Hoboken Adventures

My dad has been working at his current practice for about 10 years now. In that time, I'd visited three out of his four offices frequently, but the Hoboken office was the odd one out. I should back track and say, that my dad is a surgeon and he has four other partners. The practice has four separate offices, that cater to different areas of NJ. Hoboken in quite far from us, compared to the others, so I never visited that office. That was until recently.

After moving to Manhattan, I discovered that right around the corner from my apartment was the path train. Using this, I can get to Hoboken in no time! After this discover, I asked my father whether it would be ok to "shadow him" in the office while he sees patients. (I need to keep up my clinical exposure, for medical school.) Of course, he was delighted by the idea, so this became my post-calculus Monday activity. That is unless he had surgery and was not in the office or I needed to study. 

With me in the office with my dad in Hoboken, we invited my mom to take the train to Hoboken and meet us. My parents and I planned to have dinner together after dad finished seeing his patients. This has become a new semi-frequent tradition. 

This past Monday, mom and I met a couple hours early, before dad finished office hours, so as to explore Hoboken. Like I said, I wasn't really familiar with Hoboken, but from what I've seen, it's quite nice. I know that it has the most bars per block for something, but it sort of reminds me of Brooklyn. 

Mom and I walked around for an hour or so, exploring the Washington St area, eventually making our way to what I am dubbing "the Hudson walk."  We were lucky because the weather was gorgeous. A bit humid, but not too bad. Moreover, sunny skies and when we were sitting by the Hudson River, lots of cool breezes!

Even though I lived in the Philly area for four years, I never had Rita's!

My first Rita's Water Ice: Mango Italian Ice

My mom enjoyed Black Cherry and Vanilla"gelati"

Essentially, it's black cherry Italian ice mixed with vanilla "frozen custard." I learned that frozen custard is essentially like soft serve ice cream, however it's made with heavy cream and more eggs, so it's heavier. All I know is that it was totally delicious and want that next time! 

The Empire State building viewed from Hoboken

Once dad finished seeing his patients, mom and I returned to his office, and from there, we went to a local restaurant for dinner. "Teak on the Hudson" is a rather trendy fusion restaurant. It's like nouveau American meets sushi meets Asian. Kind of bizarre sounding, I know, but it's quite good. 

The interior of "Teak." I feel like I am trapped inside of Barbara Eden's genie bottle in the show "I Dream of Jeannie"

My mom selected this restaurant for the sushi rolls. The sushi is not bad, but we were more attracted to the creativity. Recently, my mom was asked to write about living on the tri-state area for a Japanese online magazine. For the purpose of "research", mom wanted to introduce Japan to "American sushi." Let me tell you, there were some truly creative rolls. Before all that though, COCKTAILS! I enjoyed a very delicious, but quite strong, lychee sake martini. Did I mention that I still had calculus homework to do after this excursion?

Ever since I had my first lychee martini in San Francisco this past December, I've been hooked!

the first set of creative sushi rolls

Paradise roll: peppered tuna and tempura asparagus, topped with tuna, salmon, yellowtail and eel

Spicy Girl roll: spicy tuna, spicy yellowtail, topped with spicy salmon and tempura flakes

Fried Ice roll: don't remember what was inside, but it was deep fried

Queen roll: spicy crab, avocado, tempura flakes, and cucumber wrapped in soy paper

Pink Panther roll: ?

Tiger Roll: fried oyster, scallion, topped with shrimp and tobiko

second set of rolls:

American Dream Roll: steamed king crab meat, avocado, wasabi tobiko, and pear wrapped in soy paper

Spider Roll: soft shell crab, lettuce, cucumber, and pickles

Royal Teak Roll: spicy king crab, avocado, topped with shrimp

I'm surprised to say that the sushi was actually quite tasty, despite the craziness. The concepts were indeed creative, if not out there, point in case the fried sushi roll, but still, the rolls were really tasty and we descended upon them like locusts. I think I liked the fact that ingredients were tried together that I perhaps wouldn't have thought worked well together. Does that make sense? Well done, Teak!