Flatbush: Delicious Filipino Desserts at Purple Yam

T and I went to a Filipino place for dinner recently that is right around the corner from us.  It is called Purple Yam and some of my Filipino friends from New Jersey said that they travel all the way out to Brooklyn to eat there.

These are the dishes we ate:

Lumpia Shanghai.  Purple Yam's Lumpia Shanghai are deep-fried spring rolls stuffed with pork, mushrooms, carrots, and jicama and served with a sweet-sour pineapple dipping sauce.  There was a nice meatiness to these spring rolls.  The sourness of the pineapple sauce was a bit of a shock but the sauce, combined with the fresh carrots and daikon, made the dish quite distinctive and rather refreshing for a fried spring roll.

Lumpia Shanghai ★★★★☆

Tocino Sliders.  This was a great blend of meat, fruit, vegetables and bread.  The sugar-achuete cured pork blended was tender and meaty.  The sweetness of the cantaloupe and the crunchiness of the cucumber and jicama made the sliders surprisingly fresh, and the sweet, soft bread just added to the contrasting textures and flavors.  A nice appetizer.
 

Tocino Sliders ★★★★☆

Chicken Adobo.  Purple Yam's Chicken Adobo is delicious.  The chicken was soft and tender but it was the sauce that really makes the dish distinctive.  At first, the sourness of the sauce is shocking, but we could not stop pouring it on our rice.  The sauce is actually pretty simple, just vinegar, soy sauce and garlic.  But by the end, we had smothered as much sauce as we could on the rice and devoured it.  Yum!

Chicken Adobo ★★★★☆

Halo Halo.  Purple Yam's halo halo is an ice dessert with sweet beans, palm seed, cocogel, agar agar, coconut sport, jackfruit topped with flan and purple yam ice cream.  This is absolutely the best dessert I have had all summer!  This halo halo was so unbelievably refreshing.  The combination of ice, fruit, and sweet, gummy jelly things was a nice blend of textures of flavors.  But it was the ice cream that set this dessert apart.  Purple Yam makes its own ice creams and their purple yam flavor is fantastic.  It's creamy, earthy, sweet, but not too sweet, and blends so well with all of the other parts of the dessert.  It's a must have every time we go to Purple Yam.

Halo Halo ★★★★★

8/19/13 UPDATE:

Went back to Purple Yam for Sunday brunch with T and a friend from Boston.  This is what we ate:

Beef Tapa with Garlic Fried Rice and Eggs.  Beef tapa is air-dried beef.  It has an interesting texture. A little drier than stir-fried beef, Purple Yam's version was sweet and chewy.  It was pretty tasty and with the eggs and rice, made for a nice brunch dish.

Beef Tapa with Garlic Fried Rice and Eggs ★★★★☆

Pan-Fried Beet and Corn Wontons.  Never had beet and corn wontons before.  These were slightly sweet with a soft, mushy interior.  Couldn't really taste the corn.  A creative wonton, but not terribly tasty.

Pan-Fried Beet and Corn Wontons ★★★☆☆

Buko Pie with Macapuno Ice Cream.  Buko Pie is made with young coconut.  It is similar to a coconut cream pie but made with young coconut that is tougher and firmer.  The filling is also not as creamy since there is no cream in it.  Purple Yam's Buko Pie was warm, soft and tasty.  The coconut pieces were bigger than I expected and didn't add that much.  The Macapuno Ice Cream though is a type of coconut ice cream and complemented the pie nicely.  A nice dessert. 

Buko Pie with Macapuno Ice Cream ★★★★☆

Mango Tart with Mango Ice Cream.  Fantastic! This was not what I expected when I ordered the Mango Tart but this was totally awesome.  The filling is warm, soft delicious mango.  The pastry is thin and soft but topped with a layer of crisp, caramelized sugar.  The ice cream, which is homemade, was also really good.  Everything about this dessert was perfect!

Mango Tart with Mango Ice Cream ★★★★★

 Purple Yam's food is fun, original and tasty.  Good food overall, with delicious desserts.

Williamsburg: Sweet and Savory Ribs at Traif

T and I recently decided to go out for a nice dinner in Williamsburg.  We decided to try Traif, a place that gets great reviews on Yelp.  The dishes at Traif are small, kind of like Tapas, but with American food.

Here are the dishes we ate:

Cheese Platter.  This was just okay.  The blue cheese was good but the two soft cheeses didn't have much flavor.

Cheese Platter ★★★☆☆

Strawberry-Cinnamon Glazed Berkshire Baby Back Ribs.  This was the best thing we ate.  The sauce on the ribs is great.  You can pick the meat right off the bone.  The meat has a slight crispness on the outside but is really tender on the inside.

Strawberry-Cinnamon Glazed Berkshire Baby Back Ribs ★★★★★

Seared Dayboat Scallops, Snap & English Pea Risotto, Caper-Tomato-Lemon Brown Butter.  The scallops were nicely seared, the risotto complemented the scallops nicely and the caper-tomato-lemon brown butter gave the dish a refreshing hint of sourness.

Scallops ★★★★☆

Tomatoes and Creamed Corn.  This dish was a really nice blend of sour and sweet, hot and cold, and with a slight hint of sourness.

Tomateos and Creamed Corn ★★★★☆

Sauteed Broccoli Rabe, Portabello Mushrooms, Truffle Toast, Fried Egg, Aged Asiago.   A really good dish.  The toast and the egg make you think of breakfast, the mushrooms were really good, the broccoli rabe gave the dish that nice leafy, slightly bitter flavor and the gravy-like sauce added a touch of creaminess to the dish.  I really enjoyed this dish.

Sauteed Broccoli Rabe, Portabello Mushrooms, Truffle Toast, Fried Egg, Aged Asiago ★★★★☆

BBQ Braised Short Rib Sliders, Sweet Potato Fries, Smoked Paprika Aioli. The short ribs had a nice kick although they were a little mushy.  The sweet potato fries were crispy and delicious and tasted even better when dipped in the creamy paprika aioli.

Short Rib Sliders ★★★★☆

Bacon Doughnuts and Coffee Ice Cream.  The doughnuts themselves were sweet and fluffy.  The bacon crumble topping, on the other hand, was salty and crunchy.  They proved a nice contrast to each other, as did the ice cream, which had a really really strong coffee flavor.  All in all, a really interesting blend of flavors that worked well together.

Bacon Doughnuts and Coffee Ice Cream ★★★★☆

 A meal at Traif is a really fun and tasty experience.  The standout is the Strawberry-Cinnamon Glazed Baby Back Ribs, but Traif has many other tasty and fun dishes too.

Fort Greene: Tasty Cronuts at Le Petit Bakery

I was so looking forward to trying my very first cronut ever.  But there was no way I was waiting in line for hours at Dominique Ansell's bakery in Manhattan.  Luckily, Le Petit Bakery is the first place in Brooklyn to come out with their very own version of the cronut.  So I drove out early on a Saturday morning to get some.  I was so happy that there was no line at all.

On this day, Le Petit Bakery was selling three types of cronuts (they call them Squats): Vanilla Sprinkle, Chocolate Bacon and Lemon Meringue.  I got two of each.

My Box of Squats

Vanilla Sprinkle.  Very tasty.  The cronut is stuffed with vanilla pudding, which is a surprise when you first bite into it.  The pudding is very tasty though and right away gives this treat a distinctive texture and flavor.  The pudding flavor kind of bursts in your mouth.  The only problem though is that the cronut is way too greasy, enough that it might turn off some folks.

 

Vanilla Sprinkle Squat ★★★★☆

Chocolate Bacon.  Like the Vanilla Sprinkle, the Chocolate Bacon filling tastes like pudding.  But this is certainly outstanding chocolate pudding!  The chocolate flavor just bursts into your mouth!  It is both creamy and refreshing.  The crunchy bacon topping and sweet icing contrast nicely with the creamy chocolate filling.  Again, the cronut is way too greasy but this is still an excellent treat.

Chocolate Bacon Squat ★★★★☆

Lemon Meringue.  This cronut is quite different from the other two.  The filling is just like the filling in a lemon meringue pie.  What I really like about this cronut is that Le Petit Bakery didn't hold back on the sour.  The filling is really tart and delicious and is a nice alternative to the other cronuts on the menu, which tend to be on the sweeter side.

Lemon Meringue Squat ★★★★☆

Overall, the cronuts at Le Petit Bakery are really tasty and full of flavor.  The only thing I would suggest is to try to make them less greasy.