food panda

Outside Kesté After roaming (or sleepwalking) a bit more around SoHo, I was ready for dinner. Our proposed destination was April Bloomfield's Spotted Pig . Sadly, we underestimated the dinner crowd on a Thursday night in the Big Apple, as when we arrived at 7PM, we were told it'll be a 3 hour wait for our party of 5. Thankfully, I was with NYC locals, and we had some backup choices in mind. What's more New York than some pizza?? Count me in paesano!! We decided on getting pizza at Kesté Pizza & Vino in Westside Village. At Kesté, they're known for a Neapolitan-style pizza made by the famous pizzaiolo Roberto Caporuscio. A relatively new pizzeria, Kesté opened March of 2009, which is a baby compared to the famous Lombardi's and Grimaldi's. Nevertheless, I was excited, especially after hearing glowing reviews from my friends Dan and Wendy of a.k.a.dandy . Pizza Del Papa ($16) - butternut squash cream, imported smoked mozzarella, artichoke, red and yellow pepp...

Cafe Habana To-Go After stumbling around the Lower East Side and the SoHo area on 1 hour of sleep on Jetblue, I discovered something new I could accomplish: falling asleep while walking. Buy me a drink and maybe I'll tell you the story of me stumbling into this poor Chinese woman. So I digress.....After getting some doughnuts at Donut Plant for breakfast, I was ready for something savory. So I met up with my old friend Dan of a.k.a.dandy at Cafe Habana, a place Jackie (aka Grandma Fung, aka Citynitz ) said I HAD to visit! Menu Since the regular Cafe Habana was packed with diners, we ended up going to Cafe Habana To-Go, which is geared mainly for to-go orders, or a quick dining experience, a la cafeteria style. The menu are identical (sans an alcohol menu), so eating here was definitely a good alternative. After looking at the menu, I was recommended to get the grilled steak sandwich, and of course, their famous Grilled Corn, Mexican Style. Grilled Steak Sandwich ($9.25) The sandw...

Outside Donut Plant After landing at JFK and cabbing it to my friend's apartment in Brooklyn at 5AM in the morning, without any sleep I might add, I needed a rush. The rush I needed was sugar, which I found as I arrived in Manhattan, to be specific, the Lower East Side. After reading Gastronomy's post about Doughnut Plant, I knew this would be my first stop in the Big Apple. Menu After perusing the menu and the aforementioned post on Gastronomy's blog, I decided to start with the crème brûlée doughnut. My favorite dessert in doughnut form, I'm definitely intrigued! Crème Brûlée Doughnut ($3) First thing that came to mind was the size of the doughnut, which was smaller than your average doughnut. However, the taste and flavor was on a different level. The vanilla custard filling was fantastic, similar to your usual crème brûlée. Very nice. In addition, the top of the doughnut was done fabulously with the caramelized sugar that was finished off by the blow torch. What a...

St. Lawrence Market After missing out on St. Lawrence Market on the first day in Toronto due to the holiday weekend, we were determined to visit the famed St. Lawrence Market for breakfast. After doing some research, I had my sights on some tasty Italian sub at Uno Mustachio. Various Shots of St. Lawrence Market Counter @ Uno Mustachio After looking at various post that discussed about Uno Mustachio, I was told to try either the eggplant sandwich or the veal sandwich. Yet, upon seeing the Veal & Eggplant Sandwich, I figured it's wise to try to the best of both worlds, and I'm glad I did. The veal was quite nice, but the star was the eggplant. I was surprised the eggplant was better than the veal, though it's hard to argue against the crisp exterior and the tender and flavorful interior. Very nice. Veal and Eggplant Sandwich My 2 friends ordered a meatball sandwich and chicken parmagiano respectively. Although I didn't get a taste of either dish, my friend seemed to...

To continue my previous post about the highlights from 2009, I'm going to go over the best, the most delicious 10 dishes I've eaten in the past year. Again, these dishes varies in price, type, and location. Like with the top restaurant list I posted earlier, these are just based on my taste, but I'm sure most of you guys would agree, to some extent! 10) Brodard's Nem Nuong Cuon: This wonderful mix of grilled pork, vegetables, mint, all wrapped in rice paper with a special house dipping sauce. At $1.50/roll, it's friggin fantastic, albeit affordable! Nem Nuong Cuon @ Brodard 9) Ricky's Fish Tacos : For what else, their famous fish tacos. The little fish taco cart in Silver Lake that could! At the beginning, Ricky was only able to sell 10-20 tacos a day, but now, with a legend of followers via Twitter and other media sources, Ricky can't go a day without being sold out amongst the long lines of patrons. After coming here, through the introduction of Will o...

After reading Diana's Best of 2009 , I started to looked back at some of my pictures of the food I've consumed in the previous year and figured it's a good idea to put together a list of my own. As with everything in life, everyone has different taste buds, thus this list may vary from person to person. However, these are the food I've thought about often over time. I guess this is food porn at its best! I'll start off Kung Food Panda's Top 5 restaurants of 2009: 1) Urasawa , "the very best sushi in Los Angeles." " The sushi mecca,""the best money you could spend outside of Masa in New York City." Those were some of the words I've heard before actually trying out "The U" back in March of 2009. Outside of saying the meal was a life altering experience, I could safely say, it was the BEST sushi I've ever had in my life, and probably the BEST meal I've ever had, regardless of the type of cuisine. Chef Hiro Urasawa...