Ben's Chili Bowl, Washington DC

One of the "must-eats" in DC is a half-smoked from Ben's Chili Bowl. Now why do they call these hotdogs half-smokes? Some say the name came about because the hotdogs are sometimes sliced sagitally when being cooked. Apparently there are different theories about that but I didn't really care as long as they tasted good.

How much of an icon is Ben's? Well they've been here since 1958 and is part of the African American Heritage trail; nuff' said.

The first thing you see and smell when you step into this establishment are the half-smokes being cooked teasingly right by the front window.

Ben's is still family owned and run till this day. Join the line and place your order.

The side of cheese-fries here were pretty mind-blowing. Unlike the one at Shakeshack, none of these chips were soggy and they were heaps generous with the melted cheese. Salty and totally artery-clogging greasy, this hit the spot.

Lo and behold the magnificent half-smoke order with EVERYTHING on it. Coarsely minced pork and beef in an extremely snappy casing served in a soft warm hotdog bun. This is one wiener I can eat almost everyday. If I were to nitpick though, the chili could be spicier but that's all I'm going to gripe about.

I will refrain from making any crude jokes about the superimposed double phallic symbols here haha. Visit DC, drop by Ben's, period.

D

Thanksgiving 2007 in Washington DC

Thanksgiving is pretty much an American and Canadian holiday. I'm not going to go into details on what it's about (because there's Wikipedia) but it's a holiday I appreciate due the huge amounts of food consumed. Here's a picture of at the dinner table of my gracious host, AH and family. D's spotting a new haircut but more importantly spotting an extremely hungry tummy too, which explained why he didn't take more pictures of the food he enjoyed that evening!

Round the corner of AH's neighbourhood is a cool wholesale market.

They sell everything here and I mean "EVERYTHING". What the hell is "cow something??!!?".

And living up to the wholesale name, everything here is sold huge bulks too (and look at those fantastic prices!). But AH had a whole list of restaurants lined up for this long weekend, I would have loved to throw some of those ribeyes on the barbecue. Maybe next time aye?

Since the viewing of all the meat drove us to the brink of a hunger frenzy we had to stop somewhere to break our fast.. er.. or just to have some breakfast haha.

We started with some pastries. But what's this? Pastries (read as non-meat) won't cut it for a proper brekky.

A bowl of steaming hot beef soup. Generously served with pieces of short-rib, this was exactly the thing for the cold late Autumn morn.

And of course we had to stuff ourselves with beef tacos just for the hell of it. Tender, well marinated beef chunks on a warm soft taco shell = yum.

This wholesale complex also sells kitchen equipment. Here's D with a badass giant pizza spatula. I so need my own brick oven pizza one day.

A. Litteri. Inc is famous for their cold cuts and submarine sandwiches. Alas, we were too full to have a sub.
But we did pick up a fine selection of cold cuts, a few bottles of excellent lambrusco and I got this apron!

D

p.s: Thanks for all the well-wishes in my previous post, I'm going to reply them personally soon.

Ali Baba Turkish Restaurant, Manhattan, NYC

I know I haven't been updating this blog as often as I would like to but life has been extremely hectic here. I don't know if anyone's still checking this blog out but I'll still update it periodically. Ali Baba Turkish restaurant is a pretty kick-ass joint (despite the cheesy name) for Middle-Eastern food in Manhattan.

Some warm oven-fresh breads were placed promptly after we ordered and I'm a sucker for warm soft Turkish breads.

The warm, soft and chewy breads went very well with the platter of spreads and dips that we ordered. The humus and yoghurt dip in particular were excellent.

Our hot appetizer of arnavut cigeri (fried tender veal liver) was indeed an indication of how good this meal was going to be. Fried till they were just cooked, these tender cubes of liver lightly seasoned with salt and pepper were just the thing to whet our appetites.

Since this was my first time here, I decided to get a sampler in the form of the mixed-grill because I could not make up my mind. All the meats were tasty and succulent but the donor kebab stood out in both flavor and texture.

The other main ordered was the spicy beyti kebab which consisted of minced lamb marinated with various herbs and spices including ground chili. This was pretty damn good too, I may order this the next time I'm here.

We ended the meal with a complimentary serve of baklava. Crisp but not too dry, flavorsome and not too sweet, an excellent baklava to end an excellent meal.

D

Tasti Dlite, Manhattan, NYC

There are a few of these scattered across the city and claim in selling tasty low-fat frozen dairy products (notice how they stay away from the word "ice-cream"). Partly out of curiosity more than anything else, I decided to pop in for something.

I settled for the ice-cream cookie sandwich because I'm always of fan of ice-cream sandwiches of some sort. This came in a vanilla-chocolate twist.

Ok.. I don't know what to make of this. It's not frozen yoghurt like how they claim on their website but it definitely did not taste as rich as ice-cream. There's something about how secretive they are in regards to what actually constitutes their product which makes it hard for me to accept that they're entirely kosher (and I don't like how their name is spelt as well). Anyway, this was fun just to try out but I'll go for the real thing the next time.

D

Menchanko-Tei, Manhattan, NYC

It's nice to know that there are some decent ramen joints in Manhattan. Menchanko-Tei opens till midnight on the Fridays and Saturdays which makes it pretty convenient for a late dinner.

We started off with the grilled gyutan which was quite tasty but unfortunately sliced too thick. It was also slightly overcooked which made it a tad bit tough.

Their signature menchanko ramen is a soy-sauce based ramen served in a pre-heated cast iron bowl. Steaming hot broth, kept warm continuously; this was very much appreciated in the chilly Autumn weather. The ingredients also tasted fresh and even if I wasn't a fan of cabbage, the shreds here were crunchy and sweet.

Soy-sauce based ramens are nice but I was always a fan of the heartier tonkotsu (pork-bone based) ramens. Even though their Hakata ramen is not their signature dish, it was pretty delicious as well. In fact the broth came close to what I used to have at Ken's, the ingredients are pretty simple though with just a few slices of pork making up the meat.

A nice finishing touch to the meal is the draft Sapporo beer. Sure beats its canned or bottled version anytime.

With two accessible locations midtown East and West, Menchanko-Tei makes herself a rather attractive ramen joint to hit when I get those cravings.

D

Big Wong Restaurant, Manhattan, NYC

Nothing beats a bowl of steaming hot pork and century egg porridge for a morning feed. Accompanied by crunchy dough crullers, the smooth porridge had that delicious taste and texture that could only be achieved by the tedious and laborious effort of stirring it slowly whilst it cooks. Big Wong is located on 67 Mott Street ((212) 964-0540) in Chinatown and is opened as early as 7am.

D

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, Manhattan, NYC

I love pistachios! I love ice-cream. A marriage made in Heaven.

D

Grimaldi's Pizzeria, Brooklyn, NYC

Brooklyn bridge is a pretty cool bridge to walk across for both New Yorkers and tourists alike.

Not only is the architecture rather interesting but the view of

Manhattan from it is pretty stellar as well. But the best thing really about walking the bridge is the exercise you get from it. Haha... I'm kidding!

The best thing is hitting Grimaldi's Pizzeria at 19 Old Fulton St once you cross over.

The choice of toppings here may not be massive but what they lack in quantity they make up in quality. And boy was this quality pizza. Everything tasted top notched. Even the crust was extremely delicious with a nice smoky and mildly charred taste.

These pizzas are baked to perfection in their 800degF coal-fired brick ovens. Was it worth the trek across the bridge? Hell yeah.

D

Saigon Bakery, Manhattan, NYC

I was quite pleased to find out that there's a place in Manhattan serving pretty decent banh mi.

This is their banh mi xiu mai which is actually filled with minced pork grilled similarly to nem nuong. Their recommended sandwich, this tasted pretty damn good especially with that huge dollop of pate. The sweet pickled vegetables tasted crunchy and fresh as well.

The standard banh mi saigon which has pate and pork in it was pretty good too but I prefered the xiu mai version because I actually liked the chewy nem nuong bits.

Of course, which banh mi meal is complete without some Vietnamese iced coffee?

D

Shake Shack again...

Here's just some more grub from the Shake Shake in Madison Square Park. The bratwurst with wholegrain mustard. Not too shabby a brat, with a nice snappy casing and chewy core.

The cheeseburger was also pretty decent.

The cheesy fries weren't too bad either although the crinkle-cut chips could have been crispier. Then again, having caught them at a good time (10 minutes queue), I've got nothing to gripe about.

D

Popeyes, Manhattan, NYC

One big plus about Manhattan over Singapore is that there's more than one Popeyes outlet.

There's still a steady queue going here to make sure the turn-over is quite decent. Hence the chook still tastes pretty fresh. Oh and they actually have two flavors here; spicy (for babies hah!) and normal.

The biscuits must be made according to a standardised recipe because they're still as fluffy and tasty here. Actually, I think they were fluffier than the ones in Singapore. Nice stuff!

I didn't get to try the coleslaw but since most of it was finished, I guess it was pretty decent too.

D