Weekend Dinners

We cooked two dinners this weekend mainly because Saturday was a rainy day and we did not do anything special.

Orange glazed chicken - I got an inspiration from another Food TV host the other day, but I forgot to buy concentrated orange juice, so I needed to make with orange juice instead. Honey and soy sauce made a good glaze, while I brined the chicken in the salt water with Thyme for a few hours. It came out very tender and nice orange flavor.

Korean/Japanese style short rib - since it is tough meat, I marinated in my special sauce - soy sauce, minced garlic and ginger, honey, Chinese hot sauce and sesame oil for a few hours (actually before heading to a day trip). I broiled the meat to get a nice charcoal flavor and it came out really good. It was not as tender as rib eye stake we usually eat, but the meat had more flavor I think.

The drawback of these dinners were the smell in the room over night or even for a few days.

Sunday Day Trip

Finally the weather got better today, so we decided to go for a short ride to Stone Barns (Farm) this afternoon.

Very nice drive and the view on the way was beautiful as well (see the video and enjoy the background music by Michael Jackson).

At the farm, we walked around the field and it reminded me of the country side where I grew up in Japan. Many vegetables and flowers are still in the fields, and many tourist (maybe from the city like us) were enjoying country-life like afternoon. I found Asian pear trees, which I have never seen in person. There were bees houses. They have one of the top rated restaurants which uses all the vegetables, fruits, egg, milk (and maybe meat/chicken) grown there.

On the way back, we stopped by at Tarrytown NY and had THREE scoops of ice cream - chocolate with chocolate chips, caramel, and white chocolate with black berry. It was home made and delicious. I have been craving for good ice cream ant it did satisfy my very sweet tooth.

Kosher Diner

It was a typical Friday eating out day to start the "unofficial" last summer weekend for the year. Some of you might have known why we go for Kosher dinner sometimes.

Typical dishes - Pastrami (and corn beef) sandwich with a lot of mustard, stuffed cabbage (really close to "role cabbage" in Japan), and of course Kosher hot dog meaning only beef no pork. Usually they serve pickles - sour and original to start and they were really good. Sorry only pickles picture was saved in my cell phone...

It looks like another rainy weekend thanks to hurricane Danny. I don't think we will go to the beach anymore this year. I miss the BBQ joint we stop by after the beach, but they don't go anywhere, so I need to be patient till next summer.

More about Bagel

Since the bagel was so sensational, I needed to split the entries into two.

Essa (actually not Esse I thought) is located on the 3rd avenue between 50th and 51st streets, so on the way back to the Grand Central station for subway ride to the apt., I had a great shot of Chrysler Building. I posted another one the other day but that was from the bottom of the building and you did not see that much about its unique architecture. This time, you can see its beautiful silver exterior.

I had FOUR extra bagels for my pleasure next week. They are so big and I could not pile all four. I individually wrapped them and they are sleeping in my freezer. I am keeping eye on them, so don't even think about stealing them from my freezer.

Esse Bagel

It has been a while since last time I had bagel from Esse Bagel in mid-town. In my opinion, they have the best bagel in NYC, even though there are so many tourists and people there try to talk to Japanese tourists in Japanese. My office one time was located only a few blocks away, so I ate bagel there a few times a week.

Today we got two sandwiches for two - one multi grain with smoked salmon, cream cheese, onion and tomato, and one cinnamon raisin with tofu raisin walnut cream (vs. cream cheese, so it is a bit healthier). Their bagel's outside is crispy and inside is so chewy, which is good thing as bagel. Since they boil the dough before baking it, the store is always high in humidity.

Once you taste their bagel, you can't buy anything at grocery or at so called bagel store on the street.

Take a Walk in the Evening

It seemed very pleasant outside today, so I decided to take a walk after dinner.

I still felt humidity but it was pleasant indeed. Many people were out enjoying the end of the summer - a good mix of local and tourists.

I found that it is very difficult to take a good shot after dark, but this is what I got. In one picture, you can see the Empire State Building lighted with WHITE color. They change the color time to time, and July 4th was RED, BLUE and WHITE obviously. There was still ice cream vendor and I was so tempted, but I was able to control myself not to have unnecessary 500 calories after dinner.

More About Brown Stone Houses

I have several favorite buildings in Brooklyn Heights. These are some of them.

This entrance has been renovated last several months. It was originally located for the basement, but they closed the original entrance, and created new one for the 1st floor. You can see that a typical brown stone house entrance is located not at the same level as the street - higher like this or several steps lower. I like higher one since it looks more elegant and you can show off the entrance door, which I really like at this house.

Fire scape always reminds me the movie, Pretty Woman. Richard G. climbed up the stairs to propose Julia R. I dreamed to live in the building which has this (my building has one too) one day. Newer buildings no longer have this unfortunately.

Even we don't have a big space for gardening, people use every inch of space for plants. Look at this building which beautifully decorates the windows with flowers. This side actually does not get the sunshine much, but they cleverly chose the plants which don't need that much sunshine.

Do you enjoy these houses like I always do on the way to the gym?