Saigon Cafe

Over the weekend, Nicole and I took a walk in the Elmwood village to enjoy the nice weather, catch a beer, and find something to eat for dinner. We decided to go with “Saigon Cafe”, formally known as “Saigon Bangkok” and now under new management. This place offers very nice sidewalk seating and always looked like a pleasant place to get something to eat on a nice day.

We arrived at around 6:30pm and we were able to sit outside. The menu offered a wide variety of choices and I was eager to try something new. I haven’t eaten Thai/Vietnamese food as a non-vegetarian so I was going to try something with meat. I went with the Spicy Thai Duck and Nicole went with the Pad Ka Pow Tofu. We were not all that hungry so we didn’t get an appetizer and we had just come from a few rounds of prior beers, so we went with water. The thing that we noticed immediately was that the food came out super fast. I don’t even think it was even ten minutes. The two dishes were placed in front of us and smelled delicious. The plate presentation was fantastic, although the portions were smaller than you would expect, Nicole’s more so than mine. My duck was cooked perfectly and the vegetables were very fresh. I had a bite of Nicole’s entree and hers seemed very good also, the tofu was perfect.

Spicy Thai Duck

Always something to see in the Elmwood Village.

With smaller portions being the only issue I had with this place, the positives definitely out weigh the negative. My over-all opinion? If you are into this type of cuisine, head down to Saigon Cafe on a nice day, enjoy the out door seating, order an appetizer with your dinner, and you will have a really great dining experience. The service was really fast and we would definitely go again. Buffalo’s best Thai food? I disagree. “Saigon Bangkok” located on Niagara Fall Blvd is far more inexpensive, just as classy (if not classier), and cheaper. But if you are on Elmwood, Saigon Cafe is there, and it’s good.

Saigon Cafe

1098 Elmwood Ave

Buffalo, NY 14222

716-883-1252

June 6, 2011 0

Welcome New Readers! A Caprese Pizza!

Hello to all my new readers! The amount of readers has greatly increased over the past few weeks so before I get started on today’s post, I want to re-introduce myself. My name is Aaron and I am the owner/operator of The Super Sweet Shirt Co. which is an online T-shirt and Baby Clothes company that I run here in Buffalo, NY. You can see my things at supersweetshirts.com. I don’t use this blog to promote products, unless I’m doing a demo on the creative process for a new design. I mainly write beer reviews, wine reviews, restaurant reviews for Buffalo and other cities that I travel to, recipes for things that I cook, and home repair projects. This Monday we will be closing on our house so there will be plenty of things to write about and things that I can share. So if any of these things interest you, bookmark this page. Let’s get started with tonight’s dinner: “Caprese Tofu Pizza”.

Here is what you will need:

A Pizza Stone

Balsamic Vinegar

Roma Tomatoes

Mozzarella Cheese

Tofu (optional)

Minced Garlic

Olive Oil

Pizza Dough

Basil

Ground Pepper

Corn Meal

Sprinkle some corn meal onto your surface. Take your dough that you have and depending on how large it comes in size, cut it accordingly. If the dough sticks to your surface, then use more corn meal, it should not stick or become difficult to work with on your surface. Here in Buffalo, Wegmans has amazing pizza dough but each package comes with a large quantity, so for this pizza I cut it in half. With any dough, you want to roll it, whether in your hand or with a pin. This squeezes out any air bubbles in the dough so that you won’t have any undesirable, gigantic bubbles on your pizza while its in the oven. After you get the air out of the dough, you want to pound it out.

If you don’t have a pizza background, you can use a rolling pin. After you pound your dough out, preheat the oven, with the stone in it, at 475 degrees. We want to get that stone hot so that the bottom of the pizza gets nice and stiff. That way we don’t have a soggy pizza. Pizzas with a decent amount of tomatoes or with greasy things like pepperoni can create a lot of liquid while cooking and if the pizza doesn’t stiffen up, it will get sloppy. Transfer your dough that you pounded out onto your pizza spatula, or something else that you can easily transfer a pizza with ingredients on it. You’ll slide this onto the stone after the ingredients have been put into place. Make sure you have a generous amount of corn meal on the spatula especially if your pizza is going to be heavy. This will allow the pizza to slide off the spatula and onto the stone without sticking. This takes some practice so if its your first time, use a lot of corn meal.

(Glass of wine optional)

After you corn meal your spatula, place your dough on it and spread olive oil over the top until it is coated nicely. Make sure you leave a ring around the pizza that doesn’t have olive oil on it which would be your crust. Sprinkle minced garlic all over the oiled area. The amount is up to you, we love garlic so we went heavy. I didn’t put a specific amount for any of the ingredients because I believe that it should be up to the person cooking and what they would prefer. Take your Roma tomatoes, slice them up, and place them around the pizza until the entire area is covered. The next part is clearly optional. My girlfriend was in the mood for a little more substance when we were making this so we added cubed pieces of precooked tofu. We then covered the pizza with fresh slices of mozzarella cheese, a sprinkle of ground pepper, some basil, and a drizzle of Balsamic Vinegar.

Take your pizza and slide it onto the stone in the oven, close the door, and lower the temp to 450 degrees. The pizza will take about 10 minutes to cook. You can tell when its done when the cheese is nice and melted and the crust is a golden brown. Remember, you don’t want to use too much dough at the temperature we are cooking at or else the pizza will look done, but the dough will be “doughy” on the inside. Enjoy!

Check back tomorrow for a review of Saigon Bangkok on Elmwood Ave in Buffalo NY, a Vietnamese/Thai restaurant that has been around for a while but have never had a chance to get to until this weekend. Also check out below as I captured a video of the party scene at our grocery store. If you are not familiar with Wegmans, it is unlike any grocery store in the world. The one near us jams out ridiculous music in the cafe portion of the store. The guys behind Nicole were having a blast during lunch! Cheers!

June 5, 2011 0

Do You Feel Lucky?

This weekend was busy but after good food, friends, and BBQ I was able to get the new Dirty Harry shirt finished. It came out awesome and I love it. This is the newest edition of my “Justice” line for shirts. I added splashes of red for something a little different.

This is now available at all of our online stores including our home site supersweetshirts.com

May 31, 2011 0

A Welcoming "Atmosphere!"

A new restaurant has opened on Allen St. here in Buffalo, NY and tonight Nicole and I decided to give it a try. The place is called “Atmosphere @ 62” and at first we had no idea what to expect. We couldn’t find a menu online anywhere and we had a hard time finding out anything about it in general. We walked into the restaurant and were immediately greeted by a nice gentlemen, presumably the owner, and a woman behind the bar informing us that they were still waiting to get their alcohol license. I immediately threw a fit yelling and screaming about how preposterous is was to even have the nerve to call themselves “open”. I stormed out of the building furious. Actually no, I didn’t really do that. We were fine with that and they sat us down and handed us the menu. I was excited to try something new tonight. The place had a mildly artsy, classy, urban feel to it. They sat us at the window which was pleasantly distracting. The Allen St. area has gotten a lot better but there is still the occasional freak show, schizo character that will walk by staring into the restaurant. I enjoyed the feel of the place and was comfortable inside. Not knowing anything about the place, I was worried about attire and dress code, but the place was dress casual. The one peculiar thing to note is that the tables seem a bit on the small side, small enough that our menus overlapped when we had them open on the table at the same time.

We started off with an appetizer and decided to go with the Peach Pizza Pita. This seemed so different, that I had to try it, and I’m not even all that crazy about peaches. It consisted of marinated peaches, mascarpone cheese, sage, and honey on pita dough. It was incredible. The cheese was delicious and not overpowering with the peaches to add a subtle sweetness that really balanced everything out nicely. It was really tasty. Each entree came with soup or salad. The soup of the day was a pepper gouda soup. I love gouda cheese so this was perfect. While we were waiting for the soup, they brought us out some fresh bread with oil. The oil had fresh garlic, herbs, and balsamic vinegar.

The soup came out next and it smelled great. The service was excellent and everything was brought out in a timely manner and our water was constantly refreshed. Our soup was very tasty, something that I thought would be great in the winter. The flavor was fantastic and the only thing we found to be a bit overpowering was the spice. This soup was really spicy. Nicole likes hot food, and she said that this was even almost too hot for her. Minus the intense heat, this soup was delicious.

Pepper Gouda Soup

Shortly after we finished our soup, the main course came out. Nicole ordered the penne alfredo with sun-dried tomatoes and mushrooms, in a white wine alfredo sauce. I ordered the baked pork chop stuffed with apple walnut and apple brandy cream sauce, served with roasted potato and vegetable. Her alfredo pasta was creamy and delicious. With low expectations of this normally boring dish, it was surprisingly delicious. My pork chop was great too. It was so great that I got too excited and while I was cutting into the pork, I slipped and sprayed pork remnants all over Nicole’s face. I’m not very graceful. The apple stuffing was a great companion to the perfectly cooked pork chop. It was a great piece of meat, not under cooked and not dry. It was really great.

Stuffed Pork Chop

Everything was genuinely fresh and delicious here and we were happy to have such a great, creative addition to the restaurant scene here in Buffalo. Once the alcohol license comes in, it will complete the puzzle for this place and become a really great dining experience. Welcome Atmosphere@62!

Atmosphere @ 62

62 ALLEN
Buffalo, NY 14202

(716) 881-0062

May 29, 2011 1

One of My Favorite Quick Eats: "Tokyo Shanghi Bistro"

Like many Americans, I love Chinese food. There’s just something great about it. It doesn’t matter if I’m eating in a sit down restaurant or standing in a tiny takeout place gazing up at the severely outdated pictures of entrees from the 70’s with a kitchen that would probably fail every health inspection imaginable. I love it. I also love Sushi. I could eat infinite amounts of Sushi, especially if its good. Located on Elmwood Avenue, in an area where there are great places for food in every direction, is the Toyko Shanghi Bistro, a fantastic place for Chinese and Japanese cuisine. The menu is gigantic, the prices are low, and the service is fantastic. On Tuesday nights they offer half price on all Sushi Rolls. Nicole and I have been here many times but this is the first I’ve been back since starting this blog so I wanted to share the experience.
If you have been reading my blog regularly you would know that just recently I started eating meat again. Its strange how after not eating meet for 3 years, its like I’m trying everything again for the first time. Tonight I wanted to get an old favorite of mine, General Tso’s chicken. Nicole was going to get the Vegetarian Duck which is one of my favorite things they make. Its made of bean curd, Shiitake mushrooms, and Chinese cabbage. I’m not quite sure how it at all resembles duck, but minus that, if you’re a vegetarian its phenomenal. I ordered a glass of the Trivento Reserve Malbec from Argentina and Nicole had just water. At Nicole’s job, the office enjoys wine at the end of the day, every Friday, right in the office. Nice right? She was all ready a few glasses deep. I on the other hand could not wait to wind down. We started off with the “Fantasy Roll”. I’m not sure why its called that as it sounds adult oriented, but it was delicious. It’s a Sushi roll made of fresh tuna, avocado, and tobiko. Nicole wanted to try Sushi with some sort of fish because she had never had it. I have to admit, its amusing to watch her try these new things because her facial expressions reveal every emotion and reaction that results in whatever new thing she tries. She ended up liking it, as did I. The Sushi was fresh with a great cut of fish, and full of flavor.


The “Fantasy Roll”

General Tso’s Chicken


Vegetarian Duck

Unfortunately I discovered that I don’t really like chicken like I used to. After talking about this over dinner, it’s not fair for me to write anything negative about my dish. I can’t truly tell you if was great General Tso or not. All I can say is that it looked great and that I don’t like chicken. I can also say that everything I’ve ordered from this restaurant in the past has been quality and delicious. If you are in Buffalo, NY and you want Sushi or Chinese, or both at the same time, stop in here for a cheap, delicious lunch or dinner.

Tokyo Shanghi Bistro

494 Elmwood Avenue

Buffalo, NY 14222

716-886-3839

May 28, 2011 0

New onesie and Toddler T-shirt

With the insanity of buying a house and everything that’s been going on, its been tough to add new items to the site and my stores. For a while now I’ve wanted to make a hockey related onesie that would be awesome. I wanted to do something old school so I decided to draw up the Hanson brothers from the movie Slap Shot. Initially my design consisted of the three characters and underneath them was the word “Hockey”. I went to Nicole with this idea and she said that it wasn’t enough. She said that it looked like three dudes in an Emo band. I of course got super angry and started pouting like a baby, angry at the criticism I had indeed requested. This reaction was most likely the result of working too many hours and a boat load of stress but the fact of the matter is, she was right. With the style of screen printing that I do, images that I do of people need to be done just right or they don’t actually look right. Sometimes it becomes hard to even interpret who the person is. So I held off on the design. Later that night we were watching clips of the movie on Youtube and it hit me. This isn’t just about hockey, but its about old school, old time hockey! So that’s what I decided to go with. I also decided to get artsy with it and add a second color splash of blood on their faces. I love this design. This is now available in all of our online stores and on our website.

May 26, 2011 0

Bambino Bar and Kitchen

Downtown Buffalo on Franklin St., in a building that was once a restaurant called “Duo”, is now the home of a new and exciting place to eat: “Bambino Bar and Kitchen”. This 4500 sq foot building is impressive and at the very top is a wonderful rooftop bar that can make waiting for a table an easy experience for anyone, especially if if the weather is nice. We were given an hour wait at around 7:00pm Saturday night so we had a cocktail on the roof and really enjoyed ourselves. Having just recently opened, there were things about the restaurant that I would normally criticize heavily, but this time I will be forgiving. Although there were many negatives about this place that would normally prevent me from going back, the positives at this place were very strong, particularly the food. The limited selection for drinks on the roof was a negative for me. If you wanted a standard club drink or bad beer you were all set up there, but anything else and you were out of luck. I played it safe and had a Gin and Tonic and Nicole tried to order a Tom Collins (old school) which they failed at due to lack of ingredients. The bartender made a variation of one that was pretty bad. We ended up getting approached by the hostess telling us our table was ready. The hour wait had turned into about 25 minutes which was O.K. by me. Our friends had arrived and we all sat at our table.

It was time to order a real drink and I started off with a Southern Tier IPA and Nicole had ordered a beer that was made with artichoke liqueur which was strange. She loved it as it resembled more of a Belgian style beer in taste and sweetness. The drink selection on the menu consisted of local and regional beers along with really authentic Italian cocktails. The food menu was very diverse and they had some really different choices. From bone marrow appetizers to wood-fired pizzas and other entrees, there was plenty to choose from. With pizza being my specialty, I’m always first to try a restaurant’s pizza. I ordered the Prosciutto pizza and Nicole had ordered the Potato Pizza. We started off with a Caprese salad that was out of this world. Whats so great about a Caprese salad? It’s just mozzarella cheese and tomato right? Bambino Bar and Kitchen makes all of their mozzarella cheese, homemade, in the restaurant. It was amazing. I had low expectations for the pizza mainly because I’m so picky. I expect a lot from a pizza, in fact, I’m a pizza snob. I actually feel that its arrogant to put a pizza on a menu that is sub par. Its embarrassing to me. Wood-fired pizzas are the latest craze. Everyone is doing them and most places I have been do them terribly. Not Bambino. Both of our pizzas were made with incredibly fresh ingredients and bursting with flavor. They were absolutely delicious.

The only major problem with the place was the service. Again, this is a new place. Our server seemed to be the most experienced and we often saw her directing a very young staff which often took her attention away from her own tables, one of them being ours. By the time we sat and finished eating, we had been sitting there for over 3.5 hours. This wasn’t because we were getting multiple drinks and really soaking it all in, in fact, we passed on ordering desert because we didn’t want to end up waiting another hour. The service was excruciatingly slow and everything took forever but because the place just opened, there will be kinks, but the food is outstanding and I highly recommend coming here if you are ever in Buffalo, NY.

Bambino Bar and Kitchen

297 Franklin Street
Buffalo, NY 14202

716-240-9851

May 25, 2011 0

Acropolis: It Looks Great.

Every time we take a stroll down Elmwood Avenue here in Buffalo, Ny we always walk past the newly renovated “Acropolis” restaurant, one of many Greek restaurants in our area. Ever since the place was remolded it always appears to be busy with people enjoying their food weather its indoors or outside in their new eating area along the Elmwood sidewalk. Saturday morning we decided to give it a try for breakfast. When we walked in we both noticed the attractive Bloody Marys in front of people. We both immediately wanted one so when we were sat at our table, that was the first thing we ordered.

The Bloody Marys were acceptable and could have used a little more heat as they were a bit mild. The waitress was very pleasant and they staff seemed to be friendly and outgoing. We then placed the order for our food. Nicole ordered a spinach and feta omelet with home fries and I had order the grilled flat pita with eggs, cheddar cheese and ham.

The food was delivered in a timely fashion and looked great. Both of our meals were extremely bland. Nicole’s food was so bland the only flavor that popped when you took a bite of it was the flavor of oil. It was really tough to eat, and she was only able to eat a portion of it. Mine was so bad that I would have had a tastier breakfast eating a microwaved breakfast sandwich from the grocery store. It was really something. My first thought after eating this awful food was, “At least at the old Acropolis, its appearance was so unattractive that it wouldn’t have been such a surprise that the food was so awful.”. The new remodeled Acropolis restaurant is a step in the right direction and looks great on them main strip, they just need to improve the food. On the plus side they did offer some unique specials that we didn’t notice until after we ordered. There was an avocado omelet and a few other different items that would almost convince me to try it once more. Almost.

May 24, 2011 0

Good Weekend.

The weekend is already gone and over but ended up being quite eventful. Friday night I wanted to make dinner for Nicole. She had an entire week of really long days at work and wasn’t getting home Friday until late. I decided to dive into the thousands of recipe sites online, once again ending up on the Post Punk Kitchen website, a vegan cooking site that has some really great recipes. I didn’t get this recipe from their site, but got the idea to do so from their forum. I decided to make a Vegan Philly Cheese Steak Bomber, something we had on our trip to Philadelphia a while back that no restaurant here can seem to do correctly. When the Eights Bistro opened up here in Buffalo, they had one on their menu and we were very excited. While we love the Eights Bistro, this was not a good menu item as we were served with hoagie roll filled with mushrooms. I was determined to do it correctly. The recipe was straight forward:

1 pack of Seitan

Mushrooms

Green Peppers

Onions

Provolone Cheese

I didn’t include amounts or measurements because there are no rules for this. You just make it, and you make it as nasty as you possibly can using generous amounts of oil, salt, and pepper. The secret to making this successfully it to accept the fact that this meal you are making is flat out not healthy, so go all out! I diced up the peppers and onions, chopped up the mushrooms into small pieces, shredded up the Seitan, and placed it all on my griddle with generous amounts of oil salt and pepper. It then cooks until the veggies are soft and the Seitan starts to brown, constantly mixing and chopping everything up with the spatula.

Right before you pull it all off of the griddle, you place full slices of provolone cheese over the top of the ingredients. Once the cheese starts to melt pull it all off and place it into a bowl mixing the melting cheese in with the rest of the ingredients. That’s it! Place the tasty creation onto a roll and enjoy.

Check back tomorrow especially if you are a reader in the Buffalo area. Nicole and I spent a gorgeous Saturday morning in the Elmwood Village at Acropolis. Acropolis used to be a little Greek dive that was renovated and expanded into a cool, classy looking place. Will the food match up to its stellar new appearance?

May 23, 2011 0

A Drink at Vesuvio: Rogue Dead Guy Ale

Jack Kerouac Alley, once a side street known for frequent garbage dumping but is now a little gateway of culture connecting Chinatown and North Beach. Formally known as Alder Alley, this convenient little connection was renamed after Jack Kerouac, the famous beat writer who used to hang out there. The walkway is now filled with engraved Western and Chinese poems from many poets including Kerouac himself.

At the end of this alleyway on Columbus street is a little bar called Vesuvio, known for being a hangout to beat celebrities like Jack Kerouac, Dylan Thomas, and Neal Cassady. Inside, cluttered with art, posters, and artifacts, was a funky little bar with balcony seating and a decent drink menu. We had arrived early in the afternoon so the place was fairly empty when we got there, but after a casual drink and some conversation, the regulars seemed to trickle in.
It was here I had my first beer from Rogue, a craft brewery from Newport, Oregon. This was a nice little break from the heavy I.P.A. consumption I had been doing in San Francisco. This would be a great beer to have with food as it is relatively mild in flavor intensity. The beer poured a nice orange/amber with little head. It had a refreshing smell of fruits like apricot and citrus but with faint smells of malt. This was a good casual beer to have, my only suggestion would be to intensify the flavor a bit as I found it to be a bit too mild.