Poverexic in NYC

It was twins M & L’s bday on Friday, and you know what that means…

THE BEST ANTI-POVEREXIC WEEKEND E-V-E-R.

We started out Friday night with a surprise roommate dinner at La Zarza, which is this incred restaurant full of Argentine meats of every delicious part of the cow.  So we started out with a a pitcher of blackberry sangria and long island ice teas, bread with tomato spread, a beet salad and a meat sampler plate of lamb chop, steak, sweetbreads, chorizo and blood sausage.  Then on to the main dish: roommate K and I both got the bife de lomo medium rare, roommate M got rack of lamb and roommate L got the seafood paella.  Let me just say, this was the best bife de lomo I’d had since I was in Buenos Aires in 2005.

Bife de Lomo

I of course literally licked my plate clean, and luckily roommate K whose stomach is the size of a 5-year-old only finishes like 2/3 of her plate as usual.  Roommate M and L were too wasted to notice, so I quickly swooped in and grabbed the last 1/3 of her filet mignon before anyone else could get to it.  Then the waitress who was like in love with roommate L and flirting with him the entire dinner (like when L asked her if the big wooden spoon in our sangria pitcher was “a spoon or a stick” and she goes “depends if you’re naughty” …….derrr) comped us a molten lava cake for their birthday.

Volcano Cake

The fun continued through Friday night when we celebrated M/L’s real birthday at our fav place New Ashiya with a huge crowd for all you can eat sushi and all you can drink sake/beer.

New Ashiya

New Ashiya is always a recipe for disaster (or for WINNING) and it all went downhill in an awesome way when roommate L ran to the bathroom mid-dinner to puke up his 30 rolls of sushi, which I was deeply upset at him for, and then subsequently decided to do a reverse sake bomb.  That’s right.  A reverse sake bomb.  That means a tiny sake bomb cup of beer dropped into a huge beer cup of sake.  That was a mistake.

Reverse Sake Bomb

Needless to say, M & L’s nights ended very well that night with two successful juices literally immediately followed by two successful blackouts.  YATTA!!!

After sleeping through the majority of Sunday accompanied by our usual Sunday afternoon sounds of ralphing coming from our bathroom, roommates and I decided to go for one last tiny celebration with the most adorable cupcake cake from Whole Foods.  A cupcake cake!!!  It’s so Alice-in-Wonderland.

Cupcake Cake

A very delightful birthday weekend — Happy Birthday M & L!!!

O-M-G.  This is what this day does to you.

ULTIMATE STEAK TARTARE

Friend M who’s not a huge fan of red meat told me over the weekend that she nearly threw up in her mouth when she saw my other tartare blog entries.  I don’t know what she’s talking about — this all just looks and tastes like pure heaven to me.  She will no doubt ralph over this one, but probably not as badly as roommate L did the other day after inhaling like a pound of steak by himself followed by Tasty King, all in one sitting.  (I was so angry at him for wasting all that food into the toilet.)

PERFECTION

Tonight for dinner we finished 2 lbs of filet mignon over LOST, and then we had to pause the DVR to run out to the grocery store around the corner to get another 2 lbs of filet mignon for GLEE.  Which means that today, each of us at this apartment had 1 lb each of raw steak, diced up jalapenos, cornichon, shallots, mushrooms, garlic and several raw egg yolks.

I’ve been sick all week but now I magically feel 100% BETTER HOORAY!!!

WHAT THE!  gchat from my puta J’s friend K:

K: hey! you probably don’t remember me, I’m J’s friend from law school, we met at her engagement party. because i read poverexia, i now feel compelled to share the following amazing information with you: when my coworker and I were walking down the street we saw a sign for “doughnut ice cream sandwich” and we felt compelled to get this thing. it is a freshly-made doughnut, cut in half, insert whatever ice cream your heart desires (and not just one scoop, there’s like three scoops in there), top with remaining doughnut, cover in hot caramel/chocolate/icing and top with crunchy and amazing toppings. we had milky way ice cream in the doughnut and caramel sauce with crumbled andes mint chocolate bits all over the place. it was amazing. i feel like i’m going to have a coronary any minute. figured in the spirit of crazygood food you might enjoy knowing that this exists.
me: O!!!
M!!!
G!!!
HOLY SHIT
THAT SOUNDS INCRED
K: it’s pretty freaking good although no joke i feel like i’m going to die
me: HOLY SHIT
was it everything you dreamed it would be
K: and more
me: OMG I WANT ONE NOW
i wonder if my roommate can make that
K: as long as you get the right donut
i think a cake doughnut is best
maybe if you make your own
me: wait hold on a second, important question
WHERE EXACTLY WAS THIS
K: btw 53 and 52 on 9th ave
it’s a tiny place called “Holey Cream”

I immediately looked it up — here’s what it looks like:

Donut Ice Cream

HOLEY @*#&$^%@&@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Raw steak eating continues at Apt 4F.

Aware of my love for steak tartare, A gives me a brilliant suggestion.

A: yo, if you are ever thinking of going to an ethiopean restaurant I would recommend trying tere kitfo

me: GASP WHERE IS IT

and is it cheap

A: it’s a dish of rare seasoned ground beef

me: oh

i thought you were recommending a restaurant

A: it’s good, took 2 times for me to get used to it, but i don’t like steak tartare but tere kitfo has more flavor and less light vinegar shit flavor, it comes with some mitmitah, a hot powder seasoning

just be on the look out for kitfo or tere kitfo (tere means raw/rare) next time you think of ethiopean

me: YOU DON’T LIKE STEAK TARTARE!??!??!??!?!??!?!?!??!

I of course immediately forwarded this to roommate L, who had the same reaction as I did:  WHAT FRIEND DO YOU HAVE WHO DOESN’T LIKE STEAK TARTARE!?!??!??!?!  Then us curious cats – or more accurately curious kitties – decided to give it a try.  And by us giving it a try, I mean roommate L decided to test his culinary skills and make it, while roommates M, K and I just sat on the couch and ate the entire bowl.

AND LET ME TELL YOU.  IT WAS ABSOLUTELY INCRED.  I have no idea why it took A “2 times to get used to it.”  I just met it and I loved it.  It’s literally just like steak tartare but the meat is more mushed, like roommate L put it into a blender — it was a delicious meat smoothie!!!

Tere Kitfo

Apparently the traditional way to eat this dish is to just eat the raw meat with your raw hands.  Totally my style!

And as if the night couldn’t get any better, roommate L decides to gift us not only with the kitfo but also with the bestest song in the world that he composed and recorded for us… and for Tasty King.

Don\’t Let Me Fall

So for the past week straight roommates and I have been eating steak tartare.  SO GOOD.  Just like raw cookie dough, we figured why cook meat??  It’s so much quicker to eat it raw and tastes better too.  So now we’ve been eating raw steak for days straight and have likely acquired some bits of salmonella.  And roommate L has named his tapeworm Bartleby.  The other day we tartared 2 full pounds of steak, and we ate every last bit of it.

Steak Tartare

To continue on our healthy streak, roommate M also made some “lettuce tacos” to add some greens to our steak dinner.

Lettuce Tacos

BRILLIANT!!!!!!

This is why I don’t cook:

Here’s what roommate K had to say about me after this exchange: “I thought we both equally clueless when it comes to cooking, but more accurately I have the cooking ability of a child with downs syndrome, while you have the cooking ability of an aborted fetus.”

Anyway, after all that, I ended up being confused for like a full hour at Food Emporium with roommate L holding my hand over the phone — it took me like 20 minutes to find the steaks, another 20 minutes to find a breast of duck, and another 20 minutes to find capers, eggs and shallots.  I mean what the fuck are shallots.

It was all worth it though — here’s the ugly duckling I found:

Rare Duck

Here’s the beauuuutiful swan roommate L transformed it into:

Perfection

GASPPPPPPP DERICIOUSSSS LITTLE DUCKRINGGGSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Tomorrow is LOST and it’s become our weekly tradition for the twins to cook dinner and for roommate K and I to bring home beer.  Tomorrow I will bring home the kill.

Speaking of dericious, friends spent the weekend at a wedding with the most incred sounding food.  Unfortunately for me, this was the 3rd wedding I have been disinvited from in my life.  Why this keeps happening to me is beyond me.

me: was there steak

puffy tacos?

F: corn souflee, beef wellington, little gorditas, sweet potato fries

crab seviche in a halved avocado

me: SHUT YOUR MOUTH

F: shrimp something, carnitas and tortillas, cactus shaped cakes… blue bell ice cream cart with waffle bowls

me: WHAT GET OUT OF HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

F: some crazy mushroom sautee station with other veggies… top notch bar… and a mojito station

me: O !!!

M !!!

G !!!

HOLY CRAP IT’S COMING IN 8 DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.kfc.com/doubledown/

KFC Double Down

DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE!!!!!!!  Although looking at more info online, apparently the Double Down is only 540 calories.  Now that doesn’t seem right.  That’s barely filling.

Well, I guess we know from this past week’s South Park episode that KFC is actually what keeps our society healthy — without KFC, men start developing a curious case of testicular cancer.

I think the greatest thing about the Double Down though is that it’s easily replicable in the comfort of your own home.  I think this will be our apartment’s new project — just deep fry up some chicken breasts, get some fatty slabs of bacon, thin slices of American cheese and a few spoonfuls of mayonnaise (baconnaise would be better).

The Colonel is GENIUS!!!!!!!