Food firsts

The other day I convinced someone to eat their first fresh oyster at Sardine. They weren't very excited about eating an oyster. They had heard about the "texture". But being up for anything they tried it, loved it, and had another.

I wish I could go back to the first time I ever tasted a raw oyster, and savor that moment again.

A screamingly fresh oyster is buttery, light, and wet, almost like eating a cloud. It starts off with a high salinity which is matched with a little squeeze of lemon or a dash of mignonette (a mixture of acidic vinegar, shallots and black pepper) which is usually provided with raw oysters in a restaurant. The buttery, rich notes burst into your mouth at the first bite and the unique flavor of where that oyster grew up fills your mouth. Each cove and inlet which an oyster can live in gives it a unique oceanic terroir. Maybe oysters aren't for everyone... but that just leaves more for you and me!

Guest Post: Ramen

Today we have a guest post from Tess over at Adventuretess! She lives in Toronto and has a passion for food and traveling. From her travel guide blog, it appears that she does more then just eat when she travels... I didn't even know that was an option.

Without further ado here is her post on Ramen:

I love ramen. Like, really really love it. Growing up, I'd eat instant noodles almost daily (And I’m not dead yet! Amazing!). Of course, not all ramens are created equal. If all you've ever had is instant noodles, you haven't even scratched the surface.

Before delving into the intricacies of ramen, we first need to define ramen.

“Um that's noodles and soup right?” you might be saying right now. Baseline, yes but THERE’S SO MUCH MORE! OK, Japanese ramen is the benchmark. To keep things simple, let’s say a creamy, porky tonkotsu broth with al dente noodles and melt-in-your-mouth chashu (slices of pork) is our baseline ramen benchmark. BUT there's actually numerous different styles of ramen just within Japan. Hell, we've also got Korean ramen which is a totally different thing than Japanese ramen. This is actually part of the problem with ramen - it means a lot of things and each person’s idea of it can be quite different.

Night on the town.

We went to thein NYC. Fun joint, lots of whiskey and I had two of the worst drinks I've ever had in my life.
A pickelback, that's a shot of tasty whiskey that doesn't really require a chaser, which is then chased with a shot of pickle brine.
And a Dark and stormy. The dark and stormy was pretty much the worst thing I had ever tasted, ginger ale, sugar, rum, sugar, orange peels, sugar and to top it off some sickly sweet gingery liquid.
Maybe this was a well made dark and stormy but still... I shall not be ordering it again anytime soon.

Then we went to a tea house and waited in a tiny tiny space for almost an hour to get a table. As you can see Alex fits into the tiny space better then me. Anyone else ever notice I appear to be quite a large guy?



During our hour long wait my girlfriend was obsessively taking picture of this cute lesbian couple on a date.
I ordered a round of mochi, little balls of rice dough wrapped around dark chocolate mousse and green tea mousse. Phenomenal, though it seems the mochi wrapper was so thin that it was more of a chocolate and green tea mousse delivery system, totally not something to complain about.
Tamara and Alex both got the green tea creme brulee. I tasted a little bite and it was pretty phenomenally tasty. Tamara got some sort of green milky drink which was interesting but even she didn't really remember what it was once it arrived.
Tasty night in NYC! Thanks Tamara for hosting us!!!

-NOM!