🇺🇸 New York

Thinking about this FINE square of pizza bathing in the sunlight. I’m partial to a Neapolitan pizza but this pizza stole my heart.
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Everything was perfect about it. Piping hot tomato sauce, crisp little pepperoni cups with pools of oil in them sitting on top of oozy mozzarella, chewy tasty dough with a charred crust. I’ll dream of having a pizza like this again. (Also I waited in line for an hour, so ok, it was not completely perfect, but it was worth it. Next time I come I’ll buy a whole box to gobble down.)

I feel like the tendon craze here has died down since a while ago when so many tendon places popped up, but I decided to try this newer place called Tenjin that’s opened by the Le Amis group and I was rly impressed! Although presented not as stunningly as other tendon bowls, I feel like the quality of the tendon here is much better and it’s a better size as the ingredients aren’t overly big and not so much rice is given. (Truthfully, I’ve been staying away from eating tendons because they always make me so uncomfortably full.)
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The batter was light and everything was fried well. I particularly liked the fried shiso leaf because of how crispy and delicate it was and the prawns, which were really tasty and tender inside- not overcooked at all. Another thing I liked was that the tempura was only drizzled with sauce lightly, and there’s small bits of kombu on top of the rice.
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Thought that the Special “Jo” bowl was sufficient. It had veggies like eggplant, kabocha (Japanese pumpkin), lotus root, bell pepper, shiso leaf, mushroom, 2 prawns and a lovely fried free range egg that was oozy inside. The Premium “Toku-Jo” bowl, which had the same tempura as the Special bowl (minus the lotus), and the addition of anago, fish and crab leg. Personally feel that I could have done without the additional tempura, which cost $8 more and wasn’t very outstanding. Nonetheless, the tendons here are quite worth it as they come with a salad with a creamy sesame dressing and miso soup as well.
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Their space is on the smaller side, but it‘s quite warm and cozy, and I enjoyed this meal! They’ve also recently added a few new items to their menu - a cold inaniwa udon with assorted tempura and a tempura moriwase which has tentsuyu (a light sweet soya tempura dipping sauce with dashi and mirin). They both sound delicious, so maybe I’ll be back again when I feel like it.

Thinking about Scampi NYC’s signature Mafaldini Scampi that I had while I was in New York, that deserves a big close up. It was definitely one of the top places I wanted to try after seeing how beautiful it looked on instagram.
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Their long, twirly, ribbon-shaped Mafaldini is the perfect vessel for mopping up the butter and parsley sauce, with a hint of lemon so you don't get tired of eating this. The tanginess from the lemon also paired well with the springy chunks of gulf shrimp. The sauce is really the highlight here. Don't know what the ratio of ingredients is but I guarantee you that I finished ALL of it- it was so addictive. I also enjoyed the buttery breadcrumbs drenched in the sauce that somehow never got soggy and added pizazz to the dish.
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It's rather pricy, but most food in nyc is, so that's acceptable. (It’s cheaper if you go during lunch or brunch!!) Service was also not bad. The only sad thing is that they are cashless so we had to use Apple Pay to pay for our meal at a not too great conversion rate. Also, we tried the carbonara here and it was really disappointing so maybe not all dishes here are great.