ABC Kitchen

When combining a farm-to-table restaurant with an aesthetically pleasing locale you get the beautiful space of ABC Kitchen.  Not only is their decor pleasing to the eye, but their food is as well. Every ingredient on your plate comes from local farmers with a majority hailing from Hudson Valley. ABC Kitchen changes the way you eat with locally sourced ingredients and combines them in a way that makes you think, "why didn't I try this combination sooner?" 

Ranging from grilled fish, to roasted veggie burgers and a juicy beef burger, ABC has multiple options to entice your palate. 

While aware of the farm-to-table movement, ABC Kitchen was my first taste of "fresh from the farm," at least in a restaurant setting. What I enjoyed was not only the atmosphere, but ABC kitchen was able to combine multiple aesthetics (farm-to-table, modern, and rustic) with one vision: fresh, quality food that bursts with flavor--no gmos, no pesticides--just good, honest, and clean work by the farmers.

At ABC Kitchen a burger isn't just a burger, it's a burger that, from the beginning, has had care put into it. Everything at ABC is grass-fed and organic, reassuring New Yorkers that what they're putting into their body is indeed, good food. Grass-fed means exactly what it sounds like, with the animals being given a quality diet. 

Farm-to-table, organic, grass-fed, non-gmo, etc, etc is not just a temporary movement--it's a movement towards the way things used to be and it's a movement towards the way things should be. Healthy and clean doesn't have to taste bland or disgusting, but at ABC Kitchen, you'll find that their seasonal menus challenge this stereotype.

Rhubarb lemonade

Lemon Thyme lemonade

Crab toast with lemon aioli

Shaved raw fluke, crushed olives, dill, lemon, and chilies

Market beans with hazelnuts

Salmon ginger salad

Grass-fed burger

Roasted Halibut salad

Basil panacotta

Salted caramel sundae

Raspberry pie

ABC Kitchen can be found at

35 E. 18th street, New york, NY 10003

Have you ever had a farm-to-table experience?

x Yzabelle

Down by the Bay

My brother and Siu surprised me with a trip to Oyster Bay for the 31st annual Oyster Festival. We took the LIRR and it was an about an hour ride. It felt like Summer all over again-with carefree days spent with good company. I consider this the last hurrah for Summer even though it's gotten pretty chilly and it's already fall. Oysters and fresh seafood just scream Summer. There were various family friendly rides, but the main attraction for us was the food. We started out with Wild Bill's Olde Fashioned Soda. Their sodas are homemade and made with pure cane sugar. When you buy the mug you get unlimited refills throughout the day, we purchased the insulated mug to ensure our drinks remained cold. The flavors included orange soda, birch beer, root beet, sarsaparilla, diet root beer, ginger ale, and vanilla root beer. The sarsaparilla and root beer were my favorites. The mugs are quite big but it makes for a good souvenir. Lots of people at the festival had them, and more than once was I asked whether it was alcohol (not here folks!). I believe drinking was allowed but only off the festival grounds, but there were other non-alcoholic beverages available if soda's not your cup of tea.

The kettle corn was so good I forgot to take a picture! They had samples of each flavor available but I enjoyed the simplicity of the sweet and salty. As for the pretzels, the pictures don't do them justice. They're huge! I'd say as long as a person's face, and the pretzel was bigger than my brother's. They made the pretzels throughout the day and had them grilled before handing them out to customers. This is what I wish a NYC style pretzel would taste like.

They oysters were served with cocktail sauce, but there was a wide variety of condiments. I enjoyed them the best with a squeeze of lemon, yuzu sauce, and the spicy Korean cocktail sauce. These were definitely worth the hour and a half wait (eek!), I could have eaten WAY more than five (you can't just have one). We were tempted to get back on line to get more oysters, but the line got even longer towards the end of the day.

There were two adorable Alpacas, and I only got one of their names (Bella). I got to pet her and they were very friendly and sweet. Initially Siu and I had thought they were toys, they were so still-then they moved! Lots of blankets, vests, and other clothing items were sold by the farm. We also ended up seeing lots of unique things such as handmade lace and artisanal cooking and baking mixes. The handmade lace was all made by this sweet woman, who not only made doilies, but shawls, hangers, and anything you could imagine. We didn't get to try the English pastries but they were selling out pretty quickly (missed out on the black currant cake). But I ended up purchasing a few cheesecake mixes and dip mixes that I plan to make soon. The booth that sold the mixes are based in Vermont, they have their own Inn which has outdoor and indoor activities. If I ever get to go I was to try kayaking and their cooking classes. If their mixes were delicious I could only imagine what the food at the inn tastes like.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin'