In any case, I was pleased to see that the oatmeal is no longer a sugar & calorie bomb – this one clocks in at just under 300 calories. Not bad – it’s a positive step forward, anyway…

Please note that I attended this event courtesy of McDonald’s, but was under no obligation to post about it and received no monetary compensation to do so.

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: chain restaurant, press event

We decided to check out Alma 33, an Argentinian restaurant in the West Village that our friend KR had raved about multiple times. It just so happened that a Groupon came out a couple months ago that has been burning a hole in CT’s pocket. Once again, we found ourselves using a Groupon closer to its expiration date than we would have expected. They had a couple buying options but CT chose the “For $26, you get dinner for two Sunday–Wednesday (up to a $76 total value). Dinners for two include Five tapas (up to a $14 value each), One dessert (a $6 value).” Sounded like a good deal…

After arriving, we both remarked how we liked the design of the restaurant. It had a lot of light colored woods on the floors and ceilings. Candles all around made the place very warm and inviting.

Bread service included two different kinds of bread served with oil & vinegar.

Our waitress was very friendly and didn’t give us any grief about using the Groupon. I think this was due to the fact that most tables seemed to be using the same deal too.

There was a pretty good selection of tapas from which to make our five selections from. Unfortunately, they were sold out of a couple, but we made do. All of the food came out super quickly. We immediately came to realize that most of the food seemed to be prepared ahead of time. I am including the price of the tapas for your reference since we already paid for them with the purchase of the Groupon.

Crostini Chorizo ($9). Chorizo over grilled bread with red chimichurri. Not the prettiest of dishes especially when the chorizo slices didn’t really “fit” on the bread it was plated on. The chorizo was pretty mild, similar to what we had at El Parador Cafe. However, the chimichurri had a more pronounced flavor with a bit of heat.

Catalunya ($9). Pan con tomate with Jamon Serrano & Manchego cheese. This dish proved that the food was made ahead of time because the bread was soggy. The thick slice of cheese, similar to Parmesan, was good but overwhelmed the ham. They need some pointers from Boqueria.

Humita Empanadas ($4.50 each). Corn empanada filled with corn, red pepper and fontina cheese. This was actually a pretty good empanada. It wasn’t too greasy, which is always good. The filling was tasty and full of sweet corn with just a bit of saltiness from the gooey cheese.

Polenta Frita Con Costillas De Res ($10). Fried polenta with short ribs fried sliced polenta with malbec-braised short ribs. We were really looking forward to this because it sounded great! As you can see the short ribs looked terrible. Meat should not be gray. I wonder when they cooked it? It was also unfortunately pretty flavorless with no seasoning whatsoever. The fried polenta was crispy but also failed due to a complete lack of salt. After asking for asking for some hot sauce to make the food a little more palatable, we were presented with a small bowl of TABASCO! It helped, but we were very disappointed they don’t make their own hot sauce. They seemed to make their own chimichurri, so why not hot sauce too? It isn’t very difficult.

Pintxos De Milanesa ($9). Veal milanesa skewers with pobre sauce. The veal was ok but again the breading lacked seasoning. I’m not sure if they ran out of “pobre” sauce because it was the same chimichurri. At least the sauce helped with the flavor.

Since we had a feeling that five tapas was not going to be enough food, we added on an entree. KR mentioned that the paella was very good, so we chose that. After ordering, our waitress also remarked that it was a very good choice and one of her favorites on the menu.

Paella Argentina ($22). Saffron rice with green peas, red pepper, oyster mushrooms and braised pork shoulder. It is kind of hard to tell from the picture, but it was a pretty small portion for an entree. I also immediately noticed that the rice looked pretty mushy, which it was. There was a fair amount of pork shoulder, but not only was it also not seasoned there was lots of gristle/cartilage/fat to sort through. Also strewn throughout was a large amount of practically raw garlic slices. Since it was dark in the restaurant, both of us accidentally ate a piece or two which was not pleasant. I hope this wasn’t representative of all Argentinian paellas, if that’s the case I’ll stick to the Spanish version.

For dessert, we chose the special which was basically a strawberry shortcake. It was quite small and barely took up the corner of the plate. Good thing this was included in the deal otherwise it would be hard to justify the normal price of $6. However, it was tasty and helped counteract some of the garlic from the paella.

All in all, the food was pretty bad at Alma 33. Hardly any of it was properly seasoned and a lot seemed to be made way ahead of time. I wonder if the Chef is off on Sundays or that is how it usually is? Maybe the crush of Groupon redeemers made them sacrifice quality to get food on the plates? Though the restaurant wasn’t especially busy that night. It was unfortunate because KR really loves this restaurant and we value her opinion. We ended up saving about $20 based on the a la carte prices, not the $50 stated in the deal. In such a highly competitive city like NYC, it is very hard to give any restaurant a second chance since there are so many others to try, so I don’t think I will be returning to Alma 33.

© TT for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Groupon

We each chose from the dessert tapas section of the menu, which meant that we got a discounted price for ordering 4 tapas – I think it was around $28, which is a good deal.  My memory is failing here (and I didn’t pay – thanks again to Hungry for sharing her Groupon [or similar] discount!).  My choice was the green tea tiramisu, which unfortunately wasn’t green-tea enough for me.  I also didn’t like the hard white chocolate pieces on top; the textural contrast was too great.  Something crunchy or crispy on top against the creaminess would have worked better in my opinion; cubes of white chocolate just made for awkward chewing while I tried to enjoy the dessert.  No one who tried mine liked it very much… I had the FAIL dessert of the night! 

TC chose a green tea molten lava cake.  I know he enjoyed it and I definitely enjoyed the green oozing out… the cake was moist and the green tea, though muted, was still present. 

After I mentioned to DLS that the yuzu eskimo was super popular among my friends, but that I really enjoyed the white miso semifreddo – which our server “warned” us is more savory than sweet – DLS chose the white miso semifreddo.  I was pleased to taste that it hadn’t changed much, if at all, since the first time I had it.  An extremely moist, dense “pound” cake sandwiching white miso semifreddo (like an ice cream), savory but still lightly sweet.  The tart raspberry ice cream on the side was good but just gilding the lily – I would be perfectly happy just eating the two slices of cake with semifreddo.  (And in fact, after a moment with my tiramisu, I said “I don’t want any more; you finish it” and pushed it across to DLS… and then asked him if we could trade because I liked the semifreddo better.  He said yes, hehehe)

Hungry’s Thai tea creme brulee was by far the most involved and most interesting of the night, I think – she had milk, Thai tea, and sugar syrup in small containers on the left, and then a Thai tea creme brulee on the right.  She was supposed to drink the shot and then eat the creme brulee, I suppose, to enhance the flavors.  I tried a bite of the creme brulee and found it really lovely – the Thai tea flavor shone through but was balanced by the creaminess of the creme, and the top crunchy sugar crust was great.  I really enjoyed this – if I came back with just one friend, I would almost insist that one of us get this and the other get the white miso semifreddo… nom…

Yvo says: It seems as though the secret is out, as the wait times have been getting progressively longer and longer each time I’ve visited. I’m glad they have a good fan base now! though obviously I would prefer not to wait, haha.  In any case, I am happy to see how Spot has developed as a cute dessert place on St. Mark’s Place, with great little bites for post-dinner nomming.  I think this is a fantastic date spot too, and I love how the desserts aren’t all sugar bombs. 
recommended

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2012. | Permalink | 10 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: creme brulee, DLS, molten chocolate cake, tiramisu

When I saw the FATE cocktail (on the left) on the menu, I had to have it.  Prosecco, pineapple, and elderflower.  Yeah, pretty much tailor made for me… and I loved it.  Perfectly balanced without being cloyingly sweet.  Delicious.  Jessica had the DREAM, which tasted like guava juice and not much else, but I’m sure packed a punch!  Excellent cocktails. 

We’d both done our research beforehand, and the edamame dumplings came highly recommended.  They were so cute! so delicate, and sitting in a mild broth of sorts.  Interestingly, each dumpling was super tender, soft, and earthy… almost like there was a tiny bit of truffle to them.  I’m pretty sensitive to truffle-earthiness, though I don’t recall seeing that on the menu description.  While these were tasty, I’m a big fan of textures in food, and these were fairly uniform in texture – soft – so I would probably not order these again. 

Jessica’s colleague had recommended a few more dishes for us to try.  Shrimp toasts were next: shrimp paste crusted in sesame seeds, then deep fried.  These reminded me of the deep fried shrimp balls you get at dim sum, and were pretty tasty dipped into the mustard on the right.  I enjoyed my share very much, reminded of dim sum as a kid. 

The other suggestion was Peking duck – $44. 

Served with small rice crepes, I layered hoisin sauce, cucumber, scallion, and slices of duck with the crispy skin in them.  I really enjoyed this – I’m actually not that familiar with Peking duck as a dish, having eaten it only a handful of times that I recall – but this was very tasty.  There was no visible fat, though the meat was tender and juicy, and the skin was separated already and very crispy.  Yum!

A blurry photo of the Dungeness crab sticky rice, which was topped with chunks of Dungeness crab meat.  The rice itself was very flavorful, and I would swear to you that it was mixed with dried scallops, which have this intense flavor that I kill for.  I’ve actually never even seen dried scallops used anywhere but real Chinese restaurants, so this was a pleasant surprise – the taste is meaty, ocean-y, and just really wonderful.  Win. 

Though by this time we were both rather full, dessert beckoned: almond bread pudding for Jessica, of which I tried only a few bites – good, but not my thing. 

I went with the rock sugar donuts with three dipping sauces – egg custard, royal strawberry jelly and gianduja chocolate.  The crunchy sugar on the outside of the donuts was great and the still-warm donuts were fab.  Dipped into each sauce was great, but then all three at once – the waiter’s suggestion – so good!  Love.  I can’t say the best donuts I’ve ever had, but these were very good – and for a dessert donut served at a fancy restaurant, one of the best. 

Since this meal was compliments of the PR firm, I can’t do a proper “Yvo says” – yes, service was great, but I didn’t look at any prices and we didn’t even get a bill.  I can say, however, that the cocktails were fantastic, and the food was good enough – though a little pricey, I think – that I wonder why I’ve never visited.  I would definitely not hesitate to go again with friends – the space is gorgeous, huge, and lovely! 

Thank you again to Jessica for the fantastic meal – I had a blast just chatting about everything! 

Please note that though this meal was courtesy of the PR firm, I was under no obligation to post about this meal, positively or negatively, nor did I receive compensation to do so.  This is my opinion.

© Feisty Foodie for The Feisty Foodie, 2011. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: donuts, dumplings, dungeness crab, Peking duck

The morning after our meat-fest at Gauchos, we were up early to head out to the Panamanian countryside for a ziplining adventure. Adventure it was with a variety of buses we took and the 4-5 mile walk into the jungle in the 85 degree weather and 200% humidity. I think we did a pretty good job of burning off the calories from the previous nights dinner and then some. Once we were somewhat back in civilization, we were both pretty starved, especially since we hadn’t eaten much most of the day. All over Panama, we saw these fast food restaurants called Pio Pio, which seemed to be like a Panamanian KFC. There is Pio Pio in NYC, but they are unrelated. We were willing to eat just about anything at that point so we stopped in before catching the bus back to Panama City.

The menu was very similar to KFC in that it had whole pieces of fried chicken, popcorn chicken and the like, along with a few nuances to cater to the local market.

CT got the chicken meal that came with a breast and a large side of rice and coleslaw. It wasn’t all white meat in the breast and had some tasty dark. The rice was pretty flavorful and she raved about it. The cole slaw was nice and tangy. It was somewhat of a mix of a vinegar and mayo based slaw.

CT says: I thought the fried chicken was great, especially considering it wasn’t freshly fried. The skin was crispy and pretty nicely flavored and the the meat was very juicy. I was even more impressed by the rice, though. It was super flavorful and well cooked, with actually veggies mixed in. I couldn’t stop eating it (which is the only reason I didn’t yell at TT for eating all my coleslaw, which apparently he thought was his…). Granted I was both beyond starving and heat-drunk, but I really enjoyed Pio Pio and definitely would be willing to return if I were back in Panama.

Oops! I guess I was “heat drunk” also and appropriated the cole slaw for myself.

I decided on the popcorn chicken meal that came with fries. The chicken and fries were pretty standard, but I gobbled it all up quickly. It definitely tasted a lot better than it normally would have if we didn’t do all that hiking.

All in all, Pio Pio did a good job at staying off starvation for us. I believe everything with an added on bottle of water cost about $9. We had a lot of fun ziplining and recommend you try it yourself if you get the chance. We saw a lot more of Panama than most tourists since we found our own way there and enjoyed that. Although next time I’ll take the manager’s advice and hire a car. Fried chicken was a nice treat at the end of the adventure.

© TT for The Feisty Foodie, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: fried chicken, Panama