Amazing Dinner

(All this blogging is done via my Blackberry so it's in brief! I shall write more time permitting...)

David and I just ate through a fabulous tasting menu at North Fork Table & Inn. The menu is very seasonal, and we picked the right season to taste... One of the courses featured an incredibly delicate black cabbage, roasted mushroom and parmesan lasagna topped with generous portion of WHITE TRUFFLES freshly shaven at the table by the chef himself.  Amazing!  And all of it, all so delicious.  We are really enjoying our weekend. Xoxo

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Staub Happiness

For a long, long time, I have wanted to buy a dutch oven.  And for that long, long time, while I agonized over details such as color of pot and size of pot, I always thought that we would get one from Le Creuset.  In the end, however, after a trip to Williams & Sonoma, we decided that what we really wanted was a Staub dutch oven.  It just felt better in our hands; I like the black interior, and the lid is fabulous, seemed better than Le Creuset.  And so we got one in royal blue, and we couldn't be happier.   I have so far made turkey chili in the dutch oven, followed by braised chili-rubbed short ribs.  It works a treat, easy to clean, and looks so handsome on our stove!  I am looking forward to a winter full of meals cooked in the dutch oven.

(Chili-rubbed braised short ribs with maple syrup glazed carrots and truffled mushroom polenta.)

Branzini for Dinner

Roasting whole branzini for dinner tonight! And I am now able to blog from my phone, which should make little snippets easier to post...

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Oven-Fried Buttermilk Chicken

Yesterday I took "cooking what I crave" to a whole new level and made buttermilk fried chicken.  That's right, fried chicken.  Actually, I think at this point I am "cooking to indulge my vices."

I was inspired by a Food Network show called "Good Eats," which recently ran an episode on making buttermilk pan fried chicken -- as opposed to deep fried -- in an iron skillet.  It looked super easy, and I own a skillet!  I purchased my first quart of buttermilk and soaked the chicken over night.

It so happened that I'd recently come across a Ina Garten recipe for Oven-Fried Buttermilk Chicken, which looked good.  Basically, she fries each side of the chicken crisp, then finishes the cooking in the oven.  This method seemed better for my purposes, since I don't own a thermometer and baking would make sure the chicken cooked through.  Also, it's (if only a little bit) healthier than fully fried chicken.

The result last night was a complete success.  David already thinks we shall have oven-fried chicken every other day.  That would indeed be cooking to indulge, but I do think we shall have this oven-fried chicken again very soon.

Snapshots from London 2010

 Fish and Chips at the North Sea Fish Restaurant... top-rated for the classic dish in London.   It was enormous!!!  And sinfully delicious

David and I returned from London Monday late afternoon.  Our office had made a mistake on our reservation, which meant we had an extra day in London -- which was in fact fine by us, since we could spend a leisurely day packing and hanging out.

Casting went well -- crossing fingers now as all the offers have gone out and it's all about getting the contracts signed.  Our last couple of weeks in London seemed to fly by... although plenty of good eating and fun was had in between the busy busy casting days.  One of our activity highlights was going clay-pigeon shooting.  Our friend John is an avid clay-pigeon shooter, and had invited us to go along with him one weekend when we are in London.  On this trip, he and his wife Laurie kindly organized for us to go clay-pigeon shooting the Saturday after auditions were over.  What a treat for finishing the casting process!!!  We had such a great time.

LEFT: Super excited to learn to shoot.  RIGHT: Our guide teaches us how to use a shotgun.

Kitted out with shotguns, ready to shoot!

The guide said that he liked my "style."  I think he was impressed with my fearless firing skills, even if I missed a lot.

David is a much calmer shooter.  He looked very handsome shooting those clays.

Perhaps it was the surprisingly cold weather in May, but we ate a lot of British comfort food done right -- gastro-pubs were preferred, and so we found our way to our favorite, Great Queen Street, numerous times.  We even indulged in fish and chips twice, which is not a norm for us.  On our last trip to Great Queen Street before we left, we share the most enormous chicken pot pie we've ever seen.

It's safe to say that, while we were good about going to the gym in London, we have returned to New York a little chubbier and must now stay off British cuisine.

Because of the ash clouds, our flight home was delayed quite a bit and, when it finally took off, rerouted over Greenland.  We saw the most spectacular sight of Greenland, which felt incredibly close.

Stunning.  Although the flight was much longer than usual, it felt worth it to be able to see Greenland from the sky.

Now we're happily back home, settling back into the New York swing of things.  David came home to his US Citizenship test yesterday, which went well, we think.  He answered all his questions correctly! We await to hear further about the process.  It will be wonderful when all the immigration process is complete.

Next up... getting organized at home!

snapshots of Berlin

Few photos from the last days of our time in Berlin...

David near Alexander Platz

Dinner with the gang at one of our favorite restaurants in Berlin (Bocca di Bacco)

David with a massive schnitzel at Borscht Restaurant...supposedly the best schnitzel in Berlin! (And we believe it)

At Alexey's birthday party... with lots of fabulous Russian food and vodka in a cool funky Berlin basement bar/club...

And here are a few photos from Opening Night Berlin --

With Daniel ("Johnny") and Charlotte ("Penny") in the middle...

We had an excellent Premiere in Berlin... the cast is fantastic and we hope the show is a big success!

And now for our last week in London

(View of London skyline -- including the London Eye -- from the exclusive roofdeck of our friends Laurie and John's apartment...)

David and I have had a wonderful time in London: a good mix of work, "normal" life (consisting of gym, local eats and chill time the two-some way), seeing friends, and enjoying the foggy city. Living in Bloomsbury has worked out fabulously well for us, as it's proved the first time in London that we've felt well-integrated. Much better than "living" in Covent Garden. On the life/gym-front, David has been trying to bulk-up muscle-wise and I have aspired to become more "fit" -- a regime/aspiration we began in New York and have been able to continue and maintain while in London. Of course, there are probably more wine consumed here -- a function of having better access to gorgeous wines and needing it after a long day of casting -- but on the whole we have spent the last 3 weeks in London without having to throw away entirely our more healthful routines we've established and stuck to in New York, which too often happens when we are displaced and live temporarily in a foreign city.

A few snapshots of our last week in London show us...

...at John and Laurie's apartment for a BBQ feast, as well as a treat to the London skyline...

(David and John discuss life and other manly things overlooking the London Eye...)

(Real men BBQ with a cosmopolitan in hand...)

(Happily intoxicated on John and Laurie's roofdeck...)

...at Mon Plaisir, digging into a delicious pear tart before going to watch Sex and the City Movie....

... at Busba Eathai, MANY times over... our favorite Thai restaurant in London, we are truly addicted...

... at Roka, where infused shochu and excellent food reign supreme...

... and the dessert at Roka was one of the best desserts we've ever eaten...


(David in dessert-time heaven at Roka...)

... and we've had a wild night out with Valerie, which started out civilized enough at a dinner at Yauacha...


... but which lead to an interesting outing to a random R&B club... and lots of silly dancing and Valerie, as always, being very popular with the boys...

... to back to Mon Plaisir, where we had a gorgeous rib-eye for two...
We have one more week in London left, and some more hefty bit of casting to do, but we are optimistic and look forward to having a good time... even if it means we have to fly back to New York on Silverjet.

Hopefully it won't jinx us... but we saw this sticker on a sandwich from Pret and thought it was quite appropriate...

David Does BOSTON!

(Swan Boats parked in the middle of the pond surrounded by weeping willows, in the Boston Public Garden...)

DD was part of Broadway Across America launch in Boston this past Monday. This event announced the major productions that will come through Boston during the 2008-2009 season. There were 7 shows presented, and DD was one of them. Despite some sound and technical issues (which too often happen at these launches), the event was exciting and, I have heard since, successful amongst the attendees. It was the first time that DD launched alongside a series of other major shows, and a small group of our friends were able to see it. It was a brief visit, and we didn't get to talk to our friends as extensively as we'd liked, but it was great to see them... and for a change, in an US city other than NYC. We're looking forward to coming back up to Boston as the show transfers there come winter.

David and I flew into Boston the night before the launch, so that we could have some time of our own in my "home" city. David's very first trip to Boston!!! He was very excited, ready to explore. We got in in the morning, checked in, and then went into Cambridge for brunch. We had a wander around Cambridge, walked around Harvard Square, Harvard University, and browsed some shops. Afterwards, we hopped back on the T (the subway system), walked through Beacon Hill, through the Boston Public Garden, and then down Newbury Street... after some tea, off towards the water we went, checked out the Milk Bottle at the Children's Museum, all the way around to Faneuil Hall and back to our hotel. We walked A LOT. That night, we had a cheeky cocktail at Alibi, a new hip bar that used to be a prison (it was written up in Conde Nast Traveler hot spot 2008), and then went to eat at Clio, spearheaded by a chef we saw on Iron Chef America who'd intrigued us (he didn't disappoint). It was a whirlwind day, but we had a great time.

The next day, of course, was the launch. We had dinner with Ben, Melissa, Chris and Sarah, who'd flown in from Toronto to perform, along with our PR people from both London and New York, as well as our producers and other handlers. It was a big dinner party, but it was good times.

A pictorial record of our trip:

(David at the Monday Room in Cambridge, where the brunch crowd was treated to a Harvard a cappella group performance.)

(David in front of the Harvard University Chapel)

(David with the famous bronze duck statues in Boston Public Garden)

(David does his best "Duck" amongst the bronze ducks...)


(It's a "Boston Tea Party!" at Tealuxe on Newbury Street... THE place for tea drinkers...)

(In front of the Milk Bottle by the Boston Children's Museum... David performs his best "Milk Bottle...)

(Beautiful clock tower building... very walking around Boston city central pic...)

(David's photo of a ridiculously narrow building embedded between two large, tall buildings, as seen from our hotel room. David calls this image, "The Ass Crack of a Building.")

(David sipping a drink at Alibi... in front of Paris Hilton's mug shot...)

(David very happy with the food at Clio... there was a powdered coconut-y confection with the fish, which he called "coconut cocaine.")

(David isn't "angry" in this photo -- he's just so concentrated on each delicious bite, it's a VERY serious affair.)

(David's very first Boston Creme Pie! He waited all weekend for the experience, and was not disappointed)

(David, me, and Melissa, posing with peace signs, as you do when you're Asian... or married to one, in David's case.)