Maybe it’s the difference between what you see and what you taste, but white sweet potatoes seem sweeter to me than the traditional variety. They also seem to keep their shape and texture better, more like a traditional potato, but with more flavor. I’ve used it in a salad, and in a curry, but I think next I’m going to try to make french fries.

So my next Jamie Oliver recipe, I wanted a seafood dish. I narrowed it down to 2 dishes, one was a tomato-y pasta with canned tuna and the second was a spaghetti with mussels dish. Both Steph and Mo voted for the mussels dish, so mussels it is.

Why are mussels so cheap? They’re usually $2-$3 per pound and I bought 2.5lbs of it. Though I should’ve bought the extra half pound because there were few dead ones in the pile.

This whole dish took about 25mins to prep and to cook. While it was fairly easy and straightforward to cook I wasn’t too sure of the end product. It’s hard to know if I cooked it right or not if I haven’t tasted it before. I guess it only matters if the dish was good or not. Well I thought the dish was just alright, it was kind of bland and I was heavy handed with the pepper, whoops. I just didn’t taste any basil or any flavors from the basil oil broth. Overall this was okay.

Click here for the recipe

I used to live on the corner of E 3rd St and Avenue A, and I loved the neighborhood. This was before this blog existed, but I still was excited about the many food options available to me: Nicky’s Vietnamese Sandwiches, Mama’s, and a 24-hour Key Food, among others. I was not, however, aware of the existence of Perbacco, an Italian restaurant that blends tradition and the avant-garde. Lucky for me my friends Jess & Garrett knew about it, and the three of us met there for dinner last week. Lucky for you also, because their photos came out much better than mine (click the link to their blog if you don’t believe me).

Click to continue…

Couple weeks ago my friend Anh had her “Breakfast in Brooklyn” get together where she made breakfast for everyone. I was pretty excited because she promised to make a Vietnamese omelette! What’s a Vietnamese omelette? It’s an omelette with diced onions, chicken liver pate and pork roll! Genius! Its everything I love in 1 dish. I had tried to make this couple nights before but I wasn’t sure about the proportions. Also the recipe she gave me didn’t include the pork roll, what da? Anyways, this was a really yummy omelette, I wanna eat it all the time.

Texas omelette, home fries, baked eggs and Vietnamese coffee were also on the menu. I brought the St-Viateur bagels and others brought biscuits and pastries from Ladybird Bakery.

I’m not really keeping up with my food news. I had no idea Mile End, a Montreal Jewish Delicatessen on Hoyt St, was even there AND I live so close to it! So last week I bumped into a friend at Union Hall while at the Via Audio show and he told me he had just reserved a dozen Montreal bagels from Mile End for $20. I asked him…”Huh? Where?” He told me where and that I have till noon on Friday to get them.

Now I know next to nothing about bagels from Montreal except there are big debates on the web comparing bagels from NYC and Montreal. I do know that a fresh baked bagel with veggie cream cheese is a pretty damn good thing. But a not so fresh bagel tires my jaw so quickly.

On Saturday after lazily waking up and got dressed, I walked over to Mile End to pick up my dozen bagels, half poppy seed and half sesame seed. At 10:30am the place was packed, though the place was tiny. I would like to go there, grab a seat at the counter and have a proper meal there.

Anyways back to the bagels. People from Montreal rave about how good their bagels are. I do agree with them on some points. The St-Viateur bagels were denser which made it very easy to slice in half. Plus. The bagels were smaller and thinner which meant less room for cream cheese. But here’s the 1 reason why I still prefer NYC bagels over Montreal bagels, taste. After having eaten 2 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday I have concluded that there was no flavors in the Montreal bagels at all. I can’t even say it was bland, it had no flavors whatsoever. Even after toasting it a bit, there was just nothing. The sesame seeds had no flavors in them as well! WTF? Both Mo and Matt agreed that these bagels weren’t that great, so it wasn’t just me. BUT my friend that told me about these bagels loved them and found the bagels to have great flavors. So…..I don’t know.

I’m not gonna give up on these bagels just yet, not until I had a proper 1 from Montreal in Montreal.

But if you REALLY want a dozen St-Viateur bagels go and order from Mile End.

- Mile End 97 Hoyt Street Brooklyn

I have seen tiny spots of blood in eggs before but this was TOO CRAZY!