Bier

In honor of the upcoming 3 day weekend and a hard week of work a few labmates and I decided to take a little walk up to Bier international in Harlem this past Friday. Located at 114th and 8th this little beer garden turned out to be the perfect happy hour spot. Your reward for the mile walk from the UES....2 for 1 happy hour! Meaning 2 drinks for at the most 8$ and were not talking Bud Light.  

My selections for happy hour were to start a Weihenstephan Hefeweizen followed by something I've never tried before, strawberry beer! The Hefeweizen was a great start, usually one of my favorites it was light and crisp perfect after the walk and came in a nice hefe-ty glass. After our first beer we all decided to get a bite to eat as well so we indulged in Bier's signature truffle oil french fries topped with parmesan and chipotle mayo as well as a thier chips with mango-habanero guacamole. Both were excellent choices. I have to say the best part of the fries was the chipotle mayo, on top of the truffle oil and parmesan it added just the right kick to fight off all the heavy grease. The guac was also delish, but warning be careful how much you eat. The habanero quickly comes and catches up with you if you consume this too fast, I found out the hard way.  Luckily my second beer came just in time to cool me off. Something I never go for is fruity beer but it was a nice day and I figured it would be a good way to get the fried food taste out of my mouth. Definitely a good choice. Unlike cider which for me just seems a little too sweet Fruli seemed to have just the right balance of strawberry flavor without forgetting it was a beer. Leaving very happy after our happy hour I'd say this wont be a one time trip to Bier. 

mixmaster kathryn

When it comes to drinking I am a self-declared beer girl. At the bar my go-to is usually a nice cold blue moon and I always enjoy finding places in the city where I can try new and exciting beers. One thing I am not as adventurous with is cocktails. I have my standard favorites if I'm going to spend a night drinking hard liquor. There's the always reliable margarita or mojito good for any occasion, mainly because they're like vacation in a glass instantly transporting me from the city to some sunny beach. For the night's I want to act classy I go with a dirty vodka martini, funny since I am not a big vodka fan that I would choose the drink with the most vodka posible but somehow the olive juice makes it bearable. Most of the time though I know and trust beer more. I know what I like and what I don't when it comes to beer and unless were talking porter's I've never really had a beer I truly hated. However I can't say the same for cocktails. I don't do well with too many choices and so the wall of liquor behind bars usually intimidates me. Not to mention there is a lot more risk of a bad drink with liquor, theres a fine balance to be reached by the bartender with mixed drinks. A drink can be too strong, too weak, too expensive, etc. I decided to take matters into my own hands however and become my bartender.

 A few weeks back I mentioned Urban Girl Squad in a post for kickboxing class. For my second event with them I chose a mixology class hosted at the Top of The Strand hotel. After three days of rain the sun had come back just in time for a little rooftop drinking. The Strand is located on 37th between 5th and 6th ave which results in an amazing view from the roof (as you an see in the picture!) looking right at the empire state building. We were given the whole roof area all to ourselves to enjoy for a few hours at the event. After meeting up with my friends K and K we settled down at some comfy couches in the corner to enjoy our first taste of one of the cocktails we were going to be learning to make. Following a little bit of catching up and chatting our lesson began.

The first cocktail we enjoyed was a strawberry gimlet. With 4 simple ingredient this turned out to be the one drink of the evening I could probably make again for myself. The gimlet includes:

1 part lime juice
1 part simple syrup
1 part vodka
1 muddled strawberry

As our bartender informed us most cocktails are usually set up in a manner similar to this where you have an acid, a sweet and your liquor. If you ever feel like being adventurous and inventing your own cocktail he told us this simple rule usually results in a winning combo. The gimlet was probably the biggest crowd pleaser of the three drinks we learned to make. You could barely taste the vodka which was nice and what's nice is depending on your tastes you could make it a little sweeter by adding more strawberry (which would be my preference) or if you like a more sour taste increase the lime juice.

Looking back on how the tasting was set up they seemed to progress us through the evening to a more how shall I put it....pungent cocktail I guess. Next in the lineup was my least favorite liquor in the world...gin. The Fitzgerald as it was called includes:

2oz Bulldog Gin
.75oz simple syrup
.75oz lemon juice
.5oz St. Germain
2 dash Rhubarb Bitters

A combo I would never make up on my own. It was nice to have the St. Germain in to add a subtle sweetness to the lime, rhubarb and bitter. After enjoying a nice sweet gimlet this was a surprise to my tastebuds. Knowing gin was involved automatically put in my mind that I wasn't going to enjoy this one (but im also not one to turn down a drink). Overtime I must say it grew on me. The lemon with St. Germain was a good balance to the Gin. Not a drink I could have more than one of or that I can drink very fast but I think that could be considered a good thing.

The last and final drink of the evening involved one of my favorites...Tequila! My good ol friend had returned to save me from the Gin. This drink invented by the bartender was called The Antidote and included:

2oz Repasado Tequila
1oz grapefruit juice
1oz cardamom cayenne syrup
splash fresh lime

At first all I tasted was straight tequila which is a surprise when you're expecting a cocktail, someone should have just told me to take this one as a shot. I was soon pleasantly surprised by the kick from the cayenne syrup though. Interestingly, the name of the drink actually comes from the fact that cardamom used to be used as an antidote for spider bites (keeping that fact for trivia one day!). We also learned Repasado Tequila means that it has been aged less than 6 months which I guess unlike wine, less time is better for aging tequila and makes for a smoother and lighter tequila unlike darker types like say the always enjoyable Cuervo (*sarcasm*). Again like the last drink I would recommend nursing this one for a while as well. A trick for this that we learned for the bartender is to use large square ice cubes in your drink. It keeps the ice from melting compared to a smaller rounder ice cube so your drink remains cold without being diluted by melting ice. This is why many bars use if for their cocktails and many times when you drink things like whiskey on the rocks bigger ice cubes are used.

I can't say I'm going to be dropping out of school anytime soon to pursue bar tending anytime soon (although I'm sure I'd get more in tips here in NYC than I make for grad school) but it was nice to spend an evening outdoors, learning new things and meeting some new people. If you're ever in the mood to be adventurous in your drinking I hope you enjoy these unique drink recipes like I did and if you find yourself in the city I would highly recommend heading up to the Top of the Strand for a great city view.

2 for 1

So its been a while since I last posted but the past 48hr were filled with great food I must share! These food adventures began Wednesday night at Enoteca Otto Pizzeria. As a treat for my friend K's birthday 4 of us ventured to this pizzeria which is one of the many restaurants in the Mario Batali franchise here in NY. (including one of my favs Eataly!) What I enjoy about his restaurants is their decor. As my friend J pointed out its just like sitting at home at one of your kitchen tables. It seems to be a common theme to the two restaurants I've been to of his of these big and homey wooden tables. The restaurant itself is quite large and even on a Wednesday night full but set up so you're not crammed right next to another table. Being a celebration we began the evening with some wine. Upon opening the menu however you find an extensive wine list of well over I would say 200 bottles to choose from, and these are not the usual 10$ bottles I look at. We opted to ask the waiter how to navigate through this list to suggest a red wine to use narrowing down the list to maybe 100 now..I then threw out the idea of a Chianti knowing I've had it before with Italian and it seemed to pair well. (again, I'm definitely not a wine expert!) He suggested their most popular bottle, a Castello Di Meleto 2007 which at a fair price tasted great to all of us. For a main course we decided to split 4 pizzas. We chose 2 Margherita D.O.P's, an asparagus and goat cheese pizza and then quatro stagioni. All of the pizzas were made NYC style with a super thin crunchy crust. The Margherita D.O.P was topped with tomato, basil and bufula mozzarella. From now on I am switching my mozzarella to bufula mozzarella for these kinds of pizza. It added a nice almost smokey flavor to the pizza but the tomato sauce used was quite sweet so its created a good balance of flavors. My favorite was the asparagus and goat cheese pizza. Since goat cheese is slowly becoming one of my favorite cheeses this pizza was perfect for me. The pizza was just a layer of goat cheese with pieces of asparagus thrown on. Very simply but very delicious! The last pizza was the quatro stagioni which was tomato sauce, regular mozzarella and then 4 sections each with a different topping including mushrooms, peppers, asparagus and cotto (similar prosciuttio). Not my favorite of the pizzas but it had a surprising spicy kick due to the peppers which was nice for those of us that like a little spice. It was also good for sharing so everyone could try a different topping. Me and K also split an Otto chopped salad to get some of our greens for the day which I would say to skip next time. For 10$ they simply chopped up some radishes and lettuce, threw in garbonzos and salami and topped it with a creamy italian. Im not sure what lettuce they used though or if it was the radishes but it had a very bitter taste to it that couldn't be hidden by the dressing that wasn't very enjoyable. Finally comes the best part of the meal, dessert. I went for the coconut merenga which was COCONUT FANTASIA GELATO, WARM TOASTED MERINGUE, CACAO NIB, CANDIED KUMQUATS (yes i copied that from online). It was soooo good. The meringue with the coconut gelato was a great mixture of textures and flavors. Together it all tasted almost like a samoa girl scout cookie in gelato form! On the bottom you also have the nice suprise of the candied kumquats which were a nice crunch to add.  Overall it was a great meal spent with great people. 

My next venture was a midday macaron break to Laduree on the UES. After sitting at my computer working on a presentation all day it was perfect timing when my friend A texted asking if I wanted to sneak out for a macaron! Originating in Paris Laduree is known for their "le macaron". While there are many places to find macarons here in the city, I dont know many that fly their macarons in every morning from Paris! When you want to be authentic there is so competition with Laduree. I chose a pack of 8 for 21$ (gotta pay for them to fly first class I guess). They offer about 20 different flavors to please anyone ranging from more rich and chocolaty to sweet and fruity. For my 8 I chose the pistachio, blackberry and violet, chocolate, lemon, coconut, salted carmel, almond and vanilla. Feeling guilty for skipping out on lab I brought back 4 for my fellow lab mates to enjoy but I had a chance to try the blackberry, lemon, vanilla, and salted carmel. By far my favorite was the salted carmel. The cakes are all as light and fluffy as they look so to me the filling is what made the macaron and you can't beat salted carmel. My second choice would then have to be the lemon. It tasted just like eating a lemon square but not as heavy. Then I tried vanilla. What can I say about vanilla...it tasted like vanilla, not impressed but not sad I ate it. My least favorite was the Blackberry and violet which was the one I was most curious about. Thier filling however was just too sweet for me. It tasted a lot like eating a very very sweet jam in the middle maybe due to the violet it had a perfume taste to it as well, probably not one of my choices next time but I am usually not a super sweet kind of person, give me chocolate or caramel any day. They were definitely worth the midday excursion however, so if you find yourself around Madison and 71st check out Laduree!