July 24, 2005
mmm, stack of crepes
You know you're living in a boring place when you spend the entire day inside. No, I didn't even peek my head out the door to get a whiff of fresh oxygen. ALL DAY. INSIDE. Why?
I had no reason to go out to buy food. That's usually the only reason I go anywhere around here, besides seeing a movie every so often. NJ is hazardous to my health. *cough*
I went to NYC on Friday to meet up with an Internet friend visiting from San Francisco (plus her friend, also from San Francisco...or at least California). We went to the MoMA to stare at confusing art. For a late lunch, we ate at Kiku, an easy-to-miss Japanese restaurant we randomly came across.
- una don
If you don't know what that is, then maybe you should eat more Japanese food. :D Grilled eel on rice is a common Japanese dish that you could find in just about every Japanese restaurant you go to (at least, around where I live) and it easily qualifies as my favorite Japanese food (curry is also a favorite). I don't eat it as much as I used to because I thougtht ordering the same thing all the time was kind of boring, but you know...WHO CARES. It's consistently good, no matter where I go. If you've never had eel before, I highly suggest you try it, even if you don't think you like fish. Grilled eel doesn't taste like any other fish. Since I suck at describing what food tastes like, I'm ripping a description from bento.com:
Good unagi combines a rich flavor (a bit like pate) with an appetizing texture, crisp on the outside but tender on the inside. The cooking process is what makes the eel both crisp and tender: The eels are first grilled over hot charcoals, then steamed to remove excess fat, then seasoned with a sweetish sauce and grilled a second time.
Eel doesn't taste as good without the sauce. Oooh how I love that sauce.
After being totally stuffed, we walked through Central Park to Lady M, perhaps the fanciest bakery I've ever been to.
- Mille Crêpes
Their signature cake is the Mille Crêpes, which consists of 20 layers of crepes and pastry creme. All crepe creations should be like this. The top layer is burnt caramel, like the top of creme brulee. A nibble of this thin layer exploded with caramel-goodness. EXPLODED. The crepes easily gave way to my fork tongs, but held up nicely, not getting mashed (rather important, as I was taking small bites). A slice will set you back $6.50, which isn't very expensive in my mind; it's not like I'm going to attempt to make 20 perfect crepes and make my own cake.
(On a semi-related note, someone once suggested that I make a cake out of pancakes. At least, I know the idea didn't pop out of thin air. I've wanted to do this, but never have. I think some of you reading this have much more cooking prowess than I do, so why not whip up a few pancakes and stack em, sandwiching buttercream in between the pancakes? YUM? Yes?)
- Miroir Caramel
We also shared this caramel mousse cake, which was just as good as the crepe cake, bursting with even more caramel goodness since the bulk of it was caramel flavored. A slice of this is $6, definitely worth it.
Lady M is worth going out of your way for. SO GO! Screw eating real food--just get a bunch of cake. Besides that the desserts are delicious (even the free water was memorably tasty), the service may be the friendliest I've ever come across in NYC. Or anywhere. Then again, is it a surprise that the young women working there would be in such good moods after getting to eat those lovely desserts every day? Damn, I'd be happy too. :)
- bakery interior
A random thing: their bathroom has a cool sink. It also has the thickest disposable towels I've ever come across. I almost thought they were regular towels!
After that we went to La Maison du Chocolat, where I picked up a few ginormous macarons.
- macarons
The last time I had their large macarons was in 2002 before a Strokes concert. I figured I was allowed to try some more. :) They were very good, of course, and not even that bad on the wallet, costing $4.25 each (well, that's expensive for a cookie, but they're a pain to make; I've seen my roommate last year make miniature ones).
When I got home, I found out I got a few foodie packages!
- the postman brought me candeee
Santos sent me the orange & cream Kit Kats and Maaike sent me the Dutch goodies. THANK YOU! The Internet is great for things like making friends and having peopel send you food. I'll retaliate the kindness with mix CDs and Poofy wares.
The hot weather unfortunately melted the Kit Kats, which have since then solidified in the fridge in splodgey forms. Of course, they're still tasty! Methinks that America is totally screwed in the Kit Kat variety department. Although the orange & cream ones are American, they're a limited edition flavor. I guess America's not very big on fruit flavored chocolate (when I went to England, I was surprised at how much stuff was orange flavored), and we're definitely never gonna get red bean.
Thanks to Maaike, I think I've found my new favorite food: STROOPWAFELS! Oh man, these things are good! I don't know if they're supposed to be soft (it seems like you soften them by putting them on a cup of a hot drink) but again, due to the heat my mini stroopwafels were all soft. TASTINESS! I didn't know what the tastiness was coming from until I read a description: A stroopwafel is a traditional Dutch pastry that consists of a layer of caramel and spices sandwiched between two thin wafers of waffle. I already ate three of them today; hey, mine are MINIATURE SIZED, remember? :) But I think I'm going to find some regular sized ones as well, hehehe...HEHEHEHE.
(cough)
The coffee candies are delicious also. They're more like hard caramels with a bit of coffee taste than just plain ol' coffee, which I wouldn't like as much. The chocolate unfortunately also gave into the heat and became rather deformed, probably having its taste altered in the process. Still, chocolate is chocolate, ie yummy.
So my diet during Saturday was varied due to all the new treats I had. I ate some miniature Kit Kats, quite a few coffee candies, some chocs, some stroopwafels. As for real food, I ate a slice of sourdough bread, two peaches, two plums, a large bowl of collard greens and onions cooked in butter and somen sauce (I know that it's for somen but now I know it tastes really good with vegetables!...as long as you don't mind the taste of bonito/dried fish), and rice. Basically, a gazillion more calories than I needed for a day of staying at home and napping (after I woke up at around 1, I took a nap just a few hours later...pathetic, yeah).
I hope to get out of the house today (it's almost 5 AM, oops).
Posted by roboppy at 3:30 AM
Comments (6)
wah the mexican bakery was closed! as was this greek bakery that i wanted to try out. As was many restaurants. But no fear! got cinnamon challah roll at Amy's and made my weekly round to Sullivans, bought tomatos, yams, cucumbers, and blueberries (all for less than 4 dollars!) at the farmer's market, and was going to go to Bread Factory but bag was already bulging i decided it was not worth the risk. Jesse's going to be in town next week btw and will prolly be going to church with me~ so YAY!we can all hang out!
Posted by: carol at July 24, 2005 7:30 PM [#]
I also love Stroopwafels. They sell them here at Starbucks and Seattle's Best Coffee. They have different textures depending on how you store them. In the fridge, they become hard, almost like trying to bite hard candy. At room temp, they're stick-to-your-teeth sticky (my favorite) and if you nuke 'em a bit, they become soft. They're great for dunking into hot chocolate or coffee.
I am suprised that in the article there is no reference at all to the milhoja cake that is from Chile (perhaps nobody knows about it here!). It is my father's favorite cake and since childhood, only my aunt would make it quite right--and only every year on his birthday.
Anyways, the cake's name translates roughly into thousand layer cake and it has just about that....each delicate later is piled on a spread of manjar (dulce de leche). For some reason, I remember there being something else a bit sticky, perhaps honey on top. The cake always came out fantastic and so gorgeous with the itty bitty thin lines of dark and light.
Pity, I am too far from NYC to try this cake ;)
Great blog!
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this is all your fault! because of you, at 4.45 in the morning i am making pancakes. AH fats fats fats! D:
Posted by: faith at July 24, 2005 4:44 PM [#]