but with these, you can really pick out each flavor, and they come together well.

The beef braciola arrived looking sort of like meatballs in a pool of tomato sauce and oil, but upon closer inspection, we found that it was made of slices of beef wrapped around the stuffing, which was made of chorizo, smoked gouda, wild onion, and roasted garlic. I'm not really into gouda, but I tried some and was pleasantly surprised. The chorizo added a nice hint of spice, and the tomato sauce (actually tomato coulis, according to the menu) had a good rustic taste.

Our third dish was fried Vietnamese chicken egg rolls, which were served with a thick sweet and sour sauce that seemed to have a hint of BBQ flavor. This dish was my favorite of the tapas that we ordered. The egg rolls were delightfully crispy, and the dipping sauce was excellent. Plus, they were pretty thin compared to the egg rolls you might get at a typical Chinese restaurant, so the roll stays together better when you bite into it.

As the plates were emptied, so was my mojito glass. Just about everything on the lengthy martini list was tempting. I ended up settling on the 177 Martini for my second drink: vodka, raspberry liqueur, grenadine, and sour mix. It was very good, I think. I guess I don't remember much about it, because it went right to my head after a sip or two.

For dessert, we ordered a raspberry kiwi crepe and the house special, banana xangas. The crepe, which was exploding with whipped cream and raspberry coulis, disappeared into my boyfriend's stomach before I could try more than a bite or two. The little bit that I was able to try was pretty delicious.

Banana xangas is amazing. I would go to Tapas 177 just for this. It basically consists of a mix of bananas and cinnamon in a fried dough shell, served with ice cream, whipped cream, and caramel.

The bill came to about $70 before tip for the three drinks, three tapas, and two desserts. This was plenty of food for two reasonably hungry people. In general, if you're skipping entrees and getting a few drinks, you should be fine with enough tapas to allow for 1.5 or 2 dishes per person. I left comfortably full (and comfortably tipsy.)

Food can also be ordered at the bar, and free salsa lessons are offered on Thursday nights around 9:30pm. There's live music on Saturdays around 11pm, and there are wine tastings on the first Tuesday of each month at 6pm. Check out the website for more info about events.

Basic Info
Location: 177 Saint Paul St.
Phone: 585-262-2090
Website: http://www.tapas177.com

Festival Food

Ed. note: This post originally appeared in my 2008 food blog Fork It Over on the website of the Rochester Insider magazine, which is now Metromix Rochester. Since the old blog is no longer available online, I'm re-posting some of those posts here and backdating them to their original posting dates. Although in most cases they are specific to Rochester, hopefully you'll still find them somewhat interesting!  ~Rachel, 6/28/10

What can you find at the Lilac Festival aside from lilacs (and tulips, which are also in full bloom right now)?

Festival food! From fried dough to corn dogs to smoothies, you can find all your festival favorites scattered throughout Highland Park this week. I stopped by the festival on Saturday and battled the crowds to get a good look at all the flowers and a good taste of some of the food. Whether you're looking for something on the healthy side (smoothies, maybe?) or something to clog your arteries (just about everything else on the menu), there are plenty of options.

The Labatt Blue Beer Garden features beer as well as food from local restaurants like Beale Street Cafe, Abbott's, India Palace (Ed. note: Closed.), Nick Tahou's, and more. Elsewhere in the park, all of these vendors (Ed. note: Broken link. Sorry.) can be found selling tasty treats. Good luck maneuvering through the long lines! A weekday trip is a good idea if you have the time. The Saturday crowds were huge.

Fried dough has always been my favorite. I actually showed up to the festival not very hungry (yes, really) so I avoided it this time around, but it smelled amazing :)

Just out of (morbid) curiousity, I decided to look for nutrition info for an average piece of fried dough. This recipe on RecipeZaar claims that one serving of fried dough has only 168 calories and 4.3 grams of fat. It must be for a very small serving size, but if it makes you happy, you can pretend that it applies to the festival-sized portion! This chest-pain-inducing article from WebMD claims that one funnel cake has 760 calories and 44 grams of fat, but funnel cakes seem to have more surface area than fried dough of the "elephant's ear" variety (the round, puffy kind without all the little points) so maybe fried dough is a little bit healthier. Ok, "fried dough" and "healthier" don't really belong in the same sentence, but you know what I mean. If you're confused about the difference between funnel cakes and elephants' ears, check out this informative little article from TampaBay.com.

For something a little less fried, you can stop by a cart selling popcorn and candy apples.

Dessert crepes with a variety of chocolate and berry toppings can be found at Le Crepe Cafe. These looked amazing. If I go back later this week, I know what I'm eating :)

A Maui Wowi stand offers some tasty smoothies.

...and there was even a stand advertising pet food and giving away samples!

While you're eating, be sure to check out the flowers. It is the Lilac Festival after all. Many of the lilacs were already in full bloom as of this weekend.

These bunches of lilacs look like bunny faces :)

In addition to lilacs, there were tons of beautiful tulips around.

I have to admit that I liked the tulips better than the lilacs!

While you're in Highland Park, check out Lamberton Conservatory (on Reservoir Ave.) $2 gains you entry to a large greenhouse full of tropical flowers, cactus, and more. I love going there every month or so to practice taking pictures of flowers. It really is a great thing to have in the area, especially during the winter. Even when it's snowing outside, you can still find flowers in full bloom in the conservatory.

Enjoy the festival, and be sure to park far away so you can walk off all the delicious food you'll eat ;)