IHOP Restaurant - Elizabeth, NJ

We were in Jersey Garden Mall a couple of weeks ago and as usual, we would lose track of time whenever we are there :P Before we knew it, it was already close to dinner time (looks like we totally skipped lunch!). Since there isn't many food outlets (and their food court is ALWAYS packed) in the mall, we decided to drive out to see what is available around the area.
There used to be a diner just opposite the mall but we vowed never to go back there. It was a horrible diner, with bad service and equally bad food. When we passed the diner (or what USED to be the diner), we were pleasantly surprised that the diner was no longer there. An brand new looking IHOP was in it's place. Woohoo!! Looks like that horrid diner went out of business or something. Who knows. Anyways, we totally love IHOP, so we decided to go check this new outlet out.
After we settled down, we saw that they were having a special, just for the month of October. When you order one of their combos (prices start from $4.99), you get unlimited buttermilk pancakes to go with it! Yup, all you can eat pancakes! We decided to give that a pass though, cos seriously, how many pancakes can you eat? I know that the max I can eat is probably two :P Also, they are giving away a 'SCARY FACE' pancake to all kids under 12 on Oct 29th. So, if you have kids below 12, remember to head out to any IHOP on Oct 29th for your free pancake!
The servers were really friendly and attentive. They all look so happy and stuff...lol! I guess it's a new outlet, so everybody is excited. Our server took our order and came out with our drinks also immediately. Really fast. Kevin had a soda ($2.19) and I had my usual unsweetened iced tea ($2.19). Our server was really good in making sure that our glasses were always filled too. Two thumbs up for the awesome service.
Kevin ordered the Ham & Egg Melt ($6.99). Ham, scrambled eggs, American and Swiss cheese, stuffed between two slices of grilled sourdough bread. It comes with your choice of either seasoned fries, onion rings, fresh fruit, soup or salad and a dill pickle. Kevin went with the seasoned fries. He said that the melt was really good. I believe him, cos he polished off everything on his plate!
I had the Pot Roast Melt ($7.99). Slow cooked pot roast, caramelized onions, melted Swiss and American cheese topped with rich beef and mushroom gravy, in between two slices of grilled sourdough bread. Mmmm mmmm mmmmm, it was really really good.
I chose the soup of the day as my side. I had a choice between cream of broccoli and potato soup or minestrone soup. I went with minestrone. Good choice I must say. It was really thick and hearty, very very yummy. Just add in some crackers and I can have that as my meal!
Since we were in IHOP, we HAD to order dessert :P It was a toss up between pancakes, stuffed french toast, waffles or crepe and we went with crepe in the end. I'm glad we did cos it was delicious! We shared the Nutella Crepe ($6.99) and really, it was awesome! Three egg batter crepes filled with Nutella and fresh slices bananas, topped with strawberries, powdered sugar and some whipped cream on the side. We can feel ourselves getting fatter and fatter as we dig in but hey, everybody is allowed to indulge, once in a while :P Overall, we had a great dinner in IHOP, with some really yummy food, affordable prices and excellent service. I'm glad that we found this new outlet and you can bet on us returning in the very near future!

IHOP Restaurant - Elizabeth, NJ
650-672 Kapowski Road
Elizabeth, NJ 07201
Tel: (908)353 7600
Web: http://www.ihop.com/

Lindy's - Midtown West, NYC

Remember when our friend Wendy came to visit NYC a while back? We took her on a whirlwind two day tour of all the popular NYC landmarks (we really tried our best to cover as much as possible). After checking out the Financial District and other parts of lower Manhattan, we jumped on the infamous NYC subway and headed up to Midtown. After all that walking, our legs were about to give way, if we didn't stop for a break soon. So, after getting off at Penn Station (and after a quick walkabout inside Madison Square Garden), we decided that we should go get some coffee and cakes.
Now, apart from taking her to popular NYC landmarks, we also told her that we came up with a list of 'must eat' NYC foods and that we will try our best to sample everything on that list. We have already taken her to try the ever famous NYC bagels earlier that day, so what else is on the list? Cakes...hmmm. When you think about cakes in NYC, what comes to mind? Oh look, what's across the street from Madison Square Garden? That's right, LINDY'S!! Now, what is Lindy's famous for?
Cheesecakes of course! When you think of NY Cheesecakes, you think of Lindy's! Lindy's has been serving their ever popular cheesecakes since 1921. However, this is not the original Lindy's branch. The original Lindy's was located in 1626 Broadway, between 49th and 50th St. A second branch then opened at 1655 Broadway in 1929. Sadly, both the locations are now closed. There are currently two Lindy's in NYC, this one, which is opposite Madison Square Garden and another, also on 7th Ave but uptown in the Theater District.
The decor of Lindy's is nothing to shout about really. Just your typical diner with booths and a long wooden bar. Apart from their awesome cakes and desserts, they also serve regular diner food. It was pretty empty when we walked in (just a few groups of tourist). I guess we must be in between the lunch and tea time crowd.
Since we were still rather full from the huge bagels, we decided to share two slices of cakes among the three of us. Good choice, since both the cakes were really rich, filling and the slices were relatively huge too. The first slice that we ordered was the Carrot Cake ($8.29). Boy, it was good. Really moist and rich, very very nice. The cream cheese frosting was also not overly sweet, just perfect. It's so rich, I cannot imagine finishing a slice of that by myself. The three of us even had some problems finishing it.
Ahhh here it is. The all famous Lindy's NY Cheesecake ($7.79). Many people say that it's over rated. You know what? No it's not. It's really THAT good. Seriously. I am not a cheesecake fan but I truly enjoyed that slice of cheesecake. Really light and flavorful, it's just so good. I can't even start to describe how good it is, you have to try it yourself! You can order the original or you could order it with various toppings, like strawberry or blueberry sauce. In my opinion, it doesn't need any toppings, it's perfect, just like that.
OK, are we ready for the bill? Our total came up to a whopping $31.52! Yup, $31.52 just for two slices of cake, one unsweetened iced tea, one Mountain Dew and a regular cup of coffee. That's pretty steep. Ahhh well, a few mouthfuls of that awesome cheesecake made up for it. I would say that this is not somewhere Kevin and I would go to, just to have a meal. There are many other places to go eat lunch or dinner in Manhattan. After all, the food served here is just regular diner food. However, if we have guest visiting us from out of town, we would definitely take them to Lindy's for dessert or for an afternoon snack. You cannot say that you have visited NYC unless you have tried a slice of Lindy's NY Cheesecake!

Lindy's - Midtown West, NYC
401 7th Ave
New York, NY 10001
Tel: (212) 630 0325

A Wonderful Evening in Little Italy

From the South Street Seaport, we hopped into a cab and headed over to Little Italy. It wasn't too far away actually but with day being super hot and humid ( I believe it was a little over 100F!), we decided to just spend a few extra bucks and take a cab. We have never really explored Little Italy before, well, except for those times we walked thru it to get to Chinatown and when we went for last year's Feast of San Gennaro Festival (all we saw was the back of other people's heads, cos there were just too many people :P). So, we were really excited to head over there and check out the neighborhood!

Our cab dropped us off at the edge of Little Italy and we decided to walk down Mulberry Street. Bustling with all kinds of action and activities, Mulberry Street is definitely the heart of Little Italy. Restaurants, outdoor cafes and souvenir shops line both sides of Mulberry Street. Also, the entire street is closed to traffic, so it was really fun to just slowly stroll down the street, with a drink or gelato in hand, while taking in all the sights and sounds of Little Italy.

You know you are in Little Italy when you begin to see signs like those all over the place! I bet looking for a parking spot along Mulberry Street is the least of the worries for the Gambino family :P Nahh, those are actually souvenirs from the many gift shops along Mulberry Street. You can get all kinds of Italian American souvenirs like "Proud to be Italian" t shirts, Italian flags to Italian food cookbooks and ITALIA soccer jerseys. There are also quite a few shops that sell fresh olive oil in barrels, home made fresh pasta, fresh smoked meats and all types of cheeses. I must make a mental note to return and buy some fresh pasta one of these days.

Since it was close to dinner time, we started looking out for possible dinner locations. There were just so many restaurants/cafes to choose from! Everybody had their menu out and the waiters were all standing outside, actively promoting their specials and trying to get as many customers as possible. Some of them even offered a free glass of wine with an entree or free appetizers. Sure, it sounds good initially but you gotta be really careful. A simple plate of pasta in some of these places can go for about $30-$35 bucks! Just regular pasta, nothing special. So yeah, if you were to pay $30 bucks for some pasta, suddenly a free glass of cheap wine doesn't sound all that tempting anymore :P

We continued walking (away from the crowded and popular section of Mulberry St) towards the edge of Little Italy, and thats when we saw this restaurant. It doesn't look as upmarket as the other restaurants, in fact, it was rather laid back and casual. The menu looked good and the prices were really reasonable, so we decided to have dinner there. Will blog more about that in the next post!

After dinner, we continued walking around Little Italy for a bit. We were looking for some sort of dessert when we spotted a little roadside stall selling homemade gelato and Italian ices. There were quite a lot of people in line, getting their gelatos, so I figured that the gelatos must be pretty good. You could get it in either a cup or cone and it comes in three sizes - small ($4), medium ($5) and large ($6). Apart from Chocolate and Vanilla, some of the more popular gelato flavors are Hazelnut, Cuppuccino, Pistachio and Cookies n Cream. They also have Peach, Melon, Mango, Raspberry and Lemon Italian ices as well as sugar free ices in Tangerine and Cherry flavor.

If you are not a fan of gelatos and Italian ices, they also have some yummy looking Italian desserts. You can pick up a Cannoli for $4 or a mini Cannoli for $2. You could also have a Cannoli with strawberries for $5. Apart from Cannolis, the Italian Cheesecake ($5) and Tiramisu ($6) looks good too!

Both Kevin and I decided to get a gelato each. He had a medium Cookies n Cream and I went for the medium Hazelnut. When we first looked at the cup, the small looks kinda tiny. That's why we went for the medium (yes, greedy us!). Should have gone for the small cos the medium was just wayyyy too much! Two huge scoops is more than enough for TWO people :P I guess we didn't really mind though, cos the gelato was soooooooo yummmy! Super creamy and good, seriously, it was just amazing! No wonder they pride themselves as "Little Italy's #1 Home Made Italian Ice and Ice Cream". After getting our gelatos, we happily strolled thru a few other neighborhoods before going to the WTC PATH station to catch our train home. What a wonderful way to end a fun day out in the city =)

Banana & Nutella Crepe

Kevin and I were in the mood for something sweet a few weekends ago, so I decided to whip up some Banana & Nutella Crepe. I just love making crepes. Not only are they yummy to eat but they are so easy and quick to make.

I started out by making the batter for basic sweet crepes. Just measure out 1 cup of all purpose flour and crack in two large eggs.

Then, add 3/4 cup of milk followed by 1/2 a cup of water.

Whisk it all together until you achieve a smooth consistency. Next, add in about 2 tablespoons of melted butter followed by 2 and a half tablespoons of sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Whisk everything together once again and the crepe batter is ready!

Heat a small non stick pan and coat it with butter. Then, scoop in some batter onto the middle of the pan and swirl the pan to spread the batter evenly. Make sure that you do not use too much batter, cos we do not want a super thick crepe. The crepe should be nice and thin.

Allow it to cook for a couple of minutes then flip the crepe over.

Spread some Nutella on half of the crepe. Then, place some banana slices on top of the Nutella.

Allow the crepe to cook for a little bit more until it's fully cooked. Once it's done, fold the crepe over and quarter it.

There you go! It looks so yummy, you can just eat it like that. However, I dusted some powdered sugar on top and served it with some French Vanilla ice cream (topped with some chocolate sauce). Mmmm mmmm mmmm....so yummmy yet so easy to make!

Simple Raisin Bread Pudding

It's been a while since I have last posted a dessert recipe, so I figured I should go search the Internet for one. I found a really yummy looking and easy to make Raisin Bread Pudding recipe from allrecipes.com last weekend and I decided to try it out. It turned out to be another home run recipe, really simple and quick to whip up. Check it out!

The recipe called for 6 slices of moist white bread or rich egg bread. I decided to kick it up a notch and use some raisin cinnamon bread instead. Remember to let your bread sit out for a little if its too soft, we want the bread to be at least a day old. Even though the recipe said 6 pieces of bread, I used 8 pieces and found out that it was just right.

Cut up the bread into small pieces (remember to remove the crust) and place it all into an 8" square baking pan.

Next, drizzle about 2 tablespoons of melted butter or margarine over the bread. I used butter but I think margarine works too.

Then, sprinkle about 1/2 a cup of raisin over the bread. This is entirely optional. If you are not a fan of raisins, leave it out. It doesn't really matter.

Now, in a separate large bowl, combine 4 eggs with 2 cups of milk and 3/4 cups of sugar. Beat it until it is mixed well.

Add in about 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. If you like, you can also add in about 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Since I used cinnamon raisin bread instead of regular bread, I decided not to add any more additional cinnamon. If you are using regular bread, I would suggest that you add some to spice things up.

Once you have mixed everything up, pour the mixture over the bread.

Lightly push the bread down with a fork until the bread is fully soaked and covered with the egg mixture.

Place the baking pan in a 350F oven and allow it to bake for about 45 minutes. You will know that it's done when the top springs back lightly when you tap it.

Mmmm mmmm mmmm, the whole kitchen just smells so wonderful with the freshly baked bread pudding. Doesn't it look yummy? I really cannot believe that it's so easy to make and that it turned out to be so delicious. Allow it to cool down for a bit and you can either serve it with vanilla sauce or ice cream (we served it with french vanilla ice cream!).

The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

After our heavy lunch in Katz's, we decided to walk it off and head over to Chinatown to walk around. It was a pretty long walk and by the time we arrived in Chinatown, we were all tired out. Since it was a relatively hot day, we decided to go look for some Hong Kong style desserts. We were not too sure where to find a good dessert house, then Kevin remembered watching something on the Travel Channel about this place called the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. It is said to have the best ice cream in the whole of Chinatown, in fact, some people even say the whole of Manhattan :P So, with the help of Poynt on Kevin's BB, we headed off to look for this place.

It was a good half an hour's walk (yes, we took our time and made a few stops along the way :P) before we ended up at this tiny shop on Bayard St. If there wasn't such a huge crowd standing in front of the shop as well as our GPS guiding us, we might just miss it altogether. So, here we are...at the ever so popular Chinatown Ice Cream Factory.

As you can see from the picture, it is actually really really tiny. From what I hear, it's constantly filled with this many people and everybody doesn't mind waiting in line, just to get a taste of their ice cream. Wow! It must be really good. So, we joined in the line and waited for our turn.

While waiting for our turn, I noticed many photos of famous people/celebrities who have visited this shop. Also, there were all kinds of awards lining the walls. Looks like they were winners of City Search's "Best Ice Cream in NYC" for three consecutive years, a recipient of Zagat's Award of Distinction and they were also nominated for "Best Ice Cream" by TimeOut NY. Boy, they must have really good ice cream.

Here is part of the menu as well as some of the flavors available that day. You can get your ice cream in a cup, cone or pack them in tubs to take home (available in three sizes: pint, quart and 2 and a half gallons). If you want something different, they also have milkshakes, freezes, ice cream soda floats as well as egg creme. They are also famous for their ice cream cakes. You can order the ice cream cake in your favorite flavor or even a combination of flavors!

As you can see, they are not your regular "American" ice cream parlour. They carry a lot of Asian flavors that you cannot find in other ice cream parlours around these parts. Yes, they do have your regular Rocky Road, Mocha Chip and Oreo but they also have more exotic flavors like Pandan, Durian, Yam, Red Bean, Taro, Black Sesame and Lychee. You can check out their full list of flavors here. Not only do they have a whole lot of flavors, there are also quite a number of toppings and home made sauces to choose from. Nice!

So, what did we order? Since it was such a hot day, I decided to go with the Factory Freeze ($7.25). I got to choose a flavor (or a combination) from the whole selection of sorbets that they have and also my favorite soda (soda water, coke, root beer, sierra mist...etc) to go into the blend. I initially couldn't decide between Lychee, Longan, Tangerine or Mango-Papaya, but I went with Lychee Sorbet & Sierra Mist in the end. What a good choice! It was soooo yummy, I cannot even begin to tell you how yummy it was!! There were big chunks of lychee still in the blend (yes, even after blending!). Good stuff :D Kevin ordered a Papaya Milkshake (Reg - $6.25, Lg - $7.25). He loved it too! I took a sip of his milkshake and wow! It was so creamy and thick, really really good. Now I understand why there are always so many people in line and why some people swear that Chinatown Ice Cream Factory has the best ice cream in the whole of Manhattan! I totally agree, their ice cream is way better and different than the rest. Oh well, looks like we will have to make this our regular 'snack stop' whenever we are in Chinatown! :P

The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory
65 Bayard Street
New York, NY 10013
Tel: (212) 608-4170
Web: http://www.chinatownicecreamfactory.com/

Free Chocolate Dipped Fruit Boxes!!

Before I begin, I have to say that this is not a paid post. It's just something really cool that we would like to share with our readers :D I found out from a forum last Thursday that Edible Arrangements was giving away $1.5 million dollars worth of chocolate dipped fruit boxes (100,000 boxes) on their Facebook page. All we needed to do was to fill up a form and they will email us the coupon for the free fruit box. I have heard of Edible Arrangements and I've always wanted to try their products, but it's a bit on the expensive side. So, this is a good chance for me to see if it's any good or worth the money.

I received this coupon in my mailbox the very next day! Looks like I had the option to either print it out and take it to the nearest Edible Arrangements store to pick it up or I could redeem it online and get them to deliver the fruit boxes to my apartment (we just have to pay the shipping charges). We decided to print it out and head over to the Edible Arrangements in Nutley, NJ (about 10 minutes away from us) yesterday.

We found the shop without any problems and since there is a huge municipal parking lot behind the shop, there wasn't any parking problems too. It's located on Franklin Ave, the main town center of Nutley.

The store front was clean, neat and they had quite a lot of their products on display. It's pretty cool to actually see them in real life, since I have only visited their website and not thier store front. Now I know the actual size of the arrangements and stuff. The staff was also super friendly. When we gave them our coupons, they were really nice and told to wait for a bit while they prepare our fruit boxes at the back. You know how some stores would treat you differently if you walk in with a free coupon and are not a 'paying customer'? Well, not here! They were super nice and very professional :D

After waiting for about 5 minutes or so, the lady came out with an Edible Arrangements bag and told us that she has included 2 coupons for $4 off, for our next visit! How nice =) I was also pretty impressed with the packaging. I was expecting them to just hand us two boxes and that's it. There was a little card and a full glossy brochure, tied with a golden string, attached to the paper bag. Very nice. Wanna see what's inside?

Here is it! The 6 piece Chocolate Dipped Fruit Box (worth $15). I just love the packaging, with the bright red high quality box and a brown ribbon around it. So, what does the fruits look like?

Isn't it nice?? The coupon didn't specify what type of fruits we will be getting but it says on the website that it's up to the shop to decide - it could be strawberries, apples, oranges, bananas, pineapples or pears. We had some strawberries, apples and bananas. Is it worth $2.50 a piece? Well, all I can say is that it tasted really really good. You can taste that the chocolate is high quality chocolate and the fruits were really fresh. $2.50 for a piece of fruit is a little bit steep, but if you were to give it as a gift, I think that it's worth it. The whole presentation is really nice and it helps that the chocolate taste great too! Overall, we were really impressed with the professionalism of the staff, the packaging as well as taste of the product. Thank you Edible Arrangements for our two free boxes of Chocolate Dipped Fruits. We really enjoyed it!

* To get the coupon for your free box of 6 piece Chocolate Dipped Fruit Boxes, head over to http://facebook.com/dofruit . I believe the promotion runs til middle of November or til they hit 100,000 boxes (whichever comes first).