The Travel Bug & Food Bytes: Ma Peche in NYC

It was with much anticipation that we started our trip to the US. Reservations lined up for almost every other night! *Shinta had made reservations at Ma Peche (by Momofuku) almost a month in advance, although that's probably not necessary since its not as difficult to get a table compared to the other places we wanted to eat at in NYC. It was on our first night arriving from Singapore, so we made an early reservation in case the jetlag was too much for us to take. 

To enter Ma Peche, you enter through the Milk Bar (more on that later). On the ground floor is the bar area with some limited seating, but take the stairs down and you'll enter a large roomy high ceiling area.
  

Wanted something light and not too tiring for our first day, so it was the perfect choice since "small" and "large" plates a-la tapas-style was great for sharing and allowed us to try lots of stuff without it being too long or heavy a meal. The menu is basically fusion style, you could sense a hint of Japanese influence in each dish.

Spanish mackerel with romaine, tofu and brown butter. Light but tasty. I have a soft spot for brown butter so practically anything with it can't go too wrong with me!

The lobster bun was one of the "must tries".  I liked the lobster filling a lot, but for some reason I'm not such a fan of them using the chinese bun in this way.

The cod was recommended by the waiter, but sadly I think it was pretty much forgettable. Well at least other than remembering it was well cooked, I don't recall much else!

The quail was *Shinta's choice. I'm not really a fan of quail but this was quite well done with the sweet corn providing a nice sweet crunchy texture to it. Wasn't overcooked or too dry as quail tends to be sometimes.

The kale was a serious mistake. It was highly recommmended by the waiter, and I must say to the Americans the mixture of slightly bitter vegetable with the sweet pork floos must be quite appealing. To those of us more familiar with SEA cuisine however, this dish was just half-soggy half-crispy mui chay with pork floss. Not as yummy as the "fried seaweed" they have in London Chinese restaurants, and not as tasty as the usual kind we have with bak kut teh.

Ma Peche has its own list of desserts, but we were more keen to try the range from Milk Bar. Thankfully upon our request, they allowed us to order from there too, and the desserts turned out to be the star of the evening.

I was a little miffed when the crack pie turned up like this. They basically just took the box from the shop upstairs and put it on a place. I guess the wrapping is decent enough to excuse them this time.

The Crack Pie was one of the sweetest yummiest things ever. The whole thing is basically fudge and sugar, but put together so well that you just can't stop eating it despite knowing the calories will ruin your diet and even adults will be on a sugar high for the next few hours.

I fell totally in love with this cereal ice cream. Never mind the crappy wooden spatulas and the fact that it came in a cheapo paper cup. You know the milk left in your bowl after you finish your cereal? This is basically it, made into ice cream form. Such a simple idea but no one seems to have thought of it before, and it was so well executed. Absolutely loved it.

I find it's hard to get really good fusion food. Most of the time the chefs just put things together piecemeal without really thinking about the flavors. Or they borrow too much from one type of cuisine that we can't help but just compare it to the original and something just feels "wrong". I rate Ma Peche an "ok", but given that I'm not in NYC much, it's not on my list of "must eat" places. The Milk Bar gets two huge thumbs up from me though!



---------------------------------------------------------------------
Ma Peche
located in Chambers Hotel
15 W. 56th street btwn 5th + 6th ave
New York, ny 10019
http://momofuku.com/new-york/ma-peche/
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Lost

Ok so I admit I've been away for a loooooong time. Blame it on having too many photos to sort through....

Anyway I was just about to get ready a post but I just realised blogger has redone their interface and now I have to spend the whole night figuring it out before I get round to posting something proper.

The Travel Bug: Day trips from Tokyo - Yokohama

Just a 15-20min ride away from Tokyo, is Yokohama. Although we spent 3 nights there, most of our time was spent attending an event at the Pacifico Yokohama, and we only had half a day free. So I would say it's pretty doable as a day trip from Tokyo, and honestly spending any longer there might get a little boring.

First we headed to Chinatown. Yes, Chinatown. Why go to visit a Chinatown in Japan....? That was pretty much my reaction too, but *Shinta pointed out that it was one of the world's largest ones and pretty much *the* thing to see there. I think for us, the temples and colorful gates were pretty but not too interesting.

Being a freezing cold morning, we instead happily joined the queues for the steaming hot manju, aka the Japanese version of our "da pao".

Was supposed to head over to the Yamate area which was historically the residential district of Westerners, but we got detoured instead to the Harbor View Park which as the name describes, provides stunning views of the harbour and port area.

From there, we followed the walk down to the Yamashita Park (literally "under the hill") which stretches along the waterfront.

Street performers entertain the crowds along the stretch with their juggling antics.

The area is still a functioning pier with vessels docked along it. This one had obviously been here for sometime, and the seabirds with typical Japan manners, had lined up neatly along the chains.

At the other end of the park is Minato Mirai area, where the hotels, convention center, amusement park and shopping centers are. The Red Brick Warehouses as the name suggests, have been converted from warehouses into a unique shopping area with interesting shops and products.

It took us about 5 hours to eat and navigate from Chinatown all the way down to this area, stopping along the way to shop, eat, take photos at an easy strolling pace. After that I headed to the Yokohama Pacifico Arena there to attend an event, while *Shinta spent a good 4 hours shopping in the area after that. So that's about it for our time actually spent in Yokohama itself.

The Travel Bug: Day trips from Tokyo - Kamakura

Technically we did this as a day trip from Yokohama where we were staying to attend an event. However, since its under an hour by direct train from Tokyo Station, there's no reason why you can't do it from Tokyo as well. We got off at Kita-Kamakura Station and walked towards Kamakura Station, stopping by the various temples along the way.

My favorite was Engakuji, just outside Kita Kamakura Station. Its one of the leading Zen temples, and one of the 2 more important ones in Kamakura.

The temple grounds are built into the slopes of the forested hills, which makes for really nice picturesque shots.

We were really lucky to have clear blue skies accompanying us as we explored the grounds and the many individual traditional buildings.

Notwithstanding that it was supposed to be well into winter then, the beautiful halls were still surrounded by beautiful lush green trees and gorgeous red, pink and orange maple leaves. This was my absolute favorite shot. A little shrine all the way in. How can anything be so pretty? We spent a really long time there, admiring the beautiful colors and enjoying the serenity of the moment.

Just a little way down the road, is Kenchoji Temple, the number one Zen temple. It's a much larger and grander temple with the entrance passing through huge decorated gates.

The bell there has been designated a "national treasure"!

The gold plating on this gate sparkled dazzlingly against the black frame in the bright sunlight.

There was much more of the grounds to explore, including the Zen garden and entry to a hiking path that's supposed to take you up to views of the entire area, but I felt that the place wasn't that interesting after having seen Engakuji.

Moving on to Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, which is Kamakura's most important shrine. This was the busiest of all the temples, with the traditional 'mon" gates, temple shops and so on.

They still had the beating of the drums by a lady dressed in the traditional miko wear.

Last stop for the day was the highlight of Kamakura, the Great Buddha statue.

With so many other temples to explore, its quite easy to turn it into a two day trip, although if you just want to catch the highlights, one day should be adequate. It's probably even more beautiful in spring with the hanami, or autumn when even more of the trees are shades of red and gold.

The Travel Bug: Snowboarding in Ishiuchi Maruyama

After breaking my leg a year ago , was feeling pretty nervous about skiing again. So decided to pick up where we left off 2 years ago and try boarding once more. This time we headed to Ishiuchi Maruyama, just a 15min drive away from Echigo Yuzawa , the place we went to 2 years ago.

We had totally forgotten how to even start, and had to begin from scratch again. After half a day it more or less came back to us though! This is me taking a rest before I head downhill...

...and that's *Shinta waiting for a friend of ours to catch up.

Had a brilliant time!

The Travel Bug: Views from Tokyo Tower

As earlier mentioned, we managed to make it up Tokyo Tower just in time to catch the sunset...

Heard someone saying that this road was also know as "Tokyo Tower #2" because of the way it runs.

Looks even more like the tower at night when the orange lamposts are lit and the headlights from traffic stream along it.

On clear days with good weather, you can actually see all the way to Mount Fuji.

We were really lucky, we caught the changing colors of Fuji-san as the sun went down.

Tokyo at night is really beautiful.

Posted this earlier (when I wasn't sure if I would get round to doing this post), but here's the shot of Odaiba and the Rainbow Bridge again. It was also taken from Tokyo Tower.

The Travel Bug: Tokyo Tower

For some unknown reason, it never crossed the minds of *Shinta and I to go to Tokyo Tower during our many visits to Tokyo. This time round however, we were with a friend who had never been to Tokyo before, so we decided to pay a visit there.

We eventually ended up in the vicinty twice, and managed to take many different shots from different angles. The first time was still in 2011, we rushed over and managed to get there just before sunset. According to *Shinta, it's international standard that telecommunication towers must be painted alternating red and white.

We decided to take the elevator all the way to the top (another post on that later...) and by the time we came back down, it was night.

Tokyo Tower at night looks totally different but just as gorgeous.

The second time we were there, was to go to Zojoji Temple for the New Year Countdown. The place was super packed... At the stroke of midnight, everyone releases balloons with their wishes tied to it into the air.

This time, Tokyo Tower was lit differently from the other night. Notice how the date has changed to 2012!

One last shot of the Tower from Roppongi...