Cheap Eats: Thai!

Tell me where I can get quality Thai food for only a couple cents more than a $5 footlong from Subway and i'm sooo there!

BAM! Spicy basil string beans with chicken over brown rice (you can choose white rice if you want)! $5.44 total! Yummm!

This place is a mom & pop, hole in the wall kind of restaurant but it tastes soo goood! They also sell a very sweet and refreshing Thai Iced Tea, perfect for the Summer! One time while I was eating here, I saw this one guy drink 5 cups of Thai Iced Tea with his meal!

Where you can get some of this yummy goodness:

Mo-Ro-Kote Siam

"Homemade Thai Cooking"

35 Carmine St

New York, NY 10014

PS. This is Mary. Not Kenny. For some of you who might get confused. =)

Jerk Chicken Attempt # 1- FAIL!

As most of you may know, Kenny & I like to experiment... and I'm oh so thankful for having a hubby who isn't toooo critical of my experimental cooking, especially when experiments go wrong. Below is an account of what really happens in the Tse kitchen! There's more to just jerk chicken at stake!

5 days before...
me: hey! Let's try making jerk chicken!
kenny: ok! But I heard you need to marinate it 3 days beforehand!
me: what? really? i dont know about that...

2 nights before...
Pre-marinated the chicken with jerk chicken seasonings. I thought the color looked good and gave it a good rubbing.
Mood: Excited

The next day...
Mood: Still excited, and doing some research
kenny: oh we forgot to "jerk" the chicken! http://www.dianaskitchen.com/page/poultry/jerkchk.htm. make holes!
me: eww but we're not dealing with a carcass
kenny: :p still. the infusion of flavors.

The afternoon of...
Mood: even more excited at the idea of getting to try out new appliance
me: most jerk chicken is grilled... not baked. i wonder if we should try our new electric grilling plate?
Kenny: haha. mmm. it's electric? where did you put that
me: or over the stove. one or the either. it's in your closet ;)
Kenny: ah. is it easy to clean?
me: i dont know, never used one before
Kenny: i imagine it's like the george foreman
me: GF wasn't too hard to clean
Kenny: i guess

That evening...
Went to the supermarket and bought rice & beans. 20 mintes of cooking time...
me: hey, why's the rice so mushy?
kenny: waa? oops, i added 1/2 cup of water instead of 1/3
me: aiya! oh it's a bit too salty! oops, I didn't see that it's "completely seasoned" already! Guess I didn't need to add chicken buoillon to the water afterall...

Made some salsa as a side (i always have to balance my meals with meat and veggies)

Time to cook the chicken...
me: ok, can you help me get the electric grill?
kenny: hmm i dont know. It's looks so long and big for just 4 pieces of chicken
me: but but... i think it'll taste better grilled.
kenny: maybe we should use the grill the next time we have people over and make more food
me [reluctantly]: ... ok
mood: a little bit disappointed

So we decided to cook the chicken in our large non-stick skillet. Started looking & smelling real great... But then the chicken started to burn a little so instead of adding water or oil, we added pineapples (you ask: where did the pineapples come from?? my answer: i'm not too sure). BIG MISTAKE! The sweetness from the pineapples & its juices made the chicken burn even more & blacken! so we added water because the chicken wasn't completely cooked through yet.
mood: disappointed & frustrated
me: ahh, this is horrible! we should have used a grill & no pineapples!
kenny: *shrugs* we made do. the flavors are still good. just not jerk chicken though. It's pineapple chicken!

End result:

Surprise Valentine's Day Dinner for Kenny

This year for Valentine's day, I surprised my hubby with a 3 course candlelight dinner with every day ingredients. What's that saying...? The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. ;)

Appetizer - garlic chicken sausage stuffed mushrooms with sweet chili garlic sauce (kenny loves his sauces)

Main course - butter pan seared shrimp angel hair marinara

Dessert - Sweet ripened pear topped coconut custard

Scrabble Grudge Matches

Mary and I are intense when we play games together. Mary is very competiive, while me.... I'm less competitive but she says I'm a sore loser.

She is better at scrabble than me though and I won by taking risks and gettin lucky on some iffy words which she challenged (pic, mi, qi, etc.) and turned out to be words! Our games usually also last like 1.5-2 hours long!

The current score is:
Mary 3
Kenny 2

What are your fun activities together?

Filipino Goody Frenzy!

Taking friends on food adventures is fun!




Filipino eggrolls aka "Lumpia" are like no other eggrolls as they're meatier than other deep fried flaky rolls. It's almost as if they rolled a Filipino sausage in eggroll wrapper and deep fried that. Super meaty yummy!




Filipino BBQ! The main course consisted of Filipino BBQ chicken and pork skewers with sweet Filipino pickles. Filipino BBQ has a sweet savory taste and the meat is tender with a nice smoky aftertaste which goes well with the vinegar sauce they had on the table. Are you drooling yet?





Filipino GARLIC FrIed rice! What Asian wouldn't eat a meal without rice or noodles!? This fried rice was so good and the garlic taste wasn't overpowering but just right! I could have just had 2 or 3 bowls of this stuff!




Filipino oxtail stew! Mmm tender meaty and hearty!





Halo halo drink sweet and filled with different kinds of jellies tapiocas and beans / nuts!






Young coconut juice! Sooo refreshing!





Yay!

Where: Renee's kitchenette & grill
69-14 Roosevelt Ave
Woodside, NY 11377
(718) 476-9002
(69street sto on the 7 local train)
-via Kenny's iPhone

Mary's 2009 birthday dinner / prep for Thai honeymoon meal!

I decided to surprise Mary by taking her to the one Thai restaurant 1 block from her parents home in woodhaven queens to get ourselves psyched for our big adventure in Thailand!

We started out with a mango shake and a iced tea then curry puffs as an app. They were filled with sweet curry beef filling that went well with the cool cucumber salad.



I ordered green curry with duck. It was milky and went well with the succulent duck.



Massaman curry with shrimp! Yummy and spicier than green curry but still slightly milky.



And dessert was not Thai but one of Mary's favorite desserts, FRIED ICE CREAM! Surpisingly they prepared it somewhat well but we were too full to really enjoy it.


We were tempted to ask the waitress about Thailand but they were gettin pretty busy so we just left. All in all a yummy fix for your Thai cravings if you're in woodhaven .

Where:
Thailand Kitchen
8605 Jamaica Avenue, Jamaica, NY 11421-2043. (718) 847-4700


-via Kenny's iPhone

A Quick & Healthy Meal

Got home from the gym at 8PM last night and was feeling too tired to cook. So I bought some fresh veggies at our local market and made a quick and healthy salad for dinner & next day's lunch!

Save time! Save money! Save calories!

Ingredients (for 2 meals):
a few leaves of romaine lettuce
1/2 small sweet onion
1 plum tomato (would have preferred cherry tomatoes but couldn't find 'em)
1/2 kirby cucumber
1 can of canned chicken breast (drained)

Dressing:
Black pepper to taste
Kraft Light Sweet Raspberry Vinaigrette with Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Quick tip: If you plan on saving the salad for next day's lunch, keep the dressing and veggies separate by pouring your dressing into those tiny soy sauce containers you'd get when you order chinese roast/bbq pork. Saves your veggies from getting soggy!

Hearty Chinese Home Cookin

Mrs. Tse has been using the clay pot a lot lately to make rice, mainly because it's fast, easy and cooks up crisp rice on the bottom "fahn jiew" which she loves to eat.




We got ours free for ordering take out once from Yummy Noodle in the Chinatown tunnel between Bayard and Canal street (get yourself a pot @ 48 Bowery, New York, NY 10013). She washed the rice, then added water and cooked it until the water was absorbed in the rice and then placed marinated ground beef on top and cracked an egg over the beef. After cooking we added sweet soy sauce and stirred up all of the goodies!




Chinese mushrooms and oysters! Mary soaked the dried mushrooms in a bowl overnight and then cooked them in a stew with the oysters! This dish is dangerously tasty!




Cabbage, rice vermicelli noodles "fuhn see" and little shrimpies "ha mai"! Stir fried on the wok with ginger, garlic, sugar, salt and a little bit of rice wine. Light, yummy and healthy!

What man can resist a woman who can WOK her way into his heart!?!!
-via Kenny's iPhone

Pizza Attempt #1 : FAIL

This was a promising project during our pre-wedding days to cook one of my favorite childhood foods.


Mary plopping the fixings on the pizza.


Let's play name that topping!


More toppings! What do you think we'll put next?


Cooked... Or so we thought.....


Looks decent though right?

Turns out the crescent roll dough that we stretched out to that big rectangle should have been baked first so most of the dough was rather raw except for the edges and there were spots where we didn't have enough dough...


But we had fun tryin to make it together though! :) my wife is so cute!

-via Kenny's iPhone

Pongsri Thai dinner in chinatown!

Had a craving for one of my favorite Thai dishes which is a thinner broad noodle similar to Chinese "gawn chow ngow haw" but has a totallly different flavor because it's not based on black bean flavor nor is that dry.

"Pad See Ew" with beef $7.95





Mary wanted something soupy so she got Green curry noodle soup with chicken ($8.95) and it reminded us of the yummy times we had in Thailand.





I then proceeded to eat too much of her noodles and got yelled at. Apparently I have a bigger mouth and don't realize I take big bites. Doh!




Love you Mary!

Where:
Pongsri
106 Bayard St
New York, NY 10013
(212) 349-3132

View Larger Map
-via Kenny's iPhone

Home Cooked Foods Part 1

Some yummy home cooked foods!

Mamma Ma made these yummy baked chicken wings! One of my faves!

Mamma Ma's lemon duck. Yum!

Here starts my "experimental" cooking... hehehe... this is shanghai baby bok choi with mushrooms, dried shrimp and garlic

My first attempt making "bo jai faan"... hot pot rice with chinese sausage and dried little fishies with soy sauce!

Green Pancakes!!! We woke up one Saturday morning and wanted to make pancakes... and then we decided to add Pandan essence to it! For those of you who may not know what pandan is... it's screwpine leaves from a type of tree that grows in tropical areas of Asia. Pandan leaves have a sweet unique flavor!

Sunny side up fried egg, thai curry puff and pandan pancake!

Burmese potluck lunch!

ChefDWong hard at work spooning the Burmese curry on the noodles!


Smile you're on candid camera.


We made Thai green curry puffs with sweet chili sauce!


Self serve.


We also made sweet potatoe fries too


Other fixins for the noodles like fried garlic, scallions, eggs, fish sauce & lemon juice. Also Cole slaw & mung bean salad.


Fried chicken from flushing.


Salmon!


I was really food coma-Ed, so was every one else!



-via Kenny's iPhone

More 69 custom combos!

This one is fish filet with sour mustard greens aka "sheurn choy bahn lam fahn". We overheard a middleaged Taisanese lady order this last time we were here and had to come back and order it!
The fish was lightly breaded grouper and fried to the perfect consistency, while the greens were soaked in water to draw out the salty and sour taste a bit then stir fried. 69 also really knows how to nake the perfect sauces for their dishes aka "heen".




Mary's opted to order one of her favorite vegetables, EGGPLANT!!! She had garlic eggplant with chicken slices over rice aka "keah ji gai peen fahn". This was slightly spicy but sweet and garlicky with a unique thin black water vegetable called cloud's ears aka "wun yee" cooked with it.




This meal was definitely "Ho sick" which in Cantonese means good tasting literally (delicious)! And of course cheap! Both $5 each!

Where:
69 Chinese Restaurant
69 Bayard St
New York, NY 10013

It's a few store fronts away from Chinatown ice cream factory and has dollar bills all over the walls. Also many celebrities have eaten / do still eat there.