A few days before New Year’s, my mom and I went to our favorite place to get a nice pre-fixe meal for a decent price. Mulan is a Eastern/Western fusion restaurant in Queens Crossing, a sort-of half-Asian / half-American shopping center smack dab in Flushing. We first came to this place to have a meal after I took my SATs in junior year approximately three and a half years ago. At that time, it was brand new and seemed like a good alternative to the crowded dim sum place across the street. Their pre-fixe lunch exceeded our expectations and we’ve been coming here for a cheap “fancy” lunch ever since. Their regular menu isn’t anything special to scream about but having paid less than $20 for an appetizer, soup, entree and small dessert per person after tax and tip, their pre-fixe is a pretty decent meal.
Mulan: Modern Asian Cuisine
8 Weeks of Random Food
Hello! I hope you all had a great New Year’s and have been successful in keeping any resolutions you have so far!
During my 8 weeks of pledging, I had to set up a lot of meetings and many of those meetings were over lunches, dinners and random snacks. In short, I had a lot of food and spent a lot of money during those two months. I didn’t take pictures of everything that I ate but I did manage to get pictures of some of them. Among the tasty food I had, here are pictures from Pop Yogurt, Pho 32 & Shabu, BaoHaus, IHOP, Amorino, Chikalicious Dessert Club and Zen.
Ngam: Third Avenue Thai
Hello! I hope everyone is having a great holiday season! Well, my hiatus was a lot longer than expected but I was quite busy during the last three months and did a lot! I had a few days to recuperate from a challenging semester and I’m ready to get back into eating, taking pictures of food and documenting my food adventures.
My post today is about Ngam, a Thai restaurant near Union Square. My 20th (no longer a teen, sadness) birthday was earlier last week and while my mom and I were deciding on where to go eat, she said that she wanted oysters that she didn’t have to shell herself. I know how expensive most of the raw oysters in the city are, with most basic oysters costing at least $2.50 each, which is why I was very happy when I found Ngam. I was walking up 3rd Avenue a few weeks back and a sign outside the restaurant said “99¢ Blue Point Oysters” and I thought, “Sold. “
So that night we went to celebrate with raw oysters and Thai food. It’s about two blocks away from my freshman year dorm and but the front is a bit small and easy to miss. There is a nice white sign with a pretty flower hanging outside, which makes it easier to identify. We went inside, were seated and promptly ordered a half dozen oysters. I also ordered the Thai corn chowder and the chicken Pad Thai while my mom got the green curry fried rice.
(Hopefully Short) Hiatus
Hello there! I know I just started my food-blogging experience but unfortunately, I will be embarking on a very time-consuming journey for the next two months. I know I most likely won’t have time to blog then but from what I hear, I will be having lots of material to blog about once I come back! 
For any readers that might be out there, hang tight while I take care of a few things this semester and hopefully I will be back by Thanksgiving but definitely by the time winter break rolls around. 
Tomo Japanese Cafe
So I have started classes again and that means I will barely have time to do things non-work related. However, I am still eating well and will try to continue to find time to write about these eating experiences. Last Friday, my friend Stephanie and I went to a cozy little Japanese sushi restaurant called TOMO. The one that I went to in Elmhurst (about an hour train ride on the R from the Village, faster if you take the E/F and transfer) is called TOMO Japanese Cafe while the other location in Jackson Heights is called TOMO Japanese Cuisine. Don’t know why they have two different names but what they both do have is good, cheap sushi.
Stephanie introduced me to this place a little under a year ago and at that time, I didn’t even like sushi. She convinced me to go with her using the words “3 rolls for $10 and $1 sushi/sashimi!”. Well, I always love a good deal and had to see what the sushi fuss was all about. The sushi there was actually quite tasty and ever since, I’ve been trekking there for my cheap sushi fix.
Fine & Schapiro: Fresh & Tasty
On Wednesday, my mom and I took our annual day-to-mourn-the-end-of-summer trek to the city, with the hopes of finally making it to the High Line park, which we had failed to do two years earlier because we couldn’t find the entrance to it. We started the day uptown and had lunch at a nice Jewish deli called Fine & Schapiro. I had a groupon for the place, which entailed us to two soups, two king-sized sandwiches and a fruit salad. I settled on the matzo ball soup and the corned beef, tongue and turkey sandwich while my mother decided to get the mushroom barley soup and the pastrami, tongue and turkey sandwich.
A Ju[i]cy Lucy Cheese-plosion
While running on the treadmill the other day, I was watching Food Wars (the irony, I know) and the episode on at the time focused on a cheeseburger called the Ju[i]cy Lucy. Disputed to be created at either Matt’s Bar or the 5-8 Club in Minneapolis, it’s a burger where the cheese is melted inside the burger rather than on top of it. As a burger lover, naturally I had to try it and was a little disappointed in myself that I hadn’t already.
I made two burgers with two different cheeses: regular good ol’ American cheese (even if it isn’t really cheese) and Pepper Jack cheese. Both were pretty good but neither tasted as good as it looked on Food Wars where the cheese was gushing out endlessly. I chalk that up to my patty formation and cooking method though. Still, they were really good burgers and a fabulous way to end a hurricane weekend. I’ll have to experiment more in the future and try out different techniques to make the cheese perfect!
