Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

On a recent visit upstate to my friend Julia's, we crossed over into Connecticut and went to the Danbury Mall.  I thought all suburban malls were equally sprawling, but Danbury's was massive .  Of course, walking through and shopping left us exhausted and starving, so we popped into nearby Korean/Japanese restaurant, Edo II.  Julia and her mom had just been there a couple days prior, so the fact that she insisted we go back must have been a good sign. It was definitely a good sign. The restaurant is tiny - maybe 6 small tables - and is sort of like a hole-in-the-wall that you could completely miss if you didn't know about it.  The whole place was very endearing since it seemed like a very family-oriented/family-run establishment with dad as the sushi chef, mom in the back kitchen, and son (young, handsome, and ever so gracious, mind you) serving. Julia had this beautiful Naruto roll: paper-thin cucumber wrapped around crabmeat, tobiko, and avocado, like...

I've never appreciated - and I mean deeply appreciated - a good french fry until now.  Thank you, Sir Kensington, for reaffirming my love of fries. This weekend, we checked out the Fries of New York exhibit.  A small gallery space was decked out with glass domes, like a Victorian museum exhibit. Each dome housed a metal prong that propped up a luscious lacquered french fry from the 80 or so restaurants featured. In terms of shape, many were a simple classic cut fry of varying length and width.  Then, there were some chunkier steak fries, like the ones from Katz's Delicatessen.  One beautiful specimen was an entire potato, cut into a spiral, from Twist & Smash'd in Astoria.  A few were made from different starches like sweet potato and yam.  Many were covered in different seasonings like sea salt, rosemary, parmesan, and truffle. I would have suffered a lot of tummy growling had there not been Home Frites fries with Sir Ken...

An exhibit of New York's varied and Veritasty french fries. Umm, are you hungry yet?!?! Sir Kensington, a catsup and condiment company (ketchup, but I wanted to alliterate), is hosting an exhibit of french fries from November 7-8 at 168 Bowery.  I am a french fry fanatic and you will definitely catch me there, gazing wistfully at shellacked spuds on display, originating from restaurants all across the city. Happy Fry Day tomorrow, everyone! http://fries.sirkensingtons.com/

Last week, yours truly and yours truly's co-blogger had a molto romantico dinner at Osteria Morini in NoHo.  You will frequently find me enthusiastic about Italian restaurants ( Otto , Tommaso , Giacomo , etc.) because Italian food is just so gosh darn delizioso (okay, I'll stop), but Osteria Morini is on a whole different level.  Yes, it's a little bit more expensive than the standard Italian fare, and it is probably very crowded on the weekends, but so worth it. We were seated in a nice quiet corner in the back, between one couple who could have been Chinese dignitaries and another couple who could have been Italian celebrities from the way the waitstaff came to ask them repeatedly how they were finding everything.  Meanwhile, we splurged on a meat and cheese plate (speck, bresaola, felino salami, pecorino, and squacquerone) and buttered spinach.  I had the Garganelli pasta dish and Alex had the Grigliata Mista di Carni. The meat and cheese plate...