Today Robyn and I met up with her friend, Janet for a late lunch that started at 1pm and ended well past 3pm. Time flies when you're having much fun (and food). Robyn's been rather excited about discovering more pupusas after her first experience at Red Hook a few months back. Hence our particular eatery of choice for this Saturday: Bahia, a restaurant in Brooklyn devoted to Salvadorian & Latin American food.
We arrived at the restaurant a few minutes before Janet and waited outside, browsing the menu, "let's eat light today," I innocently suggest.
Robyn gave me a look, "bwhaahah, okay! buh."
She knows me too well.
I start off each day with the best of intentions: eat well, eat rich if I so desire, but eat light, as in not tooo much food.
Unfortunately this rule never last on days I eat with Robyn.
Which are many days indeed, hehe.
The festive holiday decorations were, erm, very close to us! heheh.
So with the intention of eating light, we seat ourselves at the only window table upon Janet's arrival and promptly order SIX pupusas of all different sorts, corn and chicken tamales, fried yuca, pastry cream stuffed plantains, a side of chirmol, horchatas for Robyn and Janet, and of course, dessert to follow :)
We can throw 'eating light' straight out the glass window.
It was not meant to be.
For today, at least!
The horchata here is different from any I've tried in the past. I only had one sip of Robyns'. And I immediately noticed. It is packed. PACKED. With an intense sesame flavour. Odd at first, because I'm used to cinnamon as the predominate flavour in horchata. A better understanding of this drink can be found via Nadia Mokhtar's article which explains:
"It's an eclectic mix of roasted then grinded sesame seeds, cinnamon, cocoa, and a Latin American fruit called "Morro" which she (mother of the owners) ships from El Salvador to her sons every three months. The powder is then blended with sugar and water and served in a huge glass for $1.75."
It's $2.00 now, but it still tastes just as wonderful as she describes!
All our dishes arrived at the same time (it took a long time for everything to come out, and when it did, it came out all at once...woohoo, food PARTY!) Robyn set off to dividing up each of the six pupusas into thirds.
Robyn lifts the pupusa...and we see...CHEESE!!!
The may all look the same, but I assure you there's a different filling in each one: pork, cheese & loroco, refried beans & cheese, cheese & zucchini, chicken & cheese, pork & refried beans & cheese. Haha. We had a hard time deciding which ones to get, so we got all we thought we could eat...and then some!
Pork pupusa: Innards
Mmmmm, delish? Yes, yes! But still, nothing comes close to the ones in LA. I feel the corn is ground too finely, making the resulting dough one-dimensional no texture, no excitement. A bit longer on the griddle could provide extra cruuunch to break though a thin exterior and sink your teeth though the soft masa and into the savoury tender mass of pork, cheese and some veggies if you so desire.
The pupusas come accompanied by a side of warm sweet tomato sauce, and a larger dish of pickled cabbage - both key to enlivening an otherwise bland dish.
Texture seemed to be my only issue with the dishes here, as I found similar disappointment with the chicken tamale. It was not the filling - like the pupusa, the filling was fantastic. It was the dough that got to me. It was gelatin-esque! You poked and it bounced! When you eat tamales you want the dough to have some integrity at the very least. You want some texture, some grittyness? Some somthing! This did not have anything, it was smooooth as jello.
But I loved the fresh corn tamale. I loved it very, very much. It was my favourite item of the day. When they say 'fresh', it's the truth. I took a bite an exclaimed, "whoa, it tastes like corn!"
No duh.
But for real! You would have said the same thing!
It's crazy, it tastes more than just fresh corn. It's like fresh corn intensified a bazaillion times over. While maintaining the texture of natural corn. Heck, I cut another piece and then it hit me, the innards themselves look like corn. Is this corn in another shape? Perhaps...hehe. The accompanying house-made sour cream was the perfect accompaniment, smooth with a light tang...oh, why couldn't sour cream be healthier? I would eat buckets of this!
We had a blast tearing apart the giant bowl of fried yucca - such a visually attractive dish. A squeeze of lime juice to sharpen the dish, and a mound of cool pickled cabbage for some textural (and colour!) play. Robyn noted that the yucca was lacking in the flavour department. This was greatly aided by a shake of salt, or even better, a slide through the sour cream on the corn tamale plate.
We also ordered a side of Chirmol, a fresh mix of diced tomatoes, radish, red onions, scallions, cilantro and lime juice. I wasn't sure what to put it on or what to eat it with...so I put it on everything and ate it with everything. Good move! :)
Empanada de leche: whole
The dish I was most curious to try was the "empanada de leche"...
Empanada de leche: cut
A sole plantain fried and stuffed with a sweet cinnamon pastry cream. Dessert? Or appetizer? We do not know. But it ate it straight along between bites of pupusas and sticks of fried yucca.
Empanada de leche: splodged!
Even after reading the menu description, and knowing what to expect, I was nonetheless still thrown off ever so slightly...because you just never expect to encounter sweet and thick cream stuffed inside a plantain! The texture does a wonderful play in your mouth the slightly greasy, crisp exterior, tender hot, near plushy innards and a gooooosh of cream with just a spike of cinnamon.
We did good, eh? ;)
Success.
Janet & her Pellegrino
I tucked away the last bit of the corn tamale, and the chicken tamale, and promptly declared my extreme fullness and content. Ahhhh. Robyn and Janet nodded in agreement. Pause. "Should we get dessert?" I meant to ask this question in my head. But somehow it was spoken by my mouth. Robyn and Janet looked at me like I was crazy, but they both agreed, yes, we should get dessert. But we should also share the dessert. Hehe. Thank god for sharing (though sometimes I think people end up eating more of they share. More variety = more eating...as evidenced by the lunch :)
Flan was the dessert of choice, and it was a fine decision indeed. A creamy wedge wealthy with cinnamon and a glossy caramel syrup cover, it was at once both light and rich. The only disappointment was the alarmingly high proportion of 'bubbles' in the flan, disrupting an otherwise smooth and luxurious ending to lunch. Near the end of our meal, we were joined by John, Tristan, and Lihan who had gotten lost in the financial district a few hours back. But they made their way up to Brooklyn soon enough, and we continued the meal on with them.
left to right: John, Tristan, and Lihan
Our waitress was really nice about helping us move to a bigger table and set the boys up with menus and whatnots. Upon asking them what they wishes to order, John declared, "we'll have what all the girls had." He pointed at our half of the table. bwhahaha.
The waitress looked confused at first, "what they had? everything?"
John replies, "yup!"
Hehe.
The waitress smiled. She was awesome.
Flowers at the Greenmarket
Post lunch we split up: Janet back to New Jersey, Robyn, John, Tristan, and Lihan for a romp around Central Park and I went off to do intense marathon shopping...and stroll around the Greenmarket.
The Greenmarket during this holiday season is beautiful. The apples, the trees, the people...why even the dogs!
The owner of the goat cheese stand also had his dog along...
...hehe, so cute! I see this dude at least once a week, just the sight of him alone makes me happy :)
After a few hours of shopping, my wallet was substantially heavier...from receipts, that is! I gave Robyn a quick call and met up with the rest of the gang at Tkettle on St Marks.
Sterile. Is how you would describe TKettle. But the people working there were quite nice, which always makes for a more enjoyable experience!
Robyn, Tristan, and Lihan all ordered dumplings of different sorts. Here's a shot of Robyn's pork dumplings. These particular dumplings have been made somewhat famous thanks to articles from the Village Voice here and here. A recent Chowhound thread started just yesterday has also piqued even more curiosity...but alas, I just cannot seem to locate it at the moment - seems as if the Chowhound moderators have removed the post...
I had one of Tristan's vegetarian dumplings which were indeed above average, generous on the filling of what Robyn noted as the "good vegetables," hehe ;) and a balanced skin to filling ratio. But far from spectacular. The Village Voice had it over hyped.
John and I went for milkshakes, a mango milkshake for him, and an avocado one for myself. I first fell in love with avocado milkshakes at Mr. Baguette a few years back. My addiction to their avocado and durian milkshakes (an hour drive from my school) were so severe that on occasions I'd order one to drink and two more to take back and store in the freezer. That avocado milkshake was a miracle, I have never tasted anything that's even come close. Thicker than plaster, creamier than butter, a soft milky shade of green enhanced by generous lacings of sweetened condensed milk and an entire fresh avocado. Swoonworthy indeed. Tkettle's version, most unfortunately, did not come remotely close. Colour-wise, it was an odd grayish-green shade. Texture? Liquidly. Soooo liquidy. All at once watery and icy with the occasional chunk of ice that got stuck in the straw. Not a milkshake. Flavour? Decent, light on the avocado, heavy on the sugar.
�and now this blogger is off to sleep. It's 1am on a Saturday night/Sunday morning. Ooooff, thank god no work tomorrow, hehe. Sunday = Cave Day.
Bahia Restaurant
690 Grand St.
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 218-9592
TKettle
26 St Marks Pl.
New York, NY 10003
(212) 982-9782
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