Achie Annette's Home Cooked Meal & Lady M

On her last night in town, Achie Annette cooked us a delicious meal of Tinolang Manok and steamed jumbo shrimp with a soy sauce and scallion dipping sauce.



Tinolang Manok is a Filipino ginger chicken soup that is traditionally made with green papaya and spinach or watercress. Seeing that it is winter time in NYC, Achie Annette improvised with ingredients that were available in Chinatown. Her delicious rendition of the dish had chicken thighs and drumstick with Chinese long beans, carrots, and baby bak choy, flavoured with a generous sprinkle of Thai fish sauce. Nothing warms my soul faster on a cold New York winter's night than a piping hot bowl of chicken soup.


In addition to the Tinolang Manok, Achie Annette made what she claimed to be Mom's steamed jumbo shrimp recipe, although I honestly can't recall having eaten it before. She boiled sprite with slices of ginger, then steamed the shrimps until they just turned pink. She then heated up some soy sauce and scallions, to use as the dipping sauce.



For dessert, we had, dun dun dun.....mille crepes from Lady M!!!! This dessert is probably one of my top three favourite desserts in NYC. It is essentially twenty layers of crepes with a very thin spread of cream between each layer. Then the top is lightly caramelized à la crème brûlée. It is literally heaven on earth, if your vision of heaven involves luscious cream and slightly burnt sugar. Even better, this dessert is so light that I could literally have it everyday for the rest of my life and not tire of it. If only I could!

Best Cupcakes EVER!

Yesterday I went to Red Hook in Brooklyn for a cupcake tasting session with Katya and Christine. Katya is getting married in April and is thinking of having cupcakes instead of a traditional wedding cake, so we decided to check out Baked. Red Hook is quite out of the way (the subways do not go there) and if you walk there from the closest station it involves walking, or shall I say running, through some rather sketchy neighbourhoods (read: projects), but it is well worth the trek!



This is our sampler plate - red velvet cupcake, double chocolate cupcake (Katya's favourite), carrot cupcake, malted cupcake, and sweet and salty cupcake (my favourite). I've officially designated Baked NYC cupcakes as the best cupcakes in the world! The icing is not too sugary and is light and airy, like it's been whipped. The cake is perfectly moist. And it just looks so pretty and elegant! For those out there who abhor food colouring, I think you've met your match.



And finally, the pièce de résistance...an enormous slice of the Sweet and Salty cake. Dark chocolate cake infused with a salty caramel, caramel chocolate ganache, and topped with fleur de sel. I think we can all guess who is in a sugar coma today.



We decided to catch the Water Taxi back to Manhattan and literally rode off into the sunset. The sky was bathed in a gorgeous orange glow.