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I get anxious whenever I am in a place like Luke’s or Xi’ An’s where there is limited seating. I’m pretty ruthless when it comes to scoring seats, but often I’d rather not worry about it. That’s really the only thing keeping me from going to Luke’s ALL THE TIME. (And now that they have a roaming food truck, I’ll be stalking their tweets ALL THE TIME.)
Next time, I want their crab claws, but I always cannot stray from the lobster roll, soda, and chips meal. Their lobster roll is so good and packed with meat. Ryan likes it, because it’s not doused in cream and mayonnaise like Pearl Oyster Bar. With the butter roll, it’s absolutely heaven. Their lobster bisque is something, also. It’s all so creamy and filling.
And in reality, I didn’t wait more than 20 minutes after I got my food, which really isn’t that bad. Good thing this place isn’t the easiest place to get to for me…
We went to Momo Sushi Shack and tried to Mexican Bomb and the Ikura Bomb. A-MAZING! Other notable mentions are there pressed nigiri with seared salmon. Honestly, I haven’t had anything here that I didn’t love. Even the Salmon Saikyo, which is sweet ginger salmon seared, was A LOT of food but really great. I still stand by the fact that the best thing in this restaurant is the ceviche. I always want a bowl of my own whenever I come here.
This place is hands down one of my favorite sushi places. I also tried a soba in clam broth with clams with berkshire pork (kuro-buta) pieces. That was SO tasty. Everything here is just so inspired. I am blown away by “simple” dishes here that sort of reinvent the whole dish. Really great!
 
Couple of months ago, Ryan attended a Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy event where he received two nice bottles of Moet Champagne. We popped the first bottle on Valentine’s Day as a chaser of fabulous $2.50 tacos. It was kind of a glorious dinner. Delicious. (From La Delicia)
We were going to pop open the other bottle on my birthday, but in the end we opted to go outside. I also drank way too much that week (via coworkers/friends), so it’s still sitting in our fridge for a nice moment.
Then again, you’re talking to fools that like to couple velveeta cheese and truffle oil. (A-MAZING!)
For my birthday, we ended up going to Bon Yagi’s new restaurant, Robotaya. Review coming soon!
Cafe Ghia
24 Irving Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11237
The corner of Irving and Jefferson was left bare after a dark neighborhood bar shut down a few years ago. Ryan’s totally been hoping that something cute opens up there, since it’s a prime location, but we were sad that the building looked like nothing was going on for a long time.
Of course this all changed a couple of months ago. We saw the windows had newspaper plastered on and there was some serious work going on over there. Then in the last 2 months, we saw a serious bar table and some espresso machines/coffee stuff, which sparked some debate. Will it be a bar? Or a cafe? (We were hoping bar.) And at nights when I walked by the place after work, I would plaster my face on the window hoping to get some inkling of what was coming. (You know, and in the process creeped out the owners of the place.)
They are a restaurant/cafe that is open for breakfast/brunch/lunch/dinner 7 days a week. Awesome, right? They are open until 1am-2am (depending on the foot traffic) and their kitchens current close around 11pm (although they will probably start having late night snacks available until closing).
On the first weekend of April, they opened up! (Apparently they were hoping to open up since October, but things kept getting pushed back.) Of course we slid on in Sunday evening, one of the first people in that night to survey our new neighborhood restaurant.
  
The place offers seating of around maybe 15 people on the floor and another 8 or so at the bar. It’s full of light and super cute with great shelving system that I am totally jealous of. (Seriously, I need something like that.) The menu is simple, but has vegetarian opens, soups, appetizers, and Ryan’s favorite… Charcuterie plate (and a cheese plate). They have wines, local beers (Sehr Crisp! Pork Slap! Oh my!) and a good brunch cocktail selection. (Including some serious hangover recipes: Emergen-C cocktails? Ben’s Breakfast Beverage Buffet: Coffee + Water + Coke + OJ?) The best part is the price point is really good. Their house wine is delicious and affordable. They have a seriously lovely white wine, called BOE (with a beautiful label done by a local Bushwick artist).
Their dinner menu is a little light (but hearty enough with good portions), currently consisting of their soup of the day (more on that later), salads, charcuterie plate, cheese plate, and sandwiches. When we went there for dinner, their mac n’ cheese and burgers weren’t on the menu, yet. Ryan and I got the turnip soup to share with the cheese plate and charcuterie with chicken liver. The SOUP was seriously good, you guys. I still think about it. It was the perfect consistency and creamy with some drizzled pesto and pumpernickel croutons. I loved everything there, but that was MY FAVORITE thing.
The cheese plate was delicious. They were all very earthy and they are all from the farm that the chef worked at previously (local in NJ, I believe). There was a creamy harder cheese, a stinky soft cheese, and a sharper harder cheese. The breads were toasted (kinda like a sandwich) and was soft and crispy. The charcuterie plate was good. Love the prosciutto and coppa. They were all cured in house, as well. GET THE CHICKEN LIVER. It was creamy and savory and everything I love in pate. It was A LOT of food.
I loved that this place is dedicated to being open for breakfast and lunch during the weekday. I wouldn’t get to take advantage of this, but Ryan certainly could. We went there for brunch twice and loved what we had. Some home runs were the breakfast sandwich (bacon egg and cheese? You can’t really go wrong – and Ryan loves his sandwiches and bacon), daily scramble (I love the combination of goat cheese, butternut squash and spinach. The butternut squash is done so well and adds to the creaminess of this whole dish. I love the fact that the second time around they used kale. That balanced out quite well.), and the belgian waffle (I have no words to describe this. It’s like a pumpkin pie custard delight).
We’re so excited that this place opened up on that corner. With this place, arepas place, the coffee place and the salad place on Wyckoff, there are tons of daytime options near the Jefferson stop now. Over all Cafe Ghia is a missing puzzle piece to the growing culinary scene out here.
I have a confession. I’m a lazy cook. Whenever I want to add an extra “oomph!” or add some calories (duh) I use an egg. Any dish can be made better with a friend egg sunny side up with runny yolks. (Good eggs of course.) Curries are better (my cousins in Japan used to put a raw egg on top of a steaming curry and rice and mixed it up), hashes, any type of carbs really, and sandwiches.
Ryan’s mother got us a Cookbook by the Barefoot Contessa, How Easy Is That? And it’s really good and fairly simple.
French Lentils out of Barefoot Contessa Cookbook
You cook the lentils with onions, carrots, celery, etc… and in the end she has a simple sauce of spicy mustard, oil, vinegar, etc… You toss them together, and it’s creamy and delicious. We added some tonkatsu sauce and Japanese mayonnaise on top.
 
Tonkotsu Ramen w/ ham, cabbage, and a poached egg
This is a quick and dirty tonkotsu ramen that you can get at any Japanese grocer (not to be mistaken for cheapo $1 ramen noodles). When you make the broth, I always add some minced garlic. You can add some powdered dashi and/or pork broth (they sell them in Japanese stores and I use them all the time to add some depth into whatever I am cooking).
I’d thinly cut some onions/cabbage/ anything you have on hand and boil them in the soup. Once soft, remove until the noodles are ready.
Cook the noodles separately and leave them firm. sear some ham or chashu (Chinese style pork – if you have any on hand). Poach an egg / fry an egg / or if you are feeling adventurous, make some soft boiled eggs (Onsen tamago?).
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Umi 
"There is very little that I cannot / wouldn't eat. However, Ryan was able to get a good laugh out of a panicked look I had on my face while drowning back raw baby squid with beer."
Ryan 
Ryan needs to write a blurb here about himself. Like the time he almost lost his shit over the greatness that is Japanese Bento and set lunches. Needless to say, we both like to eat very much. This is where Umi and Ryan discuss food There will be food reviews, recipes, links to resources, food news, and general food talk.
This website was coded in textwrangler on a mac by Umi H. She and her cat spent many hours one night not sleep or chasing shadows on a wall.
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