Indian Cuisine Cravings

Recently I have been craving Indian food in an unhealthy manner. The smell of anything remotely similar to that floating scent of curry and spice creates a longing no other food could satisfy. Even now, just typing these lines makes me salvate. Raised on Chinese and Italian food with the occasional American dish of steak and potatoes, I found that the mixture of herbs and spices in Indian/ Middle Eastern food excited sections of my tongue in ways that normal American food cannot even hope to compare. It is unique and addictive. While many of my friends have simplified Indian food into curry and Chicken Tikka Marsala, those two dishes do not even come close to all that is to be experienced. (Though curry in itself is its own art form.)

My first experience with middle eastern food was at a small fish resturant near a movie theater in my neighborhood. It was dingy and uninviting. Looking back, I have no idea what drew me to that place. The wait was terribly since they caught the fish and killed it before cooking, but guaranteed a fresh dinner. The flavors could never be forgotten. It was fresh, clean, and delicious beyond compare. The Red Snapper haunts me in my dreams.

Since then I have ventured out of my safety net of familar food types and into the heart of the cultural spice abandon. Indian food in itself is typically among the pricey range. As a poor student I could never afford an authentic experience by myself. I went one day with a group of friends to an Indian resturant located near my college. We were all poor but settled for an amazing experience trying out various curries with naan. I then came to a conclusion. I love Indian food. Though as superb as Indian food is, I just cannot afford a $22 dollar bowl of curry.

Which brings me to my latest find: Jackson Diner.
Located in the village near NYU and The New School, it captured my attention through my employer at my work place. At lunch time, when I chose to go, Jackson Diner offers an $11 buffet with fresh cooked food. I was skeptical I admit at first. Not that I thought the food would be bad, but I was curious and created a mental challenge for this buffet to rise up to. To this point, my only experience with the word "buffet" had been terrible American food, oily and sickening Chinese food, and a few good occasionaly finds of fresh sushi (only during lunch) and the option of crab legs though that was at a hotel so obviously it was of good quality. The only way to answer the question of where Jackson Diner placed on the rating scale was to dive in head first and try it out.

I am a generous person and do not judge on appearances. There are many cases where the ugliest looking crack in the wall held the most delicious dumplings I have ever been graced to inhale. The outside of Jackson Diner was a bright plastic looking red with white signs promoting their Lunch buffet. Inside though, is a different feel altogether. They have a warming theme of red and brown. The dark wood gave a earthy feel that complemented the red accents made with the decor and bar.

The back of the bar displaying all its choices. I love the mosiacs
of the wall. I love the square hive holding all the wine.

The buffet is lined against the wall to your right as soon as enter. I took my seat by the window in the front since the back was crowded before going to view the buffet. The owner Mr. Singh was very nice and explained all the dishes to me when I asked. The dishes held several sections, the first being vegetarian, the second meat, and then salad and rice pudding. Everything was straight foward and the amount of dishes did not overwhelm me. After conversing with the owner I also found out they have some vegan dishes and if not available they can make one as a special order.Thankfully, I am not vegan and can enjoy all the meat and white flour I want.

The buffet line of delicious Indian food waiting for my arrival :)

I would like to dedicate some time to something unnappreciate in this resturant and probably many others as well: the art pieces. All over the store you can see chimes, sculptures and elaborate patterns. Above the buffet were insets in the wall containing various Indian art pieces. Woodcuts, minature golden elephants, everything just grabbed my attention I almost forgot to eat.

I come from a family of artists and craft dabblers. From them stemmed my love of all art, especially cultural pieces. So much detail and love went into making these pieces. Even the broken elephant chime that hung behind my window seat held an ethnic beauty that hushed the chattering voices of the resturant dwellers and drew me into itknowing black eyes.

While picking the dishes to the background melody of bollywood songs and crowds in the back excited talking and laughing I was glad to notice I was not the only non-Indian customer there. Jackson Diner's location allows easy access to Indian food for those working nearby or students at the local schools.

The best thing I love about buffets is that if you are unsure of what to get you can just settle for a little bit of everything. First plate was rice with tandoori chicken, chicken tiki marsala, cabbage, Curry Pakoda, and salad. They also give you unlimited naan and water. As colorful as the plate was it all surprisingly balanced each other out.

The food itself was, may I say it? Surprisingly good. As earlier mentioned I did not know what to expect from Jackson Diner and I was pleasantly pleased with what I recieved. Warm, soft Naan, with just a little crisp to its edges was placed at my table. It accompanied the delicious rice and chicken that I tried to not devour in a hazard manner because it was so good. I just did not expect the chicken to be this way. The spices were enough for flavor but not for burn. I would have a little rice, cabbage and curry pakoda on one fork-full and I was the happiest I could ever be on a Monday afternoon.

When I was in college the most mentioned Indian food was Chicken Tikka Marsala and Naan. But what won me over at Jackson Diner was their Tandoori Chicken. It held a deep, rich red color and steamed with heat and spice, promising me sweet things if I would only take one more bite and never stop. The chicken was tender and juicy. It's well cooked flesh brought tears to my eyes. was my favoDevouring at politely as I could manage I found a bone in the center. It easily broke and testified to how well cooked this chicken was. Easily, their Tandoori chicken was my favorite part of the buffet.

My last trip to the buffet was their rice pudding. Nothing fancy here but that is just the way I like my rice pudding. Sweet, a little chewy, with cashews and raisins to add just a little extra as a present, I
had two servings and would have gone up for more if I did not have work to do.

Jackson Diner allowed me to experience many things.

* Good food
* A friendly owner
* Beautiful decoration
* And finally -  a great price for their lunch buffet at $11


I love it when my adventures lead to good things. Especially food related ones.

As the GREAT Apu once said (and continues to say)

"THANK YOU COME AGAIN."

NY Tofu House: yummy tofu

I've passed this place more times than I could imaging but never went in. Being a poor college student I can't afford nice Korean food. (Unless its Woorijip in K-Town). The green awning with its brightly lettered "NY TOFU HOUSE" just screamed "You can't afford this so just keep walking and wistfully glance back a few times."

But finally, I got a chance to visit this place. The front was empty when walking into the store but in the back was where most of the customers were seated. It was cozy with wood walls and warm lighting. I went in the afternoon around 3pm so there weren't a lot of people and I recieved plenty of space and attention without noisy neighbors.

Sitting down I already felt at home. The dark wood tables were a lovely addition to the whole "cozy tofu house" feel. It didn't take me long to order. I automatically knew I did not want my usual bulgogi or kalbi anything. Everytime I go to a Korean resturant the safest thing to order is the bulgogi. Seeing as this is a tofu house I definetly had to order tofu. For the appetizer I got the Monkey Balls (Yes because the name grabbed my attention) and the Seafood Jigae (or Tofu Stew).

While waiting I noticed they had the most adorable chalkboard displaying their daily specials. I want a chalkboard in my house now. 

The Side Dishes: Banchan

The banchan was three dishes instead of usual five or six I have had at most resturants.I've heard yelp reviewers were very dissapointed at this. Honestly, it didn't both me that much. I've had places that give you 5 little dishes and I'd only eat from 3 of them anyway because the others tasted off. Though I really wished they had the potato salad one.

The salad was a pleasant little surprise for me. I expected it to have one of two typical sauces: either the usual orange sauce usually seen in Japanese resturants or a bland diluted oil and vinegar sauce that tastes not far from a dish of leaves and water. Instead this salad had some sort of peanut sauce that tasted surprsingly good with the salad. Lettuce never tasted so good that wasn't in ceaser or italian.



On to the appetizer: THE MONKEY BALLS

Sorry I had already started to eat them before taking a picture ^^;

In caps because I am born in the monkey year of the zodiac and am partial to hilarious names involving monkeys and food. In other words, I couldn't resist.  Tiny sized balls were presented before us on a plate. Fried, delicious, and the slight tangy yet spicy orange sauce drizzled on top made it nearly perfect. My only problem was that there should have been more since the dish was a tad pricey in my book.

The yummy main dish: SEAFOOD JIGAE

Sorry for the bad phone photo quality. 

A small little black pot of bubbling tofu and another of softly smoking rice. Such a cute pair. The tofu was mildly spicy (just the right spice and temperature for my sensitive taste buds). There were two shrimps (still shelled) and two clams. I did not mind the small amount though I'd prefer my shrimps without the shell please. Unless that is some Korean tradition I am unaware of. The tofu stew itself had a nice light seafood flavor to it.

To put things short. I finished everything. Gone to very last drop of stew and bits of rice that I couldn't scrap out of the bowl. The portion was perfect. I do not like coming out of a place feeling over stuffed and this left me feeling satisfied and warm. The waiters were friendly when I asked for water, rather than some places where waiters don't even offer a smile.

As a quick run over:
-Good food
-Good Portions
-Cozy environment

I would suggest lunch time personally since I do like overcrowded environments, but I do like it when the store has people in there. I hear they do not have their liquor license yet so sorry, no late night Korean food and booze gatherings (just the Korean food).

Also, I found that the stew was very well priced (around 8 bucks) but the Monkey Balls were more than a normal appetizer price. It might be a bit pricey so I highly suggest using any coupon/deal you can get. Savings never hurt anyone.

Personally, since I am a student I got a discount using this coupon: here!

You can never have too much delicious Korean food. :)
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All finished!

All about EXERCISE!!...just kidding..cupcakes

Recently I decided after my one year anniversary of not dong any vigorous exercise I would try to do some jumping jacks. I used to take martial arts so this was supposedly a no-brainer and much easier than pushups and situps. I used to be able to do 100 jumping jacks no problem....

That was before college and when my daily activities involved more computer work than any other human activity combined. Programming, lab work, papers, etc. I started a few clubs but later exercise slowly dwindled from little to zilch. Which resulted in my three jumping jacks a few days ago to be more of painful arm swinging.

Shocking isn't it? Jumping jacks hurt so much after I had abused my shoulders and back with almost two years of no exercise and lots of computer work. Also not to mention I owned a 10lb laptop which gave me should problems when I carried it around (Its not meant to be carried around but I had no choice).

I just bought an adorable pink netbook to help with my laptop issue.

Asus EeePc 1015PW

So now that the weather is SO much nicer I am thinking that perhaps I should start moving my limbs again.

PLAN
- Drink More Water
- 10 jumping jacks, 10 push ups, 10 situps (daily)
- sleep by 1-2am

This seems ridiculous but starting small is the best advice. It immediately tackles my main health problems which is my dehydration, my lack of exercise, and my lack of sleep. 2am seems really late but I used to sleep at 3-4am no problem so I slowly cut it down hour by hour.

But regardless of whatever plan for exercises I need sweets. Always. I go into withdrawel if I do not have sweets at least every few days.

Which brings me to Two Little Red Hens located in the Upper East Side in NYC.  Perfection in a cupcake. I only got a taste of a mini because I am poor but IT WAS AMAZING!! It was like the cosmos exploded in my mouth and told me its secrets the instant I bit into it and rolled the chocolatey goodness along my tongue, only to have those secrets dissappear when the cupcake was gone.

I need more cupcakes. And bubble tea. Cannot go wrong with more of both.

I am also looking for some good moist cupcake recipes since my recent endeavors came out a little more dry than I would like. (Perhaps that is a red velvet cupcake thing). Any suggestions for recipes would be love <3 as well as places that have good cupcakes or bubble tea.

Love you all!!

It had to happen. The really belated Valentine's Day post. This is mostly because I had an odd Valentine's Day (for me at least) this year. It started with a fight, extremely sour moods, and then an extreme desire to make cupcakes. For the past forever I never celebrated Valentine's Day. Mostly because after being in grade school you no longer get free chocolate or candies and therefore, spending it alone this year should have been no different right? Well, as said above..it had a terrible start. SO! Instead of being sour I turned all my frustration in a cupcake making storm. ...Okay maybe not a storm, but nevertheless, I went out in the afternoon, got my ingredients and set up everything in my kitchen.

I am not very original. Not when I'm pissed and just want to quench my cupcake fix. I just used the magic of Google and entered whatever site came first for Red Velvet Cupcakes and Cream Cheese Frosting. I also dragged my pet turtle Mertle into my cupcake business. No, I didn't bake her into a cupcake. She just kept me company nearby.

CUPCAKES ONWARD!!

I have already mixed the the dry ingredients at this point. Not much of a mess made, but here is a picture showing the cupcake tray I used. Yes, that is a very old style sifter at the bottom left that I attempted to use but instead resulted in a strainer. Because strainers are awesome.

Here is the lovely pair of dry ingredients and the nice fatty pile of cream ingredients on the right. I don't have remotely professional looking baking supplies.

EGGS! After five of them. That's a lot of eggs.

TURTLE BREAK!! She's trying to climb out. But she can't. Aww. And for those wondering if I'm a retarded turtle owner, that's her feeding bucket, not her actual tank. I fed her (you can also see bits of lettuce she refused to eat because she is a fatty).

FOOD DYE TIME!!! Looks like I just killed someone. I love that.

 

The recipe says one teaspoon of red food dye. I put in one and a half teaspoons of red food dye and it still didn't seem red enough.

Okay! Ready to put the batter in! The little cupcake wraps are so cute. <3

 

I don't have pictures for putting the cupcakes in but after my first batch of twenty four little cupcakes were put in I worked on the frosting This part was so much easier and the results are so nice.

 

First Batch done. They aren't all even but they are all so cute and tiny. :3

CUPCAKE TOWER!!!

And finally, the batter was much more than I thought it would be. Simple math does not always come easy.
In the end I made 102 cupcakes. 96 small ones and 6 normal sized ones. Several got eaten in the middle of the process when I was "testing" them.

Anyhow! Here's the glory run off cupcakes I made! I am not a baker. I do not usually have successful baking projects even though I adore sweets to death. Most the time something goes completely wrong because I forget an ingredient, order of ingredients, or the correct measurements. Despite my history of screw ups I persevere. And I don't think these cupcakes turned out half bad.

Just a warning. The recipe was made for normal sized cupcakes but I was using a smaller size cupcake pan, because I just prefer tiny cupcakes. Therefore, the timing in the oven has to be cut in half. My first batch was 20 minutes. I tried them and realized they were to dry, because they were a smaller size. The second batch was 15 minutes. Softer, but not enough. I settled on 11 minutes for my third and fourth batch. They came out wonderfully.

I also happened to have burned my fingers when taking out the pan of regular sized cupcakes from the oven. I didn't want to drop them on the floor so I held on to it longer than I should have  giving it enough time to be settled on the floor at a small distance than if I was standing. So, I got lovely burns on three of my fingers. DO NOT RUN IT UNDER COLD WATER. That burns. Like an ax to your face. But not really. I put ice on to numb it enough so I could put frosting on the cupcakes (YES my priorities were the cupcakes not my fingers). After which I proceeded to put on everything cool in the house on my fingers. Aloe Vera gel. Aloe Vera lotion. More ice. Aloe Vera leaves ( a lot harder to apply than it seems). I am pretty good at tolerating pain though. So by the next day it was barely anything to worry about. It just looked and felt funny.

Anyway I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day.
Love, live long, and prosper!! <3 <3

This past Wednesday I attended the emergency NYTech meet up protesting the passing of SOPA and PIPA with my fellow interns at Campus Clipper. If you don't know what SOPA/PIPA is (which you should if you know how to visit blogs) you can check here -->  MORE ABOUT SOPA AND PIPA

 We arrive at the site location about half an hour early so we decided to wait around until the event was actually going to start. We managed to sneak into the front before the cops noticed and closed the gate behind us, but BAM right behind the cameras, closest areas to the speakers and a crowd of SOPA/PIPA protestors behind us.

The protest was exactly as it should have been. Clear. Concise. Controlled. Informative. And most importantly Inspirational. Many people know about SOPA and PIPA but not exactly how it affects everyone. One of the problems noted by the speakers was that the senators that support this bill do not understand the internet and therefore do not understand WHY this affects us as much as it does.

This bill will kill the internet. The last free resource we have. The last form of communication that allows us to change, develop, and create as we will.

While many people will look at this and all the other "STOP SOPA STOP PIPA" protests and go "Yeah, this bill is bad. Someone should stop it", you have to realize that this affects EVERYONE.

The people who go on Youtube to watch videos either for music, updates, cat videos, etc.
Business who are starting up through only a website and depend on it.
Wikipedia. We don't want this to happen...

This also hurts the new artists coming into the field as well. I know people who are just graduating or in graduate school who do comic, graphic novel, and illustration work. This field requires a lot of self-promotion to get your name out there. Many times as an artist you have to hit another fanbase, such as a television show or anime, so that you can gain fans through those fanbases and once they know and love your work you can produce and promote your original pieces. This process, which is important to these new artists, will be slaughtered with this bill.

All in all. What did I learned from going to this meeting? We think we have no voice as regular people, but in reality we do. We can sign this petition and make a difference. Our future, the future generation, depends on this bill NOT passing.

So...SIGN THE PETITION!! It isn't hard. Just Click below:
 ------>   CLICK HERE TO HELP STOP SOPA /PIPA <---------------------

Lingerie. Who doesn’t want to occasionally prance around in lace panties? This past weekend I went shopping with a friend of mine. For me it was more of selective window shopping/watching her pick through the undergarments section of our nearby department store for new panties. As I traveled through this sea of colors and lace there are some thoughts that come to mind. Who am I even wearing this for? Can I even afford this? I forgot what size I am and its too late to do a google search on “how to find out your real bra size” with measuring tape within grabbing distance. The thing is though, all those questions could be answered quite simply.

First of all, wear lingerie for yourself. Don’t live to please others. For the longest time I would shy away from these places, despite my love for all intricate designs that lingerie offered, for the mere reason that I thought lingerie was meant to be shown off to someone. Then a girl friend of mine enlightened me with the idea that maybe, just maybe, I wear the lingerie for myself. While wearing lingerie just to make yourself feel good seems selfish it really is no different from buying coffee from Starbucks or clothes from Hollister.

Lingerie is pricey depending on where you buy it. Like shopping for any other clothes you just have to be smart about it. It is a vanity item so I personally choose to buy fewer and better quality.

As for finding out your size, I used to do trial and error until one seemed to fit me the best based on a loose assumption based on measuring tape. However, there are something called bra fitters at lingerie stores who can help you find out your real size. So for all those who enjoy and adore the lace, the ribbon, the cute and sometimes uneccessary designs, I wish you luck, love, and all the good things that life has to offer.

For those who are interested here is a coupon below for the fabulous lingerie store La Petite Coquette:
http://campusclipper.com/new/popup1.php?CUP_COD=2386

Hello everyone!

I decided to create this blog after months of indecision until finally I decided that it would encompass all that interests me, the sweet little things that come to you in life. So here you'll find lots of sweet things: art, food, clothes, makeup, events, people, places, turtles (I absolutely adore turtles), and more. Maybe I'll put some of my own work up as well.

 Yes, I know first posts are awkward, but I do hope you enjoy and come back to visit.

Life is beautiful :)