Kampuchea Catfish Sammich!...

I met up with the girls after an NYurban vball league game @ Karen's (when we had made beignets and apple tarte tartins) so I was STARVED and feeling portable foods. Claudz took me to Kampuchea on Rivington & Allen. She had raved about the sammiches particularly the Ginger-rubbed catfish.

I was torn between that, the Hoison Pork sammich, and The Kampuchea sammich (with headcheese terrine)...but something about the cleaner finish of fish and the prospect of honey/peppercorn/ginger just grabbed me. It was a pretty big friggin' sandwhich and they definitely weren't stingy with the catfish. The sauce and the way all the flavors came together was subtle, a little sweet with a little heat from the peppercorns but just overall quite quite pleasant. It was an unbutton ur pants kinda filling and satisfaction :)

What pissed me off a bit was that it was $12 bucks. REALLY?! with tax it came to be about $14. -.- The girls told me it used to be like 9 bucks when it just opened and then they ramped it up. Granted it's a nice restaurant and the portions are nice from what I saw of their noodle dishes as well. Everything's fresh and the quality of the food fares well but just...does not justify the price jacking.

So it's supposed to be Cambodian food but obvy very much like the Vietnamese sandwiches. I ate a Catfish sandwich with Dave @ Baoguette (a Vietnamese sandwich place that recently opened up on 25th and Lex) which was $7 and though the texture of the fish was subpar compared to Kampuchea's...flavor, fixin's, and overall experience is just as good though less exciting.

GIVEN the name, I couldn't help but think maybe it was a Michael Bao endeavor...AND IT WAS! :) I thought maybe it would've been a little more elevated like Bun (Grand & Crosby) but I'd be happy to have something closer to Chelsea with reasonable enough pricing and taste. I did enjoy Bun tho--i haven't had certain things in the city or a few places that had the same flavors as back in CA or the way my mom made it. The butterd frog legs were...effin' AWESOME. that's for another post...

Amy's Bread & Ronnybrook Farm Milk Bar!...

Part of turkey day brunch avec Mama Ly in the city. Ate @ Chelsea Market (on 16th and 9th ave) since Momofuku Milk Bar was only open for pickup! :( Then got groceries (pancetta, porchetta, olive/black truffle tapanade etc etc) to make Turkey day dinner & grubbage for the drive down to DC the next day...

And yes, they quoted There Will Be Blood below.... heheheheeh

Eggs Kaush..something. Eggs in casserole! like at Viceroy (18th & 8th ave) and Relish (North 3rd & Wythe in Williamsburg). Came with roased potatoes w/ pepper & chives.

I swear though...somethign about poached eggs...i'm still fixated with them...

Mama Ly got the free range roast chicken w/ what looks like fresh mozarella, tomatoes, and a salad with really good vinaigrette!

Apparently it's diff from what the menu says (some kinda...cheddar. WHATEBBS). it was tasty. organic and all that ish but all that matters was that it tasted fresh and was prepped quite well yaaaaay.

The Ronnybrook Farm chocolate milk is whole milk but INFINITELY "thinner" and cleaner taste than most chocolate milk--even the chocolate soy milk. No aftertaste, no...lactose-y...intolerance...harshness. Tastier than Horizon Organic Chocolate milk (omg did i...did i blaspheme? HA!! HOCM def pales in comparison exponentially...and i once thought very highly of it. esp when buying it in bulk @ costco :D or whole food's :))

That said...Mama Ly's hot chocolate was also damn festive and good...

And to end with: almond buttered toast from Amy's Bread. Very soft--brioche-y kind of bread, subtle almond paste (not crazy sweet like how the Sicilians prefer it!--sweeter than Almondine)...

Almondine!...

We had the bestest sammich EVER today at Almondine!...

Karen & I got the ham and cheese sandwich with bechamel cheeze on top today...and it was gloooooorious and tasty. I don't think it was bechamel inside--maybe it was I dunno...I DON"T KNOW. but the butter Pam got with her bread was very good as well.

THe bread was a little dry/hard as it should be (i forget the type of bread). Granted we came like at 2pm so everything was practically out and I do realize and appreciate the potential of this sammich fresh out the overn and I'd be remiss if I never got to taste it that way but...MY GOD even in its "off" form, it's still so...so very tasty!! The bechamel (never had it before) was a little creamy and more spreadable--blasphemy, but it's like a cross between the Laughing Cow color/texture crossed with Brie.

It was quite an enormous sammich, cut in 2 (and I had some fresh squeezed OJ) and I still couldn't finish it. Fortunately, it was a nice little snackeroo when we were at the Brooklyn Flea in the cold, cold, cold wind. :) YUMMAY!!
Zees was un eclaire i got...

I lurves ze boysenberries!! SO TASTY!! So very....

nom nom nom nom....their custard cream is really good--light, clean, and just a smidge sweet. Great texture too--not too dense or viscous.

This was also my first attempt at bread pudding...

i have to say...not that tasty, but better than I thought. Just a little bland in my opinion--and i also just dont' really get bread puddings to begin with. My friend got me christmas pudding one year, from England...yeaaaaaah i dunno. Rustic I suppose. but not pour moi!!

Okay, gotta cut the commentary short b/c i'm backed up with posts and I gots a post on brussel sprouts and baking adventures with beignets and apple tarte tartins to put up besides all the old stuff from italy!!! ^_^

Here's one more loving peekture of the crusty bechaaaamelllll!!!!

Whitefish + Arugula!...

"Fresh" whitefish salad from Murray's Bagel across the street with Pepperidge Farm's Dark German Wheat (with grain balls & whatnot!) with some baby arugula. nomnommmnomnomnomnomnom..

That's a tran-size bite no? hehehe. u can't tell but i'm making that face! *chomp chomp chomp!*

Uploading it made the image a little dull but the original resolution just shows how frickin' AWESOME the whitefish salad is, glistening, a tinge of gold...just...perfection. A bunch of people @ my office got laid off today, this was comforting--the pictures i mean. Food photography makes me a little zen and alleviates me from the ulcer I've got from stalkerazzi I've been experiencing. I'm sorry there's no bite marks on this one, but I really wanted to capture the flakiness of the fish on its own.

ANYWAY, I like the combination of flavors--the dark german wheat has a real heartiness to it, a little bitter, but diff from the bitterness of the arugula (which I wouldn't really say is bitter) coupled with the slightly clean but a little fatty taste to the salted whitefish. You'll see, it complements well :) [and don't bother checking, that's the *correct* usage of complement!]
Right before we went to the Murakami Pre-Opening viewing/party on Friday, I made Kaoru a turkey breast sammich on Honey Flaxseed wheat bread (Pepperidge Farm) with some mushrroom/truffle pate, and a garlic and lime marinade as seasoning plus arugula. It was weird and tangy but it oddly went well with the pate as an aftertaste. *shrug* who knew. That and the bread was a little SWEET!! so confusing, but tasty :P

Sammiches...

According to http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com, one of the few things white people like (along with difficult breakups, renovations, kitchen gadgets, coffee, knowing what's good for poor people, etc., etc.) is expensive sammiches. Is that monetarily speaking? or INGREDIENT speaking?

Other than white folks, I suppose hipsters, foodies (gourmands rather? :P), bougeois people--and general sammiches people alike--just enjoy a little variation in our sammiches. I present to you--my lunch. Simple, cheap, a hodgepodge of flavors:

Zomick's Egg Challah roll (I've also really liked the Pepperidge Farm Honey Flax Wheat, and Dark German Wheat breads--I neither have the time or energy to stalk down artisanal breads at a bakery--btw those little rye bread party sized...square things are freakin' awesome), spinach (I usually use arugula), "roast beef" (this one is just Hillshire Farm, it does not look like roast beef, it looks like processed beef that was probably roasted....also interchangeable with shaved deli rotisserie chicken....I'm not feeling smoked honey ham lately), with a garlic-lime dijon. I toss sliced tomaters in there somewhere--and not those giant flavorless sh*ts from the supermarket!

Pretty no? Do you enjoy my bite marks? You can use it for forensic evidence should I go missing. Or if I guess if I got kidnapped and then...bit...something and left it at the crime scene so u could determine who went missing (namely MOI), and...I was watching a lot of SVU and CI yesterday. and also alluding to Without a Trace. O.o

Thoughts:
Call it the semi socialist/people's party in me but I don't really like the idea of spending all that much money on food--to an extent! I will buy my Grana Padano, the nicer brie or gruyere, sometimes fontina, WHAEVER, and spring for the good Prosciutto (also fanplasmic substitute for ze sammich meats but just...less in quantity cuz it's so punch). I might pay highly for shoes and preferrably on superduper sale (but I also spent 80 bucks on a Rodnick gown that used to be $1500 @ the Barney's warehouse sale so THERE I am ze frugal!) , but in general I just think there's a price cap on things, including food. btw I also live in my Hane's Men's Premium cotton V-necks--3 foh 10 dollah! :)
In the end...it's just food you're gonna crap out anyway (vulgar yes? mmm classy). Like expensive shampoo (but sometimes I do like my pricier products!), clothes etc etc b/c after a certain peak in price and value u just start to see that it is just plain cotton (or cotton jersey), just plain 80-90% water with 2ish % detergents (and they even add in a chemical for FOAMING!) that will just get washed down the drain. (Don't get me wrong, I'm still picky about shampoos & conditioners but u get my point).

....also...it's JUST LUNCH. and it is...in fact...JUST FOOD. but makes for pretty pictures :D