Spice Up Your Life

I love soondubu. And now my favourite one is literarily across the street. I couldn't be more blessed. Every time I have that intense craving for the delicious spicy soup and just hip, skip across the street to NY Tofu House. When they opened their doors in late fall no one really noticed. There's so much bad food on this street that I think people just figured it was the same as all the rest of the subpar korean restaurants. But no, this one is different, it's special. It's original location is in Jersey and I've heard that people line up for it. But here in the East Village it sits fairly quiet, you never have to wait for a table. The weekends get a bit crazy as every other spot on this street, but weekdays, it's all mine. I haven't tried much else on the menu, except the bibimbop, which is also solid. They seem to pride themselves on those two items, so I don't veer too far. The soondubu comes in about ten varieties, meats, seafood, vegetable and even curry. I go for the traditional kimchi one every time and it makes me ohhhh so happy. You get an array of side dishes as well as a seperate bowl of rice, which is also prepared in a stone bowl, so it gets nice and crispy on the edges. It's my comfort food... bigtime.

NY Tofu House

6 Saint Marks Place (btwn 2nd + 3rd Ave)

New York, NY

Summer Food

The summer is almost here and the Dekalb Market in Brooklyn is the perfect place to be on a Saturday afternoon. It was Adriana's birthday and her husband arranged a surprise party for her there. We took up three whole tables and sipped cold beer and wine and munched on yummy snacks. It was really nice to catch up with friends that I hadn't seen in a while. They have a nice selection of food stands, some of which are housed inside old shipping containers. Since I've been in France, I was of course craving Mexican food and helped myself to a few tacos. They were pretty good. One was a korean taco, with beef and kimchi on top. The other a chicken which was a bit boring. I tried a bite of Adriana's vegetarian curry dish, which was delicious. I feel like there's lot of good food to explore and the market and I look forward to spending many of my summer weekends here.

Dekalb Market
138 Willoughby Street
Brooklyn

Paris Special: The Good Seed

This was meant to be "the dinner" with famed French food critic Francois Simon. Unfortunately it did not happen but we were still able to get a lovely table at Semilla. Three fabulous New York girls enjoyed a very fabulous meal. We loved it.

It was definitely one of my favourite meals this trip in Paris. The space is modern yet cozy and the kitchen is nice and open. There are two bar stool seats that over look the kitchen. I think that would be my ideal date, where you get to watch them make all the food they are making you.

The food was great. The menu is all small plates, à la Spanish tapas style (which apparently the french don't get) so the server was delighted that we were open to sharing. As it's meant to be done with tapas.

We tried a good portion of the entire menu. Everything was solid. My favourites were the fried langoustine skewers with a curry dipping sauce and the ceviche. Almost everything we ordered was seafood so it was fresh and light. The flavours were delicious, all in all I was really impressed. The desserts were really special too, simple yet bursting with flavour. Semilla get a big thumbs up from me.

Semilla 
54 rue de Seine
Paris 75006