Hungry Travels

Random notes for today:

My co-workers John and Kristen told me about two Eritrean/Ethiopian restaurants in New Haven, CT: Caffé Adulis and Lalibela.  Ever been?  I keep hearing how amazing New Haven pizza is—- now I have to get up there to try their African food too.

Kristen also made Ethiopian at home recently and sent me links to the recipes.

Flatbread
Kitfo
Chicken Stew
Spiced Butter
Spice Mix

She said the kitfo was especially good, and actually, these don’t look as hard to make as I would have thought, provided you have the ingredients.  Berbere may be tough to find in a store, but you can always make your own modified batch of it.  
Okay, on an unrelated note, did anyone watch the profile on Michael Phelps last night when he said he ate between 8,000-10,000 calories a day?!    I’m putting away a decent number of calories right now for triathlon training, but crap, 8K-10K is outta hand.  Forget swimming, Phelps eating should be its own Olympic event.  They could pit him against the marathoners, cyclists and triathletes, set up a time lapse camera, and see who could put down the most pasta, eggs and steak in a single day. People would watch that.  Or at least bizarre people like me would.

Related posts

• Where’s the Vietnamese and Ethiopian in Westchester? (0)
• Food and the Nostalgia Factor (0)
• First Stop on the New Haven Pizza Tour (0)

My recent trip to California reignited my fervor for Vietnamese food.   We ate at Pho Viet in San Jose two days in a row, wolfing down pho, bbq beef, bbq pork, vermicelli noodles, sriracha and bubble teas.  I thought the food rocked— it was fresh and vibrant and crackling with amazing flavors.   

Then I went onto Yelp.com and read some of the reviews… the consensus among the San Jose reviewers seemed to be that Pho Viet was “okay” and “mediocre”.

This leads me to believe that either (A) I have no clue what constitutes good Vietnamese (quite possible), (B) I’m so Vietnamese starved that anything tastes good to me, or (C) San Jose residents are seriously lucky if Pho Viet is considered average among their other Vietnamese options.  

I’m hoping the answer is B or C.  Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe the food was just so-so.  But feed a starving man a steak and he’s going to love it, whether it’s from Peter Luger or from Bennigan’s.  When you’re living in an area with no Vietnamese food (not counting Manhattan), you’re just happy to have it. I’ve been poking around to see if there’s some Vietnamese restaurant in Westchester I’ve overlooked.  No luck so far.

While we’re at it, where’s the Ethiopian in Westchester?  Does anyone know of anything in the area?   The Westchester restaurant scene’s come a long way in the past few years, but there’s still a need for an influx of ethnic cuisines.  Let’s hope some brave Vietnamese or Ethiopian restaurateur is given a chance to show what he’s got— we’ll all be better off for it. 

Until then, I’ll have to sustain myself with memories of Pho Viet and its “mediocre” Vietnamese.  On second thought, forget that, I can’t wait.  I’m going to Manhattan.

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• Ethiopian in New Haven and Michael Phelps (0)
• Boi to Go: Midtown’s Vietnamese (1)