Entries Tagged as 'izakaya'

Dinner With Jeannette

June 13th, 2007 · 7 Comments

Last night I met up with Jeannette at Kasadela on 11th and Avenue C, which is basically Japanese small plates… or a fancy izakaya. My first experience with izakaya was when Ryan took us to Tokkuri-Tei in Honolulu earlier this year. I like it. It’s fun to order drinks and small plates and share.

Busy Bee Cake @ Black Hound Bakery
Busy Bee Cake, Black Hound Bakery, East Village, Manhattan

After dinner we tried to go to Chikalicious, a dessert bar on 10th and 2nd, but it was closed up and only open on Wednesday – Friday Sunday. Instead we stopped by Black Hound Bakery on 11th and 2nd to share a little mini Busy Bee Cake, which consists of three layers of chocolate butter cake, two layers of almond butter cake, two layers of bittersweet chocolate mousse and on layer of marzipan… all covered in marzipan and bittersweet chocolate and decorated with marzipan and almond petal bees. It was so delicious, but so rich that we couldn’t finish it even though it was the tiny mini version.

Afterwards I walked Jeanette to Union Square, at about 14th and Park, where she caught the train home to Long Island City in Queens. Feeling like I’ve been eating far too much dessert without any exercise, I walked up to my hotel at 48th and Lexington Avenue. It was a long walk, but not hard. The hardest part was that I was carrying my laptop bag and it started to get feeling really heavy.

Grand Central
Grand Central Station, Midtown East, Manhattan

I haven’t seen friends much in the two weeks that I’ve been in New York on business so it was good to see Jeannette. Also, I love the people I work with, but it was nice to have one night away from the office.

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Dinner at Tokkuri-Tei

March 27th, 2007 · 2 Comments

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Dallas & Ryan, Honolulu, Oahu

Dallas’ friend Ryan took us to Tokkuri-Tei, a small Japanese izakaya-style restaurant. It was kind of a hole-in-the-wall that you’d have to live there to know about. It was not fancy at all (the menus were printed on copy paper and slid into sheet protectors at the table) but the food was delicious. Speaking of the menu, it’s split up into different sections like “bata,” which are all things sauteed in butter and “kushi yaki”, which were all things broiled on skewers. Who doesn’t like a restaurant with those kinds of categories!?

And our waiter was awesome, if only because he teased Dallas and Ryan a lot. Allison and I ordered beer and he asked if we wanted small or large. We said large. And he asked if we wanted to share it or a large each and we said we each wanted a large. Then he asked the same or Ryan and Dallas who were not paying attention. Ryan said they’d share and our waiter said “how cute!” Then a bit later when we were ready to order he asked what Ryan and Dallas wanted and I said “I think they’ll be sharing something!” which was only sort of funny, because this was the kind of place where we just ordered a ton of things and shared everything.

I can’t remember everything we had, but I know there was award-winning poke, a bunch of maki, hamachi sashimi, miso soup, mushrooms wrapped in pork, chicken skewers, some sorts of tofu, ahi katsu,… ahh I can’t remember everything, but it was all really great. I was so glad that Ryan took us to a good local place away from the Waikiki main strip. It was nice to finally meet Ryan, too, since I’d been hearing about him for years.

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