FOOD PICS OF THE WEEK

Cantina Taqueria & Tequila

1838 7th Ave New York, NY 10026 (Harlem)

How does one celebrate running his first race of 2022? This guy gets tacos and margaritas.

Cantina is a local Mexican staple in Harlem (well maybe it's more Tex-Mex). For this outing, we decided to go to another Cantina location - one that is a 15-minute walk instead of an 8-minute walk from our place because the service at the closest Cantina is a bit of a struggle.

 
 

My tacos of choice were al pastor, chili-lime chicken, and Baja fish. We went a little crazy with "salsa" sampler and the tater tots con queso.

It's not a fun taco night without frozen margaritas. I probably was on margarita número tres or cuatro at this point . . . who cares if it was 28F outside?

Going forward, this will be my go-to Cantina because everything was on point - food, services, bebidas, a limited amount of ignorance. The loud music would be the only thing that I would change. Random question: Why do restaurants play their music so freaking loud (especially when the restaurant isn't even half full)? Is it to make folks drink more booze? Is it so folks will eat faster and leave so the restaurant can flip the table? I've noticed this trend in quite a few places in Harlem.

Side Story:

Funny story about the other Cantina (the one that is an 8-minute walk from our place). After moving to Harlem, Cantina was the first restaurant where we dined for late lunch. As most know, I'm pretty good with handling my adult beverages, but the margaritas from that day hit me like a bus. In my defense, I was a bit sleep-deprived because the movers arrived at my place around 8 am so I pulled an all-nighter packing. After lunch, we both went back to the apartment, and I slept for a good two hours. The plan was to go to Target right after lunch to get things for the apartment. During our Target visit (FOUR HOURS LATER), I think we were still feeling the effects of the margaritas because we ended up buying a whole bunch of crap that we DID NOT need, but none of the stuff that we actually needed like a freaking shower curtain or blinds for the bedroom.

My drunk a**, needed a redo to properly spell my name - it's spelled Kwame.

Speaking of crap we did not need for the apt, we did buy a wooden "K", "P", and "&".

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

SETTEPANI (***)

196 Lenox Ave, New York, NY 10026

A Christmas Eve pizza craving. After running some errands in preparation for “Tropical Christmas”, I was so frustrated with everything (and everyone) that I needed to eat my frustrations away with a pizza pie from a local spot. Settepani has been my go-to (primarily for cocktails and wine) pretty much since we moved to Harlem back in 2017. Actually, I think this was the second restaurant that I visited after moving to the neighborhood. Of course, I visited the restaurant because I “needed” a glass of wine.

PROSCIUTTO PIZZA

I decided to go with this guy because I was feeling meaty. The “simple” pizza consists of prosciutto (of course), mozzarella, basil, and Mike’s honey.

Prosciutto pizza from Settepani in Harlem, New York

Since I am of a Southern background, I tend to like my food a bit spicy. That said, I’m not too sure that I am a huge fan of Mike’s Hot Honey (***) on my pizza. I do not know, but the sweetness of the sauce took away from the flavor of the prosciutto topping. I guess that many folks like the combination of sweet and savory, but I’m not too keen with this mix of flavors on my pizza. Maybe I was not feeling the sweetness because I was in a crabby mood from running errands on the day before Christmas. Oh well, next time, I’ll just ask for the pizza without the hot honey sauce. However, I think Mike’s Hot Honey would be a perfect sauce for other foods such as french fries, chicken waaaaangs/tenders, or any other fun fried food.

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

Home Cooking

I decided to make a big pot of Shakshuka. To be perfectly honest, I have no idea why I wanted to make this dish. I think that I wanted some form of breakfast for dinner.

While Shakshuka typically is a vegetarian dish, I decided to add some Italian sausage for sh*ts and giggles. I hope the Shakshuka and the Beachbody folks will not come after me for altering this recipe. In addition to the dish, I prepared a big tomato, cucumber, onion salad bowl.

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

Calle Ocho (***)

2756 Broadway, New York, NY 10025

I have been going to Calle Ocho (Cuban fusion) since the early 2000s, and it always hits the spot. To be perfectly honest, Calle Ocho was a favorite for my grad school buddies and me because the restaurant has an all-you-can-drink sangria brunch with the purchase of any entree.

LOOK AT ALL OF THESE DIFFERENT SANGRIAS!!!!

 
 

FYI: The Samba, Roja, Gramada Punta Cana, and Blanca are my favoritas.

Man those were the days when we did not have time limits for our all-you-can-drink brunch needs. Now, most places have a 1.5 – 2 hour time limit, which is fine . . . I guess.

For my most recent brunch visit, I went with something new and ordered the

Camarones Ahumados

 
 

Normally, I order the same things (ropa vieja or chilaquiles), but I am glad that I decided to go with something different.

While I love coming here, I will say that the prices have gone up a bit. Since I have been dining here for about two decades, I guess that’s understandable. Back in the day, dishes were about $20 and included all-you-can-drink sangria. Now, the delicious brunch options are around $40. I mean it’s not a huge deal because most places typically add an extra $15-$20 bucks if you want an all-you-can-drink option. I guess Calle Ocho now includes the all-you-can-drink in the price of the entree. There is no way in the world that anyone should pay close to $40 for a bowl of shrimp and grits. I guess this kind of sucks for non-drinkers to pay that much for a brunch entree.

That said, the muffin basket (err box) is totally worth it.

 
 

One tip if you dine here: As long as you continue to order food, the sangria will keep flowing. When we dine at Calle Ocho, we usually get a dessert after brunch so we can have one or two more sangrias for the road.

FOOD PICS OF THE WEEK - A POTPOURRI

We’re going to do a few mini entries.

The Jeffrey Craft Beer & Bites (***)

311 E 60th St, New York, NY 10022

I have been going to this bar for YEARS. It is a few blocks away from my former place of employment, and I passed it pretty much every day on my commute to and from work. While this place has countless types of yummy beers and unique cocktails, I never really had the food here . . . with the exception of the $1 happy hour oysters and probably the french fries. On Friday, I was STARVING, and my half dozen of oysters just was not going to cut it. The bar has an interesting list of tacos, and I decided to go with the Pho Tacos. OMG!!!

The Pho Tacos reminded me a bit of Birra-style tacos, but these tacos had a pho-based consommé. After the first dip of one of the tacos, I was this || close to asking my waitress for a larger bowl of the cosommé to eat as a soup. These guys were out of this world delicious. Looking back, I wished that I had ordered four instead of three

Thanksgiving

Harlem, NY

This year, I decided to stay in NYC instead of going to VA. This decision always makes Thanksgiving a bit bitter-sweet for me; however, you gotta power through adversity. The hubby and his friend pretty much made our Thanksgiving feast. It was a nice touch because they are chefs so we get some traditional bites with some fun and unique sides. I gotta say the six of us had a nice Thanksgiving . . . I guess they call it Friendsgiving these days.

Once again, my contribution to Thanksgiving dinner was dessert. For this adventure, I decided to make this White Christmas cake.

RECIPE: White Christmas Cake.

I know that the recipe has the word “Christmas” in it, but I wanted to make a cranberry-based dessert. While I did not have a baking meltdown like last year (last year’s meltdown post ***), the cake started off kind of a struggle. I was this || close to aborting the dessert after this happened.

 
 

I decided to power through this fiasco and continue with the cake by making it with three instead of four layers. I really have to give it up to the pastry experts or near experts out there because I did not realize the complexity of frosting and assembling a multilayered cake.

I deviated from the recipe a bit

  • Added whiskey to the cranberry jam

  • It was three layers instead of four because I messed up one of the cakes as you can see in the photo above.

  • Since I had so much cranberry jam leftover (remember, there was one less layer), I decided to mix the remaining butter cream with the cranberry jam. Actually, I think doing that somewhat masked my crappy frosting technique for the top layer. While assembling the cake with the buttercream and the cranberry jam layers, I was like why didn’t the recipe just mix the buttercream with the cranberry jam for the filling in between the layers.

  • Not sure why the recipe called for TWO cups of cranberries for the garnish. I think that I used about 20 cranberries for the garnish on the top layer. I guess if folks are huge fans of cranberries, one could use all 2 cups. With the cranberry jam-filled layers, I figured that topping the cake with 2 cups of cranberries would have been overkill . . . and this is coming from someone who loves cranberries.

  • Boy was it tough to cut the cake evenly for the layers, which resulted in the cake looking very lopsided. The hubby said that pastry work requires quite a bit of practice, and I have to agree with him.

Overall, everyone was pleased with the cake, and I will admit that it was delicious. Aesthetically, it looked like it was on the losing end of a knife fight.

Meal Prep

I’m still trying to power through Beachbody’s 21-Day Fix, and we’re going with the tuna noodle casserole with veggies.

It’s an interesting take on an American classic; however, I will say that it tastes “weird” without any cheese. I guess the lack of cheese is what makes this thing healthy. While the veggie component was kale and peas, I decided to up the veggie content by adding shredded Brussel sprouts, carrots, corn, and tomatoes.

21-Day Fix Container Equivalents: 0.5 green (veggies), 0.5 red (protein), 1.5 yellow (carbs)

I hope everyone had nice Thanksgiving . . . or a nice Thursday if you do not celebrate Thanksgiving.

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

McDonald’s

The McRib sandwich is back!!! I do not know why, but there is something very special about this sandwich that draws me to it. Maybe this feeling is because the sandwich is offered for a limited time. You know, the whole wanting something more when you cannot have it.

Back in high school, I used to work at McDonald’s and absolutely hated all things associated with the McRib. During my McDonald days, I worked drive-thru (one of the reasons why I am not a fan of people ), and drive-thru workers had to wash ALL the dishes at closing. OMG, the smell from the McRib sauce was very potent and would make me angry. Also, one needed a freaking jackhammer and the patience of Job to remove the sauce from its storage container.

SPEAKING OF MCDONALD’S, HERE ARE A COUPLE OF HACKS:

in case you already did not know

-If you want fresh out-of-the fryer french fries, request them without salt. Then, you can watch the employee roll their eyes at you when you request 10+ salt packets. 

-For the breakfast sandwiches request the ’round’ egg. With the exception of the Egg McMuffin, all of the egg sandwiches are made with some “fake” liquid egg product.

-The ice cream machine is rarely broken at night. It takes forever and a day to clean the machine, and no one is trying to reclean the machine once it has been cleaned that’s why they say it’s broken. Workers might make an exception if you order ice cream without any toppings.

FOOD PIC OF THE WEEK

Since it was too hard to pick one favorite food pic or restaurant while vacationing in Spain, I figure that I would put my top meals in one post. This way, the next five entries “Food Pics of the Week” will not be food entries from Spain.

MADRID, PART 1

Bang Cook

Bodega Maribel

Santander:

La Casa del Indiano

Restaurant: ???

Restaurant: ???

Barcelona:

Restaurant ???

La Mar Salida

Madrid, part II

El Brillante

Going forward, I probably should take pictures of the restaurants’ names and menus so I can 1) know the name of the restaurant and 2) know the actual names of the dishes. I did try to check in to these places on Yelp, so they would be in my recently checked in folder. However, many of the spots we visited did not have Yelp listings, and I was not trying to create new Yelp listings for these places

Food Pic of the Week

886 (***)

26 St. Marks Place, New York, NY 10003

Great Taiwanese food in the heart of the East Village.

Scallion Pancake Beef Wrap

 
Braised and Shredded Beef Shank, Szdaddy Mayo, Cucumber, Black Bean Sauce, Scallion Pancake

Braised and Shredded Beef Shank, Szdaddy Mayo, Cucumber, Black Bean Sauce, Scallion Pancake

 

Lo Ba Beng

 
Classic Taiwanese Rice Dish – Tender Braised Pork Belly Served Over Rice, Pickled Mustard Greens, Egg, Cilantro

Classic Taiwanese Rice Dish – Tender Braised Pork Belly Served Over Rice, Pickled Mustard Greens, Egg, Cilantro

 

Fly’s Head

 
Pork, Chives, Chili, Fermented Black Bean, and Garlic

Pork, Chives, Chili, Fermented Black Bean, and Garlic

 

Honey Glazed Popcorn Chicken

 
Marinated Chicken, Szedaddy hot honey, Thai Basil

Marinated Chicken, Szedaddy hot honey, Thai Basil

 

The Notorious T.F.C

 
AKA Spicy Fried Chicken Sandwich. Deboned Chicken Thigh, Daikon Slaw, Martin’s Sesame Bun

AKA Spicy Fried Chicken Sandwich. Deboned Chicken Thigh, Daikon Slaw, Martin’s Sesame Bun

 

"Food" Pic of the Week

Casa de Kwablo (aka our place)

New York (Harlem), New York

I guess this is a fake-out entry, but this week’s picture is a new protein supplement that I have been eating/drinking.

 
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To supplement my intermittent fasting, I decided to have protein shakes for lunch instead of real food. I will admit this plan has been a bit hit and miss. As I mentioned in a previous entry, the hubby and I have been trying to do Whole 30 in between our birthdays (June 25 to July 26), which also has been has been hit or miss. We have Whole 30 dinners about 3-4 times a week so that something . . . I guess.

Food Pic of the Week

Red Rooster (***)

310 Lenox Avenue, NY, NY 10027

Another weekend, another brunch. Believe it or not, we did NOT have bottomless brunch this time around. A good choice because this place does not have bottomless brunch.

Anytime someone visits Harlem, they always want to have a meal at Red Rooster Harlem, but I honestly do not get all of the hype surrounding this place . . . Lemme show the food pic before I get into hater mode.

Cornbread & Gravy with Chorizo, Fried Egg

 
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I gotta say that this dish really did hit the spot. Honestly, I never would have considered eating cornbread and gravy for my brunch. BUT, the restaurant's brunch menu was uuummmmmmm a bit lacking.

 
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Wait a minute! Y'all have only three things on the brunch menu? FYI: There were more cocktails than the ones in the screenshot. I get that this is a fancy restaurant so one should not expect a menu with 20 different brunch and lunch items, but may we get a few more fun brunch items? I mean the owner, Marcus Samuelsson, did win the second season of Top Chef, and I'm sure that contestants from the show have to do some sort of innovative dish challenge.

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