February 13, 2006
Tiny's Giant Sandwich and a cake chunk
Despite that it allows me to sit on my bum for hours on end without a potty break and lessens my desire to participate in any physical movement, I believe the Internet is a very good thing. For instance, I've trained my body to sit for hours and have developed super-human bladder control!
...Okay, kidding about the second thing. I get up to pee. Yes. Stretch a bit, perhaps. However, I can sit for disturbingly long periods of time as the hour hand goes from 1 to...9, at LIGHT SPEED, or seemingly light speed. The Internet: Makes Life Go At Light-Speed Without the Use of Illegal Stimulants.
So back to the lovely Internet! I've met quite a few cool people on the Internet over the past 8 years (yes, I've been doing this website-thing for that long), with a large chunk of it occuring since I started going to school in NYC almost two years ago. If not for the Internet, I may not have met the overly-awesome Sarah, who not only goes to my school but lives in the dorm around the corner. Hot damn! So damn close, but not someone I would ever meet if not for that ginormous INTERNET thing. I haven't developed "foodie radar" yet so that if I brush past someone with an intense passion for bakery hunting and eating random delicious things something in my brain will beep/glow/implode, so the Internet is a good thing, indeedio.
Sarah just started her blog, Dining Desperado, but I highly recommend you read it if you like staring at photos of food and reading about...the photos of food. She's tearing through the NYC food world at breakneck speed to the point that I AM FRIGHTENED. Although she's lived here for less than two months, she's already been to places I've been wanting to try out. Give her another month and she'll probably have outfooded me. I'll just sit in the corner and weep.
Of course, we had to meet. It's not often you find someone who enjoys mulling over the deliciousness of a roll cake from Lung Moon Bakery. These people are unique; once you find them, you have to grab a hold of them, stuff them in a box, wrap the box with twine, poke it with airholes, and hide the box under your bed. Or something. ...No wait, I don't think that applies to humans.
- Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop
I heard of Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop but never really noticed it. See that photo? That's what it looks like if you flash it with a camera. Sure, it takes up a street corner (Rivington and Norfolk), but...um. Uhhh. I'M BLIIIIND.
- inside
We trekked through the beginnings of Mother Nature's "Snow Puke of 2006", enduring horizontally wooshing snow thwacking us in our faces, so we were quite happy to be met with a cozy, warm, and rather spacious (I guess people didn't feel like going out for sammiches on a Saturday night; people were waiting out on the street for Schiller's) place to plop down our wet hats and jackets. Mm...moist apparel...
We stared at the menus, zooming right in on the hot sandwiches and ignoring salads and cold sandwiches (because...really, would you want those?). The problem was that everything sounded really good. I decided to cut out ham and roast beef, but that still left us with many delicious possibilities. The waitress came by to see if we were ready, but you know, these things take time for people like us to want to ensure we make the right decision and don't waste any calories on food that isn't worth it.
"Well, take you're time. I'll be here for another hour or so."
For whatever reason, I loved...that. What the waitress said. She'd probably think I were crazy if she knew how funny I thought those few words were (you had to hear her nonchalant tone, I think), but MAYBE I AMMMM CRAZY (yeah, we've already established that). It made me happier.
...Man, I'm weird.
Moving on, we finally decided on getting mushroom and cheese and buffalo chicken. Some sandwiches come in "tiny" sizes, which if you're us (fairly normal sized female college students), is the perfect size. We were initially unsure that the sandwiches would be large enough because of their mega-cheapness (less than $4), but it turns out they're just mega-cheap. I guess if you're a hulky guy with a large appetite or need to fulfill some kind of sandwich eating dare, you should go for the giant size. Hey, I warned you.
- buffalo chicken
Each sandwich comes neatly sliced in a basket accompanied with salty ruffled potato chips. Mmmmmmm. I don't know if Ive mentioned this before, but in high school I used to put potato chips in my sandwiches for the crunchiness factor. ALL THE TIME. It's tasty! I didn't do that this time, but it reminded me of that, "that" being my dark sandwich eating history.
- closer look at the buffalo chicken
The buffalo chicken sandwich consisted of chicken cutlet chunks in "tangy red devil sauce", blue cheese dressing, lettuce, and tomato on a toasted semolina sesame seed bun. It was a bit messy to eat, as the chicken pieces didn't want to cooperate with the whole "staying inside the bun" idea (which the rest of the ingredients had no problem doing), but it was delicious, so it doesn't give me much reason to complain. The tangy sauce was...well, tangy, and not too spicy, chicken was just moist enough, lettuce and tomato were...you know, there, but I was especially impressed by the bun. It was a really good bun: chewy, crispy outside, soft innards, not dry, and optimally sesame-d, if that's your thing. IT'S MY THING. YES'M.
- mushrooms and cheeeese
Mushrooms and cheese were made for each other. When Mother Nature sat in her foresty lab and thought, "Huuuh, fungus, what's that about?" and then, "Huuh, cow's milk, what do I do with that?" (in my head, Mother Nature sounds rather doofus-y), she tripped on a wayward twig and...out popped a mushroom and cheese sandwich. (Moral of the story: twigs are good. I'm not vying for an Aesop's Fables award here, okay?) Unlike the buffalo chicken sandwich, this didn't fall apart; cheese is good for gluing things together like mushrooms and onions, apparently. You know what cheese, onions, and mushrooms taste like, right? Well, it tasted NOTHING like that...I mean, it tasted EXACTLY like that. Yeah. Putting the sandwich away from the paper wrapped resulted in long, string cheesy remains, which is a good sign if you like melty cheese (I dooo). Soft, melty, sweet, fungusified deliciousness in a bun. Yeeaaaaah. You can't go wrong with the sandwich, unless you're lactose intolerant.
- cheapy dinner
All this sammich and fried tato goodness for only $8.13? SAY IT AIN'T SO! ...Or YES, thank god, now we have plenty of money for dessert! Hopefully we'll go back again to try two more sandwiches. If I decide that I want to revisit a place right as soon as I've finished my meal, you know it's good. As you noticed by now, we split both sandwiches, as it was the obvious thing to do. OBVIOUSLY. OBVIOUSLY AWESOME.
I use the word "awesome" too much. I also emphasize words more than I need to. ...Oh well, get used to it.
- cupcakes
Guess what's conveniently across the street? Sugar Sweet Sunshine, the most colorful happy bakery ever! Or at least in that vicinity! EVER. Your eyes warn you, "Oh, that color is so not natural," but your stomach says, "AHH, BRING ON THE CHEMICALS!" so of course, you bring them on.
- tasty cake
As cute as cupcakes are, I'm a glutton, thus I opted for the cake chunk. Few things bring as much joy as a chunk of Sugar Sweet Sunshine cake. Little rolls and rectangles from Chinatown won't do the trick, nor would dainty individual Italian or French pastries. Chunk! Of cake! Need! As though broken off of a giant cake glacier with a pick-axe! That's my style, folks.
So...this cake? This simple, yellow, cake? SO DAMN GOOD! I think you had to be there when Sarah and I dug into it and thought at the same time, "Hm...this is really good. Hmm. Yeeeah....just...gonna keep eating this cake forever until I die, although I'll probably die because I ate this cake forever." I'm just going to rip Sarah's description from her blog:
...simple...yet very impressive. The cake wasn't greasy but moist and the frosting...oh the frosting...it wasn't overly sugary, like mine...it had a little bit heavier texture with a smooth vanilla finish. It has something to order again!
She also mentioned that it was reminiscent of corn bread. Yeah, I could see that. It surely wasn't cornbread, but there was some aspect besides plain ol' buttercake lurking in the cake. Maybe it was MAGIC. Or CRACK.
red velvet cupcake
Ah yes, Sarah got some cakey goodness for herself. While she asked my opinion about the red velvet cake (so far, the only cake at Sugar Sweet Sunshine that has yet to win over my sugar encrusted heart), the beauty of the cupcake's ploppy frosting and red tinted cake intrigued her so that she had to try it. Verdict?
WE DON'T GET IT. DON'T. GET. IT. I've had red velvet cake before but unless our taste buds were blasted with "cake flavor" buffers just prior to eat this, it really didn't have much taste. The frosting had flavor(sugary, cocoa-y), but the cake was so mind bogglingly (...that's not a word) bland as through it were not meant for human consumption that we just...just didn't know what to do. The cake confused us. We love Sugar Sweet Sunshine to bits, but we don't know what's up with this cake! Maybe our tastebuds are flawed in the same genetic manner, as there are obviously loads of people who love this cupcake, but WE DO NOT LOVE IT. We will never eat it again! We will go straight for the happy yellow cake chunk!
So that was Saturday. I hope you enjoyed this entry because I'm in the school computer lab right now, having come here with the intention of doing anthropology homework, yet heeere I ammm. You all get sammiches and cake now, alright? That'll make me feel proud/semi-useful to humanity.
Posted by roboppy at 5:26 PM
Comments (12)
That was great, reading yours and Sarah's blog, seeing the same event, from two povs. Do it again!
Posted by: Mila at February 13, 2006 10:43 PM [#]
Ahh..you are too nice! But seriously...I love your sandwich pictures. It makes them look like big looming beasts...except we are bigger beasts that devour them...
Posted by: lutkie at February 13, 2006 11:16 PM [#]
Liz: I know! ISN'T IT AWESOME?
Mila: We will! Ehehehe! We ate more last night, bwahaahahaa! AND MORE WILL HAPPEN LATER THIS WEEK. Oh god, it never ends.
lutkie: We're freakin' huuuge! Sandwiches, bewaaare...
Kathy: Ohh we can totally go back! I've never been to the crepe place, but I heard mixed things. Mmmhhmm. Creeepe. I can't say I'm a huge crepe person anyway, but I do love BLINTZES, and they're...like, better. I think.
santos: Yay, I'm not crazy! And I usually like cake. Eek.
Oooh, sandwiches full of potato chips rule! That extra crunch and saltiness = Oooh, sandwiches full of potato chips rule! That extra crunch and saltiness = I still occasionally chip up a sandwich though these days I'm more likely to litter my salad with Pringle bits.
Oh wow! I love stealing *ahem* being inspired by all the lovely cakes you run across into. What's a traditional red velvet cake more like Rob? Or was just the cake dry? *puts notepad on lap and contemplates*
There's a blue bird at the window. I can't hear the song he sings.
william: Crunchy salty sammich = the win! Glad you agree! :D I've never heard of pringles with salad though, hehe. Sounds better than croutons.
Jacob: I'm not really sure what a traditional red velvet cake is like...perhaps if I baked, I would. :( I'm sure there are lots of recipes online. LOOKIE, wikipedia to the rescue: Red Velvet Cake entry. "A Red velvet cake is a type of rich and sweet chocolate cake which has a distinctive dark red or red-brown color." Hm. My cake didn't really taste rich, sweet, or chocolate-y. :( The cake wasn't try, it just didn't have much...taste! Very odd.
Buffalo CHIX rocks my world for life.
Also, long time no talk!!!!!
IM ME
don't email me, its a backup address
Posted by: Kristin (aka Jaundrill-san) at February 15, 2006 5:00 PM [#]
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Jeezum crow! The stuff from Sugar Sweet Sunshine looks like a cartoon in Technicolor!
Must... have... cake...
Posted by: Liz at February 13, 2006 6:48 PM [#]