Saturday: Now This Is Being Resourceful (the “Leftovers Utility” Post)

To anyone who read Friday’s dinner blog post and hazarded a guess to the multiple choice question I posted, the answer is: c.) get motivated to go out with friends and eat again later.

Now, Saturday’s challenge is, what to do with the second half of my club sandwich, picked up from Green Kitchen in the Upper East Side at about 12:30 am on Saturday morning? 

The first step is to identify what’s usable: The fries, clearly, are not fresh anymore — although I did have half a notion to dice them, fry them in a pan with some onion and bacon, and make a faux hash, to go with eggs.

But I was in the mood for something fresh, so I didn’t try it. 

Instead, I disassembled everything, setting aside workable goods. I had the makings of a small salad here, exactly the post-dim sum, pre-dinner with friends snack that I was looking for. 

The romaine, tomato slices, chicken and a few non-soggy triangles of bread, further brightened up by radish slices and thin slices of a white onion, became a really lovely, simple salad, which I dressed with truffle oil-flavored olive oil, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper. 

Really, even I didn’t think it’d turn out this good …

Dinner: And This Is What I Call “Scrounging”

Open fridge. Open cupboards. Repeat until inspiration strikes. When this activity occurs during periods in which grocery shopping is needed direly, this is what’s called “scrounging.”

I managed to devise: tortilla chips, topped with hummus, slices of radish, bits of leftover chicken. Not much, but then, it was sort of a placeholder meal to begin with. I was either going to a.) go to bed early, b.) get motivated and pick up something to go, c.) get motivated to go out with friends and eat again later. Which do you think happened?

Lunch: Deli Sandwich Symmetry (How Do They Do That?)

I want to take a brief moment to appreciate the craft of the deli sandwich.

This is a simple fresh mozzarella, lettuce, tomato, onion on toasted rye ($4.50) from Blue Rose Deli in Midtown, which may as well be any one of a thousand nondescript delis in New York City. (Check out the Google search returns on: blue rose deli nyc. Pretty much radio silence.)

But just look at the construction: Somehow, the clerk at the sandwich station has managed somehow to build the sandwich so that two flimsy pieces of rye bread are actually able to contain it all. Look at that: stacks of cheese, a heaping pile of lettuce (shredded, nonetheless), multiple slices of tomato.

And you could get a sandwich just this anywhere. I consider it a small marvel of the culture of deli food. Don’t believe me? Try this at home … you’ll have lettuce, cheese and tomato slices sliding everywhere.

TIP: There’s a great blog, scanwiches.com, dedicated to scanning and studying cross-sections of sandwiches. If you geek out about this sort of thing, check it out.

Breakfast: It’s Back … (aka the “Wiener Schnitzel Leftovers” Post)

Hot damn, that Wiener Schnitzel sandwich made such a good breakfast. All I wanted, exactly: good source of protein, on some sort of bread/roll, spicy mustard. (Spicy mustard in the morning is a real kick-start.) 

I was going to save this for lunch, paired with a side salad from a deli, but this perfect-breakfast-size dish never even made it back into the fridge … who wants breakfast proper when you can have this, is my feeling. (Told you that you’d see this again.)

Dinner: Cupcakes and Wine In a … Plastic Pop-Top Bottle? (Keep Reading, There’s More)

After the day  I  had, I would have been entirely alright if dinner was a cupcake (or two) and 550 ml of red wine (or more).

We were at the Prospect Park bandshell on one of the loveliest summer evenings yet so far this year, Femi Kuti was coming on in a bit, with all his brass and his feel-good music and rump-shaking ladies. The air was festive. Lounging on blankets, hanging out in the late-afternoon sun, drinking wine and eating cupcakes — it felt like one of those time-outside-of-time moments that I treasure.

Later, concert over, bellies began rumbling. Someone apparently knew something about the neighborhood, knew where to go, and I followed, literally having no idea were we were, or where we were going. Zoom out on Google Maps enough and I could point out that we’re in Brooklyn, sort of in the vicinity of the southwest corner of Prospect Park, but bring it in any closer and … nada. Which was fine. I love getting a little lost on occasion, letting someone else drive. I get to check out the scenery.

We ended up at Cafe Steinhof in Park Slope, a wonderland of German food. I was immediately enamored, this menu is bomb-ass. (Apparently they do an amazing goulash on Monday nights, according to the local insider.) Chicken liver pate, served with sour cherries and cornichons; bratwurst (fresh), kielbasa (smoked), weisswurst (veal) and debrechina (spicy) sausages; cheese spaetzle — I felt like ordering the entire menu.

I finally decided on the Wiener Schnitzel sandwich ($10): Several pork cutlets tenderized until flat, coated in breadcrumbs and lightly fried, accompanied only by a couple of requesite slices of lettuce and tomato in a sturdy kaiser roll. Slightly dry — problem solved after I slathered the schnitzel with hot mustard from a little pot on the table — incredibly hearty. I ate half, and the salad, and hit the wall. Which means one thing: You’ll be seeing more schnitzel soon.

TIP: The food all-around was excellent, but the seafood ragout stole the show. Generous servings of trout, mussels, shrimp, cod and salmon swimming in a creamy broth — if this is the Austria’s version of bouillabaisse, I’m sold.

Lunch: Hawaiian Barbecue In the Most Unexpected of Places (and Cheap!)

BBQ Chicken: $6.25. Huh? Never eaten here, but I could of sworn from the window display of a table set with a plate of plastic sushi that Osaka was a Japanese restaurant. (Plus, there’s usually something in a name.)

Turns out, the barbecue is Hawaiian-style, which means the chicken (there’s also spare ribs, for a few dollars more) is tenderized and marinated in a sweet, hybrid teriyaki-barbecue sauce, grilled, and served on a bed of rice with some salad greens.

Yeah, it’s really good chicken. Big flavor, a lot of tenderness, succulence retained: This chicken absolutely destroys the parched, bland, “grill-charred” chicken breasts you find added to salads and pasta dishes, and lurking at delis, waiting to be tucked into sandwiches.

Next time, I’m going to ask for some extra sauce on the side. I found myself wishing I had some to pour all over the chicken and mash into the rice. It’d make it that much better. (As you can see, I had no issue finishing off the plate without sauce.)

About those spare ribs … The $6.25 barbecue chicken special is part of Osaka’s walk-in, off-the-regular-menu specials, and ends up being pretty basic. The Hawaiian meal listed on the menu ($8.99) opens up a whole new world: You get your choice of chicken or spare ribs, served with rice, soup, shumai, a California roll and salad. Hell yeah.

TIP: The walk-in, off-the-regular-menu menu has a number of lunch specials that hit the sweet spot, wallet-wise. Something to consider if you can ever move past the barbecue. (Photo of menu after the jump.)

Breakfast: The Only Way a $2 Breakfast Sandwich Is Improved? Cholula.

How many months have I been eating this meal called “breakfast” while working in Midtown? More than several, less than a dozen. 

How many months since I discovered the deli egg, ham and cheese breakfast sandwich have I been thinking that I need to bring in a bottle of hot sauce to keep at the desk (I am my father’s daughter)? Oh, more than several, less than a dozen. 

And today, I finally did it. I finally brought in my own mini-sized, wooden screw-cap bottle of Cholula ($2.99 at Food Emporium) to keep on hand for just such purposes as bland egg sandwiches. Breakfast at the desk will never be the same again.*

*(As long as I’m at this desk, at least.)

Dinner: Impromptu ur Caesar Chicken Salad

A Caesar salad gets away with being so sparse in content because that dressing bullies anything in its path: Romaine, croutons, shavings of Parmesan, grilled chicken, all defer to that mighty dressing, and they like it that way. So it’s no surprise that the chopped Romaine in my fridge was just begging to be a Caesar salad, but I had other ideas.

I bought a bottle of Kerry Wood’s Healthy Salad Dressing recently after sampling it at Whole Foods a few weeks ago, and I’m totally in love with this dressing, big, bold flavors, New Orleans-style.

I marinated the chicken cutlets (purchased from one of the most amazing supermarkets I’ve ever seen, under the Queensboro Bridge, literally) in about 2 Tbls. of the dressing, more olive oil, Cayenne pepper, lemon juice, salt, pepper for about 40 minutes before cooking them in a shallow bath of sizzling-hot olive oil (a few minutes each side, or until no longer pink inside).

After the cutlets cooled, I gave them a rough chop, and tossed them in with the romaine — and more Kerry Woods’ dressing. So simple, so good.

Lunch: Burger Bomb at Federal Cafe (Take My Word For It)

New York has spoiled me. This city has killer burgers. It’s gotten to the point that I can’t remember the last time I had a “bad” burger, and that’s  made me reckless. For some months now I’ve been waltzing around, ordering burgers willy-nilly, gambling that the quality of the meat, the execution of the cooking, the stature of the bun and the overall assemblage will deliver a decent, and possibly even good, or possibly even great, burger.

Well, I got checked today by Federal Cafe‘s Inside Out Burger, and I’m not beyond admitting that I probably deserved it. Damn, I wanted so badly to be the one to discover that Federal Cafe’s “9 to 5er’s Lunch Special” — “Any item on our menu for only $9.99″ — wasn’t a gimmick but an under-the-radar lunching gem.

And … fail. In reality, the “regular” menu prices, which range from $8 – $19, are probably inflated to make the $9.99 price point attractive. I doubt that anything on their menu is worth more than $9.99, and certainly not the Inside Out Burger “8 oz. Black Angus burger grilled to perfection topped with cheddar, bacon & mushrooms” — listed for $16 regularly.

Here’s my laundry list: While cooked properly, the patty was definitely some previously-frozen, machine-formed number, bearing no evidence of (how’d they cook it?) griddle or grill marks. While the bun top looked promising, dotted with sesame seeds, the bottom half was soggy almost immediately (and that from a non-juicy burger!) and began crumbling immediately upon touch or handling.

And the fries. Quite possibly the worst sweet potato fries I’ve ever had. They tasted (and sort of looked) like orange-colored french fries. You order sweet potato fries for the ways they’re different from regular fries. These fries were so bland, so blah, they’d struggle to compete with fast food fries. In fact, I think they’d loose.

If you’re as attracted to the potential of Federal Cafe’s $9.99 lunch special — and I’m sure there’s someone out there who’s thinking that it’s only the burger that’s bad, that the $18 cheesesteak (for $9.99) might be the key — go for it. Just skip the burgers.

TIP: I saw a spinach salad going out — piled high with tomatoes, mushrooms, red onion, hard-boiled egg, and, at the tippity-top, a tangle of bacon — that looked decent …

Skipped: The “What-To-Do-About-Breakfast” Post

I powered through one of the Healthy Kids Tropicana orange juices that I fell in love with a few weeks ago on my walk to the subway this morning, and tossed the container without even a second thought of taking a photo because I had every intention of slipping out and grabbing a $2 breakfast sandwich about 10-10:30 am.

The next thing I knew, the next time I checked the clock on my computer screen, it was 10:57 am, and I missed my opportunity. (Most delis close their grills at 11 am to prep for lunch service, if not a few minutes earlier, and they’re pretty hardcore about it.) Ugghhhh.

I decided, at this point, to stick it out and make it an early lunch …