Travel : Tiny Bites

Tiny Bites 2009: a year in review

Key Moments

What a time of transition. A new business, new contributors, and a new life to welcome into the world. 2010 is gonna be huge.

Dining Out

These are just a few of the places that Bruce, Degan, and I adored in 2009.

Events Around Town

As a newly occupied parent, I’m sure that I’ll have to bow out of and/or delegate many of the events that we had enjoyed in 2009. This list is mostly for me to dwell in nostalgia as I tend to my little one in 2010.

Home Cooking

We sure did a lot of cooking this year!

Culinary Travel

I’m not going to be able to do nearly as much jetsetting in 2010 as our trio did in 2009. Here are the highlights of where we’ve been.

Bites of Asia Series: dining along the edge of a volcano (Philippines)
Celebrating Chinese New Year around the Pacific Rim (Macau / Hong Kong)
A tale of two Daniel Boulud cities (Las Vegas, NV)
Tiny Bites does the Langley Circle Farm Tour circuit (Langley, BC)
A taste of Victoria with Coast Hotels & Resorts (Victoria, BC)
High Tea Series: The Empress Hotel (Victoria, BC)
Battle of Chicago deep dish pizzerias (Chicago, IL)
Bruce eats New York: Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?) (New York City, NY)
Bruce eats New York: fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar (New York City, NY)

Favourite Visuals

With so much going on this past year, it was difficult to write about everything we experienced. Consequently, these became hidden gems in my Flickr photostream. Here they are again for your viewing pleasure.

Favourite Discoveries

These people, events, and treats helped make 2009 an even yummier year. Please check them out.

Categories: Events, Food, Miscellany, Recipes, Restaurants, Travel

Bruce eats New York: Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?)

5 Comments Bruce NguyenNovember 24, 2009

This is the second post in a three-part travel series called Bruce eats New York, where Tiny Bites contributor Bruce Nguyen chronicles his ‘New York virgin’ dining experiences during the summer of 2009.

Fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar

Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?)

From cheesecake to yogurt and everything in between

Growing up, my family was never very adventurous in our culinary tastes. For each new city we’d visit, while we would try to dine on the local cuisine, by the end of the trip we would invariably end up eating at a local Vietnamese restaurant. The quality would vary, but at least my parents would be darned sure of their opinion. No “that’s was an interesting dish” remarks for us!

Once I was old enough and mobile enough to have non-family travel plans, experiencing new flavour combinations and arrangements would be the new norm. But every now and then, especially on a hectic or stressful day, a restaurant sign with Vietnamese writing would draw me in like a sailor to a lighthouse.

So it’s understandable why, on hearing that I dined at two Vietnamese restaurants during my short stint in New York, people ask if I was homesick or under duress. Believe it or not, neither of these restaurants were my choice but the choice of my dining companions.

I just didn’t complain when they made their suggestions.

Republic

Republic has the byline of “Vietnamese Sandwich Shop” but carries a ranging menu including twists on the standard beef noodle soup (pho). We tried a dish with a seafood base, one with a duck base, and a spicy beef variety, the last being the only traditional Vietnamese noodle soup – Bun Bo Hue.

We also shared a standard Vietnamese submarine sandwich, complete with three types of cold cuts, pate, pickled veggies and cilantro. The pate was not very noticeable and I would have liked a touch more. The sandwich came with a papaya salad pre-seasoned with fish sauce. It was good if not jaw-dropping. What was jaw-dropping, however, was the price. $10 USD for the same quality and quantity of what you can get in Vancouver for $6 CDN – $3 or less if you only want the sandwich.

One thing I must comment on the menu is the inclusion of “Iced Thai Coffee”. With a restaurant byline of “Vietnamese Sandwich Shop” why the insistance on calling it an iced Thai coffee? I tasted coffee, condensed milk, and ice. To me, that’s an iced Vietnamese coffee.

In the end, while I can’t in good faith recommend their sandwiches because of the price, I can recommend their noodle soup. The duck was excellent and the spicy beef and seafood varieties were very good, all of which are beyond the typical fare you’ll find in any Vietnamese restaurant in Vancouver.

Republic
37 Union Sq W | Gramercy/Flatiron, New York
(212) 627-7168

Viet Cafe

Wasn’t much a fan of the veggie spring rolls. They were good but were nonetheless rather standard fare. The pork spring rolls, however, were memorable. Using deep fried rice paper as the wrap gives it a paradoxically crunchy yet chewy outer layer.

The chicken pho was clean tasting without any hints of MSG or added oil. If you’re a fan of ‘dirty’ pho, this particular dish may not be for you. I was a fan.

Viet Cafe
345 Greenwich Street | Tribeca, New York
(212) 431-5888

Categories: Food, Restaurants, Travel, USA

Bruce eats New York: fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar

2 Comments Bruce NguyenNovember 17, 2009

This is the first post in a three-part travel series called Bruce eats New York, where Tiny Bites contributor Bruce Nguyen chronicles his ‘New York virgin’ dining experiences during the summer of 2009.

Fried chicken overload at Momofuku Noodle Bar

Republic and Viet-Cafe in a Vietnamese showdown! (Pho-down?)

From cheesecake to yogurt and everything in between

Momofuku Noodle Bar landed on our radar because of a celebrity chef, but what drew us in was promise of fried chicken. For my first ever meal in New York, expectations were high and we decided to stick with comfort food.

The reservation process, however, nearly scared us off. In order to have fried chicken at Momofuku Noodle Bar, you need:

Four to eight people in your party (no more, no less)
A registered account on their website
Availability within a small number of pre-defined timeslots available each day.

It’s clear who the alpha dog is in this restaurant-diner relationship. Most restaurants I’ve been to are trying to attract more customers, not create further barriers to entry!

Then again, if we consider the pedigree of Momofuku Noodle Bar, it doesn’t seem that bizarre. This is the first restaurant of New York resident rockstar chef David Chang. Chang’s restaurant lineup includes Momofuku Ko, where reservations are taken exactly six days in advance, online only, on a first-come, first-served basis. No leeway is given to social status or income, which is a blessing since I constantly find myself lacking in both.

As we waited for the restaurant to open, a line started to form outside. It became clear through conversation with other expectant diners that we were the only ones with fried chicken reservations that day. Our reserved table was easy to spot as soon as the doors opened: it was the only one with a protective paper covering. Makes it easier to clear and clean the table, I’m sure. And believe you me, there was plenty of carnage to clean up after this meal.

Our chicken arrived accompanied by mu shu pancakes (think steamed soft taco shells), a selection of house made sauces, and a basket full of a greens including long peppers, red ball radishes, and shiso leaves. Even if the chicken were mediocre, I would still be raving about the accoutrements.

Thankfully, mediocrity wasn’t an issue. We were presented both Southern-styled and Korean-styled fried chicken. That’s two whole chickens for those of you following at home. The former had a buttermilk flavour that penetrated deep into the meat while the latter, triple-fried, had a light, crispy skin. Combining all these ingredients into a soft taco was comfort food at its best.

I enjoyed the southern-styled buttermilk fried chicken more, but overall our group was split… both figuratively and literally. Once we were through, all that was left marking this heroic battle between man and bird were grease stains and burstingly satisfied tummies.

After a meal like this, our only disappointment was that we didn’t have a second stomach to keep on eating! After all, for a place with ‘noodle bar’ in the name, we didn’t actually get to try the noodles. Later on in the trip we did end up trying noodle dishes at various New York restaurants, but that’s a story for another day.

Momofuku Noodle Bar
171 1st Ave | East Village, New York
(212) 777-7773