China Day 5 – Xi’an (Wild Goose Pagoda, Terracotta Warriors, Imperial Dumpling Banquet)

June 2nd, 2010 by virginia

Another day, another breakfast buffet. The selection at the Shangri La Golden Flower Hotel wasn’t bad, but things weren’t as well prepared as the hotel in Beijing. They did have an interesting selection of dim sum though, and I liked being able to eat dumplings for breakfast.

Shrimp dumplings, steamed bun, fried egg, hash brown, spring roll filled with red bean paste

Congee with pickles and pork floss

Miso soup, assorted dim sum, dragon eyes, assorted other fruit

Soy milk with over-fried, stale cruellers

After breakfast we went to see the Wild Goose Pagoda, a tall Buddhist pagoda built in the Tang Dynasty and is now leaning slightly. We walked around for a bit and saw the bell and drum towers in front, a few of the temple buildings.

After walking the grounds of the Wild Goose Pagoda, we got on the road towards the Terracotta Warriors. They’re a bit outside of the city, so we stopped for lunch along the way. The tour guide warned us beforehand that the food wouldn’t be great, and sadly, it was true. The restaurant had a salad buffet that was decent, but the family style items were a bit lacking.

Soybean salad

Cucumber salad

Bean curd salad

Bean sprout salad

Crunchy clear noodle salad

Tomato, cucumber, lettuce, and orange salad with mayo dressing

Shrimp crackers

Dense flatbread

Pieces of chicken

Sweet potatoes with a sugar crust

Broad flat noodles

Sauteed celery

Sauteed cauliflower

Beef with a kind of winter melon

Sweet and sour chicken

Hand pulled noodle soup

After lunch, we made our way to see the Terracotta Warriors. They were built to guard the tomb of the first emperor of China, who founded the Qin dynasty. It is believed that there are over 8,000 of these warriors buried, each one unique and modeled after an actual person. In addition to the warriors, there are horses, chariots, and weapons.

There are four pits that have been excavated, though one is empty. When the soldiers were first discovered, they were covered in bright paint and intricately detailed, but the paint has faded over time and due to oxidation. They were also found in millions of pieces, having been looted and burned over the years. Archeologists are still digging for more soldiers, and continuing to restore ones that have already been found.

Standing in front of the pit and staring down at the terracotta army is a bit surreal. It’s astounding to think about how much effort and how much manpower went into building this emperor’s tomb. Each warrior is in a specific type of pose and wearing a specific type of clothing that indicates his rank, yet each face is very different.

After spending several hours walking around all of the pits, we headed back into the city for our imperial dumpling banquet dinner. I was super excited for this meal because I had great memories of the last time I was in Xi’an, with my mom in 2002. The dumpling banquet we had was one of my favorites, due to the intricately shaped dumplings and tasty fillings. I don’t know if we went to the same place, but this time we were at De Fa Chang, or DFC for short, which is one of the most famous places in Xi’an.

The dumplings ended up being decent, but not as good as I remembered. And the shapes weren’t the same as I remembered. I remembered have duck dumplings in the shape of ducks, little rabbit dumplings, etc. These were more generic in shape, and they brought a whole bunch of them all at once so I lost track in the middle of what was what. We were pretty stuffed by the end though, and really, who doesn’t love dumplings?

Driving by the old Xi'an city wall on our way back into the city

The drum tower

Park with the bell tower in the distance

The entrance to DFC

Cute dumpling display at the front of the restaurant

Giant golden dumpling statue

Roasted peanuts

Bean curd salad

Pork ribs

Sauteed greens

Cabbage and jellyfish salad

Sauteed spinach

Corn on the cob

Soy sauce noodles

Boiled pork and leek dumplings

Fried pork and leek dumplings with thin skin

Flaky dumplings filled with a sweet paste

Veggie dumplings

Shrimp dumplings

Spicy pork dumplings

Chicken dumplings

Dumplings filled with wood ear

Ham and mushroom dumplings

Pumpkin and pork dumplings

Spicy chicken dumplings

Grape dumplings

Tomato dumplings

Ok now is when I started to lose track, because they were bringing them out faster than I could write down what each one was. But here are the pics:

Last but not least, we had dumpling soup with miniature chicken dumplings, each about the size of a fingernail.

The tiny dumplings bubbling away

See how teeny they are

After dinner, we went back to the hotel and promptly went to bed, as was our custom in China. We had hoped to take a walk on the city wall, which was beautifully lit up, but our hotel was a bit far and our guide was worried about us getting back safely. Too bad though, because Xi’an did seem like it had a more lively nightlife than Beijing. Maybe next time.

The drum tower all lit up

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China Day 4 – Beijing (Temple of Heaven) and Xi’an (Tang Dynasty Show, Hot Pot Dinner)

June 1st, 2010 by virginia

Our last day in Beijing started off with yet another tasty breakfast from the buffet at our hotel. While the New Otani was not the nicest hotel we stayed in, I must say that it did have the best breakfast, with the most options and the greatest variety of cuisines.

Spring rolls, steamed pork bun, bacon, waffle, pain au chocolat, focaccia bread

Wonton soup

Pain au chocolat, peach tart, pound cake

After breakfast we headed to the Temple of Heaven, where the Chinese emperors used to go to pray for a good harvest. Now the grounds are a public park and boy, was it a happening place! We were there earlier in the morning and it was jam packed with groups of people (mostly middle aged retired folks) exercising, singing, dancing, playing instruments, playing games (cards, chess, and dominoes), and just hanging out. It was quite noisy but there was a festive atmosphere, and it was really nice to see people meeting up with their friends and enjoying their free time.

The temple itself was also quite lovely, with lots of bright colors and intricate patterns.

After the Temple of Heaven, we had lunch before heading to the airport for our flight. We ate at the Yanyulou restaurant at the Yanxiang Hotel in Beijing.

Fried triangles filled with curried vegetables

Chicken with sweet and sour sauce cooked in parchment paper

Meat with peppers and onions

Sauteed green beans

Super sweet egg drop soup with corn

Fried pork strips

Super fishy fried fish floss

Sauteed bok choy

Sauteed cabbage

After lunch, we took the short flight to Xi’an, but landed in an awful sandstorm. There was a huge cloud of brown dust when we came down, and the turbulence was almost unbearable. The sky had a dirty haze to it, and when we stepped out of the airport, we could taste the dry, dusty sand when we breathed. Totally gross. But the city itself was actually quite nice, and seemed very lively. We saw tons of vendors selling barbecued meat on sticks, and I wish we had a chance to stop and eat some.

After we got into the city, we had an early dinner at a local hot pot restaurant located next to the Xi’an Hotel. Hot pot is kind of like fondue. We each had a small bubbling pot of broth over a flame flavored with various spices. The table was full of raw meat, vegetables, and noodles, and we selected our items to dunk into the boiling broth. Once cooked, we plucked the items out and dipped it into peanut sauce and sa cha sauce, a sort of Chinese barbecue sauce. It’s a fun process, though with so many steaming pots on the table, it got really hot. The broth at the end is really flavorful, having cooked all the various ingredients, and drinking it is the best part (for me at least).

Bubbling broth awaiting ingredients

Super thin slices of beef for dunking

Thin slices of lamb

Fish balls

Slices of potato

Fresh noodles

Rice noodles

Bean curd noodles

Lettuce

Leafy green vegetable

Another leafy green vegetable

Raw eggs for poaching in the broth

Fried rice

Peanut dipping sauce

The spread on the table

After dinner, we enjoyed a Tang Dynasty show, with singing and dancing. The period costumes were gorgeous, and the musicians were really talented. It was actually pretty interesting to watch, even if we didn’t know what they were saying/singing.

Afterward we went back to our hotel, the Shangri La Golden Flower Hotel, and promptly fell asleep. The day wasn’t as strenuous as some of the others we had, but that flight really did wear us out!

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China Day 3 – Beijing (Olympic Village, Great Wall of China, Peking Duck Banquet)

May 30th, 2010 by virginia

Our second day in Beijing was one of my favorite days of the whole trip. We didn’t have to get quite as early a start so we were able to sleep in an extra hour before having a leisurely breakfast at the hotel. Though the buffet options remained the same, there was so much variety that we got to try other items we didn’t get on the first day.

Purple rice congee, assorted pickles, potato wedges, grilled beef

Sunnyside down eggs, fried rice, pound cake, fried noodles, ham, grilled beef

Fried spring rolls and fried dumplings

After breakfast we took a short drive to see the Olympic village, where the 2008 Beijing Olympics were held. I really enjoyed this particular Olympics and it was great to see the iconic Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube, both of which were pretty huge.

The Bird's Nest

The Water Cube

Hotel next to the village that is supposed to look like a dragon, with a huge LCD screen on the taller building in front

Olympic torch

After we walked around the Olympic village for a bit, we had some time to kill before lunch so they took us to a “Jade Museum”. Translation: shop selling really expensive jade wares that gives the tour company a cut on the sales. There was one guy behind a glass working on a piece of jade (carving, polishing), and that was the extent of the “museum” aspect. There were some pretty spectacular pieces on display though, with the giant cabbage being our favorite.

The "museum display"

The really cool jade cabbage

Jade tiger

Jade boat

After window shopping.. err.. browsing? viewing? the pieces (all of which are for sale), we got on the road and headed for the highlight of our trip, the Great Wall of China. On the way we stopped at the Friendship Shop to have lunch. It was basically a huge souvenir shop and a tourist restaurant combined as one.

Thin slices of BBQ beef

Pickled cucumbers

Grape tomatoes

Slices of sausage

Super bland pork soup with rice noodles and mushrooms

Spring rolls filled with red bean paste

Bok choy with mushrooms

Beef with peppers and onions

Deep fried fish with sweet and sour sauce

Chicken and cucumber

Sauteed pork, scrambled egg, cucumber, and black wood ear fungus

French fries

Fried cumin lamb on a stick - yum!

Orange and apple slices

The food wasn’t spectacular but we definitely needed to fuel up in anticipation of our next stop, the Great Wall of China. This was by far the highlight of our trip, and is really something pretty spectacular. We drove for an hour into the mountains, and our first glimpse of the wall just made my heart race. There are several different “sections” that you can visit, and we went to one of the more popular ones, at Badaling.

We spent several hours walking on the wall, and some sections are pretty steep. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy and hazy on the day we were there, so we didn’t have much visibility in the distance. Luckily the weather held up until after we got off the wall, as it started pouring rain as we were waiting to get back on the bus. Out of all the sightseeing destinations in China, the Great Wall is my favorite.

We were pretty exhausted from climbing up and down all the stairs on the wall, so most of us slept on the drive back into the city. Our next destination, however, perked us up right away. We arrived a restaurant for our peking duck banquet, something that we had been looking forward to. I don’t know the name of the restaurant though, because I’m illiterate. We took a picture of the sign in front, if someone can read Chinese and let me know what it says, I’d really appreciate it!

The duck turned out to be decent, but not wonderful. The skin was crispy on the outside but there was still a big fatty layer underneath that I found off-putting, and it was greasier than I prefer. They slice the duck right in front of you, which was impressive, but I didn’t like the thin slivers they gave us, as I like a meaty bite when I eat peking duck. Still, I thought this was one of the better meals we had on the trip.

Lotus root

Strips of spicy dried beef

Spicy pickled cucumbers

Cubes of pumpkin

Sauteed pork with egg, cucumber, and black wood ear fungus

Beef with peppers and onions

Ground meat wrapped in a fried skin

Meat with assorted mushrooms

Fried bird's nest with ground bits of meat wrapped in a lettuce leaf

Whole steamed fish

Bok choy with mushrooms and bamboo shoots

Braised lettuce with oyster sauce

Egg drop soup - super sweet

And now for the highlight of the meal: the peking duck!

The chef preparing to carve the duck on a cart tableside

The first cut

Meticulously cutting thin slivers off the bones

He really cut the duck neatly and cleanly

The slivers of duck arranged on a platter

Thin crepes to wrap the duck in

Hoisin sauce, cucumber, and scallion to go with the duck

A dab of hoisin sauce, some cucumbers and scallion, and a thin slice of duck with skin, ready to be rolled up in the crepe and eaten

As I said, the duck wasn’t the best that we’ve had but it was pretty good. They did give us a lot of duck, though we ran out of crepes in the end so we just ended up eating it plain. We were pretty exhausted after climbing the Great Wall so we got back to the hotel after dinner and promptly fell asleep. It was a pretty good day overall, jade “museum” aside.

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China Day 2 – Beijing (Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Summer Palace)

May 27th, 2010 by virginia

We spent our first full day in China touring some of the major attractions in Beijing. Our day started off bright and early with a pretty good breakfast buffet at our hotel, the New Otani Chang Fu Gong. The dining room was bright and airy, and there were people doing Tai Chi right outside the window in the hotel garden. We had many western and Asian options to choose from, so we both decided to mix it up a bit.

My breakfast plate:

Steamed pork buns, grilled marinated beef, sunny side down eggs, bacon, and a croissant

Josh’s breakfast plate:

Pain au chocolat, omelet, bacon, fried rice, grill marinated beef, steamed pork buns, peach tart

Our first stop on the tour was a shopping street near Tiananmen Square. There were lots of western name brand stores, but the buildings were all old Chinese style. It was kind of funny to see such a weird mismatch. Our guide didn’t give us any time to go shopping, but we did get to admire some of the buildings along the street.

Pretty blossoms near Tiananmen Square

The entrance to the shopping street

Starbucks, of course

Cool lanterns lining the street

Intricate detail on some of the buildings

Afterward, we walked the short distance over to Tiananmen Square. It’s the largest city square in the world, and it’s quite hard to imagine just how big it is until you actually see it. The square was pretty crowded, and we were shocked to see how many people had already lined up to view the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. We walked across the length of the square, which was quite a hike. The highlight was the iconic Tiananmen Gate to the Forbidden City.

The line of people on the left stretches for longer than the eye can see

Monument to the People's Heroes

Tiananmen Gate

Next we walked through the Forbidden City, which is also massive beyond imagination. There is building after building, courtyard after courtyard, and it seemingly never ends. The buildings, while intricate, all start to look the same after a while but are still incredibly impressive. We walked inside for hours, but I’m sure we barely covered a fraction of the city.

After all the walking we did, we were starving so luckily the tour had arranged for us to have lunch before we toured the Summer Palace in the afternoon. The restaurant they took us to was called “Jing Jiou Long”, roughly translated to “Gold Nine Dragons”. Not really sure if that’s what it’s meant to be called, but this is about as good as my Chinese is.

The name of the restaurant in Chinese

Because all of the meals we had on this trip were arranged by the tour company, we didn’t get a choice of what to eat or where we could eat. All the meals were served family style, and we were seated in groups of 8-10 people. Basically we just ate what they gave us, some of it good, some of it bad. To be perfectly honest, we couldn’t identify a lot of the dishes on this trip (all the meats looked and tasted the same) so we tried asking the servers, or we just guessed. I took notes on most of the dishes but from here on out, I’ll just describe each dish rather than critique them.

Our meals came with a glass of beer or soda, and unlimited quantities of hot tea. The local beers were pretty light and tasteless but refreshing (as long as they were cold).

Assorted sauteed vegetables - onions, carrots, cucumbers, black wood ear fungus

Eggplant in garlic sauce

Chicken in orange sauce - super sweet dish

Pork with a thin, stalk-like green vegetable

Sauteed cucumber with pork and black wood ear fungus

Red and green peppers with pork ribs

Whole steamed fish

Assorted sauteed mushrooms with pork

A light soup with mushrooms and leafy green vegetables

After lunch we drove over to the Summer Palace, which is NW of the center of Beijing. It’s a huge complex located on a lake, comprised of many buildings and gardens. There is a covered walkway, called the long corridor, that stretches for 728 meters and is covered in over 14,000 paintings. The Summer Palace is one of the prettiest places we visited on this trip.

After taking a ride in a dragon boat across the lake, we headed to a Chinese acrobats show, where we watched some talented youngsters dance, tumble, and contort. The highlight of the show though was when five motorcyclists rode inside a not-so-large metal ball cage  – terrifying but spectacular!

The motorcycle cage

Those trails of light? The freakin motorcycles!

After the show we headed to dinner at Yu Shan restaurant. Yet another tour company choice, served family style.

Crunchy jellyfish

Slices of sausage

Savory pumpkin "jello"

Cubes of bean "jello"

Black pepper beef

Pieces of fish in a xiaoshing wine flavored sauce

Mushroom soup

Tangerine chicken

Sauteed pork and cucumber

Fried pork strips wrapped in bean curd

Fried chicken strips

Bok choy and shitaake mushrooms

Cabbage soup

Sweet, dense triangles of mantao-like bread

Sesame buns to fill with ground pork bits

Bean paste filled with haw fruit and dipped in sugar

Phew! That was a long post. But it was a long day for us, jam packed with lots of sightseeing and lots of food. I think most of our China posts will end up like this, but please let me know if it gets to be too much – I can always cut back on the pics. I’m just excited to share our experiences with everyone, and I’m glad to be posting again!

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Happy Anniversary!

May 17th, 2010 by virginia

Today is our second wedding anniversary, and the first anniversary of Two Fat Bellies. We’ve given it countless delicious meals, 254 posts, and an extra 10 lbs (at least for me) over the past year. It’s been a fun and exciting journey thus far, and even though we’re taking an unplanned break right now (my new computer should be arriving at the end of the month), we don’t have any plans to stop blogging.

To celebrate this great milestone, we just had an absolutely wonderful meal at Eleven Madison Park. Lets just say, it was a top 5 meal. But enough with the spoilers.

As sort of a first blog-iversary gift to ourselves and to our readers, we’ve joined twitter! A first step towards more social networking. We would have joined facebook as well, but my being the technical n00b that I am, I screwed up and now we have to wait 2 weeks until our (Josh’s) account resets. Lets just say he was not a happy camper, since this was not his decision to begin with.

In the meantime, please follow us on twitter (http://twitter.com/twofatbellies) as we learn how to tweet or twat or whatever the hell you call it.

Thanks to all of you who have read our blog from the beginning, and we hope there are many blog-iversaries (and wedding anniversaries!) to come.

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Technical Difficulties

May 10th, 2010 by virginia

Sorry everyone, we’re having some computer issues, hence the lack of posts. Not sure when the problem will get fixed but we’ll try to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. Hopefully we’ll be up and posting again soon!

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China Day 1 – Flight and Beijing

May 6th, 2010 by virginia

We left for China on Thursday afternoon, flying on Air China from JFK to Beijing. The flight itself was fine, with minimal turbulence, but the amenities on the plane were lacking (no personal tvs and bad movies at random intervals on grainy projection screens). The food was pretty decent though, as far as coach airplane food goes. Nothing spectacular by any means, but definitely edible and relatively flavorful. We ended up having two meals on the way over, dinner and lunch, and while the entrees changed, the sides did not. Both times we were given a tuna salad and a roll on the side, and a pre-packaged mango shortcake for dessert. I had chicken and rice first, which came in a nice black bean sauce.

Chicken in black bean sauce with rice, tuna salad, bread, and mango shortcake

Josh had beef and rice, with chewy beef and blandly steamed broccoli and carrots.

Beef with rice, broccoli, and carrots

For my second meal, I had seafood noodles. The noodles were pretty limp but still had some chewiness to them, and the four accompanying shrimp were fairly edible.

Seafood noodles with shrimp

I don’t remember what Josh had. Pork maybe? It was in a gloppy brown sauce with more bland broccoli. Meh.

Possibly pork with rice and broccoli

We landed in Beijing in the early evening but by the time we got through immigration, got our bags, met up with members of our tour group, and took the hour bus ride from the airport to the city, it was pretty late. We were still hungry though so we ventured out of our hotel, the New Otani, and went in search for food. We wound up at a restaurant on the street behind the hotel that seemed to be the most crowded. The restaurant’s specialty appeared to be seafood (like whole fish in a spicy chili broth), but none of us were in the mood for fish so we ended up picking mostly familiar dishes and a few fun snacks.

The name of the restaurant on the menu

We started out with some beer, of course, one that was local to Beijing. It was pretty light and fairly tasteless, but refreshing enough.

Yanjing beer

Our first dish was sweet and sour deep fried crullers (yeo tiao, or “oil sticks”). These crullers are popular in Taiwan wrapped in sesame pancake and dunked into bowls of hot soy milk, so I was intrigued to see them served in a different way. The sticky sweet and sour sauce was more sweet than sour, and had a subtle maple flavor to it. It went well with the crunchy pieces of cruller. I actually liked this dish a lot, even though I originally thought it would be weird.

Sweet and sour deep fried crullers

We had to order Josh’s favorite dish, shredded pork in garlic sauce. It had a good amount of spice and lots of fresh ginger mixed in. I was only slightly turned off by the weirdly soft texture of the pork, but that was something I would have to learn to deal with over the course of the next week.

Shredded pork in garlic sauce

I was excited to have the marinated duck, since I’ve always found poultry to be better in Asia. This was a bit disappointing because the duck was quite small, and the skin was not rendered and super fatty. Flavor-wise it was good though, with lots of duck flavor shining through.

Marinated duck

The mapo tofu we ordered was SUPER spicy and burned my mouth so much that not even plain rice or beer could calm it down. You can just see how much bright red oil is coming off the dish, though Josh really enjoyed it. I like a little spice, but not when my mouth goes totally numb. The chunks of tofu were good though, a bit firm but still quite silky.

Super spicy mapo tofu

From the snack section of the menu, we ordered baked buns with sesame. They were nicely browned on the outside with a lot of sesame sprinkled on, and the inside was filled with pork.

Baked pork buns with sesame

The bun part was a bit thick, but the pork inside was pretty tasty.

Porky innards

For dessert, we had fried sesame balls with black sesame paste filling. I’ve had similar balls in Chinatown but they’re usually filled with red bean paste. These were also significantly larger than the ones in Chinatown, practically the size of softballs. We asked our waitress to cut them in half so they would be more manageable.

Fried sesame balls filled with black sesame paste

Overall we thought the food at Fei Teng Yu Xiang was quite good. Everything was well seasoned and there was lots of spice involved, as it is a Sichuan restaurant. We weren’t in the mood for seafood but I’ve read that it’s their specialty, so maybe we missed out but I still liked what we had. We definitely ordered way too much food for the four of us but the meal was super cheap – less than US$25 TOTAL, including the beers we had. It’s hard to beat that!

Fei Teng Yu Xiang
Beijing, China

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We’re Still Here…

May 4th, 2010 by virginia

Sorry for the lack of posts from China – Josh’s computer battery died while we were away (actually, the charger shorted out when we plugged it in), plus we fell asleep every night so early. Now we’re back but swamped catching up at work, and I’m still falling asleep at absurdly early hours. Not quite jet lag, since I do sleep through the night, just exhausted I guess. We did see some cool/pretty stuff while we were away, so I plan on posting pics as soon as we get them downloaded from the memory cards (yes, multiple. Josh got a little click happy while we were away). Unfortunately, the food pretty much sucked. We didn’t really get any time to go off on our own so we were stuck eating the tour-arranged meals only, and the dishes they served us weren’t terribly exciting. But we did manage to sneak in a few decent snacks in Shanghai and at a random rest stop stand, and those were probably the best things we had all trip. More details to come, soon, I hope.

P.S. Happy birthday to Alice!

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Just a Quick Hello

April 26th, 2010 by virginia

Hi everyone! We’re currently in Xi’an after braving a terrible flight from Beijing and landing during a sandstorm. Needless to say it was not the most fun flight we’ve ever been on. Internet access has been spotty but it looks like we get wifi at our current hotel and hopefully we’ll be able to upload some pictures soon. We’ve just been super exhausted from all the sightseeing we’ve been doing and from jet lag so we’ve been going to sleep around 8 pm almost every night.

The highlight of the trip so far was definitely the Great Wall of China, but we’ll be going to see the terra cotta warriors tomorrow and those are also pretty incredible. Sadly, however, the food has not been great. Peking duck was pretty disappointing, and the food we’ve been eating has been pretty bland – nothing spicy or well seasoned. We’re taking lots of pictures though and copious amounts of notes on each restaurant so we’ll share details soon, if I can stay awake long enough to do some real posting!

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Two Fat Bellies Hit the Road – Big Adventures in (not so) Little China

April 22nd, 2010 by virginia

We’re heading off to China today for a much-needed vacation from real life. We’ll be touring Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Wuxi. We’re super excited to climb the Great Wall, see the terra cotta warriors, and, of course, to eat. We already have a peking duck banquet and an imperial dumpling banquet planned as part of our tour package, but we’re also hoping to go out on our own and try some street eats. No worries, we have Cipro on hand just in case!

We’ll both being taking tons of photos, and Josh is bringing his computer along so hopefully we’ll be able to post along the way. I’m sure we’ll have lots to write about, and I still owe you guys posts on Flushing, Blue Hill at Stone Barns, plus a somewhat impromptu dinner we had at Jean Georges, among other good eating we’ve done recently. So please continue to check in over the next week while we embark on this exciting 11 day journey!

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