Ten Foot Henry, Calgary. Solid restaurant in Calgary. I had some time before a flight so I got lunch / dinner here, so unfortunately no Elena this time. To start, I got a nice beet salad with pickled zucchini and some kind of green babaganoush type sauce.

There was a nice spice blend sprinkled on top, which went well with some crunchy nuts throughout. Combining all these gave a nice bite. Overall tasty, though it doesn’t come close to the beet salad at Purple Pig Chicago. Next I had Arctic Char in a green curry sauce, with some veggies you would see in a green curry.

The sauce was excellent, and went well with the fish. Maybe the fish could have been a bit less dry, but I’m not saying anything definitive. Finally I have a butterscotch pudding for dessert, which was excellent.

Nice spot if you ever find yourself in Calgary, 3/4 beans.

Amaya London. Indian restaurant in Belgravia. 4/4 beans. Was long time ago so don’t remember details, just that it was very good.

Fallow - this place was well reviewed but I am not sure I can agree. We decided to only have entrees since we had eaten lunch two hours before. I ordered the ex-dairy cow strip steak and Elena ordered a hen of the woods mushroom burger. The steak did not have a great flavor, and I thought it could have been more seasoned. It was still decent though, and sustainable I guess. The mushroom burger was again, interesting but not exceptional. It had a bit of a soggy breading, and a fried flavor that I didn’t care for. However, the two deserts, ice cream and some kind of crumble were excellent. 2.5/4 beans.

We waited outside for exactly one house before being seated but Neptune Oyster is well worth the wait. We started out by selecting 8 oysters and they all were good but the highlight was Neptune’s in-house oyster, the Neptune Pearl (when we go again we will just be getting those as they were maybe the best oysters we’ve ever had). Then we got the whole sardine salad. Elena didn’t love it but I thought they were very good. The sardines almost had a curry flavor to them which was very unique and delicious. Then we got our entrees. Elena had a Fritto Misto sandwich. You wouldn’t think fried lobster would have a good flavor or be as flavorful as a regular lobster roll but it was very good and the lobster was so juicy. I had the Bass which was also very good. The fish was flakey and the north was so flavorful. All in all everything was delicious but if we were going to go again, we would get less food (the portions are very large). We will definitely be going back for the Neptune Pearl Oysters. Fantastic! 3.25/4 beans

Very good cocktails. Elena order a martini (and she does not like martinis) and she liked it. I ordered a Sazerac and it was also very good (they made it half brandy, half rye). Our appetizers, the lobster-stuffed squash blossoms and the salt cod fitters were both very good- the fry on them was very well done and not overly oily. Our entrees were nothing special but still good. I got the Grilled Bavette Steak Frites. The steak was good but not amazing and the fries were crispy and pillowy. Elena got the Pulled Short Ribs which was good but again, nothing special. The homemade chips were interesting. Not super crispy like a kettle chip but had the texture of a baked chip, Elena like them. Overall 2/4 Beans. We will probably go back just for drinks and appetizers and to try the amazing looking chocolate cake that we were too full to get.

Note to anyone who might go in Boston- don’t try to go when the Red Sox are playing. You won’t be able to find parking.

I know, we have not posted in a year. However, we have still been eating out, and have been planning to make a comeback for a while, yet a lack of interest and some laziness have led me to to fail to write these.

We need a reset - so I have a rapid fire review of a few places we have been. I don’t remember all the details of everything we ate, but I do remember the ratings we gave, so these count as a “real” review.

Purple Pig

Excellent Chicago restaurant right off Michigan Ave. Pictured is an excellent beet dish which were the best beets I have had.

3.5 / 4 Beans

Korus

Michelin-recommended restaurant in Paris that definitely needs to be given some stars. We had a 7 course tasting here and everything was fantastic. Wine pairings as well were excellent.

4 / 4 Beans

Boutary

Second Paris on this list. This was another tasting, which again was very good. Some of the flavors did not quite work in our eyes, however, falling short of the four beans.

3.5 / 4 Beans

1928 Beacon Hill

On a quaint street in beacon hill this restaurant serves heavy-hitting classic braises and steaks. Everything was very well done, but the cocktails were a bit off. A bit on the expensive side, for what you get however.

2.5 / 4 Beans

Comfort Kitchen

Named one of the best new restaurants in Massachussets, and being a few minutes from my apartment, we had been trying to eat here for a while. Having no more than 20 seats, this proved difficult. We were finally able to get a reservation just recently. Serving unique, spice-laden food, some items were standouts while others were not. Overall they well deserve the reputation.

3.25 / 4 Beans

Uni

Outstanding, have not had Japanese food like this since the inspiration of this blog, Iron Chef Morimotos in Hawaii. Simply the best piece of tuna I have ever eaten, and that was only the “medium fatty” variety. Delicious dumplings, and Armenian-style bread that reminded me a bit of Texas Roadhouse. Unfortunately the fried chicken bao bun, though pretty good, needed some work.

3.5 / 4 Beans

This was good. All of the pasta at Rezdora is freshly made, so we had to try the 5 course pasta tasting menu, which is literally just 5 pasta dishes, so don’t expect anything else. Not that that is a bad thing, as all of the pasta is truly unique.

First, we had some weird potato puff thing, which was more interesting to imagine how they got the potato in than it was tasty.

After the potato thing, we had the first course of the tasting, tortellini in brodo. The tortellini were tiny, about the size of a dime. Someone must have really tiny fingers. The filling was mortadella - a common theme on the menu - which has a pungent porky taste.

The tortellini were intricately wrapped, the size of dimes. Maybe we are uncultured, but the tortellini were very firm, which was unexpected. The broth itself was a chicken broth which was so chickeny it was like drinking liquified mcnugget. The filling was a mortadella, which was pungent in a good way.

Next was Elena’s favorite, Strichetti Verde com Pomodoro. It was a spinach bow-tie pasta with a tomato sauce and parmesan cream. The pasta had an excellent texture, but the real star was the tomato sauce. The sauce tasted like tomato, with a healthy amount of olive oil. Normally, the olive oil we have at home is bitter, but this olive oil almost tasted sweet. Overall, unlike any pasta I have ever had before.

Ok… This is kind of bad but I am writing this review in July of 2022, we visited in December of 2021. I just needed some time to think, definitely was not just lazy. I did not take a picture of the tasting menu, so I do not remember what the rest of the dishes were called, so we’ll just have to go with what they were for the rest of the review.

The next course was a penne-shaped pasta with a morel mushroom cream sauce. This was also a highlight. The sauce was perfectly creamy, which was complimented by the chewyness of the pasta.

The mushroom flavor was unparalelled for any other mushroom dish I have ever had. The sheer intensity of mushroom flavor is truly what sets this dish apart.

The next course was a thin pasta with a lighter tomato-pork-sausage sauce. This had an intense flavor, similar to the filling of the first courses tortellini.

This was not as interesting as the other dishes, as the pasta shape was not super complex, and the flavor was not as unique as other dishes. However, this still had an exceptional taste and a ton of flavor.

Finally, for one of the highlights of the meal, we had agnulotti with a mortadella filling, parmesan cream sauce, drizzled tableside with a 25 year old balsamic vinegar.

The flavor of the parmesan, intensity of the mortadella, combined with the rich sweetness and acidity of the vinegar made this one of the most exciting dishes we tasted. The agnulotti was intrecitely pressed, with the perfect amount of filling between springy sheets of pasta. The parmesan cream sauce coated the pasta so that every bite had an even layer of paremsan. All of this would have been great on its own, but the real trick was the balsamic vinegar. This elevated the dish with the acidity and sweetness to something neither of us had experienced before.

As for dessert, we got an apple cake and a tiramisu, both of which were excellent.

As for final takeaways, this certainly was an experience. As of now, it is certainly the best restaurant we have reviewed thus far. However, we have some thoughts. Although the tasting menu was fun, you may be better off ordering individual items that you want. Portions for these are similarly small, so you may need to order multiple, but this may give you a wider selection at a better value.

Overall, Rezdora has earned its 4/4 beans.

Oh we also got the cheese platter, which was good.

On recommendation of Yibo, on the first day in New York we tried Sachi Asian Bistro. It rained on the way there, so we started off with a hot miso soup. We probably could have done without it. It was a little boring, like a watered down powdered miso soup.

Next, we had the grilled glazed octopus. This was definitely the best thing we had. It had a nice grill char, and a slightly sweet glaze. The octopus had a firm, but not chewy texture. Elena, who hates (unfried) octopus, loved it.

Next, we got a Peking duck spring roll. This was not very ducky, and was kind of boring. The sauce really emphasized the boring.

We got some dim sum, which included shrimp dumplings, mushroom dumplings, and pork buns. These were all good, except for the mushroom, which was a little weird. Elena liked it all.

Finally, we got entrees. I got a tonkatsu ramen with pork belly, which was pretty good, but not amazing. The soup had a strange sweetness to it that kind of made your teeth hurt after eating it for a while, which was annoying. However, the pork belly was very flavorful, and made the soup worth it.

Elena had the spicy singapore laksa noodle soup, which Elena thought was phenomenal. The soup was creamy, a good level of spice with it being not so hot that you cannot taste it, and a ton of flavor. The elements of the soup were good, but Elena did not really like the fish cakes. I liked it too.

Overall, I gave it a 2.5/4, just for the spring roll, while Elena gave it a 3/4, so overall, Sachi gets 2.75/4 beans. Also its a great deal for the amount of food you can get. A solid choice.

This is a dump of all the lunches, snacks, etc from New York.

Magnolia Bakery

We got two vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The cupcakes were good. The cake itself was light, fluffy, and had good flavor, but the frosting is what sets Magnolia apart. It is dense, but in a good way. The frosting has a real chocolate flavor, rather than tasting artificial and buttery. Elena recommends trying the lemon cupcakes in the spring. This is a 4/4 bean* cupcake.

* We are not saying that the single cupcake is as good as a 4/4 restaurant, but just that we would not change anything about it.

Shake Shack

A solid fast food burger. Not as good as five guys, but above the standard fast food offerings. Elena says five guys is too greasy, while shake shack does not leave you thinking you are going to have a heart attack. 2/4 beans.

Devoción Coffee

Devoción serves Columbian beans roasted in Brooklyn. Both the pour over and drip coffee were very good. The pour over was expertly poured, with hand weighed beans freshly ground, and precise timing on all of the pours, which is probably what you are paying for more than the beans. The coffee tasted very clean, with no bitterness, but also not very much sweetness, a significant jump up from anything you can get in Ithaca. Elena’s latte was also very good, but only a bit better than the lattes you can get in Ithaca. This place was good enough that we had to go back the next day, all the way from 51st street. 4/4 coffee beans.

Milkstand is a new brunch place at the old location of the Byrne Dairy. They feature breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but we were there for the breakfast. The most notable thing about the restaurant is the aesthetic. It is almost as if you are eating in some kind of music video, with pastel pink combined with metallic gold everything, down to the silverware.

I channeled Vincent Vega and got a 7 dollar vanilla milkshake, but unfortunately, it was only “sort of fucking good”. The coffee was only ok.

Next, I got a classic - grits with sausage gravy and eggs. The eggs were underseasoned, and not crispy. I guess that is technically what a sunny side up egg is supposed to be, but crispy eggs would have been better with grits. Overall, it was not bad.

Elena got the milkstand omelet, which had cheddar, gruyere, and mozzarella. The best part of the omelet was the hashbrowns that came with it, which were very good. Just a standard cheese omelet - you get what you ask for.

Now, lets talk fries. If you are on a diet, these are great. Containing almost no actual potato, they make you sad when you bite into them. Why you would make fries so thin and deflated is beyond me - fries did not need fixing. Elena, however, thinks these are the best fries she has ever had. Her roommate also said they were good (probably peer pressure).

Overall, my rating is a 1/4 beans. Elena gave it a 2/4 because the fries were “so good”. This leaves milkstand with a 1.5/4 beans. Solid, but certainly not the best breakfast in Ithaca.