Pressed Buffalo Chicken Hoagie

Pressed sandwiches are a passion of mine. They're good for lunch or dinner. Good bread is the most important aspect in creating these sandwiches. Often, I'll use a good french or Italian bread to create a pressed panini, but for my buffalo chicken sandwich, I chose to use submarine roll and make a pressed hoagie. The other secret I used in this recipe was my own homemade buffalo sauce based on my spicy sauce (see the end of the recipe for directions on how to make the buffalo sauce from the spicy sauce - you can also substitute your own personal favorite hot sauce). See my pressed hoagie recipe that incorporates blue cheese and roasted chicken below.

Siddharth's Spicy Sauce

I love trying out different hot sauces. I think that hot sauce complements a lot of foods really well. It's tough to find exactly what you want in bottled sauces. The most common one, Tabasco, is not bad, but it's not the spiciest. Others are just too hot with no flavor. So, I decided to try and make my own. I wanted my sauce to have not just heat, but also layers of flavor. Here's what I came with:

Carnitas Quesadillas

Leftover food is awesome. Fried rice and turkey pot pie are two of my favorite dishes that can be made with the remnants of the previous night's dinner. Here, I'll share with you my carnitas quesadillas, made with left over pulled pork. Of course, you'll need to start with pulled pork. Then you'll need a delicious sauce, which I make from the braising liquid that the pork is cooked in. Here's how to do it:

Pulled Pork

Pulled pork is something that I love. Having had it at many restaurants, I was excited to try to do it at home. Assuming you can get Boston Butt (which is the same as pork shoulder), it is surprisingly easy to do yourself. I always feel that doing it yourself allows you to customize it and make it exactly how you like it. It turned out really well for me, so I hope that you enjoy this recipe as well!

The Piggery

Restaurant Info:

The Piggery

423 Franklin St.

Ithaca NY

607-272-2776

We decided to try out the fairly recently opened The Piggery on a Saturday afternoon for a quick lunch. Their menu looked interesting for a light meal and we were eager to check out the butcher/deli offerings. Ithaca does not really have any butchers outside of the grocery stores (although Wegman's has good meat, it's not a real butcher shop), so we were excited for this. At the moment, The Piggery only does pork, but they are promising us that beef and duck will soon be available. While we're not going to review the butcher/deli offerings here (haven't cooked with any of their stuff yet!), I will say this - the staff was friendly and knowledgeable in answering questions about their various porks, hams, and sausages. They really seemed to know their stuff, including optimal cooking methods. The owners are actually Cornell alumni who studied molecular biology and engineering. They must be smart!

Anyway, on to the food that we ate! Tricia ordered "The Three Little Pigs" item, which came with a pulled pork slider, a "pig dog", and a taco with carnitas in it. Siddharth had the Italian Combo, which was basically a grilled sandwich with salami, "piggeroni" (I'll get to what this is), and cheese. We ate in the car, because, well, The Piggery does not have seating available, which is unfortunate. When we arrived at The Piggery, there was already a line of 7 customers waiting to order from the butcher. To our surprise, the glass case of pork was almost empty, maybe leaving 2-3 small tupperwares of bacon ends and 2-3 "piggeronis." And it was only 11am on a Saturday!

Tricia's Three Pigs, were actually not so Little. It it was a complete packed lunch. But don't let the sizes of each "pig" fool you. There was a great amount of taste in each bite.

Siddharth's grilled sandwich was a logical size for a light lunch:

Here's our review:

Congee Royal - Asian fusion, not your typical CFM

Congee Royal
3160 Steeles Ave East
Markham, ON L3R 4G9, Canada

"CFM" is a term that my family coined about to describe a particular type of Chinese fast food that we consider comfort food. It's abbreviated for "congee", "fan" (a type of rice noodle) and "mein" (your typical egg noodle). Rice and noodles are an Asian staple and any time you go to a restaurant featuring these staples is WINNING. I have family up in Toronto and we typically have this type of Chinese cuisine at least twice no matter how short of a stay.

So let's talk about the restaurant. It was suggested by my aunt, Aunt Judy, because the initial restaurant we wanted to go to was packed at 6:30pm on a Saturday night. That is how popular these CFM restaurants are for Asians. And when you have a party of 10 for dinner, the chances are you getting a table are not favorable. The restaurant is a couple of years old, placed near an office building, replacing a Town and Country buffet in Toronto. The restaurant itself was decked out in friendly dim-lighting (almost orange) with a flat screen tv playing a movie. All the furniture and wall decorations were very modern. And don't let the wooden booths fool you, they are quite comfortable and allowed short Asians to be able to sit comfortable with feet flat on the ground. The chandelier itself resembled a large wired dust-ball and the tables and lazy susans were out of marble. Despite the modern furniture, this restaurant was filled with people at all ages. Even my 88-year old grandmother enjoyed the ambiance and the lighting.

Ok, but let's move on to the food. Here are the highlights of the many dishes we ordered family-style.

London, UK: our trip in pictures (of food)

London as photographed while we were on the London Eye

London is one of the most famous cities in the world, ranking as the #1 or #2 tourist destinations each year (along with Paris). In May, Tricia and I visited this amazing old city. It was our first international vacation together, and my first trip to Europe. While Tricia is somewhat of a veteran to Europe (she's visited Greece, France, England, and many others that I can't think of/don't know), this was her first trip over the Atlantic with me, meaning that this was her first trip as a foodie!

Let me tell you: London is no Manhattan. You can't just walk to any random block and end up at a restaurant. It takes some planning and the help of a good hotel concierge (in our case at the London Metropole Hilton) to really find the culinary best in London (at least for novice travelers). We managed to really enjoy the food on our trip, and here's some of what we liked most:

Glenwood Pines

Restaurant Info
Glenwood Pines
1213 Taughannock Blvd
Ithaca NY
607-273-3709

We ate at Glenwood Pines on a Friday night right around 7 PM and the place was busy, but there was no wait. As soon as you walk in to the Pines, you'll notice that the decor is old-world tavern style, complete with wood-paneling and yellow-lighting. There's a bar area in front with a few TVs, some pinball machines, and mini-bowling. Where we were seated, we could look out and get a good view of the Cayuga Lake.

Glenwood Pines is most well known for its burgers and fried food. They also serve steaks, large plate of meatballs, and a variety of sandwiches (Menu). As an appetizer, Tricia and I shared a plate of fried oysters. Since this was technically a dinner plate, we also got to choose two sides to go with that: we picked jalapeno poppers and corn nuggets. The entire thing was brought out as one plate of fried goodness with sour cream, tartar sauce, and cocktail sauce:

After appetizers, both Tricia and I tried the bacon Pinesburger, which is advertised as a 6 oz. black Angus patty on french bread. Somewhat unique to the Pinseburger is that it is traditionally served with 1000-island dressing rather than mayo (you can substitute mayo).

A nice cross-sectional view of the Pinesburger

While Glenwood Pines does have a fairly nice selection of homey desserts, we were full after dinner, and we passed on this option.

See the full reviews of our experience next:

The Recipe Collection

This is our spot to share with you the formulas that we have developed to create our the food that we enjoy. You'll find baked goods, quick meals, and some more extravagant items as well. We try to give as much detail as possible. Keep in mind that all of these recipes are original, but many are heavily based on or modified from recipes from friends, other bloggers, or other websites. We'll cite these influences as we go, and we encourage everyone to modify our recipes as they see fit!

Homemade Meals

Baked Goods/Desserts

Beverages and Cocktails
Alphabetical Listing of all Recipes

Tricia: I'm a closeted foodie

Greetings viewers! Tricia here.

Confession #1: Bloggers used to annoy me.
I used to hate people who blogged about their life, experiences and their favorite breeds of cats. I found people who blogged to be people who stayed in like hermits, sitting in front of their computer and writing for hours discussing on where to get the best scrapbooking supplies and debating on who is hotter, RPatz or Taylor. But up until I read 2 of my friends' blogs this year, I realized how satisfying it is to record and share your thoughts on a particular subject on a site where people can follow and comment. And if they didn't give a crap about what was said, all they had to do was close the window and walk away. Freedom, people, is where it's at.

Confession #2: I'm a closeted foodie
I've lived in Ithaca for the past 6 years and it wasn't until I met Siddharth that I really ventured out in Ithaca (and later, outside of NY) to try cuisines and certain spices outside of my comfort zone. If you don't know me already, I'm a first generation Asian-American and my parents (especially my dad) rarely like to venture outside of the Chinese cuisine. I think it's because when they came to US for university, they missed authentic Chinese food so much that any chance for them to eat Chinese food, they would. (Although now these days, my dad is willing to eat any cuisine, as long as it's a buffet). My family would rarely go out for Italian food unless we're too lazy to cook rice and just wanted greasy pizza. I don't even think I tried a lasagna until I was in my teens! And spicy foods? You can FORGET ABOUT IT.

So when I entered university, I used my freedom to avoid Chinese food altogether. Besides experiencing an assortment of (cheap) beer, I sought out the many cuisines Ithaca had to offer: Thai, Greek, Indian, Mexican, South American, Moroccan, Korean, and the best of all, baked goods. (Ithaca Bakery is probably my happy place. Siddharth and I share the common love of flakey pastries, plump bagels and cookies galore.) Since then, I've always been up for trying something new and interesting, of course with limits. I don't think eating dog meat is appealing.

Confession #3: The food blog was MY idea
Ok, it's not really a confession, but I figure it would be a segue to tell my readers how this blog came about. It all started when I took my first picture of an interesting sushi dish I had at Shibuya. It was basically a seafood salad in a V-bottom glass bowl that was floating on top of a fishbowl with an actual fish! I was so surprised (mind you, I'm more use to carrots that are carved into fish shapes as garnishes in Chinese dishes) because it made me realize there is so much creativity that can be included into a simple delicious dish to make it more memorable. I'm all about the taste, but presentation and creativity usually take the cake. I shared this picture with my family and friends over the beautiful casinos I visited in Las Vegas. Now, most of my photos from my vacation are the foods I eat. Even my current computer background is a slide show of all the interesting dishes I've come across in 2 years.

Then, Food Network started airing a show called "The Best Thing I ever Ate" and I got hooked. I loved how all the famous TV personalities spent 30 minutes naming their most memorable dish in a certain category (i.e. spicy foods, BBQ, dessert, chocolate). Every episode I watched, I would imagine myself being on that show and naming my most memorable dish. And then I thought to myself, "why not just write them down?" So here it is, a blog naming the many memorable dishes I've had and where you can enjoy them yourself. Enjoy our listings of interesting and delicious dishes. And if you have any suggestions, agreements or disagreements, we welcome them. Keep our list going, eating is no longer a necessity but a luxury.