Fewer Words Friday

If you want more words about my delicious seasonal dinner at Ala Shanghai, let me direct you toward the delightful FUSSYlittleORGANIZER and always-charming dining companion Albany Jane.   Aaaand Table Hopping.  (Our dinner was news.)  I hadn't seen Steph since the Tour de Soft Serve, and we had a lot of running talking to do with poor J in between us.

 Menu. Drool.

 Some explanations.

Smoked fish and astor salad were my favorite from this plate!

Soup dumplings.  XLB.  Obviously. 

beefy soup

Shrimp (not our favorite food) and luffa (very very fun and delicious)

Sliced chicken with snow fungus and celery

Crazy pork belly. I don't care for the glossy fat on top, but I'd make many guests happy if I fork-shredded what's underneath and slapped it on a roll.  Sammich heaven.  PS, bebeh bok choy.

Diced sea bass in a brown sauce. I loved this dish.  It was light, tasty, and the dish never seemed to empty despite the heapings I kept adding to my plate. Very similar in nature to Mary Poppins' bag.

Soft shell crab - not mine or J's favorite, we're just not huge crab/clam/oyster/shrimp/lobster people.  We prefer our crab to be in cake form, perhaps incorporated into a benedict. 

Chrysanthemum jelly with lychee.  Loved.  Both the jelly AND the lychee.  They look like pearl onions but they are sweet juicy crunchy 'splosions of happy.

Not as few words as I expected.  So many memories of deliciousness and good conversation coming back at me...

Karavalli

One of my coworkers goes to Karavalli once a week.  Some people might find this mundane and redundant, but let me be clear: he often switches it up by alternately visiting the Saratoga location and then back to Latham, closer to where we live. 

I really can't blame him.  It's just so good.  The portions are enormous, you feed yourself and then some with leftovers to bring back the good memories at a later date, and the service is prompt and friendly.  The place is always busy, humming with a good energy that just makes you feel glad.  Maybe it's the blue "sky"?

If you've been around a while, you know we love Indian.  Upscale modern Indian from Rasika, cheap takeout from Delhi Dhaba, sit-down traditional from Delhi Club, or crazy colors pizzazz at Tandoori Nights.  We haven't met much Indian cuisine that we don't like, but we had high hopes at our new digs.  And the menu had some items we'd never seen before--apps go well beyond the typical samosas and pakoras.  Let's discuss below.

Mmm giant beer + buttery naan.  J's pale hand cannot wait to spoon some palak.

Above you'll find Bhel Poori, a typical chaat or snack.  Rice puffs, chopped onion, potato, coriander leaves, and tamarind. It's odd how they left out how it's made with crack, but clearly there's an addictive substance in it.  I shovel it first to my plate, then quickly (really, before it really arrives) into my mouth as if a famine is going to set in at any moment.  I'm like Katniss when she first leaves District 12--insatiable, despite the bounty before me.  

Crispy tamarind eggplant with a similar flavor profile to the bhel poori, but with yogurt, too. 

Lamb korma.  Delightful, but not as favorite in my heart as the apps.

A rock solid palak paneer.  The tandoori chicken was also a delight.  Seriously, one appetizer + two entrees + naan and you'll still have leftovers.  Which means if you're us and you get two apps + two entrees + naan you won't have to cook dinner the next day, which is nice.

Our current obsessions with Karavalli and Ala Shanghai (rainbow shredded chicken WHAT'S UP) make me super meh about going to a random Italian or new Americanish place on our hypothetical list.  Why pay $20ish per entree for something that might be good when I can have 6 soup dumplings for $4, and delicious entrees with guaranteed fab flavors (and leftovers) for $10-12?  Recently it's been Vietnamese, Indian, Thai, Chinese, repeat.  It kinda makes me want to move to Latham.

Karavalli
9B Johnson Road
Latham, NY  (add'l locations in Saratoga)

Ala Shanghai

Sometimes when a restaurant has great reviews, everyone blogs it, etc etc, I get overpumped.  My expectations are entirely too high, even unreasonably high.  But two recent visits to Ala Shanghai were really informative.  I can--and will--bring most of my visitors here.  Maybe not on their first visit, but eventually.  According to T, Ala Shanghai has American-friendly Chinese dishes that taste better than they do most other places, but also some authentic traditional foods.

Even though I had my real camera at our second outing, I spared our guests my invasiveness.  Also, we were really hungry.  Enjoy my iPhone pics below.

Cold sesame noodles--for some reason I was feeling noodley, which is way more J-like than me-like.  He happily agreed to ordering this app.

We also got the soup dumplings.  I wish that Ala Shanghai made soup dumplings with chicken and also a veggie version for my pork-averse and vegetarian friends.  I'd never eaten soup dumplings before (gasp!) and there's something really awesome about biting into a delicious dumpling and having yummy hot soup come out.  We aren't that good at the keep-it-on-the-spoon-and-take-a-bite method (please see Joe Shanghai's web site for instructions and a cartoon), so we put the whole dumpling in our mouths and then sort of bite carefully.  A quick bite will cause hot soup to shoot into your throat, which can cause choking and discomfort.

I don't even dip them in anything.  I could eat an order of these as my entree.  [Or two.]

The Peking duck at Ala is a lovely production.  Instead of dinky flat pancakes you get these pillowy steamed pockets of joy.  As is common, the duck is sliced before us, but here the sandwich is also assembled with sauce and crunchy veggies.

On our first visit we got soup dumplings, sesame noodles, Peking duck, and sesame beef for two people.  We didn't touch the beef, and ended up enjoying it for lunch or dinner the next day. 

The second time we brought two friends and got the dumplings, Singapore rice noodles, Peking duck, baby bok choy with mushrooms, and sesame chicken.  Everything was delicious, we ate it all, and the bill worked out to about $15 per person including tax and tip.  In-cray-ab-lay.

Ala Shanghai is also good for a bit of a larger group--they have some bigger round tables for a group of 6-8, and the taste, price, and free tea will please crowds of all ages.

Ala Shanghai
468 Troy Schenectady Road
Latham, NY
They take reservations! 518-783-8188

Bella-Napoli

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! (Or at least got out of work early on Friday to jumpstart the weekend.)

We recently found ourselves starving in between errands at Latham Farms.  A quick Yelp (with both positive reviews and non) brought us to Bella Napoli.  We needed a sandwich, and frankly, it was 3pm.  Not really time to sit down at most restaurants.  I was encouraged by the description of Italian subs and desserts with a little market.  Sound familiar?  But don't go there.  This is not the Italian Store.  On the downside, the bread is way too soft for me, and on the upside the line wasn't 40 minutes long.  At Italian Store I'm all about the hard roll, and I'm not the only one.  But it is a decent, inexpensive sandwich with a little pack of chips and a pickle, and the bakery case is good for staring.  With the move and many weeks of an interrupted exercise routine, we decided to forgo the doughnuts this time.  Apparently their doughnuts are delicious when warmed. 

Bella-Napoli Italian Bakery
672 New Loudon Rd
Latham, NY