Tag Archive for "Photographs"
A week ago we went to Chinatown to pick up some dumplings.
There is one particular street where we are used to seeing stores selling counterfeit knock-offs of expensive hand bags. Someone must have decided to crack down on these guys. Instead of active businesses we saw a lot of closed doors with bright-colored signs affixed to them:
While in the grocery store we noticed they had jars of dried abalone selling for unusually high prices:
I’m wondering how dried abalone is prepared and eaten. Can you just fish one out of a jar and eat it? Does it get ground up and put into soup? I could only guess. Regardless, it’s going to cost you.
Last night, Diane and I went to Mamajuana Cafe. I’ve been to this place three times now and if I had to pick a favorite restaurant, this would probably be it. They make great food. As a side note, the restaurant is a half a block away from the Mormon chapel in Inwood and close to The Cloisters/Fort Tryon Park as well.
Besides the fact that it was Valentine’s Day, we were going because Diane hadn’t been there yet and I wanted her to experience the seafood paella they offer, which is nothing short of incredible.
When we arrived, we realized Mamajuana Cafe was preparing a special Valentine’s Day 4-course meal for its customers. Each course offered a variety of options. We were glad to see paella was on the list for the third course. Here was the menu with its choices (the choices we decided on are in red):
First Course (choose one)
- Lobster & Roasted Red Pepper Corn Chowder
- Edible Flower Salad W/ A Honey Champagne Vinaigrette
- Crab Meat & Cheese Fondue W/ Flatbread
- Spanish Tapas For Two (artisanal cheeses, cured meats & assorted condiments)
Second Course (choose one)
- Shrimp 3 Ways (a) plaintain crushed w/ guava BBQ Sauce; (b) Grilled Spicy w/ Passion fruit sauce; (c) Chilled w/ Rose cocktail sauce)
- Filet Mignon & Cabrales cheese empanadas
- Viagra Ceviche for him (raw oyster, clams, octopus, shrimp & lobster in squid ink latin mojo)
- Mamajuana ceviche for her (crabmeat, scallops & lobster in a vanilla safron mandarin mojo & mamajuana liquor)
- Stuffed Crepes (w/ smoked chicken & melted leeks in a walnuts & asparagus champagne cream)
Third Course (choose one)
- Paella Valenciana for two (saffron rice, chorizo, calamari, shrim, clams, mussels & 1/2 lobster)
- Whole Crispy Red Snapper (stuffed w/ seafood & served w/ coconut rice in enchilado sauce)
- Mar y Tierra (grilled filet mignon & langoustine w/ truffle mashed potato & grilled asparagus in a wild mushroom red whine au jus)
- Lobster Ravioli (ravioli w/ lobster inside in saffron, piquillo & lobster cream sauce)
- Grilled quails (w/ dominican rum ginger glaze & sweet potato mash w/ haricot vert)
- Roasted Chicken Breast (w/ Foie gras & portobello mushroom in a porcini cream sauce, fingerling potatoes & sauteed spinach)
Dessert (assorted desserts for two)
This is a picture of us with the dessert presentation, which consisted of cheesecake strips (with edible flower on top), flan and chocolate mousse.
Champagne was supposed to be included with the meal - they didn’t seem to mind that we asked for fruit juice instead.
It made for a very memorable and romantic meal and for my part, I couldn’t have been with better company.
[A special thanks to my good friend Jeff Hedberg and his father, who introduced me to this restaurant some months ago]
Some more pictures of the restaurant, from the outside:
The weather today has been pretty much perfect. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, there wasn’t much wind and the temperature was about 60 degrees. Unfortunately by tomorrow the temperature is supposed to drop about 20 degrees and there is expectation of rain. But we had to get out and enjoy what today’s weather had to offer. My cousin and I went for a walk and took a bunch of pictures. These are my favorites from 90+ photographs that were taken.
Last week Diane and I had a very nice vacation in Italy - visiting both Rome and Florence. We were very excited to take this trip - our first time leaving the United States together and ‘going abroad.’ Neither of us had been to Italy before. In fact my experiences in Europe have been very limited up until now.
I’ll be writing up posts about things we learned and enjoyed doing and also I’ll also include some of the 674 digital pictures we took while we were there.
This blog might be about our Italy trip for awhile … so I hope people will be patient with me on that score. This morning we sat down together and wrote up some basic notes about our trip. I plan to use my blog to fill in those notes a little bit - but it may take awhile since there was so much that was new and exciting for us in that part of the world.
We left on Friday afternoon (11/9/07) for JFK airport and got back last night (11/16/07).
While in Rome we stayed at Hotel Gambrinus.
I really liked this hotel. The staff there was very quick to help out with requests and to provide directions to places we wanted to go. One time I picked up some food and brought it back to the hotel and asked them if we could “borrow a plate.” Right away someone dashed down to the dining area and grabbed a couple of plates and some forks and brought them to me. It was a simple thing, but I appreciated how friendly and responsive they were.
The hotel location was pretty good as well.
The hotel also provided a computer with free internet access. Sometimes a person had to wait to use the computer - but I was surprised that it was free. We did not bring a laptop along with us and we were not using our cell phones (though we had them with us) - so that service came in handy for sending quick notes to family and friends.
On the adjoining streets near our hotel there were some orange trees. I’ve never seen fruit trees in such a busy urban landscape before and thought that was pretty cool. I imagine an orange might occasionally fall on the windshield of a parked car - but I doubt it causes any damage. I wonder if anyone ever eats the oranges. Regardless, it’s a very nice thing to see.
