Showing posts with label omelettes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label omelettes. Show all posts

Saturday, May 17, 2008

New Orleans, Day 2 - the good, the bad...

After a bit of a restless night for me (strange to sleep in unfamiliar places...Owen slept like a rock), we got ourselves ready for the day. David, Corey and Patty's mom were headed back to Texas that day, so we wanted to grab a bite before they hit the road. We went to a usual breakfast spot for them - The Coffee Pot.

As we walked in, we got a hearty welcome from the waitresses, who all knew David and Corey and now Patty as well. A quick glance at the menu and we were set to go - Owen's appetite had surprisingly come back even though we had an amazing meal the night before, thanks to Corey's culinary skills. Anyways, we ordered and amazing things started arriving at the table....
Orange juice was the choice of beverage for me - I wanted to avoid the flu that everyone seemed to have. This was an ok juice - no pulp, which I prefer.
Banana pancakes, for the table. I liked how you could really see the banana slices embedded into each pancake. I'm not much of a fan of pancakes but these were great - moist, fluffy, melt in your mouth.
Some "lost bread" for the table - sliced up pieces of leftover bread, fried, covered in powdered sugar, and if you notice, a stream of syrup pouring down covering each piece. I managed to try one of these pieces - decadent. The south seems to have fried food perfected to a T - this is only the beginning of our fried food adventures here.
This omelet is not on the menu - David and Patty ordered it, and was especially made for them. It's an egg white omelet, with jambalaya folded on the inside - reminiscent of japanese style omurice. On the side is a generous helping of grits.
Here's a close up of the rice - coated with all kinds of seasonings, with slices of Louisiana sausage. Not too shabby.
Owen got a full order of the lost bread, with a side of bacon to round out his salty and sweet needs. He rocked this whole plate. It was that good.
I got the Oysters Rockefeller omelet, with the side of grits. Now, about the grits - I know this is a southern thing, but I don't think I like grits very much. The consistency is like grainy porridge, you can salt and pepper it and butter it but in the end, I wish this plate had a side of potatoes instead. Well, you have to try everything once. The omelet was good - the spinach topping was especially flavorful, and there were at least 3-4 good sized oysters in the omelet. I had to get my seafood fix, after all... Cory got a fried catfish plate with a side of jambalaya. A solid looking meal.

David, Corey and Patty's mom had to hit the road, so after some woeful goodbyes on Patty's part, and thanking them again for their generosity, we hit the road to go sightseeing in the Garden District, where many old houses were. We tried to visit the cemetery but they closed extraordinarily early - 2pm on a weekday! We looked in from the outside - creepy enough, as the above ground crypts were eerie and old. We took a self guided walking tour, saw some awesome stuff, and walked back ready to snack on something. It was a bit early to go to the restaurant Patty had in mind for us, so we decided on a snack.

We started walking down Bourbon street, which was full of scandalous bars and clubs (topless AND bottomless bar?) and I saw a Krystal Burger, which Corey had pointed out to us the night before. Having never have tried a mini burger (Harold and Kumar go to White Castle peaked my interest - I had never gone to a White castle before), I decided that there was no better time than now to give it a shot. On hindsight, it was one of the worst decisions of the trip.

First off, horrible mean people were taking our order. When they had forgotten to give Patty her drink cup, the server snapped back at her and practically rolled her eyes out of her head. Not to say that I expect stellar service from fast food joints, but man, doesn't hurt to be a little courteous.

But regardless, the food....what was the food like?
Well, here's the nasty bag that was set upon our table after we got back. I forgot what number combo this was, but it came with 4 mini sliders and 1 cup of fries. Notice the sweat that has gathered in the bag, basically making its' own ecosystem of steamy processed food hell.
Here's a peek inside the biodome - fries, burgers...wait a second, is that burger really made of meat?! It looks like processed gray cardboard! The fries looked and tasted ok, aside from the sogginess from being inside the bag.
Now, the focus is on the sliders. Ok...they're packaged in their own little boxes...that makes them kind of cute...

...but upon closer inspection, this burger really scared the hell out of us. Seriously, meat should never look that pale and gray, not even back in grade school when we would have hot lunches with grade F meat was it ever this bad. We did NOT eat any of the sliders. I think that was a good choice on our part.
Here's Patty's meal - the coke and fries look good...yep, check that horrible cheesy packaging containing her chicken sandwich - "I'm super fly!" Dear god why.
Here's Patty's hand, modeling the chicken sandwich. She was so disgusted by her treatment from Krystal that she didn't even eat it.
And here's the dissection - what are those things sprinkled on top of the mayo? We will never know...
Luckily, our snack wasn't completely ruined, as on our walk back, there was a hot dog vendor (Lucky Dogs!), who was extremely happy for our business, made this concoction of a dog loaded up with all the fixin's. Thank goodness for hot dogs.

Stay tuned for the rest of Day 2 - an amazing meal coming up!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Carnegie Deli
854 Seventh Ave. (at 55th Street)
New York City, 10019

Yes, I've been lagging on the posts, and I'm ashamed of it. ASHAMED! But I have dragged back some decent photos to share from my vacation, if that makes any kind of amends. Don't be too hard on me - I've been busy fighting off nasty illness and getting back in the swing of things.

First off is our visit to the famous Carnegie Deli in New York, before we stepped onto our floating prison (also known as our cruise ship.) I have had a decent amount of Jewish deli food since living in Los Angeles, so I had high expectations for Carnegie Deli.

Stepping inside, the place was bustling with activity. Pictures of famous and not-so-famous anymore celebrities adorn the walls, from floor to ceiling. The table space is super tight, but they seated us quickly so I shouldn't complain too much. Our waiter was a no-nonsense, are you ready to order yet already??!-kinda guy.
Here are the pickles (any cornerstone to a good Jewish deli meal)...they gave us 2 kinds - old and new. The new ones weren't what I was used to - like eating a slightly off, brine dipped cucumber, and yeah I know that's what pickles ARE, but the 'old' pickles were tasty and soaked and aged and delicious. The new ones were just not my cuppa tea. And they were kinda bitter. Here's Owen's mom's turkey club sandwich. This monster of a sandwich was 20 dollars, which blew us all away (price wise) and then the sandwich arrived and it blew us away again (size wise.) All the components to this sandwich looked good and fresh, but there was just too much of everything. Basically she had to deconstruct, then reconstruct a smaller sandwich from these honking huge slabs of ingredients to eat this.
This is my corned beef sandwich - one of the more famous things the Carnegie Deli is known for. They did not disappoint - this sandwich was top notch. Nothing but meat and rye bread, the corned beef was luscious...can I use that to describe meat?? So flavorful, so tender, each piece was perfect with a dab of mustard. I didn't finish this, but it was great to try.
This is Peter's Chicken Liver Omelette and fries. The fries were super tasty - crispy potato-ey, but I didn't try the chicken liver...uh...it's not something I would choose to eat. Peter liked it a lot though. If only they made chicken feet omelette...I would eat that...
Here's Owen's Matzo Ball Soup. Two huge softball sized soft matzo balls, soaked up VERY yellow chicken noodle soup. This was very comforting for a cold New York morning. I'm not as much of a fan of matzo ball soup as Owen is, but he slurped up the whole thing so I'm assuming it was tasty.
Here's Caitlynn's eggs and fries. Back to basics!! She only wanted the eggs so I ate some of her fries...YES. So good.
Here's Toots's 2 hot dog special, with a knish peeking out from the corner of the picture, I should have taken a more clear picture of that knish because it was delicious. Potato-ey mash mess, but dang it was good - the little taste I had (I was STUFFED by the time I was done...but I HAD to try the knish...) The hot dogs were good...good casing, good snap. I would expect no less...

Carnegie Deli was a decent deli, but I have to say that a lot of places out here in LA are comparable (the consensus was that Nate and Al's in Beverly Hills was better, I wouldn't know as I have not been there yet...), but the place was good to soak up the scene. If only we had more time to go to Tavern on the Green or Big Nick's...well I'm sure I'll go on another trip to New York..someday.