Laut - NYC

Michelin-starred Malaysian/Thai food? Even though I'm Asian, I was still kind of skeptical of how Asian food could be refined enough to be Michelin-starred. I was also hesitant to dish out the money, since Malaysian and Thai food can easily be found around the city at lower prices. Luckily, I found a deal on Groupon and decided to bring my family here for my dad's birthday dinner (my parents are so old school Asian that they would never let me spend that much money on them for food - only if there were some sort of coupon!). I'm a horrible food blogger - I'm trying to update more frequently and right after I eat a meal. Unfortunately, this meal took place over the summer so I'll just fill you in on the memorable details!

We were at Laut relatively early for dinner, so I really enjoyed the setting (I'm a sucker for restaurants with exposed brick walls).

Chili Tofu: fried tofu stuffed with cucumber, jicama, bean sprout & chili sauce

This was my appetizer - I loved the sauce and toppings. Normally fried tofu at Thai restaurants are over-fried and don't really taste like much of anything - I liked that at Laut, the tofu still had a soft consistency on the inside.

Five Spice Pork Roll: Marinated pork with five spice and fried

Chicken Satay: Grilled marinated with spice on skewer with peanut sauce

Roti Canai: Indian style crispy thin pancake with spicy curry dipping sauce

Ikaan Chili Garang: Fried fillet of flounder with shrimp paste chili sauce

My dad ordered the fried fish and this was easily the best dish out of all of ours. It was extremely spicy but the chili sauce had actual depth in flavor, rather than just burning your mouth off.

Asam Lemak Udang: Sour spicy coconut milk with shrimp lemongrass garlic cherry tomato okra

Actually...I remember absolutely loving this dish too. Also very spicy.

Beef Rendang: Simmered until dry exotic spices lemongrass, lime leaves, grated coconut with thick coconut milk

Chili Crab (with steamed bun): Spicy chili crab (soft shell), egg, garlic, ginger, tomato sauce, sesame peanut oil

This was my order and it was very good. It was slightly on the sweeter side, but I didn't mind it.

Mango with sticky rice

Green tea ice cream with toasted coconut flakes

Their green tea ice cream was amazing! My mom was obsessed with this. It was not sweet at all and had a really deep matcha green tea flavor. I wish we actually asked them who supplies their ice cream, or if it's house-made. I've recently discovered really good green tea ice cream from the Maeda-en brand at Asian grocery stores - but the one at Laut was ten times better than even that brand!

Ginger candy with the check - I love these sorts of extra touches from restaurants!

En- Round 2

Guess where we went again? EN! We took advantage of the Google Offers "groupon" and had an early dinner at our fav Japanese restaurant.

I have to admit tho, this meal was pretty disappointing in terms of quality. Not quite what we expected from EN.  But I still have to commend them on a visually beautiful meal.

First, bring on the alcohol!

Sake Flight, Plantain Chips

Pineapple sake

I have to comment on this pineapple sake I had. I've ordered this drink every time I've been at EN (so 3 so far). Why? Because it is the most delicious thing you can drink and still be buzzed. Usually, you just taste the fresh sweet citrusy flavor of the pineapple and not really the alcohol, but you definitely feel it so they did not skimp on the liquor.  The past two times a handsome Japanese bartender was the one mixing drinks.  I saw him take out a fresh cut pineapple and actually juice it on the spot! This most recent trip, it was a female bartendar (asian as well), and the drink just came out bland. No strong alcohol flavor but also no pineapple taste either. SO disappointing.

Salt Grilled Edamame

Beautiful dish that has such a zen like presentation. But it is crazy salty! I know, it is rock salt grilled, what do you expect? How exactly are you supposed to eat this elegantly without going into a sodium induced coma?

Blue Crab Miso Soup

This soup was MEH. It wasn't bad per se, but I feel like the crab might not have been super fresh.  Plus, the crab meat was not really edible so I'm not sure what the point was of being in there.

Lobster

I think this lobster was covered with miso. This dish was also crazy SALTY. It overpowered the lobster meat.

Mussels

This dish was decent, still a bit on the salty side, but by this point I don't know if it was the salt from the previous dishes lingering on my tastebud or the actual dish.

Miso Black Cod

Another signature dish of EN's that we typically love. The execution on this was a bit disappointing too. Oye, so sad. The skin was not crispy and the meat was not flakey, but more mushy.

Not sure what happened to EN. We left around 7:30/8:00pm and the restaurant was still quite empty.  Our waiter seemed to be pretty new and not quite sure what he was doing, and it seemed like the entire kitchen staff was new too!

I hope to give EN another chance in the future to redeem itself, but another disappointing meal would mean it gets cross off the "faves" list.

Alpha Fusion - NYC

So it's been a while since our last post, keeping up with a blog is a lot harder than we thought it would be! Today's errands took me to the Penn Station area and lunch was at Alpha Fusion. I had heard that their Chelsea location was really good and they had really unique and inventive sushi rolls - like the kind from California that I always miss. Then Alpha Fusion came out with a Living Social coupon offer - $25 for a $50 gift certificate, which I quickly grabbed up. The 34th Street location is in kind of a random location between 8th and 9th - it's actually next to a small parking lot, and the inside wasn't too great either. Actually the inside was fine by itself, it had a modern decor, but they opened the restaurant to the outside that day so I couldn't really get past the random location. I don't know how to explain it...it seemed a little strip mall-ish to me. I guess it would be an okay place if you are already in the area but based on the atmosphere and out-of-reach location alone, I don't know if I would come back here.

The food didn't make up for the location either. First off, we got the "Spicy Tuna on Pringles with Black Tobiko." Yes...that's raw tuna on a Pringle. I really liked the novelty factor, and their spicy tuna is pretty good, but I don't think it was particularly enhanced by the potato chip at all. I actually didn't really notice it.

For sushi rolls, we got: the Volcano (chicken tempura roll topped with spicy tuna and chili pepper), Red Hot Dragon (shrimp tempura roll topped with spicy tuna and crunchy), and the Spicy Alpha (crunchy spicy salmon roll topped with tuna, salmon, and avocado) - each around $14. None of these rolls really stood out to me - I don't think their sushi rice was made that well. It seemed like regular white rice to me and didn't hold together well on some of the rolls (there was also just too much rice in my opinion). My favorite of the three would be the Red Hot Dragon, if I had to choose. They give a fair amount of spicy tuna on top of the Red Hot Dragon - the spicy tuna was probably my favorite part. As for the Volcano roll, it was my first time having chicken in a sushi roll...and I just don't think it's meant to be. If it was just chicken and rice - sure. But adding spicy tuna to fried chicken didn't do it for me.

The service at the restaurant was really nice though. They were attentive and I think the bartender was trying out different drink recipes at the time - the manager came around with free shots for us to try. However, my dining partner was dreadfully hungover from the night before, so we politely declined.

Alpha Fusion was definitely a good value with our gift certificate, but it probably won't be a repeat for me. The Chelsea location might be better? I also didn't think these rolls compared to the sushi I had in California!