Abyssinia Ethiopian restaurant

   We visited an Ethiopian restaurant in May.

   It was my first time to try Ethiopian food. I was excited because I wondered if the food there would be very different from what we ate before. The Abyssinia Ethiopian restaurant is in  Harlem. It is located in a quiet neighborhood. The restaurant was small and cozy.

   We ordered Vegetable Sambula, Meat Sambula, Tibs, Yebeg Aficha, and Doro Wat. 

1. 

   The vegetable and meat sambula were basically triangular. They were crispy (they're fried). The vegetable ones had lentils inside them but still have a meaty taste. The meat sambulas were tasty. They had chopped beef in them. There was a kind of sauce that came with them. The sauce was spicy.

   The Tibs, Yebeg Aficha, and Doro Wat were all in one plate. Tibs were tender beef cubes. Yebeg Aficha was tender lamb cooked with butter (we all loved this one). Doro Wat was chicken. 

Injera

   When we ate it, we put everything on the injera. 

   

Blue Smoke

   On April 21st, we visited Blue Smoke. Just by looking at the name, this restaurant seems unique. In fact Blue Smoke is a unique place. It has been one of the first barbecue places in New York City. We had a good time in Blue Smoke.

   I ordered Creekstone Farms Texas Beef Brisket. The restaurant offers both lean and marbled. I told the waiter that I had no idea which one is better. The waiter was nice and told me that I could have half lean and half marbled. I really like this idea. I believe that a lot of people have had similar problems while eating in
restaurants. It is good to ask waiters. They usually give you useful advice. After approximately 20 minutes, our food arrived. The brisket  looked a little bit oily but it was absolutely awesome. It tastes fresh. It's unique taste wouldn't come out until the sauce was applied. All the sauce in Blue Smoke are pretty good.  There's also mashed potato and crispy onions that come with the Texas Beef Brisket. To most people, mashed potato is a dish that they eat almost every week. In Blue Smoke, there's always crispy onions in mashed potato. It's a perfect combination.

And great dessert. It's Lemonade Cake.

Scott's Pizza Tour on March 3rd

      On March 3rd we went on a pizza tour. We visited three pizzarias: Keste, John's, and Ben's.

   Our first stop was Keste. This pizzeria serves Napolitan pizzas. Before the pizzaria opened to costumers, we had a chance to "play" with eveyting we saw. First of all, the fireplace. Keste does its best to give the costumers a Napolitan taste. As a consequence, wood fire and brick oven are the two things that can't be missed. This pizzeria uses this "original" brick oven that is dome shaped. The wood blocks are placed in left of the oven. Its dome shape makes the temperature rise quickly. We measured the temperture inside the oven by using a special themometor. The very top of the oven was 1010 degrees Fahrenheit while the bottom part had a temperature of 860 degrees. Second of all, the materials. Keste imports all its flouers from Napoli. In Italy flouers are leveled from 0 to 5 by their softness. The flouer Keste uses are all level 0. When baking the pizza, the outter part of it gets cooked first. It takes longer for the middle part to be completly cooked because all the materials are there.


   The first pizza we had was called  mast'nicola. It has a strong smell of cheese. The cheese on it gave it the unique tast. It was sheep cheese, or Peccorino cheese. Mast'nicola doesn't have tomato sause on it. This is because it is the oldest pizza. Back then, before Columbus discovered America, people in Italy didn't have tomatos because they were grown in South America. The second pizza we had was Margherita pizza. It had cheese and sause. There is this saying that Queen Margherita visited a pizzaria, she ordered 3 pizzas. Afterwards she wrote a letter to them saying that she enjoyed this kind of pizzas the most. So this is how it got its name. I enjoyed both of them though mast'nicola had this "odd" smell (according to my friend. I don't admit it though).

mast 'nicola

   After this we visited John's pizza. This pizzeria serves New York style pizza. It is one of the first pizza places in NYC. There were names and words carved on the wall, tables, and chairs. John's pizza uses coal fire thus the temperature inside the oven was lower then Keste's. New York style pizzas are thin and oily. There are only cheese and sause on the pizzas. They are oily and there's a reason. The cheese we use come from Europe. Since there is water inside the cheese, it goes bad in three days. As a solution, we dried it, took all th water out of the cheese. When we have to use it, we put oil on it to give make it tast better. This is why New York style pizzas are oily. 

   The third and last pizzeria we visited was Ben's pizza. We tasted Sicilian pizzas in there. Sicilian pizzas are thick and soft. They have onions on them. I didn't enjoy it that much but I guess that's probably because I already had three slices of pizzas. However, Sicilian pizzas are pretty good in general. Tasty sause, crunchy crust, and delicious cheese.

   I really enjoyed this food tour in general. We all learned a lot of things. By the way, I highly recommend Keste's. It was so good that I took my family there last Saturday. If you go there, you will probably like it.