Veritasty: Truthfully Delicious

Happy 4th birthday to Veritasty!  We are eternally grateful to Jimmy Carbone and the folks at Food Karma not only for inviting us to our first food event four years ago, but also for throwing this wonderful celebration of pig every year!  The weather held up, the lines were not too long, and there was delicious food to be had at Pig Island. I have found some years that there are trendy pork preparations (one year, I recall there being a lot of pork tacos, another had a lot of pulled pork sliders) and this year was all about crunch - and by that, I mean chicharrones! Many chefs chose to accompany their pig dishes with either a small sprinkling of crunchy pig skin on top; some fried up whole huge chunks for us to break up and eat at our leisure!  Alex is immune to the pleasures of chicharrones, but I'm kind of obsessed for some reason....  I think growing up in an Asian household eating these things: (prawn crackers, in case you didn't grow up in an...

This past weekend, we celebrated the 4th of July at...The Melting Pot in Red Bank, NJ! The Melting Pot is a fondue restaurant, but the way Alex described it to me, it also had an aspect of Asian-style hot pot. Huh?  Do you...cook food in boiling cheese? Turns out there are cheese and chocolate fondue courses, and the entree really is like hot pot, but in a selection of broths.  We had a four-course dinner with lots of poking and prodding and bobbing in broth and it was a load of fun! First, we shared a Classic Alpine cheese fondue course, which was Gruyere, Raclette, and fontina cheese with white wine, garlic, and lemon juice.  The dippers included bread, grapes, cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots.  The cheese fondue was prepared table-side by our server (who embodied the qualities of a good waitress: loud, enunciated well, and knowledgeable).  Though it was a little too strong in the wine department, it was fun to dip the bits in the cheese. ...

What better things are there in the world than some wine, bread, meat, and cheese?  Most fondue experiences incorporate these guilty pleasures, as was the case at Winegasm in Astoria, Queens.  Winegasm is a tapas/fondue place that offered a Groupon (yay) so we headed out there for our fill of melted stuff and dip-able stuff and booze. The ambiance was kind of nice at first: very rustic bar scene with a few tables.  Nice and romantic when they put on the mood lighting, but once the live music started up, it got a little too loud and a little too country for my taste. The Groupon deal included a glass of wine with your meal and a glass of wine with dessert, so I had a Riesling and prosecco.  Winegasm prides itself on serving local, organic, and sustainable wines.  The Riesling was surprisingly good: sweet, with a smooth finish.  The prosecco was tasty, too, except it smelled a little like generic bathroom hand soap.  We had a cheese fondue with ...

So here we are, a while later and a couple of shades tanner.  I would have said I'm a few pounds heavier, too, but weirdly I lost a pound even after gorging on food during our vacation - a cruise on the Norwegian Gem down to Florida and the Bahamas.  It was fun and relaxing and, most importantly, going back to work on Monday made me wish I had missed the ship at one of the ports of call and "accidentally" gotten stuck there forever. Cruise food is notorious for a few things.  First, it is very easy to overindulge because most cruise lines have 24-hour restaurants or buffets or snack bars.  Second, it is very easy to overindulge on mediocre food 24 hours a day.  Third, I dunno if it's any correlation, but both my parents came back from our last cruise with alarming notices of essentially pre-diabetes blood sugar levels from the doctor. I really enjoyed the food on my first cruise.  This time, overall, I thought the f...

The World Chocolate Expo is sort of a misnomer.  Yes, there is a ton of chocolate glistening and waiting for your enjoyment.  But there are also many fascinating and diverse vendors selling all sorts of goods, perfect timing for the holidays and last-minute presents.  The Expo is similar to the New York City Chocolate Show, but the venue is more spacious (Lexington Armory) and wandering around is way more comfortable and interesting. We wove up and down the rows meticulously, taking in all the vendors and their offerings.  First, we were greeted by flavored fudges.  I found it intriguing that they served their fudges in vats, not unlike ice cream or decorative gelato.  They had some beautiful and tasty fudge morsels that reminded me of my trip to Fudge Kitchen in Bath and in Oxford in the UK: they have beautiful logs of fudge with awesome flavors (rum raisin, orange, strawberry, etc.) and sell them in fat slices the size of your fist.  I...

The weekend when the Chocolate Show comes to New York is certainly a good weekend.  This is our second trip to the Chocolate Show, and although many vendors and many aspects of the convention are similar, there were certainly some standout things that were Veritasty. Favorite Guys Ever - Brigadeiro Palace 2012 is the year of the brigadeiro!  The New York Times had an article about it back in February and talked about them again as a grown-up Halloween candy.  But, what is a brigadeiro?  A brigadeiro is a Brazilian candy that's kind of a cross between a bonbon and a truffle and a lump of fudge.  A brigadeiro also happens to be happiness in a bite.  The guys at Brigadeiro Palace have a wide assortment of flavors, including pistachio, passionfruit, and something they call The Matrix (a mix of chocolate, butterscotch, coconut, graham crackers, walnuts, and vanilla, among other things, all packed into a tiny ball).  Unlike regular chocolate t...