Opa!

I first heard the word, "Opa!" from my best friend from middle school, who happened to be hardcore Greek! It was like a party word or something... like something exciting!

I immediately Opa!-ed when i had my first bite of food at Elia Taverna in Chester Heights/Bronxville.

As you can tell from my blog posts, I really haven't been eating out a lot. Primarily because I really have NO money, but also because I was so damn busy I couldn't even make time to go out to dinner with mommy!

Sad.

Well, now that I am not in school (I took a semester off), and I am unemployed (I've applied to approximately 20 different places including a window cleaning service company!), I really have a lot of time to just work out and eat. Yay!

When I made a date with my mom and my brother, my obvious first choice was to check out Elia Taverna, because I had been hearing so many good things about the place! And when I looked online, I literally only found ONE negative review! That's pretty good :-0

When I first got there, I approached the hostess and said, "I have an appointment at 6," where she proceeded to say, "you have reservations at 6?" Of course... my vocabulary is so not in tact right now!

The waiters were fab, and the food was fab! There is seriously nothing else to it. The inside is cute and casual. By the time we were finishing up at around 7, the place was getting packed! And it was a Tuesday!

Here is is:
Pita and Olives

Melitzanosalata (Roasted Eggplant Dip)

Ktapodi (Charcoal Grilled Octopus with Red Wine Vinegar & Greek Olive Oil)

Spanakopita (Spinach Pie)

Garides Santorini (Greek Style Shrimp, sautéed with Tomato & Feta Cheese)

Lamb Kebob (with Lemon Potatoes, Tzatsiki, and Rice)


We definitely ordered like the most popular dishes because I always ask waiters their recommendation! And they were all winners. I can't even say which one my favorite was. The tomato sauce that the shrimp was in was amazing, the octopus was SO tender, the lamb was flavorful and cooked perfectly... ugh obviously I was having food orgasms left, right, and center! Oh and the eggplant dip! I loved the pepper kick at the end!

How can I forget dessert? At this point we were all about to like bust out of our pants. But there's always a little room for dessert before you break open the seams of your pants.
We tried something new! No baklava for us... we tried the:
Galaktoboureko which is a Custard Filling in Phyllo Dough, topped with Honey Syrup (I obviously copied that right from the website :-)

It was very good! not too sweet, and the consistency of the custard reminded me of Chawanmushi which is a Japanese dish. It is a steamed egg custard. It was similar to this except this desert is obviously sweet, and Chawanmushi is not.

Lastly, I have a new restaurant owner crush! It's Rui Cunha <3 He was so cute! And he showed us the new area of the restaurant! He was SO freaken gracious!


Elia Taverna
502 New Rochelle Road
Bronxville, NY 10708
Phone: (914)-663-4976

I doubt they will like close down any time soon because they are getting mad business but don't wait! It's soooooooooo good!

Freeform

I am embarassed. In my last post I was talking about how I'm so in love and how I'm in such a strong relationship with this guy. Well three weeks after I posted that, we were finito! Do I jinx my love life with this blog?!

Oh well. I still got food.

I have been making and baking a lot of food, but my camera is at the ex's apartment! So tonight, I just borrowed my mom's camera cuz I just HAD to blog about this....

APPLE GALETTE!

It's very cool. It's very classic. It's very simple. It's very "however you wanna make it"... which is how I'm living my life nowadays. I go with the ebbs and flows, and it's all good because in the end, I'm still just Miki. Freeform.

free·-form (frē′fôrm′)
adjective
having an irregular, usually curvilinear form or outline
not conforming to the conventional rules of composition, form, etc.; spontaneous, unrestrained, etc.

That sounds just about right!

Usually, when I bake, I am pretty OCD about making the perfect thing. Today it was different. I just knew I had some pie crust that I had made yesterday. And I just had to figure out the filling. I didn't get too fancy and I went with apple.

I realized that I only had crust for the bottom so instead of cancelling my whole plan of baking, I used my cognitive resources to think about what my options were.

I could make a crumb topping.... but I had no butter.

Then I remember the galette! The ghetto pie! It was perfect for the new Miki... ambiguous and irregular shape, only determined by what my hands were capable of doing.

See the work in pictures!

Sliced Apples (with cinnamon, lemon, and brown shugg)

Pie Crust Dough

Arranged (a little OCD) Apple Slices

Apples Cuddling in Pie!

Finished Product!




Mommys gets the first slice!

holy shizzle.... it was so goood. Especially the crust. Nice and buttery flaky!

Butter Flaky Pie Crust (from Allrecipes.com)

The apples are easy. Just slice, squirt (the lemon), and smush around (with the cinnamon and brown shuggggg).

Happy 2011!

As I always say on the first day of a new year, I can't believe it's already been another year. Where did 2010 go?! All I can say is that it was a great year regardless of all the tears that I cried. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger right?

Let's start off the new year with gratitude. Let's focus on what I do have...
-Family
-Amazingly awesome boyfriend with whom I have a strong relationship
-Confidence in being more independent
-A new life in a new apartment!
-Feeling OK with the changes that I am going through

The last one is my favorite. There's nothing better than feeling like everything is going to be OK.

So it's a Japanese tradition to do a big New Year's Day meal. And my French/Irish boyfriend came and was brave enough to try all different kinds of traditional Japanese cuisine! So proud :-) He even had sashimi!

My mom is amazing. Usually, she buys all the New Years Day foods, but this year she spent all week preparing for the day's meal. It was soooooooooo good! Mom's cooking is definitely still the best :-)
Osechi Ryori


Sashimi

Nimono (Stewed Vegetables)

Tamagoyaki and (I forgot the name of the pink and white things!)

Roasted and then Steamed Pork

Ozoni (Soup with Mochi)


Last year, we did New Years Day at Kyo Ya. I enjoyed today more just because it was Mommy's cooking and it was made with l-o-v-e ...

Happy Birthday Kyuta!

My brother is 28 years old! Happy Birthday! It was actually October 20th. I'm late.

Awww!

The time has come. I'm officially poor and super cheap.
I'm sorry Kyuta, but this is your birthday present. A blog post dedicated to you for making it through 27 years of your life. Good luck on the 28th year!

It's the thought that counts right?!

Anyways, my mom made a fantabulous dinner, of course.
The appetizers were a bunch of interesting dishes that she probably saw on her Japanese cooking channel...

Mushroom with "Escargot" Butter


Korean Style Hirame Sashimi and Octopus [spicy and sesame oil-y]


Seaweed & Seafood Salad [Crabstick and Jellyfish!]


Honey and Vinegar Pickled Daikon, Radish, and Cucumbers


Curried Okra


And look at my super OCD plate!


And onto the main course: Teppanyaki!
Meat: Beef, Pork, Cheek, Tongue


Seafood: Scallops and Squid


And veggies... like this sweet potato:

My mom is so cute. She made that smiley face on the left potato!


So all the meats and veggies and seafood were cooked on the griddle type thing called a teppanyaki. And you dip the stuff in yummy sauce. And you eat to much!


But there's ALWAYS room for a Lulu's cake!

A Strawberry Shortcake. So pretty!


OMG..... why do I get so excited looking at food?!


So that's the end of the birthday. And Kyuta, I apologize for making you wait for this "amazing" birthday present. Yeah, maybe I got your hopes up too high?

Lulu Cake Boutique
40 Garth Road
Scarsdale, NY 10583
Phone: [914]-722-8300

My First Time

Look at this beautiful kitchen!!! My mom really hooked it up when we got the kitchen redone. The kitchen got done maybe like in May? I dunno... it was a realllllly long time ago. But I had never baked anything until now! What a shame.

Of course, I gotta take away this oven's virginity with Chocolate Chip Cookies! I was nice enough though to use another virgin recipe.... Baked.

I bought this book right before we started all the work in our apartment so I never got a chance to bake anything out of this book!


The smell of butter and sugar... OMG I remember why I love baking so much!


Balled and placed on a cookie sheet...


And out of the oven....

So... I'm just gonna say that the directions were not followed precisely. I didn't have 6 hours to refrigerate the dough, so I baked the cookies right after mixing all the ingredients.... which of course made FLAT COOKIES!


They were delicious none the less. Thin, crispy, and super delicate!

Sleep Studies are Delicious

Food makes everything fun! Even sleep studies at NY Presbyterian Hospital on a Friday night when no one else, except for the sleep study technician, is on the whole floor. Creepy, but also a great way to lock yourself in a room and eat leftover Mofongo!

I did a sleep study a few weeks ago because some of my doctors suspected some signs of narcolepsy... hehehehehehehe I still think it's so funny. But not really because now I don't have a car.

So Tiny drove me to Wash Heights early so that we could eat. Earlier that day, he ran 15 miles :training for the NYC Marathon: and I biked along with him, so we figured we deserved to eat whatever the eff we wanted.

A totally random little latin place called El Nuevo Caridad. God, I really hate my iPhone pics. I have the iPhone that came out in 2007.
Tiny got Mofongo with Pork

And I got the Chicken in Garlic Sauce

We got 2 ENORMOUS plates of rice, seriously bigger than Shaq's head, and beans!


I'm obsessed with Mofongo now. I had no idea what it was until this meal. Here's what the Wikimaster says:
"Mofongo is generally made from fried green plantains (although fried yuca or breadfruit are possible) which is mashed together with broth, garlic, olive oil, and pork cracklings or bits of bacon. It is often filled with vegetables, chicken, crab, shrimp, or beef and is often served with fried meat and chicken broth soup.[1] Mofongo relleno is mofongo stuffed with stewed beef, chicken or seafood, with stewed sauce poured over."-Wikipedia

So I went a little bit crazy during this sleep study, and I was pissed that I had glue on my scalp for like 3 days, and I was REALLLY upset that I couldn't have coffee during the sleep study, but I'm glad it's done and over with.


Now the big question is this:
Does Miki have Narcolepsy or not?

Stay tuned for the results!

El Nuevo Caridad
4073 Broadway Btwn 172nd & 173rd St
Washington Heights, New York
Phone: (212)-740-1616

Food For Fuel

I work out a lot. So I need fuel. That's my excuse as to why I eat so much.... but can I just say that I got to the best gym ever?

Westchester Fight Club!

I pump iron and eat the Chirico pasta special....

I get fed at the gym!!! No, not a protein shake. But real, delicious food!



Not to mention this gym dude makes SICK brownies. Baking competition to come.

Westchester Fight Club- MMA Academy and Ultimate Fitness Center
11 S. Division St
New Rochelle, NY
Phone: 914-355-2618