Kalbi House - Korean in White Plains

Trying a new ethnic restaurant can be interesting for a variety of reasons – it of course offers us a new place to try and of course if the food is good, it adds one more place to the family dining collection. If you have little ones like us, a new style of food can also afford an opportunity to talk about the Geography and other cultural snippets of the cuisine that we are trying.  It was mostly a combination of proximity and adventure that drew us to Kalbi House, actually a while back and we have been back a couple of times since. Actually, we even tried little Korea in NYC and I shall tell you at some other about that experience.

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Waldy's Pizza - New York City

I first visited this small and quaint neighbourbood kind of joint this summer. I realize that there are probably so many such places, but then again a place that has brought me back ever so often at lunchtime, a place along with its very good pizza, has a self full of fresh herbs that you can snip off yourself to actually season your fired Pizza with does deserve a mention. Without the little touches it would be just another neighborhood place that offers good pizza, but then food and life is always about the small touches, it is the accents that make a difference. The menu consists of thin crust crisp well spiced pizza options and a smaller selections of pasta (penne to be specific!) and fresh salads. Oh! I forgot to mention that the wall of fresh herbs also has olive and fresh parmasan and their staff are very pleasant and efficient.

The pizza topping range from the basic tomato basil to interesting and novel concepts like arugula, garlic and sunny side eggs and then everything in between. Yesterday, I ate their chicken, bacon and chipotle pizza. The pizza's come in three sizes and their small is a nice generous size for about $8 you get the pizza and a drink. They carry a small but interesting selection of Pepsi products. The do have wine and beer options should you want to have them. So if you are in that neck of the woods and want to give the place a try, you should.

The low down on Waldy's is,

Waldys Wood Fired Pizza & Penne

800 6TH AVE
New York City, New York 10001

(212) 213-5042

http://www.waldyspizza.com/



Jade Garden - A potentially viable Dim Sum option

Before we discovered Aberdeen and Central Ave Seafood, there was a restaurant we used to go to called David's Jade Garden. The place closed down they had something else in there and looks like they are back to being a Chinese and Dim Sum joint.
I am not sure about the management just commenting on the nature of the restaurant. There is something comforting about small plates, irrespective of the cuisine, something that sort spells relaxed and experimental without being overwhelming.
The place is very spacious and as our local Dim Sum restaurants go, pretty decent in terms of decor. The colors are lighter and brighter. The general think that we really liked was that despite being reasonably crowed, we did not feel crowded in.
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Bhojan - A delightful stop

This little spot in the Indian hub in NYC around Lexington and the corner of 27th was a pleasant surprise and absolutely joy to visit.

The word Bhojan actually translates to a meal in Hindi. This little spot is a vegetarian tea room and cafe that actually also serves regular healthy complete meals in Indian platters called Thalis.

The restaurant has warm open brick walls, reminding you of rural style Indian decor. The space was small and packed this afternoon that I visited. The wait staff however moved very efficiently through it all to accept and service your order.

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Happy New Year - A stop in Ardsley

 In the midst of everything we have started a year, in fact, "the holidays" are over! I had initially not really thought of a resolution. For some reason, I gave up that idea last year. However, as they say ideas exist to be changed. This year as I end the weekend and get ready to brave the new year in earnest, my resolution is to enjoy and be grateful for the simple pleasures of life. The ones that we sometimes take for granted. 

The year thus far already promises to be filled with a lot of them.

Late last year, just before Christmas, Anshul and I made a stop to a relatively new Indian place in town called Calcutta Wrap and Roll. A restaurant named after the town I was born in is naturally worth a visit just based on its name, however once I was there I think the place deserves to be visited for a whole lot more reasons.

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Peniche on a Monday Evening

There is something about our household and eating out on Mondays. What I mean by this is that for some unbeknownst reason we plan on getting out, this too with the kids down in bed and realize that, we have picked a Monday. The problem with Mondays is that a lot of restaurants close down that day to recover from the weekend chaos.

Well, this Monday a few weeks back, the destination of choice was Peniche in White Plains a place serving Tapas, the delightful Spanish style small plates. The mood in the restaurant on this pre-holiday Monday evening was similar to what many other bloggers have described. Rather than being crowded the spacious restaurant had one large table a couple of smaller tables filled but was definitely quite, in fact, to the point the chatty waitress was entertaining herself chatting with us. She was rather funny rather than being annoying.

Now down to the food and drinks, we tried a cocktail called the portonic, which was an interesting cocktail made with port wine and tonic. Moving onto to the smaller bites, they had a selection of Pizza like flatbreads, rather unique and interest. We had a cheese and fruit platter and small mushroom and white truffle dish and absolutely delectable salt cod fritters. We also had an unusual quinoa dish, that was pleasing in its simplicity.

All in all a very pleasant experience, just the place you want to get to on a night where you want to eat, drink and be merry.

Peniche Tapas

175 Main St.

White Plains, NY

914-421-5012

Simple Seasonal Perfect - Harvest on Hudson

There are days when you want go out and have a special meal, but want simplicity in the cuisine, well heeled but country styled settings,. particularly when the whether has this nip in the air. This is when you want to head off to a tested a tried place like the Harvest on Hudson.

I have eaten there a few times and this picture was from a meal about a year back. I was just was waiting for the right time to write about my wonderful experiences here.

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Kathleen's Tea Room

LT on Whole Wheat Toast

Earlier this year, when the whether was cooler, I ventured one lunchtime to try out Kathleen's Tea Room. I think my love for tea competes very strongly with my love of wine. This visit turned out to be a fairly costly one, since I actually ended up with a ticket for parking incorrectly. Fortunately, the tea room was a lovely place to visit. A small place somewhat bring forth the appearance of an old english cluttered service room.

There tea selections were not very extensive but adequate, their service came in mismatched (as in different cups and plates for different tables) completing the atmosphere of a down home feeling.

In general, had this place been closer it would have been a good place to take a book and read on a quiter day. The tea was brewed in piping hot water (one of the most essential elements of brewing black tea). Actually a simple fact that most people overlook.

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`A somewhat lopsided view of what the place looks like.

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Stone Barnes Agricultural Center and Cafe

While we all know about the Blue Hill Restarant at Stone Barnes, there is also a little cafe with a small but quite satisfying selections of salads, sandwiches, crostada's, light baked items all of which are made from the amazing bounty of the agricultural center. If like us you want a good weather day outdoors, please to venture out to the agricultural center.

While I love to talk about food, it is one of the many attractions of spending a day here. Whether permitting you can get good exercise all across the campus, seeing animals, flowers, beautiful happenings of a working farm. The deal here is that I feel like I earn my meal.

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Onions on a conveyor belt



Hanging out with the turkeys

The above are just some snippets of a beautiful summers day with the kids and friends. It was wonderful feel like we had a picnic without having to tote a bag full of food.



The Kati Roll Company

A kati roll is a hard concept to define. Actually the home of these amazing creations is Kolkatta, the city in India where I grew up. These amazing creations of skewered marinated chicken (hence the term Kati, which refers to a stick) are grilled to amazing perfection.

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Tiffinwalah - An amazing meal

It is hardly a novelty to find good food in NYC, one can get almost anything that ones heart desires. This was a rainy sleepyI afternoon, my favorite kind of eweather, cool but not too cold, wet but more a rainy mist rather than pouring rain. I would have loved to walk miles and miles, but since I could not I settled for the next best thing - to walk a few blocks to find a place that caught my eye. Tiffin, in Indian parlance, referrs to snack and in South Indian cuisine this refers to items such as Dosa (lentil and rice flour crepes.
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D Thai Kitchen

When is a good thing, just too much to handle?

Possibly if you are an absolutely lovely emerging little restaurant that receives a, “worth it” review from the times.
A couple of Fridays ago, we went over to the D Thai Kitchen and I have to tell you that despite the extreme chaos, resulting from having just way too many customers to handle the food was just so amazingly good. Interestingly enough, amidst the chaos and commotion we ending up chatting quite a bit with dinners on the adjacent tables something that we rarely do in restaurants.
The food in this charming little place was wonderful. It would have been a beautiful night to sit outside, but it was just too packed. The restaurant manager (the chef’s wife) was amazingly poised calm and composed and smiled amidst all the chaos.

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Chinese Mirch

There are several fusion variations of food, that are naturally inherent in Indian cooking – a combination of cross border influences and of course cross cultural migration. The Indo-Chinese cuisine in my assessment is probably the most popular (certainly in India) of these hybrids.

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Lalibela - Mount Kisco

Sometimes a good dining experience, is all about time and expectation. We had so been missing a good Ethopian restaurant in the Westchester area, to the point we actually ended up trekking all the way in a deep snow snow storm when we were in the Washington DC area, earlier this year to U-street area and eating Ethiopian. Now all of this changed a couple of months back with the opening of Lalibela, I remember seeing this video, a couple of months back.  Well, this Saturday, I packed the husband and we headed to Mt Kisco. Our GPS has a bad habit of stopping a good 2-3 blocks before the destitination, so when I parked he had no clue where we were heading and looked rather skeptically at Cosi across the street.

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A brunch we enjoyed - Half Moon

This post has been sitting around for almost 4-5 months, for some unknown reason, but I did want to share it with people, partly because this was a really nice meal, relaxing and festive all at once. Other than telling about the restaurant - Half Moon, in Dobbs Ferry, I did want to highlight our source for deciding on the place. This has not been the first time we trusted Small Bites, actually whenever there is a holiday and we are at a loss, I am thrilled to have a source to turn to - a predictable, reliable and trusted source.

So here we were - all four of us, for their lovely jazz brunch. The waitress seated us in a quite table on the second level, which offered us beautiful views of the soft snow that was out side and the tables of diners. We could not quite see all the musicians which might be a good thing, since my son might have been tempted to try to join themWhat we ate was a really nice New England Clam Chowder, full of clams rich but not unnaturally thick. They also had an apple and butternut squash soup, the picture does not do the soup justice. It was light but and had a gentle tang.I had - yes, you guessed it eggs benedict, in fact, that is what reminded me about this post in the drafts, because I just made eggs benedict this morning.They also has some nice pan-fried fish with mango salsa and blue potatoes.

We actually had creme brullee for dessert, just do not have the pictures. With summer right here this restaurant would be a great place to check out and enjoy!

Half Moon is located in Dobbs Ferry, New York

The Half Moon

1 High Street

Dobbs Ferry, New York 10522

914 693 4130

http://harvest2000.com/hmn/

Craving and Nostalgia - So Dam Hot

The last time I stopped by So Dam Hot, our little downtown in Valhalla was at least 4 years ago at about 11:45pm. It was the only place open and we were hungry...
Well, today I was walking downtown as you can see well after 2pm and I had not yet eaten lunch. I suddenly got the spicy wings craving...
A strange one, since I hardly eat this kind of stuff every day, but today, this was calling my name.
Maybe after I recently saw this post.
The place has actually gotten a little more formal since my last stop there, also added some interesting touches like the hot sauce rack, which makes for an interesting brouse while you are waiting.
They have also added a whole bunch of stuff to their menu, beyond the

wings and chili that I remembered.
Actually, I debated between the pulled pork sandwiches and finally settled for the wings and fries with chili. The wings medium hot were plenty. I wanted these to go, so while I waited I actually had fun checking out their clothes line displayed on the wall.
These wings were great, spicy and crisp with a rich blue cheese sauce. Actually the chili on the fries seemed a little too tame, when paired with these fiery wings.
So, if you have a quick spice craving and want to stop by a spot with some punch and character do check out this place in our little downtown.

The 411 on the joint (as liz would say)
So Dam Hot
10 Broadway

Valhalla, NY 10595
(914) 328-6051
http://www.sodamhot.com/

Hunan Ritz at Thornwood

There are a few basics that you should be able to count on in your neighbourhood chinese restaurant - such as the colorful fish tank and the flashy bar and maybe staples like chicken with brocolli and mu shu pork. Now, if the restaurant is Hunan Ritz in Thornwood, you can count on some respectable sushi as well.

The restaurant was suprisingly empty this Saturday, when I made a quick stop to pick up food for all of us. They were very prompt and worked on my order of assorted Sushi while I watched the fish. I have tried a bunch of items on their menu and the food is predictably interesting, good but not great. However, they are very convienient and I have stopped their often.

Yes, I know, I know Sushi is not Chinese, but a lot of Chinese restaurant now have a Sushi chef around to cater to customers like me who are not terribly fussy when they are running late and need a quick pick up. They actually have a really interesting role (we love it in our household!) called the Thornwood roll a nice assortment of asparagus, avacado, crab and shrimp. Their orders came with salad and wonton soup. Now the wontons were a little dissapointing, in that they were rather doughy.

Valhalla Crossing

In the past more than a decade, I have seen so many versions of a restaurant in the corner of the train station of my little village. It does look like Valhalla Crossing might be here to stay. I had not really checked out the place, until recently but I have to tell you, I definitely love it. Good comfort food, generous portions, warm atmosphere and friendly service.

I had been camera challenged this time when I went there, so unfortunately I could not photograph the food. However, I had ordered the fish and chips sandwich, which they actually let you switch some of the fries for the onion rings. There onion rings are just perfect, crisp and nicely coated and fried to a perfect crisp.

My husband was better than me and ordered a cobb salad, which was very nicely done, simple and fresh. They have a happy hour most days, have themed events around holidays and special occasions and of course a sunday brunch. So, it you are in the area please check it out.

Restaurant Details

Valhalla Crossing

2 Cleveland Street

Valhalla, NY 10595

Zitoune - trusting instincts

Today was a really nice day, the weekend had been rather long. I woke up predictably late, we had a simple yet with just enough richness to have a nice mellow comforting flavor. I shall tell you more in a recipe about the soup and you can tell me what you think.

I wanted to try out this place, since we were going to be in the neighbourhood, however I was a little disappointed by the somewhat lukewarm buzz about the place here.

I decided none the less, it had a good informative

website, so I thought I would venture over. We went for lunch. The place is spacious, very beautifully decorated, but was completely empty. The owner appeared to be busy on the Internet, trying to pass some time. We ordered a couple of dishes - a lentil tagine, a duck B'steeya (that the owner seemed very proud of)

with a lemon co fit salad. The food was very good, in fact, I now want a tagine. I hate buying kitchen toys like this and keep wanting to make my husband buy them for me. He has sounded a moratorium on them, telling me that I need to clear up some space before I get something new.
Anyhow, the salad absolutely stole the show. The simple dressing with the freshness of the lemon, seemed quite heavenly.
The B'steeya was interesting in that it was a savory pastry dusted with cinnamon sugar, the flavors blended however. The phylo dough was good too light and flaky, rather than the richness of puff pastry which would be too rich for the meat. The duck was moist even in the pastry.

They has a good wine list, that I did not have the time to try. Well, next time. The menu for people who might be interested is a good balance of flavors, lots of vegetarian entrees and most dishes would be something adventurous kids would like. By the time we were leaving the place began to start getting visitors - I guess their standard clientele preferred to eat their lunch later.

Zitoune - Morrocan Cuisine

1127 W. Boston Post Rd.Mamaroneck,

NY 10543

Phone: (914) 835-8350

Website

Pumpernickel - Comfort and Indulgence

A very unlikely find at least by my standards - this restaurant is a somewhat sophisticated cross between a diner and a good all American comfort food joint. It is not where I would go if I was watching my calories, but certainly where I would be going if I wanted good satisfying food.

Good service, a fairly extensive menu, I would prefer this more for lunch than dinnertime. Featured here is the pulled pork sandwich with there really crisp fried onions, that they call "freaky fried onions" and home cut potato chips called frips. My friend Helen who had joined me for lunch had the BLT, which had avocado to add to the richness of the sandwich. The place is famous for root beer that I actually passed on.