Well, hello there
welcome to my food blog. my name is mia. i'm a 28 year old food obsessed indonesian (jakarta born and raised, woot woot) who's been living (happily) in brooklyn, new york, for the past (almost) ten years. i am not a chef, nor a culinary writer. but i know what i love (read:food) and i'm here to share the love.
to reach me:
miahungrylongtime@gmail.com
Old, but not stale.
complete listicle:
restaurants:
joe's shanghai (manhattan)
apt 138 (bk)
la isla (hoboken)
vanessa's dumplings (manhattan)
crif dogs (manhattan)
picollo roma (hoboken)
am-thai kitchen (bk)
bar food:
the green rock (hoboken)
food events:
indo food fest (queens)
mia attempts cooking:
pasta puttanesca
Other hungry blogs
Saturday, March 28, 2009, 12:33 AM
Choripan Island!
I work in Hoboken.And that's all I got to say about that.
If you have nothin nice to say, don't say nuthin! That's how that saying go, right?
Kidding!
Hoboken, albeit very yuppy and absolutely wretched by default because it's where my office is (come on, no one likes going to work!) (unless you're food critic?) (i'm kidding again, my office is wonderful, really, i love my job, please don't fire me, i'm very poor), actually does have some nice things:
- the pretty view of manlessttan (see previous post)
- clean streets
- the fancy daycares with them KinderVans (seriously one of the craziest things i've ever seen, though also the cutest! really! it's like the babies are on a movie studio tour!)
- pretty Jersey people, if you're into that (ed note: me not so much)
- and oh yes, pretty good restaurant scene!
Actually, let me clarify that. I've never been out to theBoken (yes, let's start calling it that) at night, so I don't really know what the dinner scene is like. However, lunch is pretty cool. One avenue away from my office is a main strip (Washington?) where they have oh I don't know, eight million restaurants a block? They're good and please go during lunch because duh lunch-specials and you might run into me! In which case you will immediately compliment this blog and offer to buy me the most expensive thing on the menu. And it's not even that expensive, it's lunch!
Anyway my friends, there will be lots of theBoken lunch posts on this blog. And they won't all have this long of a prelude. I promise. Not really.
LA ISLA RESTAURANT!
La Isla is a cozy family-run Cuban joint in downtown theBoken. You'll find address, link, and phone # at the end of this post. It's cheap and crazy packed because everyone and their mother in theBoken goes there during lunch. Because. the. food. is. darn. good.
This is the front of the place:
Cute, right? Or as food writers like to say, charming?
It's teeny tiny, so look very hard or you'll miss it!
This is what it looks like inside, right before the lunch rush (yup, I said before):
It's already pretty packed, I know. But at least there weren't thirty people standin' and waitin' right in front. Which happened yesterday and I was pretty angry because it blocked the lovely display of flans that I really wanted to share with you guys! I tried to zoom in between people's legs. Here's the proof so you guys know how much I love flan I mean you:
Flan shot: FAIL!
La Isla has LOTS of fans and awards.
Seriously.
This is just a third of the proofs of awesomeness they've received in the past:
Oh yay menus!
This is their lunch specials (good deal, they're HUGE):
Hmm.. sounds good, right?
La Isla is also known for their empanadas and their super cheap and again, of giant proportions, pressed sandwiches. So I ordered an empanada and the:
The Choripan! Chorizo sandwich... MMMmmMMMmmmmmmm!
And Sarah got the.. oh wait, I didn't go alone of course, here's my lovely dining companion:
That gorgeous little thing!
Okay, not so little, Sarah is actually 8 feet tall. She's Yao Ming's mother.
She had the coolest earrings on:
Okay, she's actually not 8 feet tall. Maybe 5'11. I don't know, all tall people look the same to me. You know, tall looking.
Anyways she's gorgeous and modelesque, and she's a huge foodie. She went to wd~50 not too long ago and didn't take pictures!! Wtf Sarah??
Though not as pretty as miss Sarah, here are some pretty flowers on our table:
Real flowers! Me likey!
Sarah ordered the Sandwich de Pollo Asado, which according to the menu is "pulled chicken with lettuce, tomato, onion and crispy potato sticks on cuban bread."
This is fake-smiling Mia:
(Inside monologue: Where's the empanada? Where is it? It can't take that long! Maybe they forgot! Should I get up and ask? No that's rude! Where MY EMPANADA?)
Please know that the empanada actually arrived at our table about 30 seconds after I ordered. I'm just very impatient when it comes to food.
Here it is, looking all tan and fabulous:
Oooh baby. I can't wait to TEAR YOU UP!
You have no idea what you're in for, you poor flaky pastry wrapped hunk of beef, you!
Yeah.
Yeah.
Looks good, doesn't it?
I even staged it a little for you guys, just to get the full effect.
You see that pool of juice on the plate? It's because the meat is SO juicy!
The green stuff is habanero chili sauce.
So it was pretty darn amazing. The pastry crust is so flaky and crispy, it's a whole bunch of crunchy fun when you bite into it. The meat.. oh my friends, it was meatastic! Really tasty and juicy. I don't even know what it's cooked with, but it's good. TRUST.
I tried to take a picture of a forkful of the empanada meat, but I was so impatient and all I got is this blurry picture:
Please promise me that when you go to La Isla, you will try the empanada?
Yes?
Good.
I scarved it down in 3.5 seconds. Impressive.
Poor Sarah didn't get more than a teeny bite. I'm sorry Sarah.
But she didn't care, her sandwich has arrived:
It was MASSIVE. I am not kidding. MASSIVE.
Sarah said that it was super yummers. It sure looked like it!
Right, Sarah?
Sarah?
Hello?
I think she's in love.
Speaking of love..
Hello, lover:
Behold, the Choripan! Also of gigantic proportions, but very different taste.
A-ma-zing. It had really good chorizo, juicy and spicy, sliced like thick-cut bacon:
Don't you just love chorizo?
I want to marry it and have little miarizo babies. YUM.
The sub also had lots of caramelized onions (which is like savory candy to me. If they give that out for halloween I would so go trick or treating this year, dressed as choripan), and crunchy potato sticks. Combined with really good crunchy crackly gorgeous tan bread, it was heaven.
Here's the crunch potato stick sticking to the crunchy bread:
How many times did I say crunch/sticks in the previous paragraph? A lot.
The only thing it needs:
Mmm habanero chili sauce.. I will keep you as my pool boy. I'm sure my chorizo husband won't mind.
Pool boy. Habanero sauce. Pool. Sauce. See what I did there?
So we ate, and ate, and ate.
And eventually we gave up:
I ate my other half for dinner last night. You stick it in the oven at 350 for ten minutes (depending on how hot your oven is, really) and you're golden. YUM.
And that was that.
My sandwich was 6 bucks. It fed me twice.
Please go to La Isla, okay?
Here is their website, where they have menus, pictures, and directions.
Have a good weekend everyone!
Rating:
= 4 hungry Mias: really good! the fourth hungryMia is for the cheap factor!Ps: I am very sleepy. I'm too sleepy to spell check and grammar check. Please forgive me.
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