ROC - Lanai

I’m everywhere this summer, it’s the summer Emily travels and it’s a little tiring but I’m getting the most out of it for sure. I’m back in Rochester from that week in Bolton Landing and I’m ready to see some friends. I meet up with Victoria again and she’s agreed to go to the Seneca Park Zoo - August Zoo Brew with me where we drink beer/wine and walk around looking at all the animals. It’s a really great event the Zoo puts on as a fundraiser for specific animals each month and the first time either of us have gone. After a lap and a drink, we decide to go out for dinner and try yet another new place that’s sprung up while I was away in Chicago.

LOCATION: 295 Alexander St. Rochester, NY 14607

I’ve heard of this place being known well for it’s frozen alcoholic slushies which sound amazing to me but I’m driving and have a super low tolerance so after one drink and a lap around the zoo to walk it off I’ve decided to skip out on it this time, instead taking a few sips of Victoria’s drink and getting ready to eat to my heart’s content.

Our waitress tonight is super nice and helpful for our first visit here. Downstairs is the bar area and I’ve been to this place before when it was previously Mex, a Mexican themed restaurant that had killer margaritas back in my RIT days. Now it’s taken on a new shape as an Hawaiian tapas place with amazing alcoholic slushies. There’s a demographic their aiming for and I think they’ve hit it. We head upstairs instead to sit down at a table and while the dining area is pretty large and consists of a few different rooms, we are one of two or three tables eating. I guess everyone else is downstairs getting ready to drink.

Victoria is great and we go family style which is what this place is kind of known for with their tapas. I love trying a bunch of different dishes so tapas is like home to me and I’m super pumped by these Hawaiian inspired dishes. We order Mauna Pua which are Barbecue char sui pork in a sweet bun, Larb - a seasoned ground pork appetizer with lime and fresh herbs over lettuce, and Tofu Jap Chae which is a sweet and savory Korean noodle dish with spinach, mushroom, onion, red pepper, and carrot.

This asian blend speaks to us and we get super pumped to try it all and everything ends up being super amazing. Nothing is terribly out of left field and I feel like I’ve had these dishes before. The price range is great for the amount of food we’re getting and it’s actually really great bar food as well that soaks up alcohol and is super quick to make. We clear off a lot and end up taking a couple small boxes home with us. The Larb is plentiful and I wish it came with a couple more pieces of lettuce to eat it with but that’s easily fixed at home. The Mauna Pua is well balanced but I love those buns plain so I’m not hard to please and the Jap Chae is a great addition to round out or meal. I’d for sure some back again and enjoy the experience a lot, but maybe not on a Friday Night when the bars are about the get busy and parking get trickier with all the college kids coming in. I mean, I used to be one of them.

BOLTON - New Way Lunch

It’s 4th of July season and we’re back in Bolton Landing to celebrate on the lake with Caleb’s family. It’s a week of relaxing, boat rides, and a big family bbq one the 4th followed by fireworks. Caleb grew up in the area so we tend to drive a little bit out of the way to avoid all the tourists that hit in the summertime especially around the 4th. So he decided to take me to New Way Lunch in Warrensberg.

LOCATION: 3748 Main St. Warrensburg, NY 12885

Everything in this area of the Adirondacks is cute and small and family owned and New Way is no different. It’s a small building with a handful of tables and locals that know everyone else in the place. Any time we go anywhere Caleb points out someone he went to high school with or knows from working at all the local restaurants and boat shops. Everyone has their order ready to go without a menu so whenever I’m out, people know I’m not a local (not that being the only Asian in a sea of white people wasn’t a dead giveaway either).

New Way is known for their signature hot dogs and they’re a quick order. Right from the counter theres a little glass window where a local kid is warming up dogs and making orders. This is one of those places where people order two or three dogs and call it a day so I decide I’m going to be like a local and try one out. Caleb, on the other hand doesn’t really eat hot dogs so he goes with his standard Chicken Philly with french fries. '

The New Way Lunch Hot Dog is ‘World Famous since 1919’ and comes with mustard, onions, and a special signature meat sauce all for $1.65. At least I’m a cute cheap date. I order one without mustard (sorry, no condiments for me) and a small side of onion rings because Caleb says’s they’re great and once I get onion rings in my head they sound too good to not order.

The onion rings are perfect and are even served in a cute little fry basket meant for me. This hot dog smells amazing and I’m not disappointed at all. Everything is so simple and tastes amazing. I guess when you’ve been around for 100 years family owned, you get some things right. This doesn’t look like much food but I’m adequately filled. I was always a hamburger kid growing up but these hot dogs are growing on me hard core and I’m okay with that. New Way just might be a new favorite and a tradition I’ll have to make Caleb start with me anytime we come back to visit his family.

ROC - Taisho Bistro

I’m back in Rochester for a little while and ever since Christel and I got back from LA I’ve been craving Takoyaki like no other. Unfortunately for me, it’s much harder to find it in Rochester than it is in LA but after a little yelping, it’s time to try Taisho Bistro.

LOCATION: 100 Marketplace Dr. Henrietta, NY 14623

New restaurants have been popping up since I’ve been away in Chicago and Taisho is one of them for me. I set up a little date with my friend Victoria and we decide to meet up here. Victoria and I have been friends since high school and while she’s not crazy about octopus she’s down to try new places and enjoys asian food in general. We get to Taisho and the menu is vast. We each order our own main dishes but I add the Takoyaki that I’ve been dreaming about.

As I’ve mentioned in past posts, Takoyaki is a light batter thats cooked into a little ball form with other ingredients mixed in. Taisho Bistro markets theirs as “Osaka Style octopus ball with takoyaki sauce and mayo sauce” so this is made with green onions and the standard batter and octopus.

I had Victoria try one but she’s not a fan of octopus and didn’t make it through. I do appreciate her open mind and willingness to try something even though she has an aversion to one of the ingredients. She’s a champ.

This of course meant that I’d be eating 5 takoyaki balls with my meal but you get what you ask for and after months of craving this I wasn’t complaining. While it’s no TaNoTa, it wasn’t bad for Rochester and it hit the sweet spot of my craving for sure. The takoyaki was hot and still soft on the inside with really hearty bites of octopus cut inside. When I’m craving it again, I have a place to hit up on hand.

BOSTON - Cape Cod - Plymouth

I have been taken on a tour of Plymouth because apparently this is where my Aunt and Uncle lived when they had my first cousin 30 years ago. So historical. We took a drive around to see their old house and to check in with some family friends who have absolutely no idea who I am.

I had no clue that this is where they used to live, growing up everyone always just said Boston but had I known they lived closer to the Cape Cod area I would’ve had a different vision of their life. This place is of course beautiful and pretty tourist-y. Right on the water, there’s tons of little shops with souvenir t-shirts and ice cream stands. I love these kinds of places.

LOCATION: 15 Town Pier Plymouth, MA 02360

My Aunt loves seafood and neither of my cousins can stand it, so ever since I was little it was a treat when I would visit because she would have a seafood buddy to enjoy food with. My Uncle is impartial and enjoys it but doesn’t quite hit our excitement level. We walk into Wood’s Seafood on this cold and windy May day and get ready. This place is already busy with very few tables and many vultures looking to swoop in on the next one that opens up. We are one of them. Our group is 6 deep and finding something that seats all of us is a little tricky in this small dining room so we opt for the idea of splitting up if that works out for us. Luckily, we don’t have to do that. We all look at the menu and see what we’d like to order but while my Aunt and Uncle are in line my cousin and I circle the dining room waiting for the next opportunity. With some cooperation from other families and a little circling we manage to get lucky and score a row of 3 tables that would fit all of us perfectly while rearranging ourselves with other customers to get them seats for their groups too. It’s a serendipitous day.

This is where we go family style, my Aunt has ordered two lobsters (with french fries), little neck clams, and an order of fish fry. My cousin’s boyfriend opts for the fried clams and she, of course, gets the hot dog. A sad sight to see at this restaurant right on the ocean but some things you can’t change. I’m pretty excited and get my hands dirty cracking open lobsters and handing claws to everyone. It’s still early in the season so these lobsters are full of water and are a little small but we’re here and I’m determined to eat lobster and enjoy my first trip to the area. Nothing can bring me down. I love eating this kind of food and getting messy and I couldn’t be happier. By the end of the meal my cousin’s boyfriend is overly stuffed and likely scarred from having to eat more than his intended meal but this is how the family works. Welcome buddy.

After lobster we walk down the street intending to walk off our meal and be tourists. We hop into shops looking for magnets and other keepsakes. I score a lobster t-shirt and a tiny little lobster stuffed animal that looks a little more like a crawfish at this size but we can pretend. It’s cold but not too cold for us to stop for Ice Cream.

LOCATION: 120 Water St. Plymouth, MA 02360

We walk by a tiny little ice cream shop called Ziggy’s with seating for 10 inside and two teenagers behind the counter that most definitely should have an adult supervising them but it’s summertime and life is chill. It may be 60degrees but it’s never too cold for ice cream and while the wind blows outside, we are now equipped with slightly more layers and the building makes us feel like maybe it’s not so bad out. My Aunt is not amused by my need for ice cream in this weather and we can tell she’d rather be in warm and sunny Florida at this very moment but my Uncle humors me and amps up his excitement to match mine. This is why I am their unofficial favorite niece.

My uncle agrees to share a banana split with me and we rook my aunt into taking a few bites to help us out but we finish the whole thing. Apparently, my aunt is a sucker for a banana split and loves it deep down, just not today. Her love is seasonal and very weather dependent while mine runs deep. I’m not a fan of chocolate ice cream and tend to eat around it when it comes to things like this but neither my aunt or uncle mind and they let me modify our split to my tastes. We get a scoop of french vanilla, one of strawberry, and I substitute out the chocolate for a seasonal blueberry. We get all the toppings and dig in. Im my opinion, you can’t go wrong with ice cream and I’m always happy eating it, even in cold weather.

We wrap up the day with a little more shopping and my Uncle excitedly shows us plymouth rock as it starts to rain outside. That’s our cue to call it a day and head back to the airbnb full of lobster and ice cream.

BOSTON - CPK

I’ve finally done it! I’ve tried CPK - California Pizza Kitchen. We don’t have one in Rochester and I’d never heard of it before I went to Chicago. Funnily enough, Christel was the one that first told me about it because apparently growing up in Manilla in the Philippines she had CPK. Rochester, why do you do these things to me.

We spotted one down the street from the Boston Duck Boat tours and we figured we’d hit a later boat tour and stop for some pizza since I mentioned I wanted to try it out. CPK and Duck Boats - we’re tourists today.

LOCATION: 800 Boylston St. Boston, MA 02199

Clearly, CPK is a chain so they have a standard menu but I enjoyed my first trip here. We each order our own dishes but my Aunt and Uncle work out a combo between them that lets them share and taste everything. Partnered off for variety, I dig it. I also don’t eat my full pizza but instead manage to pawn and trade pieces for other people’s dishes. We roll hard as a family and everything belongs to everyone else. Nothing is safe. I order a Shrimp Scampi Pizza because I’m in Boston and we’re by the sea so seafood is a must this trip while the summer approaches. This pizza has lemon-garlic shrimp with caramelized onions, Mozzarella, Parmesan and red chili, and is topped with fresh arugula and wild Greek oregano and I go for the cauliflower crust because I’m on vacation and technically I’m not paying. But like I said, I share! This was a pretty good pizza. I’m a fan of cauli crusts because they tend to be crisper and crunchier which is something I love in a nice thin pizza. The shrimp was a good choice and I feel like arugula can be a little peppery but this was a good amount (and easy to pick off when I find it to be too much.) CPK doesn’t feel like anything to special and I don’t think I missed out on TOO much growing up without it but I’m pretty satisfied that I’ve gotten to try it now.