October Food was Carnitas

I did a nice amount of home cooking in October, but what turned everything upside down was my deciding to try out a carnitas recipe I found on seriouseats. Reading the recipe, I felt there was something going on there, so I decided to try it out. Maybe you saw my snapchat/Instagram story about it? Heavy production values there. 

As you may have seen in the video, just after I started roasting the pork, I got called into work. So I had to wait until the roasting was done, then I put the pork in the fridge to finish another day (the recipe said that would be ok).

The "another day" came that Saturday when Alexis and Angelique came over to help me finish the cooking and test what we wound up with. Here's the pork come out of the fridge. All I had to do was add the pork fat I had separated and held onto back to it and put it under the broiler and then, Wow. Things got serious.

I mean, maybe that looks burnt to you but actually it's just right.

There was a salsa verde recipe that came with the recipe but I used a different one from Alex Stupak's Taco cookbook that I had a hunch about. I was cooking on hunches all over the place.

And here's the spread, just before testing. But actually it really didn't need testing. I could have thrown it all out if my intent was really just to test it because it was 200% clear from just the smell that this recipe was dynamite and that the carnitas would be killer.

One taco of many many.

My helper guests. 9 months in my new apartment and finally having people over to eat!

Inspired and motivated by my success with the carnitas, the next morning I dared to cook chilaquiles from scratch from my leftovers. Those chips? I fried them out of my tortillas! They're not from a bag!

So, in conclusion: this carnitas recipe was great and is easy and makes the best carnitas imaginable. When I was in Utah this past week I whipped it up for Kristen's family and they were all nuts about it and then I brought it over to Grandma's the next day and she ate FOUR tacos. Four tacos! This pork is great! I'll make you a taco! Just ask!

Epilogue

I also wanted to show you these lentils I made, plus the Arby's pork belly sandwich, which was so good.

October Overview

Here's some nice miscellaneous items from October that weren't Owen visiting (that was a few posts ago) or me testing cameras (that's my next post)

There was this one night where I met up with Broek for Tacos No 1 and Los Mariscos at Chelsea Market because I've happened to go there nearly every week since Los Mariscos opened and on the way home we got donuts at the Donut Pub. Guess what? This S'mores fake Cronut wasn't great. Should just stick with the normal classic Donut Pub donuts, they're great.

Second weekend of the month Jesse was in town and I was so lucky to get to get dinner with her at the Noodle Bar.

Wrapped it up with dessert at Superiority Burger

Then there was this Friday where I went to Tacos No 1 and Los Mariscos with Kim and discovered that the ceviche tostadas at Los Mariscos are GREAT and so much better than the just fine fish and shrimp tacos.

Then we dipped into the Whitney for a bit to check out their portraits exhibit for a minute before the museum closed for the night. Was a pretty good show, I ought to give it another look.

For dessert that night I tried Ample Hills' orange and brownies Donald Trump ice cream

That Sunday, a magnificent occurrence, Keri happened to be in town and I found out by running into her in the hall at church

The next Friday Ned had a number of us over for some very fine Korean food that James cooked up

Accidentally got off my train home a stop early but I made up for it by snapping pictures with my sporadically-used f/1.1 lens all the way home

The next day I went over to the far west side to check out a camera show (all about that in my next post) and walked the final phase of the Highline (plus the rest of it) for the first time. When the "new" MoMA opened in 2005 they had this exhibit about the plans for the Highline and I remember looking at it and being all "Yeah, like that will ever happen" and now here we are and the whole thing's built and beautiful. 

Look! A Quince!

That night, what a night, first I caught La Sera with Victoria at the Mercury Lounge and then we went and watched the Cubs win the NLDS (that's a baseball thing, not a church thing) at the bar where I had watched them lose it in 2003.

The next night, man, what a month for visitors, Rebecca and Derek were in town and we enjoyed a fantastic dinner at the far too undervisited Ma Peche.

Imagine there being a group photo before these food photos, because I really should've taken one of those.

That week I found myself with an unexpected Wednesday off so I took my camera out to try zone focusing—that's a type of manual focusing where you don't focus? You just set a wide angle lens (in my case a 28mm) to a high aperture (in the case of these photos, f/11) and then your depth of field is so great everything is in focus for a certain range (in this case, everything from approximately 4 feet to infinity). It was fun and neat to commit a whole day's walking around to learning to use a new technique. Also, I grabbed lunch at Mission Cantina with Brook where they had a great new burger and found the mole chicken wings to be served with an amazing dill yogurt sauce that had me not letting the servers remove the plate once the wings were gone.

Sheesh, you know what, this post is getting long? I'm changing my mind about things now: there will be an additional post about the rest of my October food. For now, let's just wrap up with a little Halloweening.

Saturday night I hit up some Halloween parties with Victoria the Bat and unleashed Count Tacula, the Taco Vampire, upon the world. I had never seen people run away in terror before, it was exhilarating. 

Only click on this video if you are very brave (and yeah right like you haven't seen this before it was one of the most popular videos on the internet this year) 

On the actual Halloween I went to see Conan O'Brien tape his show at the Apollo. And I'm a rule follower, so when the tickets said "No Cameras", I didn't bring a camera. So just trust me, Count Tacula was in the audience and everyone was like "We would feel much less horrified right now if it was just the Phantom of the Opera here."

September Food

Hello. Here are the important things I ate in September that I haven't told you about already.

Restaurant Food

Here's the incredibly gooey torta al pastor from Taco Mix. Considering that a small taco al pastor at Taco Mix is $3.25 or $3.50 and this monster is seven or eight bucks, I don't know why you'd order a few tacos instead of this...especially since all the torta toppings help make up for the inherent blandness of Taco Mix's al pastor meat. There! I said it! Absolute New York taco sacrilege: the Taco Mix tacos al pastor aren't good. 

Speaking of tacos that aren't good, this is the No. 7 Subs broccoli taco, the dish that the sandwich shop has decided to rally their identity and branding around, telling you it's a classic until you believe them. Everything about this double decker taco was basically decent EXCEPT for the broccoli, and look at it, that's a ton of broccoli. I figured a broccoli taco would come with a mess of roasted broccoli, instead it's like a piping hot slurry of minced broccoli or a thick broccoli soup? Just posting this to recommend you avoid it OR that you roll up and order a "broccoli taco, hold the broccoli" which is the wiser boss move.

But here's something I can recommend without qualifications: The pepperoni pizza at Emmy Squared. Look at all those crispy peps!

As always, Superiority Burger remains a champion. Dipped in there before the Angel Olsen concert. Those crispy potatoes on the left were fine, but on the right, oh boy! That there was the night's special "Day Old Party Sub"—a cold slice of a giant veggie sub, it was oily and awesome.

A guilty enjoyment: two White Castle ghost pepper sliders with crispy peppers on top. 

Ex-New Yorker Ben was in town with his wife one week, he invited me to dinner at this popular new Korean place Oiji one night. I arrived assuming we'd be a small party of people, but only Ben was there. "Where's Hailey?" I asked. "At Hamilton," he answered "I sold my ticket." Ha! Food over Hamilton. I dig it. Since I haven't seen that show I can't say for sure if eating at Oiji is better than Hamilton, but for the time being I'm going to just assume it is because this dinner was spectacular. Just delicious hit after hit.

A couple of the stand outs (sorry no pictures of the house made tofu or fried chicken)

"Jang-jo-rim" with buttered rice and soft boiled egg

That ssam platter basically knocked me into the ground, but when we ordered the hot honey butter potato chips with ice cream dessert our waiter told us "This will be your favorite thing tonight" a statement which I just couldn't see being true, but...

HOLY SMOKES this is a combination to end all combinations. Apparently this past year Korea has been seized with a mania for honey butter potato chips, so Oiji paid tribute by whipping up their own, then the genius notion to pair them with ice cream popped into their heads and what you're left with is a curiosity of unbelievable glory.

In fact, they're so good, when Cory was in town the next week I made a late night reservation at Oiji JUST so he could try them. Of course, he couldn't help but wonder how great hot honey potato chips and ice cream could be but a few bites in he was converted, just as I had been a week before.

OIJI I WILL BE BACK

(worth noting, before Oiji we had a number of tacos at Otto's, which really isn't such a bad place. I tried their special short rib taco, it had a definite Chinese flavor to it. Cool.)

Also of Mexican note: the folks that run Tacos No. 1 at Chelsea Market have opened a second spot in the very same Market called Los Mariscos specializing in Mexican Seafood. Accessible by its own entrance on 15th street or from a twisting hallway near Tacos No. 1, the place, like its older sibling, is certainly a looker.

One thing has lead to another thing and I've eaten at Los Mariscos once a week for the past three weeks. Having now sampled most of the menu, this is what I have to say: There is a cashier that always recommends the spicy shrimp tacos, but they're not worth the upsell—shrimps aren't breaded and you can just add your own hot sauce yourself and save a dollar. Fried fish tacos and fried shrimp tacos are both nice, classic representations of their kind, but oddly I couldn't tell any difference between the taste or texture between the fish or shrimp. So on the taco side at Los Mariscos I don't have resounding endorsements but they're tasty enough and the space is fun enough that you'll do alright to just pop in and enjoy a meal there. HOWEVER, I have just finally tried their ceviche tostadas and they (I tried the fish and the Special, featuring a mixture of creatures, including octopus) are definitely better than the tacos. If you mess with Mexican raw fish, these I definitely do recommend. 

Picture of ceviche to come in October round up, I guess

Now here's the superstar meal of the month. When Carol was in town she took me to breakfast at new Soho french spot Le Coucou. That's the move right there: if you can't get a dinner reservation at one of the city's hottest openings, just go have breakfast. Above all, Le Coucou is a beauty, one of the prettiest restaurants I've been to in ages. Hard to believe it's on such an unattractive block of Lafayette right over from my old apartment and a part of a hotel that used to be a Holiday Inn.

I mean, look at this bar! These dining rooms, that kitchen!

These cumquats! This cutlery!

Carol had the Coucou complete, no picture here. Just imagine a lovely plate of bacon, poached eggs, country bread and stuff. I had the avocado toast with poached eggs on it. Just look at that poaching!

I loved the eggs. I loved the toast. The avocado spread, though, there was a sweetness to it that, along with something to the consistency, that definitely brought grocery store guacamole to mind. SORRY! That's just how it was. Very thin and sweet. Like those tiny disappointing tubs in the dairy section.

BUT don't worry about my avocado toast because we split a French pancake, it was like eating a buttery, berry-topped cloud. This was the winner at the table.

One more thing to say about Le Coucou though: Our otherwise very friendly and helpful waiter charged us for $20 worth of food we didn't order, including a $12 charge for tap water. Things got straightened out (always email afterwards if you think it was weird that a restaurant was so European that it charged for water) but, come on, Coucou.

Home Cooking

Thanks for reading this far. I hope you've enjoyed yourself. Now, let's spring through things I whipped up at home.

Andrew's visit inspired me to whip up many abundant bowls of meat, pickles, peppers, rice and whatever else I had around.

And that was the noteworthy food of September. See you again in November when I talk about October!