The best Thai in New York?

With my new role at work I’ll be making more frequent trips to New York to collaborate with my colleagues out there.  Rough life – I know!  My most recent time in the city a couple weeks ago was filled with lots of productive meetings, fun with coworkers, and, of course, fantastic food.

The culinary highlight of the trip was a visit to Kin Shop, a new Thai restaurant opened in October by Harold Dieterle, the winner of Top Chef – Season One.  I’m a huge Top Chef fan, so this was very exciting, and the fact that it was Thai, moderately priced, and had garnered some fantastic reviews by critics and the general public made this a no-brainer.  The dinner was a fun time with friends, we got to see Harold expediting from the kitchen, and famed food critic Jeffrey Steingarten was seated two tables away from us!  I still haven’t read a review, but I hope he enjoyed his meal as much as I did.

I cannot recommend this restaurant enough, and if you have the chance to go, take a lot of people so you can try as many of the dishes as possible.  We feasted on the following items:

• spicy duck laab salad – the spiciest thing I’ve eaten outside of Thailand, authentic flavors, delicious
• fried pork and crispy oyster salad – so good, pork belly, oysters, you can’t really go wrong
• grilled “Phuket style” river prawns – cooked perfectly with a sweet peanut pepper sauce that I could have drank straight
• hand cut beef tartar – tasty chili jam, this was nice, but not extraordinary
• red curry roasted duck breast –served on roti, I could eat this all day, they do duck well!
• green curry steamed red snapper – this was cooked perfectly and was light but with a very complimentary sauce
• pan fried crab noodles – thin noodles with tons of flavor, were a nice complement to the curry-flavored dishes
• massaman braised goat – you have to work at this one since it’s served on the bone, but that just makes for some great marrow (thanks Orchid for sharing!)
• lychee sorbet – perfect, refreshing, could eat a quart
• calamansi sorbet – ditto
• kaffir lime ice cream – I had my eye on this as soon as the reservation was set, nothing is quite like makrut (kaffir) lime, and it’s one of my favorite flavors ever.  This ice cream was perfect, flavorful yet not too strong, and I can’t wait to try to make it at home

Check out the full menu, and for an even better review, check out my friend Orchid’s post on Yelp.

Other highlights of the trip included an amazing lamb burger and some hard-to-find (at least in Indy) top-notch beers at Amity Hall.  Delirium Tremens, Bluepoint Sour Cherry Imperial Stout, Brooklyn Brewmaster Cuvee Noire, and Bluepoint Toasted Lager all were outstanding (and on tap!).

The final highlight – meeting the co-founder of reddit at our office (they like us!).  Yep, I’m a Thai-loving, sometimes foodie, geeky beer snob who works for an awesome nonprofit! Cheers!

Potty Time, Excellent!

This week Eliza had her first successful experience on her little training toilet.  But as you can tell from the photograph, she doesn’t like to be disturbed when she’s doing her business.

I’m sure she’ll make us remove this photo when she gets older, so enjoy it while you can!

Eliza's First Camping Trip

Back in October we spent a weekend with Lynne’s family at Land Between the Lakes, a national recreation area in Kentucky.  It was a lot fun with great weather, hiking, kayaking, campfires, and playing with Eliza.  She loved spending so much time outdoors!

Playing with Leaves

Eliza had so much fun playing in the piles of leaves Kirk raked earlier this month.  Despite only one small tree, we always seem to get the bulk of the leaves from our neighbors’ giant trees.  The pile was so much fun that even Preston had to come over and get in on the action.

Paris – Day 9

It makes us a little sad to write about our last full day in Paris.  We woke up surprised to hear the sound of piano coming through our open window.  Someone below us was playing amazingly well, and it was a wonderful way to start the day.

We had saved a visit to the Louvre for our last day since it was our backup plan if it had rained a lot any other day.  On our way to the Louvre we stopped by Le Duree for some breakfast pastries and macarons.  Earlier we wrote about the amazing macarons at Pierre Herme that we enjoyed on our first day, which many claim are the best in the city, so we figured on our last day we had to try the other highest-rated macarons in Paris. 

They didn’t disappoint and we’re actually a bit cheaper than those at Pierre Herme, but overall we felt they were a little milder in flavor and less creative in their flavor combination.  We’d rate Le Duree a close second to Pierre, but we really enjoyed their pastries, too!  I still miss such decadent breakfasts.

We arrived at the Louvre and were so pleased that it was such a beautiful day.  We we’re a little bummed to spend so much of it indoors, but it made for some great pictures outside.

Once inside, it was honestly a bit overwhelming.  Many of the main galleries were filled with so many people, and the paintings (at least in the Italian painter rooms leading to the Mona Lisa) were hung three or four high on the walls, so it was difficult to give each one the appropriate attention.  Lynne’s art history training wasn’t used to processing so much at one time.  We enjoyed the audio tour and would rotate with one of us listening and filling the other in while the other took photos.

Winged Victory, my favorite

We had a lot more peace viewing the Middle East and ancient items since it wasn't as crowded, and we found that the galleries on the upper levels had some breathtaking paintings and weren’t nearly as crowded.

We also enjoyed seeing the Napoleon III apartments, which ended our day (we literally got kicked out at 5:45pm), and the two areas that used to be courtyards of the palace which housed some amazing sculptures.  This visit made me realize how little I actually saw on my short three hour tour ten years ago.

Where’s Kirk?

On the way home we stopped by St. Germain church, a grocery store for some last minute gifts and snacks for the plane, and then we tried to find a final dinner place that was just right.  We were being really picky, and unexpectedly ended up back at Vins et Terroirs, since we loved it so much the first time.  We indulged in some great wine, salmon tartar, lobster bisque, beef bourguignon, steak au poivre, and, of course, tons of delicious bread and butter.

When we got back to the apartment, the pianist was at it again.  It was so beautiful, and we’d yell “bravo!” out our window and hear her laugh below.  It was the perfect soundtrack for our last night in Paris as we enjoyed a dessert of French cheese and chocolates in our little apartment.