Coffee & Tea Festival NYC

I had a great time at this festival. There were many exhibitors and demonstrations.

Tickets for the festival were $20 for one day, but I used a promo code and got mine for $10. 

Also the first 1,500 people each day received a free gift bag. Here's all the goodies I got.

Gift Bag Goodies

More free samples I picked up going to booths.

Some coffee and tea  purchases: a Puerto Rican coffee from Cafe Mami and a Kuritawase Sencha from Sara's Tea Caddie.

A great tea book written by the Camellia Sinensis Tea House.

Tea-Do Philly

132 N 10th St.

Philadelphia, PA 19107

On a recent trip to Philadelphia, I went to Tea-Do in their small Chinatown area. 

I ordered: Honey Jasmine Green Tea with Aloe

• Taste: light sweetness and a nice jasmine flavor
• Aloe: nice aloe pieces, but some were too big to fit in the straw
• Price: $3.50 for 16 oz. 

There is a nice dragon mural outside and there is quite a lot of seating inside. My drink was very good. It was refreshing and I liked the lightness of the aloe. I tried my friend's taro milk tea, but it was not that good. It was too watery. So the drinks here may be hit or miss. I'm also not sure how Tea-Do compares to other places in Philly.

3.5 out of 5 Bubbles

Cooking with Boba Panda: Seafood Stew

This is my version of a seafood stew or bouillabaisse  It isn't a traditional bouillabaisse, which calls for fennel and rouille, but it is still delicious.

Ingredients:

• 2-2.5 lbs of seafood, whatever you prefer
• olive oil
• 1/2 onion, chopped
• 2-4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 tsp fresh thyme
• pinch of saffron
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 2 cups tomato puree or fresh chopped tomatoes 
• 1 cup fish stock
• salt, pepper, and sugar to taste
• handfull of basil leaves
• lemon optional

I used shrimp, squid, and two types of fish. Clams, mussels, or even crab would be delicious.

prepared seafood

The ingredients

Tip: to save extra fresh herbs, you can chop them up and put individual servings in ice cube trays. Just add water, freeze, then store the cubes in a freezer bag. Then you can just throw the herb ice cube into whatever your cooking. You can see my thyme ice cube in the picture above.

Also you can use a store bought fish stock, but I made a simple shrimp stock using the heads and shells of my cleaned shrimp. I just added water and some seasonings.

cooking shrimp stock

1. add enough olive oil to coat the bottom of a pot, saute the onion until almost translucent. Add garlic, bay leaf, thyme, and saffron. Saute until garlic in fragrant and season with salt and pepper.

sauteing garlic and onions

2. add white wine and cook until slightly reduced. Add tomato puree and simmer for 15 minutes. Add fish stock and season with salt and pepper. Add sugar if the tomatoes are too acidic, this also brings out the flavor of the tomato.

sauce coming together

3. begin adding the seafood, starting with the types that take longer to cook. I began with the fish. Cook with lid on until fish pieces are opaque and firm. Next, add shrimp. When they turn orange add the squid and cook for only a minute or two more.

Adding seafood

Everything is done

4. Tear up some basil leaves and garnish the stew. You can cut some lemon wedges if you like that too.

I would recommend serving the stew with some bread or even better some garlic croutons. You can make your own croutons by tossing bread chunks with crushed garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper then baking then until toasty. 

Garlic croutons

Enjoy!