Week 25: Wonton Tacos

I went on vacation.

On that vacation, I ate. I walked, then I ate, then I walked some more. I still have no idea how much I walked, but it was a lot. I think I ate just as much.

I was not overly impressed with the food on leg one of my trip. Washington, D.C. has a lot of stuff to do right around the National Mall, but not a lot of places to eat. I stayed 5 blocks east of the Capital building and that really limited what I could eat for dinner. Sure there are plenty of cafes around for lunch or an early dinner, but once 6:00 pm hits, everything closes. The food was just, normal.

Then I went to New York City. I made up for the banal food in DC when I was in NYC. 

Day 1: Tom's Restaurant (late lunch), Apple (happy hour), Yakituri Taisho (dinner), Max Brenner's (drinks)

Alex picked me up from the bus stop and got me on the subway successfully. After ditching my bags, we went to Tom's Restaurant. This is the exterior for the restaurant on Seinfeld. They had really good milkshakes.

I had some fruity drink at Apple, then a bunch of meat at Yakituri Taisho. It's a little hole-in-the-wall place where your waitress leads you through a maze of tables and bars to get you to your table. We ate shrimp balls, meat on sticks, and some other shrimp thingy.

Then it rained and it was chilly so we stopped at Max Brenner's for a hot chocolate. There are a bunch of different ways to get the hot chocolate, dark, light, milk, etc. I think all are probably delicious.

Day 2: Absolute Bagels (breakfast), Stand4 (lunch), Shima (dinner)

Ayesha left for work before I got up, so I got a text stating "Breakfast, Absolute Bagel" and then the directions how to get there. The plain bagel with strawberry cream cheese was very good. Not just strawberry flavored cream cheese, but real strawberries in there. After sightseeing, I met up with Ayesha and Alex for lunch. I still had a lot of bagel in me, so I had a little burger slider at Stand4. It came with fried pickle chips. A+A got a s'mores milkshake that was really good. It had little s'mores on top and I think there were graham cracker crumbs in the shake. After everything I had eaten that day, I was glad that my dinner plans weren't until 8:00. I met up with my friend Jim for sushi in the East Village. We ordered sushi, the kind where it's just rice with a piece of seafood on top of it. I have never had it this way, and I really enjoyed it. If you don't think about the fact that you're eating raw fish, it just melts in your mouth. That is a sign of really good, fresh fish. I learned that. I also had little pork dumplings for the first time. We finished it all off with ice cream. 

Day 3: Alice's Tea Cup (brunch), The Lobster Place (lunch)

If you have even the tiniest bit of girly-girl in you, you will love this place. Themed after the tea party from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, this place is dainty and precious. There is a book of different teas that you can order and one of the menu options is tea and scones. Ayesha had the day off, so she brought me here. She had a fruit infused tea that was REALLY strong. I wanted the vanilla tea, but they were out so it was substituted with a Bourban Vanilla tea. Not bourban-y at all. This was all paired with a waffle, a mixed berry scone and a pumpkin scone with a really great glaze. The scones were served with a berry compote and clotted cream. I was quite happy.

We did some shopping and walking and lounged on the High Line. Then we did Chelsea Market and I finally got my seafood. The Lobster Place smells like fish, but has some really good food. I had a lump crab BLT and Ayesha and I split a cup of New England clam chowder. Yum. Dinner was with A+A's friends at poker night and there was pretty much just desserts...and cold medicine because somewhere between DC and NY I picked up a nasty little bug.

Day 4: The Garage (brunch), Waffles and Dinges (snack), Harlem Tavern (dinner)

I am a recent believer in serving alcohol with brunch. I don't care about Bloody Mary's. They don't even look good. Even a Screwdriver sounded a little strong. However, the Mimosa is perfect. It tingles and sparkles and it's a great pair with brunch. I had blueberry stuffed french toast that was phenomenal. The edges were practically caramelized and even though I was really hungry, I don't think I managed to eat the entire thing.

After spending a few hours at The Met, we wandered into Central Park and had a waffle-y snack at Waffles and Dinges. Dinges = toppings = ding-us. I had a mini-wafflini with Nutella and strawberries. A+A went with a full waffle with ice cream and chocolate and strawberries. It looked delicious, but there is only so much food I can put into my tummy.


Dinner was at Harlem Tavern. I was exhausted by this point and didn't really want to catch the subway downtown so we stayed in the neighborhood and got burgers.

I would go back to NYC just to eat more food. Everything was good and now that I'm back, I just want more of it.


Wonton Tacos

Similar to the Lasagna Cups a few weeks ago, these are pretty simple.

Cook about a pound of ground beef and season it with taco seasoning.

Put a wonton wrapper in the cup of a cupcake pan. Put some meat in there and top with cheese. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes so the cheese melts and voila! Dinner.

I got the bright idea to throw some corn in with the meat and it added a nice sweet taste in there. I put some black olives on top once they came out of the oven too.

*Pictures to come*