The Girl Who Ate Everything

[pokes self in belly]

...I dunno, man. I just don't know. This weekend was probably the least responsible I've ever been if measured in fun-to-work ratio. All fun. No work. If you're in college, you know that this period is crunch time for writing essays, filling your head with information you should've studied earlier, getting an inadequate amount of sleep while possibly drinking dangerously huge volumes of coffee, etc. When combined in a giant sloshy bucket, all of the above result in hallucinations, insanity, nightmares, head explodee, and other undesirable things. (If you are in such a state right now, I think you should watch Shuggie on Wonder Shozen. It breaks the rules of the universe by being among the best and worst things I have ever seen. You'll see what I mean.)

I have three days of intense fooding to catch up on, but if I attempt to sum it all up in one entry, I will cry. And my head will explode. I'll start with yesterday and eventually work backwards, unless I actually decide to do schoolwork...or something. Yeah. Wait, that's why I live in NYC, right? Someone has to remind me that every now and then.

Yesterday after roaming around Chinatown with Tristan and checking out Pearl River Mart where I got him the most horrifying 21st birthday gift ever, we went to Union Square to look for pet supplies for his rats.

mm, fluoro

.....Wow. As a person who has never had a pet, thus haven't had much reason to browse pet stores, some of this pet food (or "food") is creepy and kind of atrocious. WOULD YOU LIKE SOME HAMSTEROIDS? HUUUUH? CHOOSY HAMSTERS CHOOSE HAMSTEROIDS!

for pets?...OR HUMANS?

These are just a few of the many fun creatively colored and shaped snacks you can buy for your beloved pets. Weeee!!! Do you hear that? [cups hand to ear] That is the sound of a hundred bunnies stampeding towards the CARROT SLIMS!

Yeah, I'm weird. Moving on.

who wants a baaath?...OF INTENSE, SEARING PAIN?!

After visiting a Mexican deli, we went to Pommes Frites. For lunch. Yes. I do not recommend that anyone eats fries for lunch (actually, you probably shouldn't eat fries, period), but we're just a bunch of wild and craaaazy college students who irresponsibly ignore the dangers that deep fried oils will unleash upon our digestive systems.

death by poutine

I went for the poutine ($4), which is a Quebecois invention of french fries topped with gravy and cheese curds. Hoo-boy. I can't say the combination sounded especially appealing, but something about it intrigued me. Like the immense unhealthy-ness of it all. Tristan initially said he wanted a poutine cup, but he totally chickened out and went with regular fries not covered in cheese and gravy.

I ATE IT

I ate it all. The cheese wasn't squeaky like JJ told me they should be, hence this was not the real deal. It wasn't bad, but something I like about fries is the crispiness factor. Dousing fries in gravy leads to lack of crispiness and increased mushiness. (I have the same problem with cereal; I eat it un-milkified.) Some of the cheese blocks more deeply embedded in the fries-and-gravy mix melted, resulting in gooey gravy-soaked fries and cheese blobs. Mmm, cheese blob...

Overall, the poutine was worth trying once, but I wouldn't feel compelled to eat it again. Next time I try it will be in Canada, fo' realz!

(Don't ask me why I said that. I do not know. Some things are best left unexplained.)

Tristan and I returned to my dorm for a short period before he had to leave for the airport to go back to school. [sniffle] Then I went into a deep pit of...deep, dark, depression and other bad things due to the lack of Tristan and...actually, I was just really freakin' tired (not depressed) and decided I needed a nappie.

[snooze]

At 7 PM I woke up, although I was still tired. I don't know about you, but when I wake up from naps the first thing I think is, "Hunggrrryyy." It's weird because when I regularly wake up in the morning I'm not hungry at all, hence why I never eat breakfast (and don't get into the "breakfast is the most important meal, doodeedoo!" argument; I've already heard it). After I quickly scarfed down an apple, I got a...(gasp), PHONE CALL. Jen, my oldest friend (not in age, but in the time we've known each other) called to inform me that she too had just taken a nap and was hungry. And that we should eat. Togetherrrr. Sadly, every time that Jen asks me last minute to eat, I've already eaten or I don't have the time to go out. This was a rare occasion where I hadn't eaten yet and even though I had to do homework...hell, whatever. Despite that Jen lives about two miles away from me, we rarely see each other. It is sad.

Pala

Jen suggested eating at Pala since she had been there before and it was about a 1 second walk from her apartment. I had heard mixed things about Pala over the past few months and while I wasn't dying to go, I was slightly interested. Also, Jen has tastebuds; if she likes it, I probably would too.

counter

I liked the large, open space. It felt clean and rustic at the same time, if that makes any sense.

bread!

Ohh, glorious bread. We were given a small bowl of thin, soft, chewy flabread pieces. SO GOOD. This was the same as the pizza crust, so you can probably tell where the deliciousness rating is going. Slightly oblong shaped pizza is offered by the foot (and a foot is plenty for any normal human being), although you can also order a combination of different pizza slices from what's already pre-made. Otherwise, your pizza is baked to order, which takes 20-30 minutes.

classica

Jen and I shared our pizzas because if you eat out with me, you pretty much have to share. Jen ordered the classica, which was topped with tomato sauce, for di latte (cow's milk) mozzarella, and basil. As usual, my ability to describe food sucks and I'm not sure what else to say besides that I liked it. I guess that means the toppings didn't blow my mind away, but I didn't find anything wrong with them either. I LIKED THE PIZZA, OKAY? That's all you need to know. Anyhoo, what I really liked was the crust, which I'll get to...

monlasla

I went with the monlasla, which was topped with homemade walnut spread, montasio cheese, and fior di latte mozzarella. We both liked this one more than the classica. I loved that in addition to the layer of soft mozzerella there was a layer of uber-thinly sliced hard montasio cheese. I couldn't taste a great deal of the walnut spread, but it was there. Among the cheeses.

My favorite thing about the pizza was the crust, which probably isn't surprising considering my love of bread. The crust wasn't like any other crust I had eaten before; non-greasy, non-floppy, chewy, substantial, and not too thick or thin. Some people may prefer a thinner crust, but I wouldn't have wanted a cracker-like crust that you may find at Sullivan Street Bakery, nor a floppy crust that couldn't support the toppings like...at other pizzerias.

mmmm

I WANT CRUST.

dessert

Even though we were totally stuffed from eating all the pizza, we decided we could shove in a dessert if we moved around our stomach contents a bit. The crepe cake ($5) of about 10 crepes layered with light cream was a nice way to end the meal as it wasn't heavy. The flavor was milder than I would've liked (because I would've liked...more sugar), but the texture was great. Each layer was soft and easily gave way to my spoon, but the cake held its structure until the last few bites. It was rather impressive; I expected the layers to moosh apart and look like a mess.

The final bill was about $20 per person with tip (we also got a large bottle of water). I was happy with the meal and would put this on my list of places to go back to. On top of the yummy food, the waiters are really nice. A couple of them joked about my photo taking, which means they probably thought I was a freak, but didn't mind too much that I was taking excessive photos. Hoorah!

Damn, I have to go to class now. Now I just look at school as food blogging interference.

click to enlarge, yo

These posters are part of a project I had to do for class. Unfortunately, the project...um, kinda fell by the wayside and my partner and I need reactions to it. NOOOOW.

Our project was to make some kind of marketing campaign to raise awareness about local, sustainable agriculture as opposed to...well, the other stuff. Agribusiness, produce that comes from a bagillion miles away, etc.

We're not in a graphic design course, so we're not looking for responses about the design as much as the message. (Yeah, they're both important and we like suggestions, but our project is focused on food, not design.) Since most of your are probably food-minded, you might already know about farmer's markets and why it's better to eat local food.

...But if you're not so food minded, would these posters incite any interest? We tried to make it somewhat eye-catching and mildly professional.

We plan to print up a bunch of copies and hang them up...somewhere. We don't know. SOMEWHERE AROUND NYU. If you have suggestions, let me know. Hell, feel free to print this out and hang it up somewhere. If you're bored.

Feel free to leave comments on this post or on the flickr page. I'm not planning to reply to comments (or maybe I'll do that in another post), I just want to collect them. Yeah, I'm USING YOU FOR YOUR BRAIN MEATS. I think it's fair though...I spend buttloads of time eating, taking photos, and writing a bunch of crappy commentary to accompany the eating and the photos, and in the process a lot of time gets sucked away from my schoolwork. Hohoho! Oh.

...God, I'm gonna be screwed when I graduate. Yeah, well.

Thanks for your help!

UPDATE: Most people are commenting about the design, which is fine, but my partner and I are more interested in whether this raises awareness about local food. We've already established that the designs aren't super effective, so what we need to know is if these posters raise awareness about local farms and whatnot...or...okay, I don't know. Our paper is due on Friday so we're NOT going to redo these posters completely (there's just not enough time), but we can use your suggestions in our paper as to what we'd do differently if we could do this again.

ANOTHER UPDATE: There seem to be two major opinions; add more information (for the sake of being....more informative) AND to take information out (for the sake of brevity and not being cluttered). Confusing? Hooyeah! I'm not sure where we're going with that.

Um, another update?: My brain melted. I mean...thank you very much for your comments! The idea I'm getting now is that this obviously reaches a lot more people on the Internet than if we splodged up some flyers around NYC. Hm. We will definitely tweak stuff.

[Firstly, I must thank you all for your feedback on the posters in the last entry, whether you commented here or on flickr. I didn't expect that much feedback! YOU ARE ALL TOO AWESOME. I must admit, I feel like my head is going to explode if I try to incorporate all the suggestions, but my partner is much more organized than I am so perhaps she'll have some ideas. She came up the the apple idea, actually. As for what I did, I'm not sure. I took photos of the apples? And tried to photoshop it together? Damn. (shakes head)]

School is almost over, right? Riiiight? Right.

Food studies isn't the most intellectually taxing program, nor does it involve much work, but my study habits have slipped terribly. Like trying to climb out of a vat of vaseline...or something. Ewwww. Right now I'm at the end of my junior year of college and when I think back to how hard I worked in middle school and high school I think, "...My god, what happened since then? That crap wasn't important! WHAT AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?!"

Updating my blog, that's what.

the skyyy!!!...is blue

On Saturday morning after a night of very little sleep (not that we had a crazy Friday night, but I'll get to that in another entry), Tristan and I went to Flushing to check out its Chinatown. A million people (or less) told me that I had to eat in Flushing at some point, but I was always too lazy to go. We found out that the subway ride is about an hour, which isn't that bad (once I spent way too long on a subway trying to get to Brooklyn because I took the wrong one and backtracked when I really should've kept going forward...anyhoo, you learn from your mistakes; don't go to Brooklyn), not that I'd want to make the commute every morning. During our hour of being half-awake on the subway, we...I don't know. We were half awake. We probably poked each other repeatedly and gave each other weird stares. That, my dear readers, is what true friendship is about.

Even though the main reason for ME to visit Flushing is to eat, we weren't hungry and hence did not participate in any eating.

Tristan and I crave noods

Well, not real eating at least. This ginormous bowl of noodles looked pretty tasty. Alas, it was only a 2D photo. [sob]

bakeries galore

As we roamed around, I took photos of almost every bakery I could find. We didn't walk around a very large area, but I counted 18 bakeries (mix of Chinese and Korean). 18. I still don't understand the Asian obsession with bakeries, but ...hell, it's cool with me. My mum is in Taiwan right now and she emailed me to let me know that she ate some freakin' amazing bread. She said she'll bring some back and freeze it. Heehee.

cheap eats time!

After the aimless Flushing roam-age, we subway-ed back to the Manhattan Chinatown to grab lunch at Fried Dumpling on Allen Street, my favorite of all the 5/$1 cheapo fried dumpling places in Chinatown. I don't know why it's my favorite (I've been to four other places), but I like the location and the "slightly dingy but not too dingy" aesthetic quality of it.

fried stuff, more fried stuff, and green stuff

My "unlikely to be recommended by any doctors" lunch consisted of five pork and chive fried dumplings and two vegetable egg rolls accompanied by a honeydew shake. I was never aware that Fried Dumpling also made shakes and bubble teas until I found myself staring at the menu by the register. Hmmm. Cheap shake? I'LL EAT IT.

And I did. Um. It wasn't bad for about $2, but I can't say it wins over any other shake I've had. I'm not sure what the exact ingredients were, but I saw the woman behind the counter dump a lot of white powder into the blender along with ice and other things (like whatever is giving the green color). The white powder left a chalky aftertaste on my mouth lining. Maybe it was chalk! Heehee!...

Okay, I doubt it. I drank about half of it until I started sucking up the little "fruit" bits that had been suspended on top of the shake (Tristan got a different melon drink and the fruit bits sank), at which time I found that I wasn't fond of swallowing little "fruit" bits whole that would enter my stomach after skipping the mastication process. Since Tristan is like my fun little puppy of joy (well, a six foot tall puppy) that I can feed random things to, he happily consumed the rest of my shake.

innarrrdsss

Oh, the dumplings. They were really good. We had to wait for a fresh batch, which is definitely yummier than dumplings that are left to sit out for a while. These dumplings resemble Japanese gyoza more than the thick, blob-looking dumplings that I'm used to eating (such as the kind you can get at Sun Dou Dumpling Shop). Juicy, ground pork of questionable origins mixed with chopped chives is wrapped in a thin dumpling skin and fried perhaps 30 or more at a time on a griddle before being presented to you on a styrofoam plate in all its crispy, golden goodness.

pile o ten!

Tristan went for ten. I could eat more than ten.

spring roll innards

...But I didn't. I was totally stuffed from the two egg rolls and five dumplings. I think two egg rolls happen to be more filling than five dumplings, so I probably ate more than Tristan.

The night before, Patty had said she wanted to go to the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. Hell, we had just eaten a bunch of fried food...HOW MUCH MORE HARM COULD WE DO?

factory of ice cream, hoho!

So naturally, we went (and it was Patty's first meal of the day—woohoo, I destroy people's health!). I've been to CIF at least three times before, but it must've been a while since my last visit since I noticed they had gotten a new interior. The walls went from grimy yellow to white and clean. I feel like it lost a bit of personality, but I guess it's good to update every now and then. I also noticed that they updated their prices by 25 cents (one scoop is $3 now). Harhar! Har.

one of the ice cream cases

I wanted avocado, but they ran out. Doh! Taro is a favorite flavor of mine, but I recall thinking that their taro wasn't nearly taro-y enough.

one scoop?

I went with black sesame, which is one of my favorite flavors at Il Laboratorio del Gelato. Even though Il Lab is my favorite place for ice cream, CIF's black sesame was awesome. There was a lot of black sesame flavor and little chewy bits of black sesame all throughout the ice cream. Mmmmm. The texture wasn't my favorite (I like denser ice cream), but it was good and something I'd eat again.

Tristan's mango, Patty's green tea

I was the only lame-o who didn't get an edible container. I mean...I could've eaten the paper cup, but that would've been weird. By the way, those mounds of ice cream count as one scoop. Mmmm-hm! One day perhaps I will try TWO SCOOPS and then keel over in pains of ice cream overdose.

Even though I could seamlessly tie this entry together and pretend that no time has passed whatsoever since I wrote the last bit, about 24 hours HAVE passed. I cannot ignore this. ...Okay, I can. But I won't. Sometimes when writing emails I'll actually type out my agonizingly slow thought processes along the lines of, "....uhh....huuh...what...." while knowing the whole time that I could delete that crap and write something fluid.

BUT I AM NOT FLUID! More like rocky and dumb. Or whatever the opposite of fluid is.

Actually, not a lot has happened in the past 24 hours. I took my group voice class final, meaning for the second time in my life I had to sing in front of a group of people and that this performance was necessitated by the need to not fail school. The first time in freshman year, I chose to write a song for Japanese class on my own free will and I had to sing it it while playing my guitar. Yesterday, by the luck of the draw (we had to memorize five songs and sing a random one), I sang "O Del Mio Dolce". Will I ever sing in English? NO. NO MORE SINGING.

...Actually, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. It still sucked, but I'm absolutely terrified of singing or performing in front of people by myself, so it was an accomplishment for me. I won't even sing in front of really good friends.

After my final, I went to Bouchon Bakery to visit Sarah on her last day of work. Aw. The Thomas Keller love affair is over. I bought some treats for a friend and a little cake for meself, which I shall report on later. I realized that I needed some food for dinner and that Whole Foods was conveniently just a few floors down. What did I buy? A MINI BAGUETTE AND A BOX-O-SPROUTS. Yup, that's it. I spent about $3 and went on my merry way with a bag of baked goods and ...sprouts.

I don't know why, but I really like sprouts, a penchant I discovered in my senior year of high school when I started eating more healthily. When I got back to my dorm I took chunks of the stuff and shoved them in my mouth. Mmm, tastes like fresh baaaabies—in seedling form. I ultimately used most of the sprouts to make a sardine, cheese and sprout sandwich with my baguette. Weird combination? Perhaps. I also have a random love of sardines, which are definitely my favorite canned food. Sardine burps are pretty bad, but it sure tastes good goin' down.

Anyhoo. BACK TO SATURDAY!

After roaming around Union Square, Tristan and I went to Brooklyn to eat with his friend Thea. Sadly, despite its proximity to my dorm I had never been to Carroll Gardens before, which is horrible because IT IS FULL OF ALL KINDS OF FOOD! We ended up at a Middle Eastern restaurant called Zaytoons, but there was a Peruvian place down Smith Street that looked good too. I guess I'll have to return later.

interior

The restaurant is on the small side, but still comfortable to sit in. The ambiance is comfortable and not too dark or bright. Something I noticed was that the ceiling was covered in small, embossed metal plates, which Thea said was a feature of many of the buildings in the area.

Merguez

I ordered the merguez platter, which featured "spiced Lamb suasage with onion, parsley, garlic and seasonings" on top of rice with a side salad and hummus with a pool of olive oil. All this was only $9.50. Lordy. I ate all of it. ALL OF IT. The sausage was very flavorful with ...um, the aforementioned seasonings, the rice was light and chewy (I don't know if that even makes sense, but whatever), hummus was smooth and creamy, the salad didn't suck, annnd so on. My only complaint is that the sausage may have been too seasoned, as I could taste its ghost rising out of my digestive system every time I burped, but it was still delicious.

Kibbeh

Tristan ordered kibbeh ($10), a "Lebanese-style spiced ground mixture of beef, lamb and bulgur wheat" that we noticed also had pine nuts. I think I actually liked this more than my dish since it wasn't as heavily spiced as the lamb sausage. Thumbs up for the ginormous egg-shaped meat blobs!

appetizer platter

Thea's appetizer platter ($8) contained...a lot of stuff. Looks like theres tabouleh, hummus, falafel, garden salad, and grape leaves. I think she ate it all. MORE THUMBS UP!

milk pudding

Even though we were stuffed, Tristan and I got desserts. I only tried a bit of the milk pudding with orange blossom water and pistachio, but it had this...flavor essense. Do you ever eat something and feel like it doesn't have a taste as much as an scent that pleasantly fills your nasal passages (yes, I know that smell and taste are related, but....just work with me here)? This was kind of like that. I guess it was the orange blossom water.

balkava

I originally had my eye on the pudding, but since I didn't want to get the same thing as Tristan I went for the chunk of baklava. Warm, sweet, flaky layers of filo dough atop mashered walnuts that aren't overly sugared/syruped to death equals yummy baklava.

If you keep in mind that Tristan and I probably ate the same amount of food (except that he drank 10 times as much water as I did) and that he's a guy who's a foot taller than I am, something seems terribly wrong with that. I mean, something seems terribly wrong with me and my stomach. Right? RIGHT? It doesn't compute.

samplin' time!

And lastly, the moment a surprisingly large number of you have been waiting for: EGG CUSTARD TART TASTING! Later that night I re-baked a few of the tarts I bought the day before from Egg Custard King Cafe and forced others (Tristan, Nathan, and my roommate Ashley) to eat/suffer with me. For everyone who's wondering what the honeydew ones taste like, they do not taste like fluorescent green chemicals or ...Soylent... indeed, they kind of taste like honeydew. Ish. I'm not a big fan of honeydew flavor except in Japanese melon pan (and even that is far from my favorite), so I can't say I'd get this again. The almond tart reminded me of Chinese almond jello in taste and consistency; it didn't seem as creamy as a regular egg tart (nor did the honeydew). Once again, it was alright, just not my favorite. Original is still the winner for me, preferably fresh from the oven and jiggling with "it's probably gonna burn the skin off the roof of your mouth" doom. But it's so worth it.

I still have to write the entry for last Friday, but until then, check out these sites:

• The Hungry Cabbie: THIS IS AWESOME! I know because I actually spent a good amount of time reading the entries and not just staring at photos.
• Kawaii Not: Pancake Orgy: THIS IS ALSO AWESOME! Look at those cute pancakes!...doin' stuff.

I was fiddling around at work last Friday, probably not doing much actual work, when JJ messaged me asking if I were free for lunch.

HELL YES. [cue dancing robots]

puffy

It was back to Egg Custard King Cafe for us where we witnessed men in white shirts and pants bring up endless trays of freshly baked egg custard tarts from some mysterious, underground egg custard tart lair to the display counter where another employee would pop them out of the metal tart molds and place them in paper cups before arranging them on plastic trays for the hungry custard-craving public.

That was a long sentence.

source of mouth scortching

We noticed a tray of freshly baked Portuguese egg custard tarts, so we thought it best to start with those. These are a real health hazard, folks; the consumption of these tarts resulted in achey burnt tongue and mouth syndrome. BUT IT'S SO WORTH IT! Seriously though, wait for these babies to cool down a bit before sinking your teeth into the silky thickened egg-based mixture. I've inflicted all kinds of abuse to the roof of my mouth and it still hasn't recovered.

condensed milk and peanut butter, spam and egg

JJ ordered a spam and egg sandwich ($1.75) while I went for the sweet, condensed milk and peanut butter sandwich ($0.75). You don't get much, but you don't pay much either. I assume that the spam and egg combination is a somewhat old Chinese thing (influenced by...COLONIALISM? Like condensed milk) that I never grew up with. Really, I can't recall ever having eaten spam before.

innarrrdss

It's pretty good! I won't dream over the pink, raw meat-colored slabs of processed meat on a regular basis, but I'd eat it again. The egg was cooked much better than how I could do it, which goes to show how much I suck at cooking. To tell you the truth, I like my eggs overcooked. I'm fine eating them undercooked too, but I don't care either way, thus I always overcook my eggs for the easiness factor (well...easy beacuse I don't really give a crap about what I'm doing). My condensed milk and peanut butter sandwich was alright, but would've been much better with twice as much CM and PB...no wait, five times as much. Yes'm, you know you want it.

salt and pepper squid

We also shared an appetizer that we had spied on someone else's table the last time we visted: salt and pepper squid. From the name alone I wouldn't guess that it's deep fried, but apparently "salt and pepper" is code for deep fried. Alrighty.

innards and crispy bits

The dish was tasty as most freshly fried things coated in salt and pepper mooshed with crispy garlic bits would be, but it was definitely tougher than most humans would prefer and not cleaned very well either (the tendon-y things inside the tubes that should've been taken out after cleaning the squid were...still in there). Despite that, we happily ate it all. I'm not going to complain for $5.

hot Ovaltine

I finished my meal with a hot cup of Ovaltine at JJ's suggestion. She was surprised that I had never tried it before (she's been surprised by a lot of things I've never eaten...my god, I'm so not Chinese, it scares me, because then what am I?!) and I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. I think Ovaltine, which is made of sugar, malt extract, cocoa, and whey, could use more sugar and cocoa, but then I guess that would make it hot cocoa. It's a mildly flavored drink that's pleasant to sip, but I can't imagine getting a hankering for this like I would for hot chocolate. Or water.

Our final bill came to $12. Woohoo! Sometime I love being cheap, although no so cheap that I'm living off of ramen and pop tarts. I purposely requested that we not eat much since I had a dinner to go to that night, but it's hard to spend a lot of money at this place even if you are really hungry.

Where did I go that night? Oh ho ho...well, you already know since you read the title. I invited seven friends (Janet, Diana, Nathan, Sarah, Tristan, Patty, and William) to eat dinner together at Alice's Tea Cup on Friday night and thought it best to make reservations. However, I found out that reserving a table for eight or more people meant that everyone had to get the same $25 Mad Hatter platter. I also found out that Alice's is less crowded at dinner than lunch, so we probably wouldn't have a problem getting a table, even as a group of eight. The woman on the phone told me that if we walked in as a group, we could order whatever we wanted...

...But. Um. No. We actually awkwardly got split into three tables (Janet brought three friends, so that worked out for her) since sitting at one table of eight people meant we'd have to go with the fixed price thinger. The table regulation sent Diana, Patty and William to sit at another table that while just a few feet from my table felt more like it was miles away. I was kind of confused, but at least my and Janet's (that sounds grammatically incorrect) combined parties, which ended up being 11 people total, got to take up the whole back room.

back room

HAHA, THE ROOM, IT IS OURRRSSSS.

We spent about a bagillion years trying to figure out what we wanted. The other table started with some baked goods.

gluten free cupcake, and non gluten free stuff

I didn't try any of these baked goods, but I assume they were all agreeable. The gluten free cupcake had a sad, hard, hocky puck-like frosting top that Diana chose to not eat, but she did finish the cake. If Diana eats it, it must be pretty good. She's not the kind of person that would eat food just because it's there. That's...um, me.

salad and scone

Diana's chicken salad looked impressive. Even I'd want to eat it, and I'm not a huge fan of salad. She and Patty shared a scone, which you can see comes with cream and jam on the side. Just like scones should be. Hell, other things besides scones should come with cream and jam. Like...all pastries. Even sandwiches. Slather on that cream like it's actually good for your health and not the complete opposite.

Mad Hatter (Tristan not included)

At some point, Tristan, Sarah and I decided to order a Mad Hatter tea set to share. $6 per person gets added to the base price of $27, which isn't too bad. Between the three of us we shared four scones, two sandwiches, an assortment of cookies, and a chunk of cake, besides that we all got our own pots of tea. Although everything was awesome (I'll go through some of the items), it was so much freakin' food. As much as we wanted to eat every last delicious carby crumb, we just couldn't do it. And we love carbs! LOVE. WE HEART THE CARBS MUCHLY! It was sad to leave behind such tasty scone morsels behind, but sometimes you have to admit defeat. The tea set destroyed us.

too many scones

I already knew I liked these scones, but these were the best I had had at Alice's. Why? Because....because. [thinks] Warm. Melty. Buttery. Carb chunks. If you can smell the deliciousness before you taste it, ye know it's gonna be good. Blueberry, vanilla cinnamon, pumpkin, cherry...these aren't the exact flavors (I'm using the receipt, which was written in shorthand, as a guide), but they were something like that. I can't pick a favorite. THEY WERE ALL JUST VERY GOOD, and I hope you trust my judgement enough to use that statement as a reason to eat them. They're pretty huge too; we couldn't even eat one scone each.

sammiches?

The smashed, streaky remains of a dead fly on this pristine windshield of delicousness (worse metaphor ever) were the sandwiches. No, they weren't that bad, but just like my first visit, I didn't really like them, nor could I even finish my 1/3rd portions. I think it's just my preference in that I don't like these kinds of cold, tea sandwiches (which might be why I avoided eating sandwiches for most of my life). We ordered the "curried chicken salad sandwich with red onion, celery and granny smith apple on semolina with golden raisins and fennel" [takes a breath] and "smoked salmon open-faced with lemon-dill butter on black bread". I liked the curry one more, but that pesky tomato slipped out and the whole thing kinda fell apart after I took a few bites (it was a 1/3rd slice after all). The smoked salmon one in my opinion did not taste like smoked salmon, unless it was some special kind of smoked salmon that was especially hard and...not flavored with salmon-ness. However, it's probably just my taste, as Sarah liked that sandwich. Sarah informed me that it was a CUMIN CARROT SANDWICH, HAHAHAHA...HAHA...OH MY GOD, that makes a lot more sense now. (hangs head in shame)

For me, it's all about the sweets.

cookies and cake chunk

Going from top to bottom, these cookies and cake chunk were last in our feast of carby delights after the scones and sammiches. I was too stuffed to fully indulge in these treats, but...I tried. The cookies, which included chocolate chip, chocolate macaroon, gingersnap, and other things I can't remember, were pretty good and I enjoyed the fluffy "mocha chocolate chip cake", which as you can see isn't slathered in frosting. I like frosting, but without it a chunk of cake is kind of like a muffin or other quick bread with more sugar and in slice form...which is totally cool with me since I love muffins. Oh, how I love muffins.

can't...finish...

We stared at the remains. Do we eat it? Take home the meager remains? We decided it was best to leave them there since we'd certainly scarf them down against our stomachs' wishes if we did get them wrapped up. Sometimes you have to know your limits.

...Alright, days afterwards Sarah and I were still thinking about how sad it was that we didn't take any leftovers home with us. Oh, the regret.

sammich time

Nathan ordered "alice's BLT with blue cheese spread on toasted black bread". I think he finished it, so it must've been pretty good. I hope his sandwich eating experience was better than mine.

I forgot to mention the tea. In all honesty, I am so not a tea person. It's not just tea though; beverages don't really capture my heart in any way. I love water, but I think that's because I truly need it for my body to function. My description of tea (well, unsweetened and un-milked Chinese tea) is that it tastes like dirty water. Some people might be aghast at such a description (please don't shoot me), but...come on, you leave a bunch of leaves in water and that's supposed to taste good? I don't feel like tea is something you love from day one, but rather force yourself to like by drinking it excessively or from the necessity of needing some kind of simulant/relaxant (which are two functions of tea...depending on what kind it is and how its brewed, methinks?).

oh yeah, the TEA

Anyhoo, I got tea because we were at a tea place. Also, it came with the tea set. I ordered Phoenix Dessert something or other (can't find it online) that was listed as having a bunch of flavors that I couldn't really discern. After adding three packs of sugar, it transformed from "tastes like tea" to "tastes like awesome"! Haha! Cream probably would've made it more awesome. Sarah's chai tea was really tasty (sugar and cream, hooyeah) but Tristan said his tea was tasteless. I didn't try it to confirm, but I'm probably not the best person to do that. Tristan actually likes tea. Actually, just about everyone I know likes tea, coffee, or both

And then there's me. Sitting in the corner. Along. With a pointy hat that says, "WARNING: THIS GIRL DOES NOT <3 THE TEA, APPROACH WITH CAUTION."

humans, not food!

Diana loves taking photos of people (as opposed to food, which is my thing—it's kind of funny how we both love taking photos, but with very different purposes in mind), so...she did. She staged the photo of Patty and William, but at my table we just happened to look like that. For better or worse. Sarah is on my right, which is why you can't see her. MY GIRTH COMPLETELY BLOCKS SARAH! Or maybe that's just the angle.

I didn't realize until I saw Diana's photos that I didn't take any photos of just people. Scones? Yes! Cookies? Of course! Humans? WHA? Not just any humans, but some of my favorite humans! How did I forget? Maybe it's all in here [taps brain].

Or not. I like taking silly staged photos of people ("STUFF THIS COOKIE INTO YOUR FACE!!!"). Seriousness and things of high artistic quality are not my strong points (yeah, can you tell?), which was apparent to me in photography class when we had to present our work to our peers. I noticed that many other people had...messages behind their photos. I told the class that any of my photos that come out good are probably out of luck. Other people had the same idea about their photos too, but really, luck is key. I wasn't trying to portray any deep messages in my photos. I'm not deep. I'm a mere puddle.

...And that was very apparent last weekend. If you think I'm silly on a regular basis (I am, kinda), then mutiply that to the hundredth power and you'll end up with however I was over the weekend. Tristan is a very dear friend of mine from out of town that I first met about one and a half years ago through his best friend Stephanie, whom I've actually been online friends with since 8th grade (and I think I met Stephanie through another longtime online friend who I may meet for the first time this summer!...whoa, is this getting complicated?). Our friendship is mainly online based, so for anyone (like my mum) who thinks two people can't get to know each other really well or develop a strong friendship online...just stop. Most people reading this probably have formed strong online relationships, but there are people out there who are still skeptical that such a thing could happen and it drives me insane.

Oh well. Sucks fer youuu! I'm very lucky to have Tristan as a friend, but didn't realize that until we spent three days together communicating through the power of silliness. What is the power of silliness? It's...it's...you'll know if you've done it. It's not having to second guess anything that you say. It's knowing that you can say the stupidest thing in the world and no one will care. It's being able to poke someone in the nose at random times for no reason besides that it's funny. It's knowing that you can repeatedly make insulting remarks as a joke. It's being comfortable no matter what the situation.

...Except tickling. No one tickle me, okay? Unless you want to be kicked or punched by my lack of muscle power. Good.

Just a random note, I've noticed that this wee blog has been getting a lot more hits lately. Not enough to be uber-impressive (or else I might reveal my stats), but...more than before. Thanks for coming by! If you've read this far, I'm happily surprised.

Olive oil gelato olive oil gelato oliveoilgelato.

Otto

Sarah, along with a million other people, just couldn't stop talking about Otto's olive oil gelato. Although I've been interested in trying it for a long time (hey, I love olive oil and I love gelato!), I...um, hadn't. Until Friday night.

free carbs

There was no wait for a party of two at 7 PM. Sweet! Out first nibbles were the free breadsticks and bread. I don't think I've ever been to a restaurant that served breadsticks in packaging and bread wrapped in paper, but if it tastes good, who cares? Woop! I think.

my pizza is unsauced

I ordered one of the few pizzas that was seemed unworthy of an Italian translation: "potato, anchovy, and ricotta". If you've never had potato on pizza (I tried a version of it once at Sullivan Street Bakery—so awesome), then...put it on your list of things to eat. Otto's pizza was topped with a layer of ricotta cheese, thinly sliced potato rounds, a smattering of anchovies, and flakes of fresh, oil-drunken sage bits. Of course, the combination is freakin' awesome. While the pizza would've been find without the anchovies, the anchovies provided a much appreciated kick to what would have otherwise been a pleasant, but mildly flavored pizza. ANCHOVES KICK YOU IN THE FACE, YO! A delicious, salty sea-filled kick.

cruuuust

In true Slice fashion, I bring you the upskirt of this uber-thin, crispy crust. I think this is one of the best crusts I've ever had due to being...well, I just said it: uber-thin and crispy. I've tried other thin crust pizzas, but unlike the others, this showed no signs of floppage. Folks, the floppage must be stopped! Crispiness (while still retaining chewiness as opposed to breaking in a cracker-like fashion) is hot.

oh ho ho, pizza time!

Sarah ordered the special pizza of the week, "ramps and bufala mozzerella". If you read other NYC food blogs (or others), you've probably heard about ramps season a gajillion plus one times by now. I'm afraid I'm not quite as excited about ramps as others are (although when persimmon season comes, I'll be all like, "HOLY SHIZZZNIT, PERSIMMONS ARE HERE!"), but Sarah really wanted to try the ramps pizza. And...IT WAS AWESOME. Duh. It was completely different from my cheesy carby fishy pizza with its layer of sweet tomato sauce, dollops of buffalo mozzerella, and little mounds of ramps, which made it all the more awesome to each in conjunction with my pizza. There were also some weeny thinly sliced chile peppers that gave the pizza that extra "kick", kinda like the anchovies on my pizza, but spicy and not of aquatic origins.

At the end of the meal when trying to decide which pizza we liked better, we found that we liked both of them, but we liked the ones we each ordered just a smidgen more than the other one. OUR TASTES ARE SO COMPATIBLE, it is frightening, indeedio.

I ate my entire six-slice pizza (we exchanged two pieces of each one), while Sarah had two pieces leftover. Damn. Once again, I ate the most. I could've eaten just four slices also, as I was quite stuffed by that point, but ye know...it was really good. Stomachs expand. My brain does not.

What do you do after you stuff yourself with pizza?

what menu is THIS?

DESSERT. TIME FOR DESSERT. TIME FOR GELATO. TIME TO WRITE ALL IN CAPS.

my gelato, miiine

After much indecisiveness that went along the lines of, "IdunnowhattogetwhatdoIget?", I ordered olive oil, caramel, and coconut in my metal cup of gelato joy. Before I get to the WONDEROUS OLIVE OIL GELATO OF EXPLOSIVE AWESOMENESS, I shall talk about the other flavors.

Caramel. This stuff has time-released flavor of heightened intensity. As soon as I put a spoonful in my mouth and swooshed it around with my saliva, I thought, "....hm...doesn't taste like much." But what I fool I was! A few seconds later a salty sensation hit the back of my inner cheeks. I kid you not; this flavor comes out in waves. Of salted caramel. Really good salted caramel. If you don't agree that this flavor is the shizz, you must leave, NOW. [points to the virtual door]

Coconut. It was good. Creamy with a not overpowering, concentrated coconut flavor (which is how I'd describe the flavor for any of the gelatos). Not as mind blowing as the caramel, but really good for coconut.

olive oil gelato

OLIVE OIL GELATO. There aren't many ways to describe this gelato besides that it tastes like sweet, creamy, ice cream-ified olive oil and that it's mega good. The first bite, topped with salt and olive oil, is the best. If I could put salt and olive oil on every bite then my head may have exploded from the yumminess, so I guess it a good thing I couldn't.

creamy

The olive oil gelato was the creamiest of the three—I suppose the fat helps with that. You like cream, yes? And olive oil? And gelato? Wellll then, this is the perfect dessert for you. I'd put this on the list of things you should try in NYC (figuring the list isn't too long, because that kind of list could go on forever) if you get the chance.

Sarah's gelato

Sarah ordered olive oil, pistachio, and honey goat ricotta. The ricotta was most puzzling, probably because it was the least easily discernable flavor of the whole bunch. Pistachio was the best pistachio ice cream I've ever had, almost characteristic of peanut butter, but...well, pistachio. I'm afraid I can't think of a better description—you just have to eat it.

all gone

And thus ended a memorable dinner at Otto. I thought it may have been overrated since I heard so many good things about it, but...it is good. At least if you just get pizza and gelato.

shelves of tea and stuff

Before we went to Otto, we roamed around Union Square and ended up at the small, cleanly designed Tavalon tea shop on 14th Street between 5th Ave and University Place. They had free tea samples outside that I surprisingly liked. It was mint plum something-or-other...which means it probably didn't taste like regular tea. But that's why I liked it.

Balthazar cannele

I was surprised to find Balthazar canneles being sold there. Of course, I had to try one since my first (and only) cannele-eating experience from Bouley Market last summer. Unfortunately, this wasn't nearly as good. The caramel flavor wasn't as deep or striking. It still had that creamy pudding-cake texture, but...it wasn't that memorable. Sad.

chai almond cookie

We also tried a chai almond cookie by Amai (from the creators of Lovescool!). It tasted like...chai and almond. Good! Tender shortbread-ish cookies aren't my favorite kind, but the flavor was unique and I liked it.

Sandwich Shoppe

For lunch on Friday after turning in my deathly research paper about honey for "Food and Nutrition in a Global Society", I strolled over to The Original Sandwich Shoppe of NY on Greenwich Ave. I had been interested in trying it for a while, but I never got the chance. I happened to cut back my work time that Friday and...man, it was hella beautiful. SANDWICHING, HERE I COOOME.

liverwurst!

I'm not sure if I had ever had liverwurst before—all the more reason to try it, perhaps? The soft, creamy liverwurst came with dijon mustard, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and roasted red peppers on crusty French bread. While I didn't like it enough to considering ordering it again, I enjoyed it enough to eat the whole thing. The problem for me was the mustard; it was eye-searingly strong. Ouch. It certainly had a lot of flavor, but it overpowered the liverwurst. And my tastebuds are wussy.

interior

I'd definitely return to this sandwich shop if I were in the neighborhood. Prices are reasonable ($6.50 for my large sandwich), seating is spacious and cozy, and service is friendly. The French bread was also among the better sandwich breads I've had; chewy, crust, but not so hard that it scraped the roof of my mouth to bits.

Once Upon a Tart

On Thursday afternoon I strolled by Once Upon a Tart for some lunchin'.

lots of food!

I'm actually not a huge fan of tarts, so thankfully they sell other things that I do love. Scones! Muffins! Sammiches! All presented in a bright, yellow sunny room (with bright, sunny employees!...or maybe that was just the guy who helped me). ALL FOR MY STOMACH! Their sandwiches err on the expensive side, but I figured I may as well try it at least once.

muffin beauty shot...after I cut out a chunk of it

Sarah kept pressing the deliciousness of their muffins to me, so naturally I had to try one. They didn't have flavors that I really wanted, but the apple cranberry muffin was one of the better muffins I've eaten. Large chunks of fresh apples made the difference between an okay muffin and a, "Whoa, this is pretty good" muffin.

mozzerella sandwich

I also tried the mozzerella sandwich with artichoke paste, roasted tomato and arugula on foccaccia. For $6.75, I felt like it should've been bigger than my fist, but it was yummy with freshness. I COULD'VE EATEN TWO OF EM.

corn that has been popped

On Thursday night, I also ate popcorn in addition to half of the sandwich (I split it half and half between lunch and dinner). I rarely eat popcorn, but Kathy gave it to me. I had been hoping to pop it when i could share it with some friends, but...hoho, Robyn has no friends, so I ate it by myself. Of course, this wasn't normal popcorn (because then why would Kathy give it to me?), but Hawaiian hurricane popcorn! It's better than normal popcorn because it has the extra flavor of salty seaweed flakes and the crunch of a smattering of rice crackers. Mmmm! It also came with a bag of mysterious "butter", but I replaced it with olive oil. There's no contest between "butter" and olive oil, is there?

...Oh, if I learned anything from eating the popcorn, it's that no one person should ever eat a whole bag by herself. You'll get sick of it. Guess how I learned this lesson? By eating the entire bag and getting sick of it by the end. If you don't overdo it though, it should be pretty tasty.

Bo Ky

On Wednesday I went to the Vietnamese restaurant Bo Ky in Chinatown with Mary and Brad to semi-celebrate Mary's 21st birthday (wahoo!). Kathy mentioned it to me on multiple occassions; when she likes a place, ye know it's good.

bowl of noods, get in mah belly

I ordered the Cambodian rice noodle bowl, which had flat, wide rice noodles topped with fish and squid balls, shrimp, pork, and scallions. I made use of the free mystery condiments on the side of the table and dumped just about everything in at various points of the meal. Some sauces tasted spicy, some sour, and...really I had no idea what I was tasting, besides that it was delicious and that I really wish I were Vietnamese so I could go to Vietnam and eat stuff like this (but probably better) 24/7. It reminded me of the time in middle school that I mixed every soda in the school's soda machine, resulting in a blue colored concoction, which was odd considering none of the soda was blue.

...Chemicals, dude. It's the chemicals.

the life of the noods

Unsurprisingly, I ate it all. Neither Mary nor Brad could finish their bowls of curry chicken noodle soup (yup, they ordered the same thing).

curry chicken noodle

I tried a bit of Mary's and I liked it! They liked it! They just weren't hungry enough to EAT the whole damn thing. God, I'm a pig.

menu of ICE CREAM DELIGHTS

Naturally, I decided to top off my 150% full stomach with something from the Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. Doh. Once again, I was the pig; Mary and Brad shared a scoop while I downed a cone by my ol' self.

coconut fudge

Coconut is one of my favorite flavors from CIF. Can you see the uber-creaminess? CAN YOU? The photo was taken after I licked it into shape, but still...that's damn creamy, the creamiest flavor I've had there. When I saw that they had coconut fudge, I went all over it. There wasn't actually a lot of fudge, but it gave it a little extra chocolate yumminess not found in plain coconut.

On that note, I totally forgot that I had bought a Toblerone bar yesterday until writing about the fudge. I know; how does one forget that they bought a Toblerone? No freakin' clue. I could've eaten that instead of the crappy lunch of rice and random crap in a pot. This chocolate bar is much awesomer. The nougaty goodness brings back memories of flying and duty free shops

[Note: This is the second entry of the day. I know, two in one day...yes, I'm procrastinating. I have a 5-7 page paper to write that's due tomorrow and it really isn't going anywhere, so whatever.]

I like when you complain because you swear. I find this very amusing because it seems so counter to your cutie, foodie, poofie ways.

That's a comment from my livejournal. Swearing isn't really in my nature for some reason. I guess it's because I don't have much reason to swear; my life is ridiculously peachy and anytime that I do complain, I just feel worse because I know I don't "deserve" to do it. It's not a good cycle.

Anyway, this entry is rather sweary, in case you couldn't tell where this is going.

Last night I burned my right palm in four different places when I grabbed the handle of my metal strainer that I had forgotten was heated by the burner that was cooking a pot of noodles. My first reaction was, "OH MY GOD OH JESUS PAIN FUCK"...in my head. I didn't make a sound while transferring the pot to the sink as quickly as possible (which was pretty quick since the sink is opposite to the burners). I think a normal person would've shouted something in pain or dropped the pot, but I spent that extra split second to dump the pot in the sink instead of dropping it on the floor. While running my hand under cold water, all I could think was, "Robyn, you're a fucking idiot. Good job."

Now I'm thinking, "This is why someone invented rubber handle covers."

While I was in the bathroom running more cold water over my hand I was reminded of one reason that I endured the raw food diet for one and a half years; heat is destructful. Of course, heat also allows us to cook things and thus make certain foods edible that wouldn't otherwise be edible, but stick your hand on a burner and see what happens. Cooking kills. Of course, I'm not going back to the raw food diet based on this idea, but you can keep it in mind.

This morning I had another reason to go solitarily expletive crazy. My roommate moved out this morning with the help of her mum. Yay, now I have the place to myself (until Wednesday)! She was an alright roommate, not the greatest, but far from the worse. She's been packing up her stuff since yesterday and I would think that since we don't live in a particularly large place she wouldn't have any problem...ye know, not leaving things behind. Because. She'd look through everything. Yeah.

You can see where this is going, right?

SHE LEFT ALL HER SHIT IN THE KITCHEN. Okay. Not all of it, but most of it. I opened the freezer, where I have absolutely nothing, only to see bags (some open and some not) of frozen vegetables, fruit, and edamame. I look in the main refrigerator and see multiple bottles of orange juice (yes, two bottles that had been consumed at different rates) and half a dozen eggs that expired in February. I look in the vegetable bin and find an unopened bag of lettuce that is so rotten that it has peed a puddle of brown water. The bag, despite being made of plastic, may had also been decomposing. Another bin under the shelf holds the treasure of "I don't know how long this has been here" smoked salmon, some kind of vegetable spread, and other things. The inside shelves of the door hold her numerous jars of jam and bottles of sauce and salad dressing. I looked into her dry goods cabinet over the sink and, lo and behold, I find bottles of oil, sauces, cans of tuna fish, other condiments, etc.

I was left with the task of chucking all her uneaten shit out, whichis really not cool. She and her mum had been up this morning looking through things and moving out her boxes. They did go through some parts of the kitchen, but did they leave all that crap behind on purpose? I know they didn't have the intention of torturing me with beyond-expired food and dry goods that I'd never eat, but ...what, did they think that stuff was mine? I think on a few occasions my roommate couldn't remember what was hers and what was mine. To me, it's so obvious what is or is not mine. SHE LEFT BEHIND A CRAPLOAD OF HER SILVERWEAR FOR ME. Why would she do that? Now I have more crap to throw out.

Oh yeah, my roommate almost never took the trash out the whole time she was here. I think her mum did sometimes when she visited, but...my god. My roommate bought toilet paper once or twice in the whole year and she didn't buy many trash bags either. Luckily I found an extra box that I had bought months ago or else I'd have to go to Duane Reade for some more. My roommate had some extra boxes of trash bags under the sink, but they're small and pretty useless considering how much crap there is to clean up. She left behind her cleaning supplies, for whatever reason. It's possible that they aren't hers and are perhaps remnants from the roommate she had last summer, but they were obviously not mine.

...Maybe I'm being too harsh. Her life was probably busier than mine, although I couldn't tell for sure considering all the time she spent channel surfing. At the very least she wasn't a huge slob or really annoying in any way. Of course, since we live on the substance free floor there wouldn't be any concern of excessive drug or alcohol use. She had told me horror stories abour her previous drunken-vomiting and/or marijuana brownie-eating roommates

I get annoyed very easily. Oh well. I should just become a hermit. That's the life for me.

Not that I've had enough experience to judge, but this is the second year in a row that I've had a musical theater major for a roommate and both times did my roommate leave behind all her kitchen shit for me to throw out. If you're a musical theater major, stand up and redeem yourself. Otherwise I'm thinking a big "FUCK, WHY MUST YOU DO THIS TO ME?!" about all musical theater majors, whether or not I'll ever have contact with them. (If you're not a musical theater major, but you leave a pile of crap in the kitchen for your roommate when you leave out, I also dislike you.)

End rant.

ASIANS! OF AMERICA!!! OR ELSEWHERE! OR NOT ASIAN!

Head over to Jeff Yang's blog and help him fill out a questionnaire about being Asian. Email your answers to asianpopculture@gmail.com by Tuesday, May 9th. I'll fill it out now, for fuuuuns!

NAME: Robyn
LOCATION: NYC
DESCRIBE YOURSELF: Chinese American (this question is kind of vague...how about, "humanoid"?)

1. Do you think of yourself as Asian? Why or why not? Do your parents? When was the first time you referred to yourself as "Asian"?
   Yup, I'm ASIAN. Because my parents were born in Asia and I conveniently inherited their genes. I have no clue when I first refered to myself as "Asian", but I suspect it was early in my life. Maybe it was when everyone kept asking me what country I was from.
2. Stream of consciousness: What ideas immediately come to mind when you think of the word Asian?
   Chinese, probably because I'm Chinese and self-centered. Japanese, because I like Japan. Crazy languages that I can't understand, because Asian languages are so not like English. Really good food, because Asians seem to be obsessed with food (remember that flickr food meet I went to that was 99% Asian?). Other side of the world, because it's way over there. Exotic, because I'm so Americanized.
3. What does Asian taste like?
   Not bland. Rice. ...Okay, that's more of a general foodstuff. NOT creamy. Balanced flavors...sweet, sour, hot, other stuff. Fresh. Not too heavy. Soy sauce.
4. What does Asian look like?
   Skinny. HAR HAR. I'm American, so I don't fit that description as well as people in Taiwan. Short, slender, graceful, long straight black hair...wait, none of these fit me. Small eye slits; yeah, that's me! Sometimes it looks like I HAVE NO FREAKIN' EYES. On a random note, I still recall an awkward moment when I was on a band trip in Toronto and one of my classmates remarked to a Korean girl that she wished she were Asian because all Asian are beautiful (and that girl was beautiful). She didn't notice that was I walking behind them; it was kind of awkward.
5. What is Asian good at and bad at?
   Good at math, science, engineering, playing classical music (piano, violin, etc) being nearsighted. ...Wow, that was so stereotypical. Seriously though, I could think of a bunch of friends and family who fit this bill. Of course, there are non-Asians who fit that too. Less good at non-classical music, art, writing, sports....wait, that's not really true. I'm just saying the "opposites" of the other thing. If you go to school in Asia, you find out people are good at everything. Duh. Growing up in a small suburban town where I was one of maybe five Asian people in my class (who were all "smart") was different.
6. What's the most Asian thing you've ever done? Who's the most Asian person you know? Why?
   Haha...wow. Most Asian thing I've done? I have no idea. Learned piano and joined math team in high school? (The math team was seriouly at least 80% Asian, if that means anything.) I don't have any particularly "Asian" friends besides that they actually know the language that their parents speak, but I know this one girl who's flamingly "Azn". I won't get into that though; you either know what I'm talking about or you don't. (Refer to xanga.)
7. Do you think you need to be born Asian to be Asian? If you're Asian, how do you feel when you see someone who's not Asian aspiring to be Asian--flattered, or embarrassed, both, or neither? If you're not Asian, are there times when you wish you were? Why?
   Whoa...um. If you're born in Asia but aren't actually of Asian ethnicity, I'd still say you're Asian...if you identify with where you live to a certain extent? I mean, I grew up in America, so I'd preeeetty American by now. I wasn't brought up very Chinese except that I ate rice all the time. ...Crap, where am I going with this? If you're not Asian I think...dammit, now I'm confused. Start over. I have to admit that sometimes if I see non-Asians striving to be more Asian (refer to the Otakon convention I went to; oh my god, I don't know what happened there), I find it kind of funny. (Actually, that wasn't a very good example. It's perfectly okay for Americans to get into Japanese animation. A lot of people in other countries like American things...and it doesn't necessarily make them American since they appropriate it for their own use and adapt it to their culture. I don't think the anime craze has reached that kind of level yet, eh? Or. I dunno, you tell me.) Then again, I would find Asians trying to be really American in some atypical way kind of funny too. If I could come up with examples I would, but...eh, I'm being vague. Hopefully someone has an idea of what I'm talking about. I'm Asian, but sometimes I wish I were Japanese in stead of Chinese. First off, I think I would've learned Japanese by now (I've given up on Mandarin) and I'd have an excuse to visit Japan more often. Hohum
8. Forty years from now, do you think people will be using the term Asian? Why or why not?
   ...Like in the same way that people will be using the term "European" or "American"? I DUNNO! MUUUH.

That probably wasn't very helpful.

Yesterday I went on a boat ride. I've been on a couple of boat rides I my life, but I think that was the windiest one. It was bearable, of course. Nothing will beat the time I was on some kind of "this doen't look like it can float" canoe in Malaysia with my family and a million other tourists (in their own canoes, not the same one) going around a bunch of narrow streams and mountains and thinking I was going to fall out and die. Or get soaked. Neither of those things happened, but I did get insanely tan from the equatorial sun.

I took a gajillion photos. Here are some of the better ones.

bridges

I live over there, somewhere

halo

It's weird to have these beautiful views of NYC. They're so close, but...not. Strangely perhaps, this kind of relates to an essay I had to read for anthropology comparing an ehibition in Paris that recreated the streets of Cairo to the experience Europeans had when they actually visited the real Cairo (they weren't very into the real thing; they kept comparing it to the imitation...or something to that effect). The essay had to do with representation and reality whatnot. When in Egypt, the Europeans tried to make picturesque drawings and descriptions, the best of which were from looking at it from a colonial view from afar...or...dammit, I didn't understand it that well. I liked the essay, but I'm having loads of trouble making it work with my essay topic (which I'd explain but...nah, lets leave the burden of that on myself). Of course, you can get beautiful photos of NYC from within the city itself, but it seems most beautiful from afar. Or. Maybe not. It's just different. Actually, even though it's real, it's not at the same time. I had a split second to capture the sun around the Statue of Liberty; I'll probably never see it again. I could blab more about this, but I should probably work on my essay instead.

...Damn grades.

Update: Bryan wrote about the boat ride, such as the actual name of the boat and where it went, which are good things to know. He also describes the experience much more beautifully than I could since...I had other things on my mind. Nothing worth anonymously confessing, just things. We all have "things".

Last thing: I'm going to Bergen, Norway with Diana from June 7-16. We'll meet up with Rebecca from the 13th to 16th and of course, Morten will show us the non-touristy ropes. People keep asking me how I pulled it off, so basically...I got a friend to come with me. Simple. And I shortened the trip by a buttload of days. More simple. So come June, expect the Norwegian edition of this blog.

But before Norway, I have another exciting thing on my agenda. Tomorrow I'm going to the Institute of Culinary Education for a chocolate...thingy. A day of chocolate. Eating it. Learning about it. Probably going to get a coma from it. Anyone else out there going? FOOD BLOGGERS, WHERE ARE YOU?! I don't know anyone who's going, but I'm surely stand out as the only college student taking a bagillion photos.

Mom (on the phone): Where are you now?
Me: Oh, I'm at a chocolate symposium.
Mom: ...Okay.

My mum's interest is overbearing. Right. I called her during a break at the Chocolate Manufacturers Association Chocolate Symposium this morning to ask her a question and was amused by her disinterested response. Anyhoo, I'm not here to talk about my mum's indifference to my foodie ways—I'm here to talk about the future of CHOCS.

welcome...to the land of free chocs

I was surprised when I was invited to attend the CMA's first chocolate symposium at the Institute of Culinary Education. It was the first time I was ever invited to a show of the trade-type. Or. Anything. I have to admit that I was a bit excited that my bloggie ways labeled me as the MEDIA (see, I got to wear a name tag, HOOHA, SEE?!). Whenever people asked me who I was with, I'd respond with something like, "Um...freeeeelance?" Sometimes I'd say that I have a blog, which would go into a longer response. "Um...it's not specific to anything. I just talk about what I eat. Every freakin' day." Clay Gordon of chocophile.com was understandably in attendance, but we were the only bloggers there. Surely if William of chocolate obsession were based in NYC he would've been there too. Instead of listing a bunch of reasons why I wasn't qualified to be there, I'll just say that it was really cool and I'll try to recap the symposium to the best of my extremely unprofessional abilities.

[Hopefully you've figured this out already, but clicking on the photos will take you to larger versions on my flickr page. I have a gajillion photos so I'm going to post mainly small versions as to not make your browser implode. Do not squint to make out the photo, just click on it!]

After receving two folders stuffed with press releases, educational information about chocolate and biographies of various important chocolate related people, we browsed tables representing some of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world (including Nestle, Mars, and Hershey) and took their free chocolate bars. Or maybe that was just me.

I took a few...a few!

Hey, the Callebaut representative said I could take whatever full-sized chocolate bars I wanted. When someone tells you to take chocolate, you damn well better take it..

E. Guittard

Gary Guittard, president of Guittard Chocolate was pleasant to speak to. He'd prove to be a bit of a personality during the panel, in the awesome "Oh, these people really love chocolate" sense. It's a good sense.

Nestle

Tricia Bowles, "Manager, Division & Brand Affairs" for Nestle said that if I wanted a case of a Nestle product, all I gotta do is ask. That's allll I gotta do. I'm be the hit of the office! Or the most popular house on my block during Halloween. (However, my block only has about 10 houses on it, or maybe even less since the last time I was home one of the neighboring houses was destroyed—along with some surrounding trees—to make room for an even larger house...anyhoo, back to chocs.) I don't plan on abusing this privilege, but I'm keeping her business card just in case. As for the candy on display, they were primarily modified established products, such as Dark Chocolate Raisinets, Dark Chocolate Turtles, Dark Chocolate 100 Grand...do you sense a theme? I'll go into chocolate trends later. (I took notes, but I doubt I'll refer to them because...pssh, notes are for professionals.)

Random chocolate photos for you:

chocs chocs chocs

The chocolate flavored Bubble Yum wasn't actually available yet (the boxes were empty), but I recall seeing chocolate flavored gum in Japanese stores. So...there is chocolate gum on the market. For Japanese palates. IS AMERICAN READY? ISSSS IT?

swag bag

We shuffled down from the 12th to the 6th floor for the first panel, "Chocolatiers Talk What's Next" (I think that's missing a word of grammatical importance, but no matter). Each chair had a chocolate swag bag full of edibles (including a sample box of Guittard chocolates and duplicates of a bunch of things I had already shoved into my bag) and non-edibles (such as Origins "cocoa therapy" body cleanser and a copy of Truffles, Candies, and Confections by Carole Bloome, who spoke to us during lunch). My first thought was something like, "Holy shizz." I can't think of a food-filled bag that could be much better than one stuffed with chocolate. Chocolate is easy to share and it won't go bad if you can't eat it all in one day. A bag full of ice cream would...well, melt, and a bag full of scones would be impossible to eat at peak freshness. Chocolate is the key...the key to...I don't know, but it's the key to something good.

I was sitting next to Lisbeth Echeandia, publisher of Confectioner, a trade magazine about candy. She gave me a copy of the latest issue—did you know there's a line of Canadian chocolate called Choco-Omeg that provides "your daily fix of chocolate plus healthy omegae-3 fatty acids in one yummy product"? My god, I've been looking for that my whole life! ...Okay, not really, but it's an interesting idea. I guess. Oh, those Canadians!

Related to Canadianism, Tricia informed us that Nestle's Coffee Crisp is slated to arrive in US convenience stores on July 17th. No need for the Coffee Crisp Petition anymore. Suckers!...wait, I mean winners! Also, since Kristen asked me about the availability of Dark Chocolate 100 Grand, I can vaguely tell you that it's supposed to come out between now and June 30th. Woo. I have to admit that 100 Grand is one of the few chocolate bars I remember really liking from my Halloween stash as a kid.

panel speakers

The panel was moderated by Joan Steuer, founder of Chocolate Marketing, a chocolate consulting firm. Yup, this woman is really into chocolate. The speakers from left to right, back row to front were Tom Hernquist (Senior Vice President, Global Chief Growth Officer, Hershey), Brice Russel (Senior VP of Technology, Masterfoods/Mars), Tricia Bowles (Manager, Division & Brand Affairs, Nestle), John Urbanski (VP Technical Sales and Services, Wilbur Chocolate Co), Edmond Opler (President, World's Finest Chocolate), Steve Laning (Director of Technical Services, North America, ADM Cocoa), Rose Potts (Sensory Programs Manager, Blommer Chocolate Company), Joe Lucas (VP Chocolate and Cocoa Sales North America, Barry Callebaut USA), and Gary Guittard (Chairman, Guittard Chocolate).

If you're wondering, that list took me forever to write. It might not even be correct; my memory kinda sucks. Dammit. I HOPE IT HELPS.

The main point of discussion was trends in the chocolate world, the major trends being dark chocolate, the health benefits of chocolate, and providing a unique chocolate-eating experience. Overall, chocolate in America is taking a major turn in complexity and choice (or "premium-ness", a term I just made up) similar to that of coffee more than a decade ago (which isn't something I can really comment on since I'm only 20 and am not familiar with a pre-Starbucks world, haha...dammit). As the country's population is getting older, consumers' palates are becoming more sophisticated; they demand something more complex than a Snickers bar. Origins and percentages were discussed; do they matter? Yup. Kinda. Consumers may not necessarily understand them, but origins are a vehicle for culinary travel and give a sense of exoticism. Percentages can be tricky since even though you'd think that 70% means 70% cocoa content, Gary informed us that it actually refers to the combined cocoa solids and cocoa butter content, meaning that there may not actually be that amount of coma-inducing cocoa in your chocolate. At least I think that's what he said.

...Okay, I give in; I need to look at my notes. I also don't want to write this entry for five hours. Yeah, I know I don't have to write an entry all in one sitting, but the loveliness of blogging is that I don't have to wait three or more months to get an article published—I can rush it and pump out something medicore! THAT'S MAH POWER, and I shall abuse it, but also try to keeop your attention.

Are you still reading? CATFOOD TRASH COMPACTOR BRINGS PENGUIN BABIES TO THE CIRCUS. Just checking.

Cocoa powder and chocolate beverages are another big thing to watch. I can attest to that as...um, I drank a lot of hot chocolate this past winter. Then again, that's because I eat a lot. There's a reason why places like Jacques Torres Chocolate Haven, which has an extensive hot chocolate menu, are doing well. Cocoa is also being introduced into other foods, like savory main courses (although it's unlikely to go the other way around; scallop flavored chocolate, anyone?). Flavors that are becoming more popular in chocolate aren't necessarily new, but recall the origins of chocolate, such as spices used by the Aztecs. Someone also mentioned the development of 100 calorie packs to help people control their consumption. Hehehe...hehehe. I don't know about you, but if I eat chocolate, I go for the gluttonous gold. I acknowledge that I'm ingesting 500 calories in one sitting, but it doesn't really stop me. Then again, I'm not obese...yet.

more chocolate-knowledged people!

The next panel, titled "What Do Instrustry Watchers See?", featured (from left to right) Don Montuori (Acquisition Editor, Packaged Facts), Dr. John Stanton (Food Marketing Trends Expert, St. Joseph's University), Angie McKenzie (Products Manager, Starbucks), and Chef Michelle Tampakis (Professor, ICE). Many things they said were also covered in the first panel, so I won't recapitulate. They mentioned that stores like Whole Foods and Trader Joes are making premium chocolate more accessible. As for what premium chocolate is, they gave the characteristics of not having many ingredients and being well-packaged (Godiva, anyone?). They also touched upon chocolate in non-food items, primarily toiletries. I have to admit that I don't understand the big deal of using some kind of lotion with chocolate in it; I'd rather eat the chocolate than slather it on my skin. (I should probably mention though that my only toiletries are toothpaste and soap. The soap doubles as shampoo. If you've met me in real life, you know that 1) I don't use makeup and 2) I smell like a normal, clean human, unless I've been in the sun too long, so...yeeeaaah.)

Holy crap, I'm supposed to be studying for a final right now. My final final of my junior year. [looks at watch] Against better judgement, I shall plod on.

lucky 7

For lunch, we were treated to a chocolate-themed three-course meal. There was accompanying wine, but I refused it since I have yet to develop the taste for alcohol (I honestly don't care that my tastebuds are underdeveloped, but I wouldn't mind if one day I suddenly liked wine). I sat between Susan Smith, Senior VP of Public Affairs for the National Confectioners Association and Angie McKenzie, Products Manager for Starbucks who spoke in the second panel. Susan was fun to talk to as I somewhat explained my blog to her and she told me how she definitely didn't plan on being in the NCA (although she did grow up in a farming family, so she's always had a connection to food), but...hey, going to candy conventions while getting paid for it is pretty awesome. Angie was also fun to talk to because, holy shizz (if anyone's wondering, my use of the term "shizz" is completely Sarah's fault), she's actually seen my blog before! SCORE. She asked me the name and I guess the title sticks into people's minds, so she recognized it.

"I don't actually eat everything," I explained. I like to mention that sometimes because otherwise I'm afraid people will actually think that I eat everything. My blog title is a lieee. A better title would be, "The Girl Who Eats A Lot More Than She Should", but that's way too long and it doesn't play much upon the title of Jeffrey Steingarten's book.

Onto the meal and the food porn.

appetizer

We started with "Cremini Mushroom and Bitter Chocolate Risotto with White Truffle Oil", garnished with chives and thin slabs of cheese that I couldn't identify. I liked the dish, although I don't have much to compare it to since I've rarely eaten risotto in my life. It was...creamy. Al dente. Brown. The chocolate taste was interesting in a savory dish, although not necessarily something I'd think about eating again. Of course, I ate the whole thing.

entree

The entree was "Cocoa-Dusted Beef Tenderloin in a Guiness and Dark Chocolate-Rosemary Sauce with Asparagus and Spring Pea Ragout". Yes, a bit of a lengthy description. I have to admit that I can't remember what the sauce tasted like, which I suppose means it wasn't bad or mindblowingly awesome. From the viewpoint of someone who isn't a huge fan of beef slab, I prefered the ragout over the tenderloin. There wasn't anything wrong with the tenderloin—it was pink, juicy, radiating with bovine fleshiness—but I like my carbs (in this case, pastina, which I don't think I've ever eaten before) and I would actually list asparagus and peas among my favorite kinds of vegetables.

dessert!

Alas, my favorite part: DESSERT. We each received a trio of extremely tiny cupcakes (but hey, there were three of em): White Chocolate with Cinnamon-Brown Sugar Icing, Milk Chocolate with Honey-Creme Fraiche, and Dark Chocolate with Five Spice Glaze. The white chocolate one was most "eh" to me because of the almost financier-esque, slighty chewy texture (not that that's a bad thing, it just wasn't what I was expecting in a cupcake). The chocolate cupcake had a more moist, soft texture that I liked, but I couldn't discern much of the five-spice flavor. The milk chocolate cupcake was my favorite because of the interesting creme-fraiche honey frosting. It had a slight tang and was creamier than the other frostings. Oh yes, I like my high creaminess factor.

I shouldn't be too critical of the meal since it's not like I can cook much. Also, free food is automatically awesome. I don't think using chocolate for the sake of using chocolate is the best idea in the world, but it made sense at a chocolate symposium.

kissables

I needed some more sugar after the meal, so I grabbed a pack of Kissables from one of the chocolate baskets on the way out of the dining room. They're adorable, eh? Right now they're adorably being pulverized by my stomach acids. Wee!

Bill!

Bill Guyton, president of the World Cocoa Foundation, gave a presentation about the foundation and how its affecting cocoa farmers around the world. During the first two panels I was actually wondering what the companies' positions on labor practices on cocoa farms (which are mainly situated in poor "developing" nations—70% of the world's cocoa is grown in West Africa) were since we touched upon the issue in my "Food and Nutrition in a Global Society" class. None of the representatives mentioned it, but Bill gave a nice overview of the WCF and how it's helping to increase productivity, set ethical labor practices, improve education and help the environment. The foundation set up "Farmer Field Schools" to educate farmers and although it has only affected a small percentage of the roughly 3.5 million cocoa farms worldwide (I don't remember the exact number).

cacao pod of doom

Before his presentation, Bill cut open some cacao pods to pass around. DELICIOUS. This is where your candy bar comes from, folks. It's better than staring at a butchered cow, at least.

scientific panel

The last panel titled "Science, Nutrition, Health Benefits" was moderated by Katherine Tallmadge, M.A., R.D., and author of Diet Simple, and featured panelists (from left to right) Dr. Dennis Savaiano Ph.D. (Dean of the College of Consumer and Family Sciences, Dept. of Foods and Nutrition, Purdue University), Dr. Leah Porter Ph.D.(VP of Scientific Affairs, Chocolate Manufacturers Association), Dr. R. Curtis Ellison M.D . (Professor of Medicine and Public Health, Chief of Preventive Medicine and Epidemiology, Boston University) and Dr. Joanne Holden, Ph.D., Research leader, USDA). My note taking died off by this point, but I found the panel interesting. Dr. Ellison in particular was a fun dude. He can put that in his credentials: " M.D., and Robyn-certified fun dude". Seriously though, they were talking about how research done on the health benefits of chocolate may just be touching the tip of the iceberg, but it's also showing a lot of promise that may allow dieticians to suggest the inclusion of the somewhat nutritionally taboo chocolate in one's diet and provide the chocolate industry with a crucial marketing perspective...kind of like how red wine became insanely popular after people realized that it didn't lead to instant alcoholism, or else the French would be completely doomed.

I summed up that panel just a bit too quickly, but hey, I'm not getting paid to do this. I still have to cram for my final...dammit.

swag

Alright, I guess I was paid. IN MORE CALORIES THAN I'LL EVER NEED, figuring I'm not stranded in a forest left to live on calorically-dense confections. The back pile consists of what was in the bag (except for the book) and the front pile is what I swiped from the tables and various chocolate baskets. I ate a lot of it already and I'm not too proud of it.

crunch bar

One thing I ate was the dark chocolate caramel filled Crunch Bar. It wasn't bad, but the caramel gave too much sweetness and took away from the solid crunchiness that I like about crunch bars. Don't caramelize my crunch bar! Ah well, it's not bad.

Okay, I'm really going to study now. Please wish me luck on my final, although if I failed I think I'd still pass the course. While talking to Susan about my blog, she asked me how I found the time to write it. Just so you know, this semester I took 18 credits, worked part-time (eh, only 13 hours a week though), and I never missed a class, although there were a few times that I shaved off work time. My grades aren't that bad (I got an A in my food history class; HOHO what a mistake!) so I've decided that opposed to being smart or adept at organizing time, maybe food studies just isn't that hard. Oops. PUTTING MY EDUCATION TO GOOD USE, AM I?!

Anyhoo. I hope you enjoyed this entry. I left out a lot, but it's pretty freakin' long and obviously the event was much more interesting in real life than a word and photo-filled recap can convey. While I was listening to the panelists, I couldn't think of many other topics that I'd actually be that interested in hearing about. Ice cream? Sandwiches? Penguins? Seriously, what else?

Many thanks to Amy Storey for allowing this wee blogger to grace the professional world of chocolatiers and established media with her lack of social/networking skills and ...outfit of a t-shirt and jeans. I had an awesome time! LET'S DO IT AGAIN, WEEHEE!!

Mom: You gained weight.

Me: ...THANKS.

She's right, but...still. These aren't words a daughter wants to hear from her mum after not having seen each other for one and a half months. In that time period between spring break and moving out of my dorm, I guess I had noticeably increased in girth. From all that...eating. Surely you've seen it. I haven't decided whether or not I should care intensely about the damage I'm doing to my body from putting too much into it and thus exercise some moderation (because I wouldn't exercise anything else, hoohaa!), or if I should just continue my fooding spree until I explode...or can't fit into any of my clothing. If the first one happens, the second would have to also. (And in between the two, death would occur, which would be problematic.)

I left my dorm (known as the nicest dorm in NYU...and one of the farthest away from campus) of two years at around 10 PM, which was oddly the same time that about eight other families wanted to move out. Hmmm. Luckily I live pretty close to school; I can't imagine having to move out and then ship my crap back home or put it in storage. I made two trips with the gigantic gray "moving out" cart and in about half an hour my mum's Jeep was completely stuffed with my 15 or so bags and crates, which were in turned stuffed with crap I didn't even know I had. Funnily perhaps, I had about five bags full of kitchen related items. As you know, I don't cooke very often, but when you need a pot, you need a pot. And a pan. And a baking sheet. And cooling racks. And plates, and bowls, and utensils, and measuring spoons and cups and storage containers and...

...I realized that if I truly hadn't cooked (or planned to), I would've had a lot less crap to bring home. My cup only came into usefulness a handful of times for the sake of holding hot chocolate. I remember last year using my measuring cup as a drinking cup (which I rarely needed) before I realized that I should probably get a real one. Normal people do not drink out of measuring cups, I think. Then again, I'm not normal—maybe I should've held onto that eccentricity.

I think I'm a college senior now. That's pretty damn weird. If my final year in college follows the trend of the past three, it'll be the most procrastination-filled year everrrr.

Clinton Street Baking Co

Oh yeah, food. Sorry to bore you with that random "I'm done with college" stuff. As one of the last fun meals of the year, last Saturday I went to Clinton St. Baking Company for brunch with Sarah, Patty, and William. We had to wait almost an hour to be seated and practically stalked a four-seat booth as the customers paid their bill, sat there...sat there some more...and FINALLY LEFT, HURRAH, IT'S PANCAKE TIME.

Mount Pancake and Lake of Maple Butter of Crack-Like Addictive Deliciousness

It was William's idea to photograph Patty's pancake stack in this nature scene-like fashion. You got your craggy walnut-topped mountain of round, fluffy pancakes looming over a lake of one of the top ten most delicious substances in the world (don't ask me what the other nine are): maple butter. It sounds simple, because it is. However, I've never seen or tasted it anywhere else before, which makes me wonder if it really is that simple or if it requires some kind of other-wordly knowledge that is only passed down to the most worthy syrup makers, who in turn can't even tell their own children (punishable by detachment of important limbs) unless they too are worthy syrup makers. They must know the properties of butter and the properties of maple syrup and how to make the marriage of the two truly last until death. Your death. From ingesting buckets of it.

blueberry pancakes

And I think I could ingest a bucket of it, at least if it's accompanied by a stack of pancakes. This sauce is seriously one of the most memorable things I've ever tasted in my life, and by now you know that I've eaten many things. I don't see the point of actually describing the taste to you (um, aside from butter and maple syrup, which you probably figured out already) because...you need to taste it for yourself. Dip a pancake chunk into the light, gravy-colored sauce, stuff it in your mouth, and think, "......" While your thoughts turn into vacant ellipses, your vocal cords should return something like, "Guuhuhguhruhrhugrmmhwhaa."

Or maybe that's just me. I'm a weird one.

crab cake sandwich

Sarah and I split our dishes 50/50, which resulted in neither of us becoming too overly pancaked or crabcaked. I wouldn't usually choose a crabcake sandwich over any other kind of sandwich, but I chose it because I figured I wouldn't order it again. While a brioche roll isn't my favorite (I like chewier bread with crust), the sandwich as a whole was great. The crabcake was thankfully more crab than cake and the soft crustacean chunks held together nicely. The creole mayo-mustard gave it some spicy personality, kind of like...wearing a silly hat as opposed to a normal hat. Except not. Another nice part of the platter were the homemade potato chips, which were uber-thin and thus tasted of crispy, deep-fried fatty deliciousness. The thinness gave them the impression of being light, but that meant they tasted like golden flakes of fat...which is pretty tasty. And not light.

doomy milkshake

Alas, not everything could be perfect. This was one of the most disappointing milkshakes I've ever ingested. I've ordered many milkshakes in my day and for this to have happen at Clinton Street Baking Company, which seemed to be good at everything, made it even sadder. First off, when a menu describes something as "extra thick", there are certain expectations to be filled, such as...extra thickness. If this shake was just "plain thick", it would've been disappointing. Since it was supposedly adding a layer of extra thickness to some pre-existing characteristic of being thick, it was even more disappointing; What was it adding thickness to? The thin, milky substance in my glass that was so not worth $6? $6! Think of all the cookie slabs that could buy you. (Three, in case you were wondering.) I ordered the vanilla-chocolate-chunk flavor and while there were technically some chocolate chunks in the shake, a better description would've been "vanilla-chocolate-bits"...since that's what they were. Bits. When I hear the word chunk I think of something that could feasibly be carved out of the side of a larger something, as though there's a chocolate mountain and someone whacked it with a pick-axe to create the chocolate chunks. The chunks wouldn't have fit through the straw if they were that large, but...still! THE MENU DESCRIPTIONS TELL LIES.

Ignoring the overpriced milkshake, this restaurant is still pretty awesome. That maple butter makes up for all the wrong in the world. I think they laced it with something. Puuure looooove.

Or mood-enhancing chemicals.

baked goods

I bought a few baked goods before I left. Thumbs up for the chocolate chunk muffin and the chocolate chip cookie, but thumbs down for the berry scone, which had a funky, springy texture and not enough buttery taste. Or taste overall.

this is not among the collection of "flattering photos"

Sarah and I are rubbing our bellies. Because we are so stuffed that we want to roll over and hibernate for a few months. Heehee!

huuumans

On Tuesday, Sarah and I went to Nougatine (or "The Nougatine Room"...I don't know the official name) for their $24.07 prix fixe lunch. She wanted to eat at a more upscale place before leaving NYC (although she plans on visiting again in the summer) and she picked Nougatine (...sorry, but every time I see that word I think, "Haha, noog") since it's the casual Jean-Georges dining experience...which still makes it more upscale than most places.

Trump Tower

I suspect the rent in this building is kind of a buttload.

bread and buuuuutter

Our meal started off with a giant disc of butter. I like it. Grace pointed out that the butter mountain was probably sliced from a mother butter log, an idea that hadn't entered my mind. Yup, I have to think bigger. There is a butter log somewhere. We were each given a baguette slice to go with the butter slice and during the meal a waiter with a bread basket would ask if you wanted another slice to keep your bread plate from feeling lonely. Oh god, I could eat bread forever.

voila, soup!

How funny would it be if you were presented that plate on the left and told to dig in? YOU COULD INHALE THOSE GARNISHES. Thankfully, that's...um, not the dish. Sarah's spring asparagus soup with meyer lemon and truffle vinaigrette didn't fully materialize until a waiter came by with a pitcher containing a single serving of the thick, yellow-green soup and poured it over the lemon and asparagus bits. "DIE, BITS, DIIIIE!"...was not at all uttered during the ceremonial pouring, but I was probably thinking something along those lines. Because I'm weird.

[On a totally random note, last night I found my old science portfolio from 6th grade, which contained lab parter evaluations. Under the "What needs improvement?" section, my friend wrote that nothing was wrong with me, but that perhaps I should be less weird. She was just kidding, of course, but that just goes to show that my weirdness was already in full bloom when I was in 6th grade. It suuuure waaaas.]

Oh, how'd the soup taste? Really good. I couldn't taste the truffle whatnot, but the slight tang of the lemon with the creamy, freshly souped asparagus-ness was...um...really good. Umm. IT'S SOUP! IT'S LIQUIDY! IT SMELLS OF VEGETABLE-BASED AROMAS! Yeah.

healthy!

I ordered the arugula salad with radicchio and sugar snap peas. I'm not actually a big fan of salads, but my conscious told me that I needed to eat something raw and of plant-origins. The bitterness of baby greens (or the bitterness of anything) does not agree with me, but this was definitely a nice salad. One aspect of a "nice salad" for me is when there's just the perfect amount of dressing coating every bit of the salad. That takes skillz.

the other white meat

My entree of grilled pork with braised fennel and herbed salad was simple and satisfying. Yeah, it's a bit of a pointless description, but the impression that Sarah and I got from the dishes was that they were very well prepared compositions of simple ingredients. I know I could grill a pork chop, but I doubt it would come out as nice. I could probably braise fennel too...poorly. The herbed salad of dill and other things I couldn't recognize was more vinegar-y than I was expecting, but as the pork and fennel had mellow flavors, they went well together. I mean...I did eat the whole thing. Yup.

funky knife

They pay careful attention to utensils here. We noticed that we had different silverware, with Sarah's being the stranger set. She was given a blunt knife with a slightly angled cutting edge (kind of like a butter knife...or maybe it was a butter knife) and a fork with only three prongs, as opposed to my serated "pork tearing" knife and a fork with four whole prongs! I guess her utensils worked out for her, as she ate most of her sake-soy glazed salmon with napa cabbage and cilantro. The salmon was cooked a little rare, so it was...soft n tasty n stuff. There's probably something written out there about the rareness of food in relation to its prestige, but...uh...that sounds like a school paper and I'm lazy.

chocolate thing

Time for the best part of the meal: SUGAR. This is what chocolate chantilly on breton sable with mint sorbet looks like. If you look closely at the chantilly part (mm, creeeam), its sitting on top of a little chocolate cake bit, which I guess is nameless according to the menu. I don't know what a breton sable is, but if they're all like what was in this dessert I wouldn't really want to eat it again. The dryness of the cookie caused a piece of it to ungracefully fling off my plate and make a crumbly mess on the otherwise pristine floor when I tried to cut it with my spoon. Crap. IT WAS NOT MY FAULT, I SWEAR. I felt guilty marring the floor with my food, but it seriously just wooshed off my plate before I could catch it. I used my palm as a "cookie wooshing shield" the second time I tried to cut off a piece, but that part of the cookie was a smidge more moist and thus wasn't at risk of flying out of my plate-space.

So that was odd. The chantilly cream was fine as was the cookie part, but neither entered the "holy crap this is delicious!" department. Not enough chocolate flavor, perhaps. The mint sorbet was my favorite part because I love anything with real mint in it. Real mint >>> fake mint. However, sorbet is still much less satisfying than ice cream; there's not enough creamy mouthfeel with sorbet. Seriously, does anyone like sorbet more than ice cream? If you do that's okay, buuuut....but...I don't get it, unless you're allergic to dairy.

fruity

Sarah's dessert of fresh fruits on almond cake with cream cheese ice cream and spice sauce (although I don't know what kind of spice it was) was structurally impressive. I liked the placement of the squiggle cookie perched on top of the ice cream. This dessert was probably more satisfying than mine, or at least healthier because of the fruit.

a weird piece of art looms by Sarah's head

Overall, Sarah and I thought the food was good, just not really good to the point that we'd think of going back. (I should add though that the food at the main Jean Georges restaurant next to Nougatine is supposed to be hella awesome. I don't think any critic has actually described it as "hella awesome", but if I tried it I'd wanna throw that in. If. Maybe some other day.) The service was attentive and the ambiance was comfortable and bright, although not coffee-house cozy. We hung out there for about two hours before parting ways to allow me to study for my food science and technology final, which didn't go over well due to the LACK OF STUDYING, HOOHAAHAOOAH!

[sobs]

Ah well, I probably passed, and that's all that matters, eh? Every time I tell people I'm not that concerned about my grades, they say, "Ah well, not like you're going to grad school; you'll be fine." It's nice to know that I can just suck at school because I have no aspirations to aquire more diplomas and whatnot. Um. Yeah. (Don't get me wrong; my grades are still good...despite that I have no direction in life. Hoorah!)

Coming up: more entries with more food and more whining about how I'm gaining too much weight. YOU ARE SO EXCITED, I CAN FEEL IT.

oh my god, it's not food porn

Last Wednesday I went to Radio City to watch one of my best friends (and future travel partner to Norway) Diana graduate from The School of Visual Arts with a BFA in Graphic Design. Congratulations, Diana! YER FREAKIN' AWESOME! And a note to everyone else: HIRE HER, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!! Graduating inside a ginormous art deco theater with temperature control is much nicer than sitting outside in sweltering heat like my brother's graduation in St. Louis, where the school provided us with water bottles so we wouldn't...die. Not right away, at least.

peeeople

I took Diana out to Blue Ribbon Bakery, one of my favorite restaurants that I had only been to once, for her graduation dinner. I had actually made reservations at Eleven Madison Park the day before, but realized 1) I wasn't in the mood for something that formal, 2) I wasn't that hungry and 3) HOLY CRAP, IT COSTS MORE THAN MY SOUL. The cost wasn't the biggest factor—hell, you only graduate once...as an undergraduate—but it didn't feel like the right place to eat. I love Blue Ribbon because the environment is cozy, warm, and comfortably "upscale" (if you've been there, maybe you know what I'm talking about) and, of course, the food is great. I had only been to Blue Ribbon once before as other visits had been thwarted by long waits (due to too many humans wanting to eat food, damn em), but the restaurant wasn't crowded at 6 PM and we got the prime "food photography" spot by the window looking on Bedford Street.

the butter tub wasn't as large as the bread basket, but how cool would that have been?

Do two people really need three types of bread and a tub-o-butter? NOPE. Of course, I tried all of them anyway. Of course, they were all good. If it sucked, they wouldn't serve it.

salmon!

Diana went with the salmon dish, which came with asparagus, uber-smooth mashed potatoes, and ridiculously thin-cut fries (or potato chip strips). Her first reaction was "Mmmmm mashed potatoes so good"...actually, those probably weren't her exact words (sounds more like something I'd say), but she expressed much satisfaction with the mashed taters. After the waiter informed us that the salmon would be prepared rare, she asked for it to be cooked well-done. To me, salmon tastes good at any state of protein degeneration...figuring it's not burnt (can't say I'm a fan of eating plain carbon). I guess Diana was in a cooked mood, as I know she also like sashimi. She devoured everything aside from the potato chip strips (fried foods aren't really her thing), and since Diana isn't known for having a voracious appetite, the food must've been hella tasty.

fried chicken

Nine out of ten times when I eat out with Diana, my dish ends up being 100000 times less healthy. WOOHOO, I WIN!!! Since I heard so many good things about it, I went with the four-piece fried chicken, gravy-splodged mashed potatoes and collard greens.

yes, innards

The fried chicken was perfectly golden with a thin, non-greasy crispified skin to keep in those juicy muscles of poultry-based goodness. Mmmm. Of course it was delicious, and even better when dipped in the accompanying tub-o-honey.

uh...I guess I ate it

I'm notorious in my family for my inability to gnaw off every last bit of meat from bones (I think this inability brings down my level of Chinese-ness into the negatives). Upon seeing the fried wing I though, "What the hell do I do with this shizznit?" I got most of the meat off the other pieces, but if my brother had eaten this the bones would be licked clean, maybe to the point that he'd also eat the bones...although I hope not.

Man, that was good.

...But there's more.

Mount Banana Split of Doom

While it doesn't explicitly say so on the menu, Blue Ribbon's desserts are always for two (or more) people unless one person has a sugar-loving stomach the size of a giant penguin. Diana (as in not me!) wanted to try the banana split since she had never eaten one before. I'm not sure if I've eaten one before either, but I did know that a banana split was like a sundae...with a banana. There are a few possible origins of this dessert, a topic of hot debate. I guess if any fruit had to go with ice cream, the hearty banana is a good choice (on my raw food diet I used to freeze bananas and shove em through a crushing-type juicer for something that vaguely tasted of ice cream, at least in consistency), but I can't imagine inventing this dish while thinking that bananas obviously go with ice cream. Cos...I don't think they do.

the process of devour-age

But it's definitely tasty, and perhaps the inclusion of a banana makes the dish seem mildly healthier than it would be sans-banana. The long, glass boat held three tennis ball-sized spheres of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate ice cream nestled (yeah, I said nestled) between a length-wise sliced banana topped with what seemed like the entire contents of a can of whipped cream, drizzled with chocolate and caramel sauce, a smattering of crushed walnuts (could've used more!), and a single maraschino cherry of questionable edibility (for some reason, maraschino cherries have always freaked me out a bit and made me ponder, "My god, this used to be a real cherry?"). The ice cream wasn't the most flavorful I've ever had, but the texture was almost perfect in pliability, softness, and density. Mmmm...creaaaaminesss.

yeeeeup, that's me

Obviously, I didn't eat the whole thing by myself. (God, my mouth is friggin' huge.)

sundae...IS GONE

...Alright, I probably did eat most of it, but Diana mainly ate the strawberry, while I went for the chocolate.

Blue Ribbon Bakery is more expensive than most places I go to (and despite my over-expenditure as documented in this blog, I can be kinda cheap), but for whatever reason it feels worth it. Why else would I pay $12 for a banana split? It's not just the food, but the environment you eat it in, along with the service. Water was regularly filled, table was cleaned and silverware was changed after finishing the entrees, and one of the waiters poked fun at me for my excessive photo taking. Hell yeah! Um.

And of course, the fun-ness of eating also depends a lot on who you eat with.

I have at least two more entries to write, if that's anything for you to look foward to. Thankfully, living in NJ gives me nothing else to do besides sit on my bed with my laptop all day long, especially on Sundays where a lot of places aren't open. Then again, even if they were I still wouldn't feel like going. NJ really isn't my kind of place. (sigh)

I know I'm gaining a bit too much weight, so perhaps the food blogging will die down a smidge in the summer. A. Smidge. I'll be working in NYC on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays during the summer besides the times when I'll be on vacation, but I probably shouldn't treat every one of those days as a possible eating opportunity. Maybe once a week I can go out with an NYC-based friend? ...Or maybe I should just go on a diet. Today for lunch I ate fruit. And cookies. Oops.

THIS IS A NEW FEATURE! SPARKLY AND FRESH! HERE IT COMES.

S-s-s-somethin' from the comments

Yes, that's a completely rip-off of zefrank, who has the most addictive show ever. Granted, I don't watch Lost, but zefrank...is pretty damn addictive. Watch some of his episodes to understand the comments reference. (I think it'd be awesome if someone made a zefrank-like show recapping the going-ons of food bloggers in a totally stupid manner, like "Today, Robyn ate this banana split and nobody gave a crap. [insert random sound effect]")

I know some people have noticed that I reply to comments on the same page of the entry it's been written on. I used to reply to comments through email, but it got kind of annoying...not that this other way isn't annoying either. I don't know about you, but I don't usually check back on blogs to see if the writer replied to my comment. I bet I'm writing all these replies for NO REASON. I'd only stop if I got more comments than I could handle, which is kind of unlikely since most of my comments are spam offering free calling cards and every kind of porn in the world. Then I baleat them.

Uh. Anyway, I'll point out a few choice comments.

Maria explains those special fish eating utensils at Nougatine. "...the pinty knife is designed to help you separate the fish bones from the meat." They're all the rage in Portugal! However, the three-pronged fork is still a mystery and as far as we can tell provides no special benefit in the fish-eating process. THE LACK OF PRONG DOES NOTHING! Jean Georges is just messin' with you. Hoho!

jswansails is happy that I'm not starving myself to death. Hahahaha hahaah! Haha. But wait, there's more. "After reading your blog I realized I DO NOT EAT ENOUGH! I cannot wait to dig in like you. Keep on eating!"

Nonono, you probably eat enough! Oh my god! I EAT TOO MUCH! Don't dig in just because of meee!

babyfoot brings up kuidaore, which is a term to describe crazy food-loving Osaka-ians. I'm not even close to that level of food obsession, but I guess I have something to strive towards now.

As of right now (May 16th, 10:38 AM), my website isn't working. I'm writing this entry in gmail (thank god for autosave) figuring that my site will come back to life soon. Or else...

...I'll be really sad. And want to kick servers and stuff. Website failure-induced violence is not pretty.

Before I get onto the fooding, take a listen to Band of Horses. I'm listening to them right now and surprisingly liked them right away. It's surprising because 90% of the time I listen to something and think, "Crap, I think I should like this, but I don't." On an unrelated matter, I probably like 90% of the cookies I eat.

Ah, let's check the ol' website again. [clicky] " 404 Datei nicht gefunden"...that's not good.

they suuure are

Last Thursday I went a-foodin' with Kate, her brother Jon, and Sarah. Our first stop was Rice to Riches, which is apparently "occupied by compulsively obsessed dessert loving people with no self-control or discipline". SOUNDS LIKE MY KIND OF PLACE?

right on; I am already fat!

I've been here at least three times in the past and I feel like every time I come back, the price goes up. The rice pudding price per ounce must be at an all-time high. ...Actually, that $5 bowl has probably been there for a while. The first time I went to RTR two years ago, the smallest size was...larger. You could get two flavors and you definitely had to share, unless you loved rice pudding so much that you'd swim in a vat of it. Even though they made the smallest size smaller, it's still large enough for two people to share. Sadly though, you can only get one flavor.

so much pud

Sarah and I shared the banana coconut while Kate and Jon each got their own bowl of chocolatey creamy rice grains. The banana coconut had lots of banana flavor, but I think it could've used more coconut.

chug the pudding

I don't eat rice pudding often since on the scale of "stuff that Robyn likes", it ranks lower than the easier to find "ice cream" and "cookies", but Rice to Riches makes the best rice pudding I've ever eaten. It's not good enough to use a pudding hat for continual pudding consumption, but few things are. Also, that's kind of disturbing.

[ALERT: MY WEBSITE IS WORKING AGAIN. Obviously. Or else you wouldn't be reading this.]

sarah looks at the baguette with...confusion

We went to Balthazar Bakery down the street to rip into a long, crusty baguette as a sort of palate cleanser in between all the sweets we'd eventually eat (actually...I just wanted bread). Don't worry; we put it out of its misery fairly quickly. Of course it was a good baguette—I only wish I had a tub of butter with me to slather the bread with. Or a pot of olive oil. Or a pot of oil infused by a tub of butter.

...Alright, that's going a little too far. I think my stomach lurched a little there.

ice cream is a-comin'

Next stop: Il Laboratorio del Gelato. It may not be as good as the stuff in Italy, but it's good enough for those of us not fortunate enough to have visited Italy and happen to be in NYC. If you need a part-time job, they're hirin'! FREE ICE CREAM, ANYONE? I had never seen the olive oil flavor before, so I tried a sample. It gave a tingly sensation, but didn't taste as strongly of olive oil as the gelato at Otto. Few substances can compare to the deliciousness of Otto's gelato.

probably not the best combination

So...I went for something completely new: Mexican cinnamon ice cream and lemon basil sorbet. I don't especially like sorbet, but I figured I'd steer away from uber-lactose-creaminess for once. Also, I was intrigued by the lemon and basil combination. Even though these flavors didn't necessarily go together (eating both flavors in the same spoonful didn't create a complementary taste, but rather just dulled both of them), I enjoyed them...separately. The cinnamon flavor lingered in my nasal passages after I ate it and for lack of a better description tasted so much like real cinnamon, if it naturally came in ice cream form. It's like cinnamon with super deluxe concentrated awesome power (and other words that you may find on Japanese snack packaging). The lemon basil sorbet was uber-strong. The tartness wasn't painful—it was just enough to make you go, "Holy crap...that's a lot of lemon." I guess it was the perfect amount of lemon-ness and not too sweet.

Overall though, I'm so not a sorbet person. Ice cream and all the creaminess it entails is like a warm, playful, fluffy puppy while sorbet and its frostiness is more like one of those hairless cats who probably isn't known for having a high level of funness. That sounds a bit harsh, but hopefully you know what I mean. I probably just haven't had spectatular sorbet yet. Someone gimme some happy puppy sorbet, now!

creepy baby

We walked over to Babycakes, whose window featured a baby of non-human material holding a leaning tower of miniature chocolate cupcakes. The cupcakes are real—hopefully the baby is not. Or maybe the baby did something very wrong.

stare into its deep, dark felty eyes

I don't know what that is, but it made me go "awww". And then I backed away because I could feels its eyes stare vapidly into my skull, probably inflicting some brain damage in the process.

chocolate chip cookies

We didn't feel like eating any of Babycakes' delicate tummy-safe goods, but it would've been easy to be lured by the amazing smell that filled the bakery. It smelled better than most bakeries I had been to. It smelled like...love. And happiness. And baking-ness. But baking-ness is love and happiness, yes? Perhaps next time I will try a gluten-free cookie.

wow, more baked goods!...who would've thought?

We subwayed to the other side of Manhattan to visit Bouley Bakery and Market where Kate happilly got her hands on a chocolate viennoise. I didn't have anything in mind to get, but when presented with muffins and cookies, there's really no question. Sadly, the chocolate muffin was kind of meh—I found it too dry and not sweet enough (it reminded me of cocoa powder). Thankfully, the peanut butter cookie was a completely different story.

cookie slab: it can kill small children

For just $2 you too can have this golden, peanut butter cookie slab. Like other cookies I love (City Bakery, mainly), this cookie was thin, crispy on the outside, somewhat-undercooked chewy on the inside, and its pores seeped with fat. Just like mine...wait, I take that back. This baby goes on my "something I'd eat again" list, which means I recommend it highly. My assumption is that they have other kinds of cookies, thus it is now my goal to try every single one.

sandwich...from Once Upon a Tart

After parting ways with Kate and Jon, Sarah and I went to Once Upon a Tart. This was Sarah's last day in NYC before going home to Kansas (although she may come back later this summer for more fooding) and she really wanted to try their goat cheese with roasted portabello mushrooms and radicchio sandwich. It was good, generously stuffed with fungal matter and soft, aged curdled goat mammary gland liquid (ye just know I was trying to figure out the best way to describe the sandwich...uh, I failed), but I doubt I could ever love this sandwich to death (or at least not as much as Sarah) since I'm not a big fan of goat cheese. I don't dislike it, I just like other cheeses more.

I EMBRACE ALL THE CHEESES! GIMME YOUR CHEESE!

pumpkin praline muffin

We split the pumpkin praline muffin back at my house. It's a beaut, eh? The muffin, not my house.

innards!

It certainly wasn't a bad muffin, but it sadly didn't live up to expectations of mass muffin deliciousness based on previous muffin eating experiences from Once Upon a Tart. We expected a thin, slightly crispy exterior and a stronger pumpkin and praline flavor. From my experience, baked goods with pumpkin tend to have a strong pumpkin flavor, yet this...did not. WHERE DID IT GO? The muffin could've used more nuts along with pumpkin-ness. We wouldn't put this on the "eat again" list. However, I would recommend the apple cranberry muffin I ate previously. Mmm...chunky.

Yup, that's it. For now. It's my lunch break so I think I'll mosey out to student services to ask WHY MY DAMN TRANSCRIPT HAS AN INCOMPLETE GRADE ON IT. My independent study project is quite complete. NYU, DO YOU SEE THIS? DOOO YOUUU?! ARGAGHRRAHGHARGH!!!

[checks online transcript] Yup, still not there. What is there though is my latest grade: A- in food science and tech! Haha! Oh my god. I hope that's not a mistake. The only two grades I haven't gotten yet are for the two classes I sucked most horribly at. Damn.

Update (1:30 PM): I went to student services to inquire about my lost grade. They said they never got the form, or that it's "floating around". Nice to know! I went to my department and luckily got my advisor to write up another change of grade form. Sweet! I tucked it safely into my bag and brought it back to student services, where I was told that students aren't allowed to have change of grade forms. OKAY, I GET IT, NYU HATES ME. I brought the form back to my department and told them someone else had ot deliver it for me. The end. Hopefully the grade will get changed today and the study abroad office can look at my application and deem me suitable to SEND TO FUHRAAANSUUUH.

The next section has some food news related ramblings. They might interest you. Or not.

7UP is now all natural!

...Wait, not it's not. In internet speak, this is where I (and you) go double-you tee eff because...that's the only response I can come up with right now.

...Okay, I'll come up with some others. You probably could too. Along with the CSPI. A part of me wonders, "Who would actually believe this is all natural?" Probably not you or me. But out there? A disturbingly large number of people? The word "natural" doesn't have specific guidelines enforced by the FDA, but the word along with the 7UP commercials showing groves of cans being plucked off by farmers mask the unhealthfulness of the drink a smidge too much. Or many smidges too much.

Oh well. That is your "stupid thing in the food industry" news of the day.

Interesting conglomerate of American food companies: Best Food Nation. Kinda like Fast Food Nation. Get it? Haha. Kinda like Anti-Fast Food Nation. Haha.

Update (2:11 PM): HOLY CRAP, will someone think of the children?! SAVE THE INTERNET, DO IT. IN CAPS.

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies � including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner � want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video � while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services � or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls � and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

That totally blows.

sorry, it's not food porn

Whenever I have friends visit me in NJ (which is kind of rare, as this place is not high on the excitement scale), they ask to eat at the legendary home of planet-sized pancakes (and planet-sized everything else, maybe even...planets): Country Pancake House in Ridgewood. That photo is what the left side of the restaurant looks like if your cone cells don't work and if there's some nice soft natural lighting coming in. I took this photo during spring break for my photography class last semester, which I emerged from with an A-. Sweeet. Could've been worse considering that I found out a few weeks before the end of my class that my camera was broken, hence why I couldn't take any close-up shots. I kept telling my mum that it didn't focus correctly and she insisted that I wasn't reading the manual correctly. Yeeeup.

carby things

Sarah went in for a late dinner last Friday after eating a late lunch at Mitsuwa (which I'll talk about in another entry). The bread basket sadly tasted of un-freshness—it was a tad crusty. That was the first time I ever had "meh" cornbread at the pancake house. Later we saw baskets of freshly made cornbread, so I guess we just had bad timing.

Funnily, even though it's a pancake house and thus would necessitate the consumption of pancakes, neither of us was in a particular pancake-eating mood. I've tried a number of breakfast items on the menu, but had yet to delve into the lunch/dinner options. I'm on my sandwich kick, yes? The one that refuses to die? (Some people who haven't known me for long think I've loved sandwiches my whole life, but that obsession really only started last semester.) There were no simple mozzerella-basil-tomato sandwiches that I love so much on the menu, so after much blank staring at the menu, my eyes drifted to the tuna melt. I've heard of the sandwich my whole life without ever having eaten one. Hm. Perhaps this was the time to de-virginize myself from the realm of tuna melts? DOES THE MELTY TUNA WANT ROBYN?

Although I knew that all the platters were large, for whatever reason I thought the sandwich platter would be a managable size. As you know, I've eaten a gajillion sandwiches in NYC and have generated a sizeable NYC sandwich memory bank to use as a reference. "Ah, the sandwich can't be that huge." Yeah.

...But I was so wrong. So very wrong.

many fish died for this sandwich

I don't know if this photo conveys the massivity of the sandwich, but I could only eat half of it. Such occurences of non-eating don't happen often in my life, kind of like catching a lunar eclipse, or the next coming of the Messiah. I shared some of the other half with Sarah.

stare into the mayonnaise-y beast?

Thar she is. While I would've preferred if the "cheese" better fit the "melt" part of the sandwich name and that the whole thing was overall smaller, the platter was good. The toasted bread (I think it was rye) held up to the mountain of tuna salad and didn't fall apart. I thought the fries were especially good—there wasn't a limp one in the bunch and they had a good crust. Although I wouldn't want to order this sandwich again, I'd say it was worth trying once. If you love tuna salad to death, this sandwich is all fer yewwww.

waffle with a few additions

I forgot what kind of waffle Sarah got (something with bananas and white chocolate?), but she requested extra strawberries that were unfortunately not completely defrosted for optimum palatability. Overall, the waffle eating experience was probably just okay. I don't think we talked much about it since we were both kinda like, "Uughggh uhmm stomach umm it's full of stuff uhh I hurt", etc.

aftermath

Ah well, we tried. You should've seen the spaghetti dish someone at another table got. It was like a bucket of spaghetti...on a plate. A large bucket. Two girls at the table next to us split an order of pancakes and they only managed to finish half of it.

We're so wasteful. [sigh]

random food related stuff

Today is Skip Lunch to Fight Hunger Day to support CH's "Feed the Kids" program (and I realized it's too late to skip lunch...so...do it another day, yeah). You can donate online or at Starbucks. I skipped lunch yesterday...perhaps that counts? When I told Carol at dinner that I hadn't eaten lunch, she was surprised that I could eat so much (you should never be surprised, bah!) since for her, she needs lunch to stretch her stomach before eating later in the day. I think I'm just not human. Yeah, that's it.

Steve Cuozzo hates "out-there desserts that incorporate savory and herbal elements and mix incompatible essences with lunatic abandon". I cannot hate a whole category of desserts, even if it's kind of weird. And...hell, I'm a picky eater. One of the hated desserts in question is this beaut:

you couldn't pay me a million dollars to make this

That is the butternut squash ice cream on chocolate soil with toasted squash seeds and pumpkin cake with mole toffee, mole sauce, and pumpkin sauce at wd-50. It might just be my tastebuds (and Kathy's) but IT IS SO TASTY. I wouldn't say I have the most adventurous palate, but...trust me on this one. I do not steer my readers wrong.

"Be-cow's I'm ever so bewildered" is a disturbingly hilarious tale about...weird cookies. And weird students. And why sending things anonymously is not cool. The cow cookies are somewhat hideous, but what I want to know is whether they're tasty. Or edible. I'm wary of any food that isn't so much about what it tastes like as what it looks like...or whether it has a "so bad I want to bash my head against a wall and then inflict some more pain on it by using some other method of self-torture" pun, such as those cookies. The story reminded me of the time I passed Cookies in Bloom in Brooklyn last summer and was, of course, immediately drawn to it because I have cookie radar. Here is my proof:

HAHA, get it?!?!@#$

Yup. I won't ask who would spend $50+ on a bouquet of cookies decorated like hot dogs, but...I'm rather curious. I might do it as a joke for someone who really likes hot dogs, although a bunch of real hot dogs would probably be a better present.

Not everything is scary. Look, normal cookies! Yeah! That's about it. Have I toad you happy birthday? Or that I love you beary much? Ehehe! Aahahahah! The bears and the toads are staring into my soul! ...HOLY CRAP, IT BURNS!!!

Have you seen Augieland's feast at El Bulli? YOU SHOULD. It's insane x a billion. Take a look at the meal you will probably never eat. [rubs belly]

Oranges are Free informs the world of the Jello Belt. The...the wuh? BELT OF JELLO, FOOLS! Does anyone else find that map on Wikipedia a bit disturbing? It looks like the continental US got caught in a shootout and is bleeding to death from Utah. I have no futher comments.

Wait...jellobeltjellobeltjellobelt.

I don't really like jello—do you? It was only fun when I was little, although even then we never used jello, just Knox unflavored gelatin, which we'd mix with juice. Hooray for my health-conscious mum!

Mary said that we should start a religion based on pudding. I could be the Pudding Pope.

Burgers and cupcakes go together like...frosting and meat. Wait, that doesn't work. Oh well, here's a new place to check out [via A Hamburger Today]:

BURGERS AND CUPCAKES Mitchel London has changed his cafe, Mitchel London Foods, into this new spot that serves, yes, only hamburgers and cupcakes from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. There is a breakfast menu Monday through Saturday (the catering company in this location is still Mitchel London Foods): 458 Ninth Avenue (36th Street), (212) 643-1200. - NYT

...I'll go. WHO'S WITH ME?!

Also from the NYT article:

SAM MASON, the pastry chef at WD-50, plans to leave that restaurant to open a spot, yet unnamed, in SoHo by the end of the year for tapas, desserts and drinks: 525 Broome Street (Thompson Street).

Sweet baby jesus, I'm there. That also means I gotta head to wd-50 again before he leaves.

zefrank wants to make an earth sammich

The fact that the earth has never been a sandwich is probably why things are so fucked up.

RIGHT. ON. In his latest show, he urges his viewers to make an earth sandwich by placing slices of bread on the ground on opposite sides of the globe. It's rather hard if you live in the US since your opposite is probably a sea creature living in the Indian Ocean, but somewhere else this earth sandwich may become a reality. Mayyybeee.

If you ever wondered what sandwich really means, it obviously stands for Special Association for Narcotics, Deception, Witchcraft, Infanticide, Coercion and Hatred.

looks like plastic, tastes like it too!!!

Pardon my crappy Japanese. I studied Japanese for just one year as a freshman and I gotta say, you forget pretty much everything once memorization isn't necessary to make your transcript not suck. I can still read hiragana and katakana, although it doesn't matter that much considering I can't understand what I'm reading.

Despite that, I know a gabillion percent more Japanese than Mandarin. My Chinese is so bad! Heehee, I'm a disgrace.

Anyhoo, I'm gonna forget even more Japanese. Why? Cos I GOT INTO THAT PARIS STUDY ABROAD PROGRAM, HUZZAAAH, HERE I COME, GONNA EAT PARIS AND BE PAINFULLY AMERICAN AS I DO IT, PARISIANS WILL HATE ME. If you live in France (the entire landmass!), you must show me the good eats. (There wasn't really any question to whether or not I'd be accepted, as all the program seemed to require was that I didn't fail anything, but it took a while for my transcript to get updated.)

But I'm still in America. And as I'm here, I'll be chowing down on...Japanese food. (For a breakdown of the title, "nihon" means "Japan", "no" is kind of like "of", "ryori" means "food", "wo" is...uh, the thing you need to connect nouns and verbs, and "tabetai" is "to want to eat", which is made by taking off the ending of the full verb "tabemasu" and adding "tai". Or something. Um. You get used to it after a while. Or not. That was your crappy Japanese lesson of the day.)

As you may or may know, Japanese establishments tend to have plastic food displays that are surprisingly close to the real thing in appearance (although hopefully not in taste). I don't know the history of this plastic food phenomenom, nor do I have the patience to research it for you, but you'll find it a lot in Japan, or Mitsuwa in my case. Japan is something like 20 years ahead of the rest of the world though, so maybe one day they'll just have holographic menus or find a way to implant food visualization chips in your brain so that...um...wait, that doesn't work.

Mitsuwa is a ginormous Japanese shopping complex in Edgewater, close to the George Washington Bridge and accesible from Manhattan by NJ transit buses, car, or floation device. To me, Mitsuwa is the best thing about NJ. And NJ kinda bores me otherwise. It's pretty damn spiffy and due to the Japanese habit of keeping things new, gets remodeled every now and then. The latest round of "tearing things down and rebuilding them" that started sometime last year (and perhaps the end of a lot of leases) is finally over. TRANSFORMATION: COMPLETE.

The belgian pancake, it vibrates?

If that isn't one of the craziest pancakes you've ever seen, then you must show me the crazier one. That's pretty damn crazy, right? Trust me, for the good of the world I shall order the pancake and see how the real thing stands up to this fake stack that more resembles an un-frosted double-layered vanilla butter cake than two hemorrhagic pancakes. (Yes, I finally used the word "hemorrhagic" in a post! And it's not even 5 PM yet.)

UCC Cafessa

UCC Cafessa is one of the new eateries at Mitsuwa that tookover the old pharmacy and florist. If you want flowers or drugs, you'll just have to go somewhere else. Sarah got a milk tea that tasted kind of weak, but the food looks enticing. Go back, I shall!

the fake food continues

We went to the Kayaba counter to stare at the plastic noods and rice bowls. Which is what any sane person would do. The soup glistens!

mm, fried oils

I ended up getting a meal set from Katsuhana consisting of fried things, fruity things, soupy things, and the central element of Japanese meal-ness—rice. Without rice, the meal is nothing. The rice was especially good; sticky with just the right amount of moistness. Most rice is perfectly fine, but maybe a smidge too dry. You wouldn't usually think much about how good the rice rice since it's...well, rice, but you'll know good rice when you eat it.

damn, it's the same boring angle twice in a row

The "fried things" portion consisted of elongated shrimp, pork cutlet chunks, and what might officially be "crab cream croquette", but I prefer to call "fried ambiguous creamy substance". Deep fried Japanese food have always been my favorite kind of fried food (as opposed to Italian or American) because to me it feels lighter. Deep fried translates into "dunked in a vat of burninating hot oil" no matter what, but the airy crispiness of Japanese fried foods rules over everything else. Admittedly, they won't make crispified fried chicken with the deliciousness of Blue Ribbon Bakery, but I'd prefer to eat good pork katsu over good fried chicken. Maybe. Especially if there's curry sauce involved.

Overall, thumbs up for Katsuhaha. "Thumbs up"? I need a better rating system. Considering that I've eaten from Katsuhana three times by now and I don't go to Mitsuwa that often, you can probably figure out where my taste buds lie. (Vat of oil.)

noods

Sarah got a kakiage (mixed tempura) soba noodle bowl from Kayaba. However, it possessed too much noodly power and Sarah couldn't finish it all.

stare into the beast

Mitsuwa is pretty freakin' huge; there's no place that large in NYC. They carry just about any Japanese thing you could find in a grocery store (as in no videogames or electronics), such as...

cakes of pan

SO MUCH PANCAKE MIX! WHYYY?! They really do like their pancakes.

special edition!

They sell healthy stuff like fruit and vegetables, but you know you just want the cute, limited edition snacks. I tried the banana-cream filled pseudo fish-shaped chocolate cookie Pucca. Conclusion: good, but not so good that I'd buy it again. Part of the satisfaction is just eating something so cute. WHO CARES WHAT IT TASTES LIKE?

patties of happpiness

I've been eating obanyaki (or oobanyaki; I'm not sure which one it is), or red bean paste-filled pancake-ish batter cake things (yeah, that was an awful description) every since I was little. We'd by them in packs of five (which I recall would come in a styrofoam container with holes poked into the top so the steam wouldn't condense and result in soggy obanyaki) so my whole family could eat them. Or mainly my mum and I. I dunno, my memory's hazy. Anyhoo, for some reason it's difficult to find a place that makes these babies fresh out of the molded giddle mathinger. A Japanese place. And I'm not talking dorayaki, which while similar to a obanyaki is very much not the same thing.

beantastic

This too can be yours for just $1.25. Sarah and I shared a fresh, "ow my skin just died"-hot obanyaki while walking outside and staring at the Hudson River from the Jersey angle. The outside was just a little crispy, while the inside was soft, dense and fluffy all at once. I don't know what else to compare obanyaki to besides itself, which isn't much of a comparison. ("What's a spoon?" "A spoon." "Thanks...thanks a lot.") If you're not familiar with red bean paste, it's just pureed adzuki beans and sugar (and maybe oil). The carb and carb combination (carb squared) is pretty easy to like.

[reaches out]

Ah, NYC...so close, yet so very far. Well, too far for me to walk it.

Too lazy to use google? FINE!

This is a new feature! Hot damn!

Mitsuwa
595 River Rd
Edgewater, NJ 07020

random food related stuff

The Fast Food Nation movie trailer is up!

If you haven't read the book, you should.

Nothing rhymes with orange. However, I don't think Montana rhymes with banana.

comments are people too

John lets us know that aspartame isn't full of deathly powers! But ye know...we'll all die anyway. I don't know if aspartame helps with that.

Nick reminds us that fasting is bad, although overeating is bad too. I do both. Not in extreme manners, but still. Double whammy—I'm gonna die.

[eats a bag of aspartame]

Reading Big Apple Dining Guide's festival review on Saturday morning did little to excite me for the day's activities at the New York Culinary Festival. I bought my ticket online last the night before because I couldn't decide if I wanted to go and I figured if I bought the ticket, I'd have to go. (I wasn't sure if i wanted to go because I had no one to go with and I'm hella lazy, as going to NYC requires getting my mum to drive me to the bus station 15 minutes away and then getting on the train for...longer than that. It's not really a bad commute—in some cases, it's faster for me to get to NYC than people from certain parts of Brooklyn.)

the sign requires three typefaces

I shall quote Badge, because that's easier than having to come up with my own words:

They take your ticket (I bought mine online and printed it at home) and give you another, smaller ticket. No direction, no brochure, no map or list of vendors, NOTHING.

I give my ticket to the ticket people (who have no idea about anything) and see the ugliest, most rudimentary "festival" I've ever seen. The space is terrible - cold-like, hard, unfinished and simply ugly with little to no signage, balloons or anything that makes a festival a festival.

mm, metal is tasty

Hm...yeah. I have to admit, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be because his review lowered my expectations by a million notches. After looking at the New York Culinary Festival's official site, I would've expected more. More...more of everything. Anything? People? The photo above was taken early in the day, which is why it's rather uncrowded.

bar

This photo was also taken early. Let the drinking begin!

hey, more people!

It did actually get more crowded later on, but never so crowded that you felt like you'd need a breathing tube to survive, such as at the Chocolate Show last November. If you went to the festival just to eat, your $20 were wasted. You could only buy food from the vendors (of which there were less than I anticipated) by buying $1 tickets/scrips with cash or credit card. I didn't want to buy any initially because I figured I'd have leftovers, which would be a waste of my money. In the end I had one leftover, which wasn't bad (I only spent $10 anyway), but it bothered me anyway. It would've been cool if we could've donated leftover scrips to something, as I'm sure many people had extras.

Overall, I spent $30 for the festival. I'll get to the food, but first, the $20 entrance fee: was it worth it? I happened to see a few good demos/lectures, so it may have...almost been worth it.

cigar lounge?

I thought I missed Sam Mason's demo, which was probably the thing I was most looking forward to see since wd-50 is about as awesome as a million hugs, but due to the disorganization of the event, he went on late enough for me to catch him. Huzzah—I love it when I benefit from the incompetence of others! Before taking the "stage", he sat with the few of us in in the audience at the time (no one really knew what was going on as there weren't programs and...well, he was already going on late because they didn't have all the equipment he needed) and was kind of like, "Hey, what's going on...I have no idea" while possibly thinking, "OH MY GOD, WHAT'S GOING ON...I HAVE NO IDEA?!" He was missing a whisk and probably other things. The missing whisk turned into a joke of a need for whiskey (to cope with the poorly organized demo), and during the demo the MC actually came by to deliver a mixed drink. There was plenty of alcohol a-flowing throughout the center, so...why not, I guess.

not sure what's going on here

Will Goldfarb, owner of Room 4 Dessert, became Sam's impromptu assistant since he was schedule to give a lecture after Sam. He was able to find a whisk, which another chef took back after the demo was over; methinks there was a whisk shortage.

makin stuff

For the demo, Sam made his "Beet-Tangerine Ravioli, Cocoa Caviar" dish. I didn't take notes so I could be off in my recollection of his method, but methinks the cocoa caviar was made by mixing cocoa-caramel sauce with an agar solution, boiling it for a few minutes, pouring it into a squeeze bottle with a pointy tip, chilling the bottle, and then dispersing little blobs of cocoa-agar-goop into a 40 degree vat of oil to give birth to many cocoa caviar babies. He explained that the temperature of the oil is important (and he had an electric thermometer to make sure) because otherwise you'll end up with little pancake-shaped cocoa caviar that sink to the bottom (too hot) or float on top (too cold). He said the word "pancake" enough times for me to internally laugh more than I should've.

It's all about the pancakes.

While he was boiling the mixture on the stove, he noticed that no one in the audience could actually see it since it was just out of the range of the overheard mirror. To help us understand what he was doing, he recreated the circular stirring motion with his right hand under the mirror. "By the way, this is what I'm doing...[stir stir]." OH, NOW I GET IT!!! He also wanted to take the baby blobs out of the oil vat, but he didn't have a strainer. He quizzically looked at the vat. "Um...yeah, I guess I can't take these out."

It was funny—you should've been there. Maybe. There were other funny things, but unfortunately I don't remember any of them. The situation was obviously less than ideal and he made the most of it by being laid-back and telling us a bunch of stuff I can't remember. (Maybe...orange.)

food porn

Everyone in the audience got to try the dessert. To be honest, I didn't like it that much, at least not compared to the stuff I ate at wd-50. The cocoa caviar had a very mild taste that I expected to be stronger. The orange crispy bits were nice, but I don't know what they were.

tangerine foam

The beet "ravioli" was filled with tangerine mousse/foam, which was made by whipping a tangerine juice and gelatin mix over an ice bath. The skin was uber-thingly sliced beet that may or may not have been soaked in something else. I know, my descriptions are so helpful! I may as well be writing in another language.

Sam mentioned that his new, yet-to-be-named restaurant will open in November . Suh-weeet. Will joked that that's why he'll have to move Room 4 Dessert out of Soho.

Will and his bags of stuff

Will is...um, awesome and the nerdiest chef I've ever witness. Granted, I'm not familiar with the chefing world, but I think it's safe to assume that most of them wouldn't try to draw a Gaussian sphere for the audience. Which is what he did.

I don't have many photos for you since he basically stood in front of us (next to his line of hydrocolloid powders, which he let people take at the end of this lecture) and talked about "Molecular Gastronomy" for half an hour, but it was my favorite part of the day. "Molecular Gastronomy" to me sounds like a fancy phrase for "food science" as some of the things he mentioned reminded me of my class work, although probably more complicated than what I learned. I never had to learn about Gaussian spheres, at least.

While the first half of his lecture gave us a background on molecular gastronomy, the second half was more personal and based on an article he wrote for Gastronomica called "AKWA: Commercializing Creativity". If anyone wants the article, I could find a pdf version of it through the use of my school's electronic journal access. (That's what I pay a bagillion dollars for, right?) Fortunately, I riffled through my bookcase and found the Fall 2005 issue with the article in it (yes, I keep the back issues, SO?!); mm, I love the feel of pressed tree pulp between my fingers.

"AKWA is an attempt by four young cooks to synthesize art, cuisine, finance, and leadership development, to create a learning organization from all the things we love." Will explains in the article that AKWA is an acro-homonym for "Kasper and Will Like Water", Kasper being Kasper Kurdahl, "a Danish chef who had opened Ducasse and worked as chef de cuisine for Roger Souvereyns in Belgium". They were later joined by David Scabin and Ruben Garcia. I wasn't familiar with their website akwa.org, but he mentioned that they want to get that running again, probably a good idea since it looks about 5 years old. The group somewhat pooted out because their plans to build an NYC-based food lab in September 2001 didn't look so hot to investors after September 11th. Yeeeah.

MOVING ON! Will told us his "five principal axes of creativity in the kitchen":

• Ingredient
• Technique
• Philosophy
• Love
• Solitude

The article gives an explanation for each point, but I'll just quote the "love" one since I found it the most interesting of the bunch:

Kasper's suggestion that only love has the power to unify ingredient, technique, and philosophy is challenging. In experimenting with love as a creative level, akwa has developed a mock computer program for creation. Our prototype program generates dishes by realizing an exponential power of ingredient, technique, and philosophy. With love, one can dance freely and without inhibition across previously determined levels of creativity. Intense, true love has proved the sole tool available to humanity to bridge a seemingly broad gap: between self and other, or chef and guest. One characteristic of all great plates is clear: they are made with love.

Yup. I'll just leave it to you to read and interpret however you want. I don't think of love in relation to food, although if love if needed to make good food, that could explain why my food usually sucks. It's the food I make for myself that usually comes out rather blech. MAYBE THAT MEANS I HATE MYSELF.

Haha! Um. Sometimes I bake stuff for other people, in which case I put more effort into it and something edible actually results from my lack of baking prowess.

I don't know what my love of food can be categorized under. It's not like Will's; I definitely do not have a love for being creative in the kitchen, although I'd love to eat the results. I need food, so I may as well love it as far as I can tell. For some reason, it's hard for me to talk about love in any serious matter. For me, food is fun, or should be fun, and I can't imagine doing anything professional in the food industry (even though just about everyone suggests that to me) because I like my little amauteur-foodie corner of the blogging world.

While Will's lecture was pretty straightforward, his writing is...less so, to me at least. The article is over my head, which may have been why I didn't read it when I first got this issue of Gastronomica. It's probably good that I read it after hearing him speak.

So! So. What else did he say? [scratches head]...I'm too lazy to go through every detail, but I walked away with the impression, "Holy crap, this guy is really, really into what he does, and he seems to know what he's doing." I want a passion like that for something...anything...but I suspect that most people don't find it, which makes me worried about my future.

Hohum. [sings the "doom song"]

After Will I stayed for Rose Malindretos of O & Co to hear her informative lecture about olive oil. I guess I knew more about olive oil than I thought I did, but it was good to drill more information about the awesomeness of olive oil into my head. I suspect this isn't common of most Chinese households (or maybe most houesholds overall), but my mum (although not my dad) mainly cooks with extra virgin olive oil (and coconut oil on occasion). Admittedly, we don't cook often so it's not much of a financial sacrifice; otherwise it wouldn't make much sense to cook with craploads of good olive oil all the time. I think I went through one and a half normal sized bottles (I forget what normal is) of oil while at school, mainly because I'd eat it with bread. I use butter sometimes too, but I like olive oil more because I love using bread as an oil sponge. Yesssss.

We tasted two olive oils, the first of which was somewhat floral and the second with was uber-herbacious. Seriously, the second one smelled like grass and tasted somewhat like leafy greens...if the greens were liquid fat. I liked both of them. Heehee. I don't think I'd want to swish plain oil in my mouth repeatedly in the future though.

COOKIE TIME

After the oil-ing, Pichet Ong showed us how to make peanut butter cookies with vanilla bean-infused brown butter, chopped peanuts, white and brown sugar, and...flour. And maybe other stuff. Baking soda? He gave his cookies extra yumminess by topping them with Malon sea salt, which helped bring out the peanuty-ness of the cookies. His soft, chewy, butter-filled cookie was a lot better than the hard, not-so-buttery peanut butter cookie I ate that morning from Amy's Bread. Amy's Bread, why do you always disappoint me? [sigh]

Before Pichet's demo, I ran into Gerald of foodite and one of his friends from culinary school. He recognized me, wooha! I wandered around the food area with them after sitting on my bunch for hours, a duration that hadn't really hit me as I'm quite used to sitting on my bum for hours (in front of glowing monitors). I also ran into Nick, who was not guzzling down beer at the time. ;)

creme that has been bruleed

I honestly wasn't that drawn to most of the offerings since meat dishes aren't high on my "Holy shizz, I need to eat that" list. Citarella came to my rescue from the otherwise meager dessert selection, resulting in my first purchase of the day: CREME BRULEE. Oh my, how I love thee. I thought it may not taste as good as a warm, hopefully freshly-torched brulee that I've had in restaurants, but it was great (especially for $3) and I scarfed it down too quickly. The thin, crackly caramelized top layer protected the smooth, creamy, vanilla bean-specked innards...until I jabbed it with my plastic spoon. Delicious? YES. (The cream. Not the spoon.)

weeny little bison burger

I also tried a bison slider from Aspen, which is listed on menupages as being topped with smoked cheddar, bacon, and "gonzo sauce". I'm not sure what gonzo sauce is, but my slider was also topped with onions. Mmm, this was pretty awesome. It obviously wouldn't overtake a creme brulee to my taste buds, but despite the small-ness of this burger my stomach was satisfied. The meat was juicy and flavorful with...ye know, meatiness, and there was just enough of each topping; nothing overwhelmed anything else. I wouldn't want to pay $6 for another taste, but I'm glad I tried it.

I think I've written enough about the festival. Also, I want to eat dinner now. Read Gerald's report to read more about the "horrible execution and logistical failures". So true.

Update (5/22/06): More disappointment! Nick and Kelli share their less-than-awesome experiences.

the foodiness was just a few avenues away

oh ye know, just another normal crowd in NYC

I walked to the culinary festival from Penn Station and actually forgot that the 9th Ave Food Festival was also taking place. I mean, until I ran into hundreds of thousands of people and blocked-off streets. I wasn't very hungry so I didn't eat much from the festival besides the disappointing cookie from Amy's Bread.

baking-ness

A lot of people love Amy's Bread and they do good business, but for whatever reason everything I try tastes medicore, or a step above mediocre. However, since I expect more I'm usually disappointed. WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!

I'll just do a random photo splodge of the food festival since that's easier than writing. Enjooooy:

a gajillion virtual calories just for you!

After leaving the culinary festival, I met up with Allen at Little Pie Company and watched him attempt to eat a 5" lemon meringue pie all by himself. In the process, I also watched him undergo the initial stages of a sugar coma. Poor guy only got through half of it. I ate a few bites, but certainly wasn't hungry enough to eat more than that.

Then I semi-ran to Penn Station, which proved to me that my lungs truly hate me, and went back to dirty Jerz.

OH, but wait...there's this place on 9th Ave aroud 36th Street:

burgers and cupcakes, oh my!

I'm so going there. Maybe on Tuesday. Weehee!

random food related things

Someone found this blog by googling "is it okay to eat expired ice cream". Just wanted to let you know. I have to ask how anyone could have expired ice cream, as that implies having ice cream around that hasn't been eaten, but that's coming from someone who can't buy containers of ice cream lest she wants to eat too much ice cream.

The Neurotic Consumer gives this lovely description of salad:

I do eat salad, but majoritarily squashed between two pieces of bread, or melted in rice or pasta dishes, for I find it boring and fastidious on its own. It falls of the fork. It is unchewable. It is basically a virtual food that is extremely sad to eat.

Yes. I too will shove salad in between chunks of bread, but on its own it makes me sad.

I'll eat chunks of bread on their own too. Today I ate half of a sourdough boule. It was some of the best sourdough I've ever had, with a paper thin, cracker-like crust protecting a ginormous fluffy pillow of leavened wheat. I'm holding in my gut right now to compensate for the gluttony. I actually always have to hold in my gut...

...Crap.

Thanks a bucketload to all the people who have mapped themselves on my frappr map thingy! THE LURKERS ARE COMIN' OUT, HOOHA!! I'm happy that you noticed the link on the left column, although if you haven't already, sign my frappr map thingy, please. It's good for market research. For instance, so far the estrogen is taking over, the mid-west does not represent, and I've made no impact on South America or Africa. Hohum!

This map will help me track you all down as food guides when I plan my vacations. Heeeheee!!!...um, I hope that doesn't frighten you.

Drew speaks the truth: exercising blows. Chunks.

I have a public service announcement of utmost importance:

I'm unable to think of a witty caption for this

Last Thursday I went to Friendly's in Midland Park with my brother, Hubert (yes, that's his name, yes, that's his LJ, yes, he's an odd fellow, and yes, ladeez, he's single!), and his friend, Peter. We went to Friendly's at my request to relive a bit of my childhood, because you know...being 20 is freakin' old and Friendly's isn't exactly a hot destination for young adults. I'm not sure how often I ate at Friendly's as a kid, but their clam chowder and ice cream sundaes are one of my clearest memories, for better or worse.

how many things can you find wrong with this flyer?

Clowns are definitely not a part of my childhood I want to revisit.

mm, flair

We had to wait a while to get a seat. I was surprised by how popular it was, but I guess the restaurant is also pretty small for a place in NJ that mainly attracts families. I took a photo of the wall on the other side of the room to capture the...flair. Or. Something. The interior is decorated to look kind of like a house with an affinity for old glass bottles, things made of porcelain, random knick knacks and baskets of fake apples. I guess it feels homey and country-ish, like an overly sanitized farm cottage something-or-other. Maybe it looks like your house! HAHA, oh, the horror.

crayons!!!

Seeing the crayons made me happy (funny how little colored wax sticks can do that to ya) and if I had anything to draw on, I would've used them. I guess I would've had to get a kid's menu...damn, maybe I should've. I HAVE NO SHAME.

my god, it's so yellow

For whatever reason, we all ended up getting Supermelts™ (yup, it's trademarked), which are super sandwiches made of grilled, thick sliced bread that bubble with melted cheese (their words, not mine). Sounds a wee bit like a health hazard.

chickeny innards

I wouldn't say my sandwich bubbled in cheesy goodness, but it was otherwise very good. The kicker for me was the bread, which was grilled in some kind of fat (butter, oil, I DUNNO). resulting in me going, "Uh...why does this taste so good?". The bread was indeed thick, crispy on the outside, chewy and soft inside, and coated with an invisible layer of fatty deliciousness...invisible until your fingers shimmered with lipids, at least. The chicken was moist and crunchy, so nothing wrong there. Aside from the two slices of bread not being in perfect alignment, resulting in some excess bread in some parts and not enough in others, the sandwich was really good and something I'd considering eating again if it didn't make me feel so guilty.

Of course, on top of the grilled sandwich was a pile of fried potato sticks (that's how we do it in America, yesss). Mmmmm. They could've used a bit more salt (I guess that's what the salt shakers are for), but were great crispiness-wise. Fry those suckers—bring on the acrylamides.

The thing that I absolutely had to get at Friendly's was the clown sundae. It's on the kid's menu, so our waitress probably thought I was a weirdo for ordering it. But I am, so I guess that worked out.

now I can eat the clown, heehee!

Sadly, this sundae was not up to par with what I ate more than 10 years ago. Take a look at the sundae on Friendly's site and mine. What's wrong? REESE'S PIECES! WHERE ARE YE?! Not on my sundae, that's where. One of my clearest memories of this sundae, no matter how stupid it may be, was that at the bottom of the cup I'd be left with half-frozen wayward Reese's Pieces (they have a satisfying crunch) mixed with ice cream soup and semi-hardened chocolate syrup. First off, there weren't even any extra M&Ms in my sundae (maybe they instilled some policy to only use enough candies for the face) and there wasn't much excess syrup. One of my few fond memories of the early 90s has been defaced. AWESOME.

I should probably note that overall, it wasn't bad for $2.50. The ice cream was kind of tasteless, but it had a smooth, dense texture. They have a gazillion other tempting sundaes that I'd be interested to try now that I know the cone head isn't up to par. If you're wondering what to do with the cone (I noticed that the sundae is upside-down), I guess...you just eat it. I'm thinking that when I was little I may have just given the cone to my mum, but this time I smashed it with my spoon and mixed it with my ice cream. Hey, why not, it's still a topping.

Our waitress messed up my dessert order the first time, but she made the cone head quickly and was overall nice. My brother said that Friendly's is known for horribly slow service. I've had slower (which I'll get to later in this entry...which isn't exactly a contest I want to win. But I won! Woo!

cafetasia

I think we need more candles

Before my night of fattened sandwiching and nostalgial-killing sundae eating, I had lunch at Cafetasia with my coworkers, Tony, Cindy, and Jan. Upon entering the restaurant we were attacked by lots of wood paneling and floating electric candle things before being seated at a long, communal table with a seat that was a smidge too wide to comfortably maneuver oneself on (you can't just step over it; it was like climbing onto a vaulting horse), but had this insanely comfortable foamy cushion to plop your bum on. Really smooshy. If you've sat on it, you know what I mean.

yahoo, cheap food!

Cafetasia's $7 lunch special covers an appetizer and a main course, which can be as meaty or tofu-y as you want. It's a good deal.

apps

One person ordered the "petite cheese and crab stick rangoon", two ordered the "chicken and shrimp shumai", and I got the "oriental salad". Tastes like orientals? YES! I mean. No. I mean. Tastes like ginger carrot dressing and taro chips. If I didn't love taro chips, I would've found the sharp sticks to be a bit annoying, as their size and texture didn't mesh well with the rest of the salad (iit would've been better if f the sticks were broken up). There was also a hard boiled quail egg struck in there. For some reason, I love quail eggs. Maybe it's the small, cute size. Maybe I like the idea of eating an unborn quail. Or maybe they taste better to me than normal eggs.

basil udon

I love basil and I love udon, but I've never had a combination of the two. UNTIL NOW! It's a good combination. It tasted a little overseasoned (with what, I don't know), but the noodles were just right for my tastes (not too soft, kind of springy and chewy) and the seasoning had just enough hotness for me to think, "Mm, spicy!" and not "Mm, gagging time!" I ordered beef with my noodles, which came in thin slices and I suppose weren't too bad or good or else I would've remembered then in one of those senses.

other dishes

Here's the food that I didn't eat: Thai basil with egg, garlic medley greens, and green curry. Everyone seemed satisfied with their food.

The service was speedy and almost eerily efficient. I barely noticed when my empty bowl was removed. GHOSTS DID IT. Depending on my mood (if I happen to be craving noodles instead of sandwiches), I may return to Cafetasia for lunch in the future for a cheap eat.

Caffe Reggio

it's oolllld!

Last Wednesday for dinner I went to Caffe Reggio wwtih Diana, James, Mary, and Brad. This was after roaming into my first choice, Doma, and discovering that it had turned into an alternate level of hell, as apparent to us by the blast of 80 degree heat, the lack of open seating, and the swarm of Apple notebook-toting yuppies (which contributed to the lack of open seating). HEEHEE! YUPS! (I love Doma, but I had never seen it so crowded before. Why were so many people eating/hanging out at 5:45? MRRH!)

pot o sugar, all for me?

The main thing at Caffe Reggio is the coffee, as apparent by this freakishly large metal tub of sugar. It's certainly more convenient than those weeny packets of sugar, which I need three of to sufficiently mask the bitterness of whatever I'm drinking (which may be why I mainly drink water).

it breathes out smoke

We were seated near the espresso robot, apparently the first of it's kind when introduced in 1902 as an example of advanced espresso robotry. I guess it isn't used anymore, but its soul lives on in its laser-deflective shiny exterior and ability to kill us all shoot out uber-pressurized coffee-d water.

tea of doom

Mary started off with this smokey tea. She asked me what I thought it smelled like.

"...Burning."

Smells like burning. Also smells like buddhist temples in Taiwan since people like to burn things in them. I don't know about you, but I like my drinks to smell of un-burning.

wow, did I really order a sandwich, of all things?!

I ordered a mozzerella, basil, tomato panini. Or panino, more like. It was alright, not the best I've had, but a good size in that I could eat the whole thing and not feel preggers. The sandwich tasted strangely salty, although not so salty that I couldn't eat the whole thing. I think it could've used more mozzerella and the dried tomatoes were a tad too dry, resulting in overly chewiness where I'd rather not have overly-chewiness. Know what I'm saying? Good.

things I didn't eat

I think I just got the wrong thing. Pictured here are James' penne alla genovese (pasta with homemade pesto sauce) and Mary's prosciutto and mozzerella sandwich. James finished the whole dish and said it was just the perfect amount to not make him feel like he over-carbed himself. Brad got a capri salad with a gazillion tomato slices and Diana got an omelet (I forgot what was in it) which she thought was awesome. She's more choosy about food than I am, so I'll take her word for it. WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SANDWICH? LORDY!

[tumbleweed rolls by]

After we finished out food, we waited. A while. A really long while. It was hard to get anyone's attention despite that the place was sparsely inhabited by customers. At some point since it was most convenient for me to exit out of our corner table booth-ish spot, I walked over to the waitress to ask for some menus so that we could indulge in cream-based desserts. She cheerily got me a few menus, allowing me to victoriously return to the table with the coveted menus.

It wasn't really the worst thing in the world that the waiters seemed to have forgotten about us—we chatted and did that "socialization" thing all the kids are talking about—but we were kind of annoyed. I'll keep Caffe Reggio in mind if I want a comfortable place to go where no one will ever disturb me and I can hang out forever. Those places can be handy. Like if I'm comatose or something. Their website does say, "Caffe Reggio offers an abundance of art and leisure", so I can't disagree with them there.

tartufo for me!

I ordered a tartufo since, along with the cone head sundae, it's one of my childhood dessert memories. How it became one of my favorite desserts, I have no idea; I wouldn't say it's a phenomenal dessert, but it's pretty cool. Whenever people ask me what it is (because most people seem to be unaware of the dessert when I mention it, which surprises me since I'm not exactly well versed in Italian food), I just describe it as an ice cream ball—usually vanilla and chocolate around a maraschino cherry—covered in a chocolate shell. "Tartufo" is Italian for truffle, although if it were up to me I'd just call it "ice cream ball"...in Italian. I don't think I've ever had a great tartufo, as the ice cream is usually just okay, but it's better with whipped cream (because everything is better with whipped cream). Unfortunately, this tartufo was un-whipped creamed. Doh.

it melllted

Diana's banana split turned into a non-appetizing bowl of ice cream goop. Besides that, I think she liked it. The whipped cream was oddly unsweetened, yet I kind of liked its purely dairy flavor. It tasted like what you'd put on coffee and not a banana split...maybe that explains it. I didn't try the ice cream, but I figure it was okay. Diana did eat most oif it, but the rate of melting speed was faster than Diana's "shove spoonfuls of ice cream into mouth" speed.

Overall, the food was decent for the price and the dark, cosy, woody, "lack of glaringly white Apple laptops" environment that felt like it hadn't changed in decades was comfortable to hang out in for...however long we were there (about 1.5 hours).

Part of the reason I stayed for dinner after work on Wednesday was to see Jason Lytle perform at Other Music, an event that I happened to be a smidge too late for. I guess I don't regret hanging out with my friends longer than I had planned to instead of seeing Jason perform, but...damn, that meal took a lot longer than it was supposed to. [shakes fist]

I mean. SOCIALIZATION FOR ROBYN = GOOD.

Yup. But Jason Lytle is pretty cool. He made a music video of himself riding around on a bike with a fake cat statue (the cat was fake, the statue was...real). Automatic cool.

Too lazy to use google? FINE!

Friendly's
195 Godwin Ave
Midland Park, NJ 07432

Cafetasia
38 E 8th St
New York, NY 10003

Caffe Reggio
119 MacDougal St
New York, NY 10012

random food related stuff

I meant to post this earlier. Check out Drew's Chinese Food Bong. hopefully never to materialize in real life.

HFCF sucks! Come on guys, you knew that already. Right? Right. Good boy! (pat pat) Even though HFCF is in a lot of stuff, it's also NOT in a lot of stuff. Oranges? Apples? Bread? Don't have em! I hope. Or else that's some sucky bread and weird-ass fruit.

In Paris, if you act poopily around Parisians, such as not greeting them or saying goodbye or putting your hands in your lap, you'll be BANNED FROM THE COUNTRY FOREVER.

Oh god, I'm doomed. However, I have no trouble complying with the "don't eat while walking or riding public transport" rule. I have trouble eating and walking at the same time and am rather perplexed when I see New Yorkers walking down the street while snarfing down a slice of pizza. Dude, digest!

Actually, this isn't food related, but if you live in NYC and don't know about the gazillion free River to River Festival concerts going on this summer, you should look over the schedule. I might be too lazy to go to anything, but I wouldn't mind seeing Super Furry Animals, Belle & Sebastian, Eels, Smoosh, Hot Chip, Josh Rouse...maybe other things...of course, I'll only go if I can arrange for some food before or after the show. [cough]

maybe these are the colors that make you hungry; do you feel it?

"Hey, these are the same colors as Dunkin Donuts!"

"But there's no white."

"...Oh yeah."

I think it's close enough. The pink-orange-brown color palette works pretty well though, don't you think? Does it make your stomach churn with meat-digesting powers? IS YOUR BELLY SEETHING? If so, you might want to get that checked out.

pepto'-bismol is in

Yesterday for dinner I went to Burgers & Cupcakes with Amy, her sister Helen, Nick, and Janet. The purpose of this dinner was to take advantage of our youthful metabolism and "not exactly indestructable, but for the time being we'll pretend it is" health by scarfing down burgers and cupcakes. That is the name of the place, ye know. Sadly, we would not be rewarded with cupcakes to go alongside our burgers, but I'll get to that later.

[cue angel choir]

Amidst the wide variety of burger choices—ham (or...beef, rather), veggie, turkey, salmon, lemon grilled chicken, and portobello mushroom—I went with the standard ground beef patty, or as my mum might see it, "death wish in a bun". All burgers come with lettuce (which resembles a small baby greens salad), tomato, onion, and pickle that actually tastes like it was once a cucumber and not an acid-soaked plastic flap. I added swiss cheese and grilled onions to my burger (and ended up leaving out the raw onion or tomato) for $1 per topping, which I thought may be a smidge expensive, but...eh, I'm never going to make my own burger, so I shouldn't complain.

meat juice: worse milkshake flavor ever

Sorry if that photo offends the vegetarians here. Burgers demand an innards shot. I was the only one to ask for a rare burger (come on, don't you want to risk getting E. coli) and my disregard for everything I learned in my food safety classes rewarded me with a patty seeping with cow juices. Seeping, not dripping; I don't want to eat food that pees on me. The burger was very juicy, pretty thick compared to other similary circumferenced burgers I've eaten, and despite the juice soaking into the bun (which you can observe in the photo), the toasted bun didn't disintegrate under the destructive power of meat-and-fat-infused water. A few wipes on my napkin were enough to rid my hands of burger residue so that I could pick up my camera and ensure that it wouldn't get too grimy (although I could probably use a camera condom for all the food photos I take). The swiss cheese, whole rounds of grilled onions, and baby greens were better toppings than I've had on other similar burgers (ie, I wouldn't compare it to The Spotted Pig's burger, which was just smothered in cheese anyhoo).

golden sticks of 'tato

What's a burger without fries? Slightly reasonable. Adding fries makes the meal more likely to result in "funny, my stomach has turned into a brick" syndrome, but I shared them with Nick. That is what you do when you eat out with other humans; you must share the fun and the deep-fried pain. For $2 you get a cute little basket of fries that with the inclusion of the skins look like they were once part of a larger potato as opposed to baving been mashed up and molded into sticks. Probably due to my uncouth upbringing of McDonald's and...more McDonald's, I tend to prefer McD-style fries over these type. These were fine, although I would've liked it if they had been a little crispier.

cheese and a lighter shade, but still as unhealthy as ever!

Amy and Helen shared cheese fries, which came as a bowl of fries draped in melted cheese. I've never had cheese fries before, but I can combine the tastes of fries and cheese with the power of my brain (eh, I'm sure you could do that too) and...it sounds pretty good in the deathly sense. Janet ordered regular fries that were strangely pallid compared to my golden orange batch. Maybe hers was fried in a fresh vat of oil? Or maybe the oil wasn't hot enough when the fries were dunked in? Or they weren't fried long enough? They were limp, but we still happily snarfed them down (my exact words were probably, "Mm....still good!"). No fried starchy substance is safe from our stomachs.

other burgers

Just so you can see some other burgers, Nick ordered a hamburger with swiss and grilled onions and Amy ordered a veggie burger that was disturbingly red. When asked what it tasted like (we figured...tomato?), she said it tasted like potato. Innnteresting.

When we were all done, our waitess asked if we wanted cupcakes. Hells yeah!...only problem is that there were only three cupcakes left (two small and one large) for five cupcake-hungry people. Er. Um. We passed on the cupcakes knowing that there was a Cupcake Cafe up the street.

I suppose B&C is still finding its legs as according to the waitress, they tend to run out of cupcakes around dinner time. If it weren't a new restaurant I would feel compelled to take a giant marker and cross off "& cupcakes" from its window (or take a sledgehammer and break the window, weehee!), but I think they'll shape up and actually make enough cupcakes to match their burger output. If not, they should get rid of the cupcakes part of the name, although that would only leave "burgers", which isn't an optimum name for googling. We were somewhat appalled that they failed to make enough cupcakes but...[breathes in, breathes out]...it's cool. I'll check back another time. Nick has luckily tried the cupcakes twice already (obtained during lunch time), so he gave me this description:

The frosting/cake ratio is almost 50/50! Took a ruler and measured the thing. Total height of the cupcake: just under 3 inches (like 2.9"). Total height of the cake part: 1.5". Total height of the frosting: do ye math.

I seethe with jealousy. [seethes]

Anyhoo, back to the story. As we walked up 9th Avenue, I could see the shuttered Cupcake Cafe from afar. Holy shizz! Are we meant to have cupcakes or not?

moved!

Oh.

it exists!

Ah! Alright, we were meant to have cupcakes.

where drinks come to drown

We walked towards the back room past a few empty display cases (I suppose they're still cleaning up from moving in?) where trays of cupcakes waited to...not be eaten, as the place was closing soon (if you want one of their cupcakes after 7 PM, you're out of luck). It felt a bit creepy in the dark, woody room crowded with small tables and chairs since there weren't any people around, but that kind of environment might be cosy during busier hours. Or it might always be odd. I liked the makeshift tub-cooler.

cupcaaakes!!

We each bought a large cupcake ($3.25) except for Amy, who went with the small and later lamented that she didn't get a large. The large one is pretty freakin' huge, but the small one is wimpy. You may as well pig out and get the larger one.

Since the place was closing, we had to take our cupcakes elsewhere to actually ingest them. We carried our cupcakes across the street to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where I'm sure no one ever hangs out to eat cupcakes...UNTIL NOW. We're so cool, soon everyone else will be doing it. Or not. Probably not.

Cupcake Cafe's cupcakes are different from most others I've had. One thing that sets them apart is the carefully crafted frosting flowers. They're almost too pretty to eat...but hell, nothing's too pretty to eat, so chomp away. The frosting is uber-buttery, which may or may not be your thing. All frostings are my things. Yes. The cake is denser than most and has the texture of cornbread, as Nick pointed out. Amy said that maybe the dense texture was a sign of the early stages of turning stale. Like any cupcake, it would benefit from a quick nuke or re-baking, but it was satisfying as is. Naturally, I consumed the whole thing.

'wichcraft

make me a sammich!

I've never tried 'wichcraft before, but I couldn't pass up this sandwich place after finding out that they just opened a new location near NYU.

the gooo, the gooo!

After much blank staring at the menu, I ordered "grilled fontina black with trumpet mushrooms & white truffle fondue on pullman white bread". The sandwich was perfectly grilled, resulting in ridiculously stringy melted cheesy pulling action. I don't know what white truffle fondue is, but I suppose it's buried in the mushroom-spotted cheesy viscera. Tasty. I'd eat it again...

a lonely sandwich

...But for $9.75, I don't think it was worth it. I can't judge 'witchcraft overall after only eaten one sandwich, but they all seem to come in one size ("small") for more money than I'd pay for most sandwiches. Really, that costs as much (or more) as inoteca, and I thought their sandwiches were small (but they might be larger than 'wichcraft's; I don't remember). The sandwich was yummy (although I prefer rolls/baguettes to sliced bread), but I don't necessarily want a larger one—I just wish it were a little less expensive.

other sandwiches

Tony ordered "roast beef with grilled red onions, radish slaw & black pepper aioli on ciabatta roll" and Cindy got "chicken breast with roasted red pepper, mozzarella & pesto on grilled country bread". Yummy, but still kinda pricey by hovering around $10.

cookies and stuff

The baked goods looked pretty good, so maybe I'll return to try a scone or a cookie. But for a sandwich? Ah...I don't know. If they have a sandwich that you think I must try due to being beyond-fantabulous, please let me know.

a slightly large hole in the wall

Otherwise, I could go to Pamela's Bake Shop on West 4th Street and for a few bucks less get a sandwich that's a little different, but just as satisfying.

sammich time

I ate that sandwich about a month ago, but failed to mention it. FOR SHAME! This grilled portabella mushroom panini with mozzerella cheese, pesto mayo, and red onion on focaccia was filled with...er, filling (what's the point in repeating the list?), meaning it was awesome when coupled with the chewy, slightly crispy grilled bread. I think the pesto mayo put it over the edge. Mayo is magical. Use it with pride; just don't overdo it.

Too lazy to use google? FINE!

Burgers & Cupcakes
458 9th Ave
New York, NY 10018

Cupcake Cafe
545 9th Ave
New York, NY 10018

'witchcraft
60 E 8th St
New York, NY 10003

Pamela's Bake Shop
6 W 4th St
New York, NY 10012

random food related stuff

Diet-blog informs us, "Sleep and Stay Slim". SLEEP! I CAN DO THAT! I must agree "that weight management is so much more than just diet - or even exercise." Not that I think exercise is bad, but when I was at my lowest weight in 12th grade, I didn't do any extra exercise; my weight loss relied solely on changing my diet. I highly doubt I got much sleep either since I was in high school (waking up before 7 AM spells FUN!!!). Diet is my key to losing weight, but as you can see...er, it's hard for me to get back into that vegetarian/raw food state of mind. However, it's not hard to go from raw fruits and veggies to cooked slabs of meat (at least it wasn't a problem for me). For a short period of my life I look like this (surely you can recognize which one I am) and today...um, I look like that, but more bloated.

Being slimmer got me nowhere except into smaller pants. And I guess my lungs were less mucus-filled. [sigh] That was pretty nice. I spent this morning morning in a perpetual state of wheeziness, which—coupled with my mum's lecture about my crappy eating habits that made me feel like a stupid moron (as opposed to a smart one)—put me in an extremely sour mood all morning. Add to that my state of semi-sickness from allergies and that I traveled an hour to work only to find that there wasn't much work for me, meaning that I came home early when I could've kept the REM state going on for a couple of extra hours. Oh well...there are worse things. I just wish I didn't live in NJ where I'm an unwalkable six miles away from the train station.

Life could be much worse. I should shut up.

Check out The Paupered Chef's Shake Shack Alternative Map. Sweeeet. I like the Shake Shack (and I still have a freakin' gift card), but not so much that I'll wait half an hour or more for a burger.

Anyone wanna help me make an "awesome bakery" google map?

In "Life in the Fast Food Lane, Frank Bruni chomps down a gajillion fatty and sugary calories from 42 stops over 9 days so you don't have to. Which is great, because I wouldn't. He gives the thumbs up to Dairy Queen, which due to my suburban living only exists a 10 minute drive away from my house. (This one-up over NYC isn't much to brag about.) Although I've lived here for most of my life, I've probably been to DQ less than 5 times. If anyone wants to join me, I would love to go and try this...this "Blizzard".

(Actually, I've had the Blizzard once, but it maybe have been five years ago, thus I recall nothing. Hell, what did I do yesterday? Dunno.)

If you haven't been there before, Eating Asia is awesome.

Thanks again to everyone who signed my frappr map! I didn't expect to get that many visitors so quickly. KEEP GOIN'! I read all the shoutouts, so to reply to most of them I'll say "Thanks!', "Hi!", and "Yes, innards are awesome."

comments are people too

Cool beans, Will Goldfarb left a comment! Unless there's more than one. (Do you know how much my name sucks? Having "Lee" as a last name is useless; it covers multiple cultures and is both a first and last name. "LEE" IS THE BLACK HOLE OF IDENTITY.) I didn't think "nerdy" was an inappropriate term, although I failed to check with wikipedia first. I suppose having Steve Urkel as your mascot is not very encouraging.

So...I propose the word geeky instead. That might be cooler than being a nerd, although that's a hot debate that I can't get into...because I don't care. Bwahaha!

I wouldn't mind being a geek or a nerd, but I'm not intellectual or passionate enough about anything to fulfill either of these terms. I think. Anyone beg to differ? I think my interest in web standards is slightly geeky, but I've become lazy with that (put this page through a bunch of validators and I'm sure it'll fail). I have a weird interest in experimental electronic music, but it's only a tiny slice of the genre that appeals to me, the kind that elicits the response, "EHEHE, IT'S BLOOPY!!!!" I feel somewhat alone in this genre because rarely does anyone share my interest in Plone (one of my favorite groups in the history of group-ness), and everyone besides my friend who got me into them has been male. Strange?

I'm weird, but still too normal. NOOOO!!!!

mmm, plow

Yo-ho, it's my favorite neighborhood hang out!

...No it's not. Cafe Kashkar is located at the edge of Brooklyn by Brighton Beach. I had never traveled that far to the right of a subway map before, although I did once go pretty damn far on the B train only to realize after a very long time that I was supposed to take the D train. Bee, dee...my brain just can't handle the complexity of that kind of similarity in pronounciation. Since I wasn't too bright I backtracked, waaay back, instead of going forth on the Q and changing in Coney Island. The result of the journey was the intense desire to never return to Brooklyn.

But Brooklyn has tasty food (and a handful of friends with undefined tastiness), thus I'm compelled to go every so often. I went on Thursday night to join Mike and five of his food-loving friends for seemingly endless Uygur-licious food that left me hugging my belly while thinking, "So full...so very full...so very worth it."

telly

The small restaurant (around 25 seats) may keep you entertained with a variety show featuring a singer who we determined resembled a cross between Hilary Clinton and Janeane Garofolo. This frightening combination led to a discussion on the composition of the ultimate woman Volton. Male Voltron would become a hot topic later in the night. Oh yesss. I'll come back to that.

Before I talk about the food, I want to mention that I don't remember what any of the spices or seasonings were. I just know I liked it all. Whatever the flavors were, I'd say that they weren't bland nor too strong; no one should find them offensive. EVERYONE, DIG IN!!!

ginormous little dumps

Take a normal sized Chinese dumpling, enlarge it by 400%, inject it with Uygur superpowers and you'll get something that looks like manty.

innarrdss?

Manty are ginormous thin-skinned dumplings of tender lamb chunks (at least I think it was lamb; the menu just says "meat") sweet chopped onion, and from the looks of the photo some wayward grains. Why there aren't more dumplings on steroids, I do not know; these are some tasty, meat juicy dough bags. And I know "dough bags" doesn't sound very appetizing...which is why I said it. I love dough bags. Sometimes when Diana eats dumplings, she'll leave the skins behind. At such time, something inside me cries, "The skins, the delicious dough skins, abandoned!" but I don't wimper too much or else she'll think I'm even weirder than she perceives me to be. You would not leave these skins behind because 1) you love dough and 2) they're really yummy. It wasn't as heavy as typical Italian pasta skin (just imagine that you know what my idea of a typical Italian pasta skin is), but it had more chewiness to it than a Chinese dumpling skin. I loved it, dough, meat, onion and all. I could've eaten the whole plate, but I knew there were a gazillion more dishes a-comin'. Gotta save room, you know. [pats belly]

lamb pilaf

WHAT DO THEY PUT IN THIS FOOD?! The lamb pilaf was another favorite of mine, although it loses to the manty for not being wrapped in dough. I love rice in just about all forms, aside from "stale" or "uncooked". This pilaf was...well, cooked and not stale. What did it taste like? Rice with added yumminess. Just put this on your "must order" list, okay? Yup. The lamb was tender and meat-flaky, if you know what I mean. Be careful of the bones; otherwise, enjoy the soft, moist, flaky, "this was once a cute little innocent lamb" muscle. I did!

carbed

The giant bread wheel (seriously, like the size of a steering wheel, or...uh, a hemroid cushion) was alright. It was chewy and a bit too dense for me to comfortably eat a lot of it without thinking I'd explode.

more things wrapped in dough

Samsa are like manty but with different dough, in this case flaky, golden layers. Oh. Man. Because of the heftier dough, we split three of these between our table of seven people. (To clarify, up to this point we had ordered two plates of manty, or eight total, two bread wheels, and two plates of lamb pilaf.) I prefer the manty over this, but it was still awesome. The dough wasn't your wimpy flaky stuff; it was more like chewy, flaky armor. Or something. I guess that's not very good armor, but it's substantial, and I'm a fan of chewing.

pile of noods

Holy shizz, it a pile of fresh noods! We got three plates of geiro lagman for the table because Mike knew this was the good stuff. I'll just copy and paste his review:

We started with the "geiro lagman" ($6), which is listed rather strangely under "soups." While the soup version of this dish is available under the title "lagman," the geiro version (under-described as "noodles with meat & vegetables") is more of a noodle dish with toppings. It's also one of the best things I've eaten on my nearly half-complete journey through the Cheap Eats list. It features hand-thrown noodles that rival Super Taste's and a sauce that includes tender, fatty chunks of lamb (watch out for the bones!), green and red pepper chunks, green beans, onions and scallions, and it's tied together with a oily red sauce enhanced with ground black pepper. We practically licked the plate clean � no joke!

Yup, it's awesome. I've only had hand-pulled noodles once in my life, but these were better because they weren't softened from sitting in a bucket of soup. The long, variable-width noodley ropes were fluffy, chewy, and not very dense. Eat this, you MUST.

it's meat-on-a-stick time!

Ground beef kebabs came on flattened, pointy metal rods that besides skewering meat may be used to kill people. Then again, you could use just about anything to kill someone if the object is moving fast enough. ...Um. on that note, look at the delicious juicy meeeeat. Juice and meat is a good combination, as long as the juice is from the meat. Actual meat juice and dry meat separately may not be so good. ...But then again, meat jerky is tasty. Pure, freshly squeezed meat juice? That's not so hot.

WHY DOES MY MIND DRIFT SO MUCH?! Back to the food.

lamb chop kebabs

The lamb chop kebabs were unfortunately not as good as the beef. Many of the pieces were more fat than meat, and...we wanted meat. Whatever spices they used were pretty good though. I was reminded of them all night when they constantly made their presence known to my tastebuds in the form of endless burps. Mike recommends Cheburechnaya for delicious meat on sticks.

chak chak

I love desserts, but this dessert did not love me. Chak chak looks like a Chinese fried noodly brick bound by a sugar-based goo I've seen many times, but rarely eaten. It also resembles a rice krispies treat, which I have much experience eating. Ultimately, the soft, loose splodge of fried noodles soaked in honey was neither of these. It's not like it was bad—it just wasn't what I expected. I thought it'd be crunchier and sweeter when it was actually not crunchy (since it was moist and would fall apart as you picked at it) and...well, it was kind of sweet, but you know me and my sweet tooth.

this photo is 100% unposed

And lastly, there's Ian. I totally just happened to catch him looking in my direction in the process of eating noodles. At no point did he say, "Robyn, I want to be in your blog; could you take a photo of me?" and then proceed to pose as an exuberant noodle eater.

HAHAAAA just kidding. Ian is cool! I think he's the first person to ask to be in my blog. His first question was whether or not I took photos of people for my site, which was apparently code for, "Put me on your site." ;) Sometimes I take photos of the people I'm eating with for my site, but I ask if it's okay (usually is, aside from the people who want their identity kept secret) or I request the other person to get an action shot of me shoveling a forkful of something in my mouth or ungracefully trying to fit my mouth around a sandwich. On a rare occasion, the person I'm eating with will take my camera and insist on capturing me in my gluttonous glory to share with the Internet world.

So...if you want to be in my blog, just ask! And if you don't, I might ask you anyway.

The final damage for seven people (and more food than seven people should be able to eat) was $80. Whoa. The awesomness of food jumps a bajillion points when it's cheap. Even though Cafe Kashkar is way, waay out there for someone like me (who lives in...NJ), I'd love to go back. For one thing, I need more manty. Many more. Also, Uygur food isn't especially easy to come by, yet here it is on the rightmost tip of Brooklyn! If you live in Brooklyn, you should check this place out. If you don't live in Brooklyn, you should still check this place out.

Thanks to Mike for inviting me out with his friends who fulfill an optimum coolness-quotient. YAY, I LIKE HUMANS!

Oh, I didn't talk about man-Voltron! Mr. T is in. Sting is not. There were maybe 100 other candidates, enough to create many imaginary Voltrons, but my mind is drawing a blank. I didn't take notes and photographs can't capture this kind of intense conversation. [pokes brain]

WHO ELSE WAS PART OF THE MAN-VOLTRON?! Discuss, if you'd like.

Dim Sum Dynasty

Dim Sum Dynasty

I've passed Dim Sum Dynasty in Ridgewood, NJ about a bagillion times, but hadn't thought about trying it until I read about it on Jason's blog and eGullet. I went on Wednesday night, which is not exactly a dim sum eating time. They serve dim sum from carts (the way it's traditionally served) on the weekends from 11 AM - 3 PM, but you can order a selection of them off the menu during other times. I ordered three dim sum and my mum and brother each ordered one entree for the three of us to share.

mini shrimp rolls

I wanted one of the taro dim sum, but it turns out they only serve them on the weekends. I let my brother choose one and he picked "mini shrimp rolls". Neither of us knew exactly what that entailed, but what do you know—they're mini shrimp rolls. Nothing mysterious here. Take a little shrimp, stretch it out, wrap it in spring roll skin and deep fry the sucker. They're like spring rolls, but less satisfying and kind of boring since they're only one type of filling and thus have the circumference of a straw. On the upside, that makes them much lighter than spring rolls. There's nothing wrong with the mini shrimp rolls, unless you're like me and aren't a big fan of shrimp.

turnip cakes

Turnip cakes are one of my most favorite foods. The rectangular slabs are mainly composed of turnip and rice flour, but may also contain bits of shrimp and pork. When people ask me what turnip cakes are, I'm not really sure how to describe them. "Uh...it's not 'cake' cake. Um. It's good, just trust me."

innaarddsss!

My favorite kind of turnip cake has a slightly crispy "skin" holding in soft, almost creamy—but not quite that mooshy—innards. However, I'd enjoy it even if it weren't crispy and soft. I WILL EAT ANY TURNIP CAKE! As for the flavor of a turnip cake, I don't know how to describe it. Saying it "tastes like turnip cake" helps no one. Salt? Sugar? Yum? The black blob sitting on the cake is oyster sauce, which is a mildly salty, viscous sauce that as far as I can tell doesn't taste heavily of oyster. If you're near Chinatown there's a place on Mott Street where you can get three crispy turnip cakes slathered in oyster sauce for $1.25.

snow pea leaf dumplings

I had never tried snow pea leaf dumplings before, but they sounded cute and potentially delicious. And what do you know, THEY ARE CUTE! Lookit them little transluscent babies (transluscent because the skin is made of wheat starch and tapioca starch, or some other kind of...starch). Check out that pink and green viscera! Mmm, colorful.

dissection time

The viscera turned out to be snow peaf leaf shoots and shrimp. Mmm. Tender. Just the way babies should be.

plum duck

My mum ordered the plum duck, described as "braised boneless duck with sliced soft taro root crusted plum sauce". Since it was braised, the skin wasn't crispy like what a typical duck dish may have, and boneless was especially nice because I'm lazy and hate eating things around a bone. The "taro" was unfortunately not taro, unless taro is uniformly white-ish and tastes like a cross between a potato and a radish. From my experience, taros are purple, sweet, and hearty. WHERE IS THE TARO? WAARH!!!

Ah well, still good. This duck really packed it away for the winter; its tender, juicy meat was blanketed with a thick layer of smushy fat that I imagine resembles the one under my skin. While I wouldn't order fat-blanketed duck on my own free will (I'm not much for dark meat), this was good. I recall past duck-eating experiences being marred by weird fatty skin and tougher meat, characteristics that this duck didn't possess.

chef's fried rice

Leave it to my brother to get something rather boring. However, we all love rice, especially when fried and mixed with other things (in this case, shrimp, scallop, egg, bacon & vegetables). I don't recall ever having fried rice with bacon (the pig component usually comes in the form of roast pork bits), but pig meat is pig meat, so it all fits. It was good, better than other fried rice I've had, although nothing mindblowing (is there mindblowing fried rice?). My mum objected to the bacon...ye know, the mum who got the fat cushioned duck. I know they're not the same; I'm just sayin'.

The final bill was $15-$20 per person. Not bad. This is probably the closest Chinese restaurant to me that isn't purely take-out, so if I get the craving for a nice sit-down Chinese place, I know where to go. Then again, I don't think I'd get that craving very often as my taste buds seem to have shifted to "things that come between two pieces of bread". Or manty. Mmm, mantyyy.

Too lazy to use google? FINE!

Cafe Kashkar
1141 Brighton Beach Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11235

Dim Sum Dynasty
75 Franklin Ave
Ridgewood, NJ 07450

random food related stuff

Soft drink company Tango made a great spoof commercial based on Sony's Bravia advert. It retains Jos� Gonzalez's singing (a musician I have unfortunately never gotten into even though I've felt like I'm supposed to), but replaces the boucy balls with less bouncy, destructive fruit. Awesome. [via Cool Hunting]

Not doing anything on Monday? Do you wanna see people eat giant hot dogs? RIGHT ON. Check out "Schnack�s Stahl Meyer 30" 100% Angus Beef Hot Dog Eating Contest". Complete info:

Monday May 29th @ 1:00pm

WHAT: 2nd Annual Schnack Stahl Meyer 30� 100% Angus Beef Hot Dog Eating Contest. Size does matter. The Schnack Stahl Meyer Hot Dog Eating contest is all about technique. The contestant to finish an entire 30" 100% Stahl Meyer Angus Beef Hot Dog nestled in a 28" Caputo's bun will win a grand prize of $500.

WHO: Eight contestants who have pre-qualified in "eat off" heats held at various locations throughout the city during the month of May will compete to see who can eat a 30" 100% Angus Beef Stahl Meyer Hot Dog the fastest. Judges Harry Hawk, owner of Schnack, and Arnie �The Chowhound� Chapman will judge the contest to ensure that contestants adequately chew and swallow and do not deconstruct the hot dog (or any portion of it) or dip it in liquid to make it easier to swallow.

WHEN: Monday, May 29th � 1:00pm

WHERE: Schnack Restaurant 122 Union Street, Red Hook (Brooklyn) NY 11231 718-855-2879

taking screenshots is annoying

I've just watched two episodes of Jamie's School Dinners so far. It's fantastic. Download the show, stat! Or buy the DVD, although that's only for you UK-residents.

Oh...uh, what is the show about? It's a four-part documentary that follows Jamie Oliver as he tries to improve school dinners (my assumption is that "dinner" = lunch) in Britain. He starts at Kidbrooke School to learn the ropes of how a school kitchen works (slice open bags of food, reheat food) and get an alarming reality check into the psychology of kid's eating habits. All they want are chips. Nuggets of some reconstituted meat products. No fruits or vegetables. Golden and fried, just the way arteries em. He tries to come up with healthier choices that stay within the budget of 37p (about 69 cents) per portion, but it's...um, really hard, especially coming from a business where one prices the food based on whatever it's made of, not the other way around. And come on—37p?

Things get a little better in the second episode when he visits a primary school in Durham, the county with the highest rate of health problems in children in the country. He teaches the kids to identify vegetables and gets them involved in cooking their own meal so that they'll eventually want to eat the fresh cooked stuff made from whole foods instead of processed foods like turkey twizzlers. It also helps that he dresses up like a stalk of corn and lets the kids chase him around as he dashes around in mutant-corn form.

Nora, the head dinner lady at Kidbrooke, is a real character. She knows what she's doing, she's insanely dedicated to her job, she wants the kids to eat well, and...she likes a good smoke. Initially, Jamie may act like a hardass as Nora tries to get him to follow the correct procedures to make sure all the food gets out on time (it doesn't), but after implementing a job switch where she works at his restaurant Fifteen for a day while he takes control of the school kitchen, they understand better where the other person is coming from. AND ALL IS GOOD, HAPPY SMILES, WEE.

...Actually, I don't know that yet, seeing as I haven't watched the last two parts of the show, but I'll get on that.

Has anyone else seen this show and thought it was pretty awesome? I think it's pretty awesome, certainly the most interesting show I've seen in a while. I'll admit that I don't watch TV anyway, but if a show sounds interesting enough, I'll watch it. I tried Top Chef, but it didn't do anything for me. It'd be great if a famous American chef could try to improve public school lunches and start some kind of campaign for better food, assuming there isn't already something like that in place (is there?).

When I was in high school, I was frustrated by how bad the food was. And...it wasn't even that bad. The less objectional foods were salads, pizza, and sandwiches (I usually went for sandwiches, at least until I stopped eating the school food, opting instead to eat lunch after I got home around 3 PM), while the ones I found more distasteful were the "fast food"-type junk (am I the only person who doesn't like curly fries?) and the hot lunches. Although I can't remember what all the hot lunches were, one of them sticks out in my mind: nachos. Yeah. A pile of tortilla chips with some watery ground beef, salsa, shredded iceberg lettuce, excessive sour cream, maybe some cheese...actually, it wasn't really the worst thing in the world, but it seemed like a sad idea for a lunch. Then again, I must've eaten it on a few occassions to assess its sadness.

The food in my high school was made by Aramark. When Aramark followed me to Vassar, something inside me screamed, "NOOOOOO!!" The food at Vassar was much, much better than in high school, of course, but it surely isn't going to win any awards. (To give Vassar props, students successfully introduced some local foods and produce into the dining facilities when I was there in '03-'04; I'm not sure what that program is like today. Vassar even has its own farm, although I don't know if any of that food was actually eaten on campus. The best strawberries I've ever eaten were picked fresh from their farm and ruined all subsequent strawberry eating experiences.)

Do I still have anyone's attention? You'll have to forgive me for rambling here without the aid of food porn. Writing blog entries for me doesn't take much planning. I have no outline and my thoughts are not as organized as I'd like them to be. I think I have a point...or I had a point...

Okay, I'll just ramble on some more. For no reason, I'll fill you in on the history of my school lunch eating experiences. In my town, the elementary schools didn't have cafeterias. I thought it was normal to eat at your desk until I moved to Taiwan and from talking to other people found out that...nope, that's kinda weird. (I think by now the three elementary schools that I've attended have expanded and include some kind of dining facilities.) This means that I didn't have to rely on school to provide me with lunch, aside from the exciting pizza days (which I look back on in horror after eating pizza in NYC and learning that a slice of pizza shouldn't be 90% cheese nor should it be dripping in fluorescent, nearly glowing orange oil).

People frequently ask me what my mum cooks, to which I reply that she doesn't, not on a regular basis at least. However, she used to cook all the time when I was little (out of necessity more than desire) and I have to thank her for providing me with food that was probably a lot better than what other kids were getting. I ate chips, but I was unfamiliar to the world of snack cakes, candies, cereal, and whatever else constituted as popular snacks for kids. I'd imagine that being surrounded by kids eating certain foods would've made me want to eat them too, but...it didn't. For some reason I remember one day looking at a friend search her backpack for her food and finding a smushed package of Twinkies. It didn't really look like food to me.

Don't get me wrong; I ate lots of junk food, just less than the average American, perhaps. While trying to remember what it is my mum packed for me, they were mainly leftovers from the previous night's dinner. I was the only kid with a thermos of rice and some accompanying protein. Many times it was leftover chicken fingers from Market Basket, which didn't taste that great since the yummy part of the chicken finger, the crust, was soggy. I think I may have gotten salmon, beef stew, or Swedish meatballs on a few occasions. It wasn't the most balanced meal, but I preferred it over a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (not that my mum ever made PB&J sandwiches).

Looking back, I'm surprised I didn't express more distaste towards having different food from other kids. Have you ever read stories by people from immigrant families about how growing up they wanted American food instead of their ethnic cuisine so that they'd fit in better? ...Or did I just make that up? I'm positive there was an article in Giant Robot at some point.

I guess I didn't have that problem because I never fit in anyway (something that's still true today). I never saw the point of it, except maybe during one short period in 4th grade. (I considering 4th grade to be the "turning point" in elementary school when things went from happy and innocent to craptastic and cliquey.)

...My god, I'm just a strange kid. To be honest, I don't think I've changed much over my whole life. Many improvements to my character could be made, but I guess I'm more comfortable with the way I am than I thought I was. ...Wait, did that make any sense? [shrugs]

HOLY CRAP, WHAT AM I TALKING ABOUT?! Back to food!

The best school food I've ever had was at Taipei American School, which I attended during 6th and 7th grades. It's not fair to compare their food to what I've had in the US since its a private school, but I just want to point it out. According to my friends, since I left their food has gotten a lot better. The food services website is pretty funny if you care to look around it.

Um. I still don't know what the point of this entry is.

OHHH, Jamie Oliver. I didn't know much about him before, but now I think he's pretty cool. He's not perfect, but he puts a lot of effort into improving school's food and doesn't back down. Watching the dedication he, Nora, and all the other school food service workers showed in efforts to improve school food made me wish I could do the same . It's not like I'm worried about my kids eating crap in school (seeing as I have no kids, nor do I plan on having them); it's just something that I think is important. Because...because...

I hated high school and 8th grade, i.e. the years I spend in the US public school system after moving back from Taiwan. It had nothing to do with teachers, even though that seems to be central to most kids' hatred of school (well, in my school at least). My classmates...just did nothing for me. They disappointed me with their disregard for how hard it is to be a teacher, their rudeness, stupid actions, constant complaining, laziness...sure, I complain about things, I'm lazy, and I do stupid things, but some of my classmates took these characteristics to a level that made me want to strangle them, or hope that they'd get the shit beat out of them in some way. I'm not that violent, I swear!

Umm.

In my entire schooling career, I never felt like any teacher was out to get me or did anything unfair. I'm not saying that these teachers don't exist (surely, they do), just that I never had to encounter them. These are the kinds of complaints I heard from my friends and peers constantly, and while I may not know for sure that my teachers were innocent of any wrongdoing, my impression was that all they wanted to do was teach us, regardless of whether they were actually good at it. Duh. It's got to be one of the most difficult jobs; I could never do it. What I couldn't understand during high school was why the majority of other students didn't seem to realize how hard it was to teach us and that we were lucky to have good teachers. I guess you wouldn't care if you're an asshole though, which quite a number of students were. To be honest, many of my classmates were perfectly fine people, but it's the annoying ones you remember most clearly.

Good god, I don't know what my point is.

...Maybe if people ate better food, they would suck less. I know that eating a salad doesn't make you an angel, nor does eating a candy bar automatically make you an ADD-afflicted incarnation of the anti-Christ, but on a widescale serving wholesome food to kids has got to make some difference in the way they act and think. Kids would become more nutritionally-conscious, hopefully.

I just remembered a random thing that I'll shove in here because I don't know where else to put it. When I came back to NJ in 8th grade, I was completely unaware of what a hall pass was. To go to the bathroom, I needed a hall pass. To go to the office, I needed a hallpass. Was the piece of plastic going to keep me safe in case a locker fell on me? I dunno. In TAS, we had no hall passes. If you had to pee, you had to pee. There was no sense of distrust because why would you leave the class unless you had a good reason? I didn't understand the need to hover over us 8th graders, but I guess the school had their reasons. Or maybe they were just really paranoid.

I dunno what the point of that anecdote was, but as I've already typed it, I'll just leave it there.

On an unimportant note, the second episode of Jamie's School Dinners had music by Doves, Bell & Sebastian, and Blur. That's a pretty cool mix.

If you read this far, you're kind of crazy. It's memorial day weekend! Relaxation! Whatnot! I feel like I should be at a barbecue.

I think I'm becoming more in tune with my New Jersey-ness. How?

I am...driving around. By myself. A smidge.

Driving is rather important in NJ because if you don't do it, you're screwed. You end up staying at home all day like I do, which isn't something I'd recommend since breathing in stale air is not so great at sustaining health. However, I hate driving, thus I'm extremely unfamiliar with what roads I live around or, hell, what towns surround my own. "Waldwick? Wuhzuh?" Bergen County has 70 municipalities; I can't keep track of that. I have to keep asking my mum for directions everywhere besides printing out multiple maps telling me exactly what street is where and where to turn and oh my god there's roadkill right there, must avoid the roadkill!

Anyway, since I'm writing this entry now you know I didn't die while zooming down parkways and 25 mph streets (the suggested speed limit, I guesss) in my "death pod", or what is popularly known as a "motor vehicle". I think "death pod" is more truthful. It may not appeal to soccer moms, but a macho guy wanting to reinforce his macho-ness may feel empowered to tell people that he drives a pod of death.

Uh. Food time. Guess where I went yesterday!

golden cakes of pan

Country Pancake House, it appears that we meet again. People from out of town always want to go to the Country Pancake House. "Robyn, I want pancakes! Robyn! Wah wah! Pancakes! Etc!" Actually, they don't say that—my friends aren't that annoying.

Although I've eaten so many CPH pancakes in my life that I can't take them anymore, I have no problem directing others to the holy pancake haven that boasts over 100 types of pancakes that come in their standard ridiculous satellite-dish size or an even more ridiculous huger satellite dish size. You can get everything from "Italian Delight" (almonds, coconut, and amaretto) to "Carpetbaggers" (bacon, cheddar cheese, corn meal, ham, and a side of sour cream). There's also a diet pancake for the fool who is dieting and still wants pancakes. John asked me for my recommendation, so I said the banana ones were good. Unless you don't like bananas, in which case that just sucks.

Robyn doesn't eat human, human eats pancake!

John managed to down about two of the four pancakes before feeling like his stomach was going to explode. I find this mildly disturbing as I could've probably eaten the same amount and the bodily needs of my 5 foot frame aren't exactly the same as his 6 feet of tall-ness. There's a reason that I'm a bit pudgy. Dammit.

oh, the carnage

I went with the the "not ridiculously unhealthy sounding" sardine pita sandwich platter with a side of home fries (which I specified instead of french fries figuring they'd be mildly less likely to give me atherosclerosis). The sardines were larger than any other sardines I had ever seen. I'm not sure if that should've bothered me or not. While I like raw onions, I keep ignoring the fact that ingesting them results in my entire mouth-space to taste of onion essence for an uncomfortable long period of time, such as "all freakin' day." It's like the skin inside my mouth is actually emitting onion fumes, time released for optimum discomfort. Is this what happens to everyone? Overall, wrapping mutant sardines, caustic onion and crispy iceberg lettuce in soft pita bread made for a satisfying lunch. The potatoes weren't necessary, but they came with the platter, meaning that I "had" to eat them. AMERICANS LIKE POTATOES, OH YEAH! I'm down with that.

cornbread

Unlike my previous visit, the complementary cornbread was obviously fresh and radiated with warmth and squishiness around its soft cakey soul. It's always a mistake to eat this since it just takes away stomach space from your main dish, but ye can't resist. Their irresistable quality is like that of a glowing electric bug zapper to a mosquito, except that the bread won't kill you...right away.

After eating enough to make sitting an uncomfortable position, John and I walked around the not-very-lively Ridgewood while enduring blasts of heat from the sun. This heat blasting triggered my thirst sensors, which tend to not work, and my thirstiness brought me to a public water fountain, which also tends to not work. Damn. In desperation I picked up a random soft drink from the nearby Japanese market (it's okay to drink unhealthy stuff if it's Japanese!) that contained 33 grams of sugar and tasted a bit like flat Mountain Dew and melted Jell-O or Gummi Bears. I forget what it was named, but the can had a few cute little cartoon bees on it (honey was one of the ingredients) and it proclaimed that it contained 10% of something, "something" probably being vitamin C. Or bees.

John is another good friend that I would add to the list of "cool people I became friends with on the Internet and eventually met in real life" (yesterday was the first time we met). He gets a seal of awesomness. The list of uncool people is currently empty. Perhaps I'm just lucky? DID I JUST JINX MYSELF?! Crap. I also met another cool person: Pete! I don't know Pete as well as John, but after meeting him I would also award him with a seal of awesomeness. I was very amused by his candy monster creature paper things. "Is that...candy corn?"

My lazy day ended with me at home accomplishing little. Mm, Sundays...so unproductive.

Soda Pop Shop

Soda Pop Shop

On Saturday I drove to Montclair for the first time by myself to eat with CJ (a longtime Internet friend made through a common Magnet interest; apparently the Internet is the only way to meet cool people in NJ) at the Soda Pop Shop. There were many instances when I was looking at my map instead of the road and put myself at risk for running over something. Like. A human. Thankfully, I managed to leave the roads clean of spilled blood. Do I get a gold star?

outside decorations

As you may have already suspected, the Soda Pop Shop is full of old-timey American charm, a throwback to something that may have existed 60 years ago, except that restaurants back then probably didn't display museum-grade soda bottles and cardboard cut-outs of pop-culture icons. Or maybe they did. [rubs chin Mr. Burns style]

madness!

The madness continues inside as you are bombarded with white and pastel pink walls and "I'm not really sure what that color is, but it's kinda turquoise-y" seats. Old cereal boxes, board games, records, and movie posters provide further retinal stimulation.

stacked sammich

CJ went with the turkey club sandwich. A rather healthy choice, I think. So what did I get?

burger time

CHEESEBURGER. Crap. It's not like I'm even a huge fan of cheeseburgers, but...despite knowing what hamburger patties are made of (the uneasiness of which has a lot to do with acutally having no idea what they're made of), there's just something about them that says, "I shall thwart your attempts to eat healthily. Order me, you must."

onion rings and innards

While the onion rings were awesomely crispy and contained adequate oniony goodness, the burger left me wanting more. And less. More meatiness, less cooking time. I had been so spoiled by awesome burgers in NYC that I forgot such hockey puck-esque patties lacking in bovine juices existed. Who would eat such a thing? Oh...I did! Oops. The burger also could've used a lot more muenster cheese, say a few more slabs, and a toasted bun would've been much more enjoyable than the character-less bread discs that hugged the burger innards. Altogether, it didn't taste horrible, but I wouldn't want to eat it again.

But the "real" food isn't the star at the Soda Pop Shop. Nuh uh.

ice cream!

It's all about the ice cream. While I had my eyes on a pop parfait, my stomach felt too compacted to be able to fit a ginormous sundae. CJ went for the "Cookie Monster Meets the Doughboy" (cookies and cream ice cream, cookie dough ice cream, chocolate syrup and an oreo) parfait while I got a two scoop "Muddy Sneakers" (white chocolate ice cream, caramel, peanuts and milk chocolate flakes) hot fudge sundae.

hahaha, have fun eating that

Although the waitress said CJ would be able to finish the sundae after he asked how large it was, it was obvious when this tower of ice cream layered with toppings appeared that he wouldn't finish it unless he wanted to suffer the intestinally painful consequences. The freakin' thing moved like lava flows as he wooshed his spoon inside the cup. The ice cream...it churns.

my smaller sundae

Although I thought two scoops would be manageable, I soon wished I had only gotten one. It's a lot of ice cream! I'm not complaining, but the rule from now one should be to get a one-scoop sundae if a meal has already been eaten; otherwise, a larger one is feasibly ingestible. Refraining from any ice cream eating is not part of the rules. That kind of uncouth behavior will get you kicked out of my eating club.

thar she goes

If this sundae were a building, it would be a public hazard. The structurally unsound mountain of whipped cream sadly succumbed to gravity and transformed from "tasty ice cream accompaniment" to "goop on the table". When it flopped over I unintentionally let out a loud gasp that most people would only utter when witnessing something of utmost horror, like tortured puppies. That whipped cream obviously meant a lot to me. A little too much, perhaps. I salvaged some of the whipped cream, but a chunk of it actually fell on the table again when I attempted to move it with my weeny spoon. It just wasn't meant to be.

in the process of being eaten

While the ice cream was airier than I'd prefer, I still enjoyed it. The description on the menu was a little off; I didn't come across any peanuts, but the chocolate flakes were actually chocolate chunks, which I thought was an improvement over flakes. If my stomach were more accomodating, I would've eaten the remaining spoonfuls of ice cream goop and semi-solidified hot fudge. Instead, I poked a tthe brown swirly remains while comtemplating the damage I had inflicted onto my body by eating a cheeseburger and ice cream for lunch. Jamie Oliver would not approve.

Overall, I enjoyed lunch and would return to the Soda Pop Shop if CJ felt like going (I live 40 minutes away, he lives 5...bastard). I leave you with a few take-away messages: sandwiches look more promising than the burgers, pop parfaits require an empty stomach, and whipped cream is best eaten in a low-gravity environment.

Too lazy to use google? Fine!

Country Pancake House
140 E Ridgewood Ave
Ridgewood, NJ 07450

Soda Pop Shop
558 Bloomfield Ave
Montclair, NJ 07042

Comments are people too!

Jenny emailed me to ask for advice on restaurants in Tokyo. Unfortunately, I know nothing, nor do I have any friends who live in Tokyo. HOW ABOUT YOU? Hellllp ussss. If you have any suggestions, email Jenny, leave a comment, telepathically beam the information to my brain...ye know, whatever works best.

And I have a question for NYC-ers: where do I buy the best coffee beans? I want to bring some coffee to Morten, the friend I'm staying with in Norway. I've already figured out what cookies to get, but I'm clueless about coffee. Hellllp.

Thank you so much for your feedback on the last entry! I was surprised to get those comments since the entry was quite long, rambly, and food-porn-less, but the issue of school lunches (or Jamie Oliver) was something a lot of you could relate to, for better or worse. I'm too lazy to reply to everything in individually (I read em all and will continue to do so, of course), but I'll reply to some stuff here or rambly some more.

For those who didn't see Jamie's School Dinners, there's a part where he tries to win over the last few kids who won't eat his food by showing them how chicken nuggets are made. After showing the kids liquidy, pasty pink food-processed meat goo, they completely lose their appetites for little nuggets of chickeny parts. I'm sure there are people who would still eat chicken nuggets even after seeing how they're made, but its a good tactic.

Jamie's best tactic is to teach the kids about food and get them involved in food preparation. Giving the kids stickers seems to help too (hey, I loved stickers as a kid). In one segment, he quizzes the kids on vegetable names, a quiz that most of the students fail. To be honest, I'm not sure if I'd be able to name rhubarb as a 7 year old, but at the very least I don't think I'd call it an onion. ...Or maybe I would. Celery is closer, at least.

For those who haven't seen Super Size Me (which shouldn't be anyone reading this site because you should've seen it in theaters or DVD by now, AHEM ahem cough), there's a segment where Morgan focuses on the horrors of school cafeteria food and points out a school for "at-risk" kids that has implemented a healthier meal plan. Cathy describes it: "No candy, twinkies, or anything pre-packaged or processed. The teachers said they saw a dramatic difference in the student's behavior and performance, especially after lunch." I remember thinking how great it would be if my high school could have healthy meals not made by Aramark that would result in less asshole-y students. Or maybe half of the people in my town are inherently asshole-y despite what they eat. Hm. Well, it's still healthier.

Cybele points out the Food Network show All Star Kitchen Makeover on which Emeril transforms the kitchen at The Children's Storefront, an independent, tuition-free school in Harlem. I find that more interesting than making over just any one perso's or family's kitchen. Now to find a torrent...

In Jamie's School Dinners I was surprised that so many of the kids (seemingly all of them, although I guess if anyone said they didn't that part could be edited out) said they got chips at home. I thought it was mainly a treat, but it sounded like chips had the equivalent status of rice in my house as a staple.

OH oh oh I just remembered something totally random! I'm not sure if anyone could give me some insight into this, but one of my professors who's from Italy told us that in Europe (not counting Great Britain I guess), there isn't this widespread idea of "kids food", such as turkey twizzlers and chicken nuggets. Kids are just fed smaller portions of adult food. I guess he was talking about Italy, France and...elsewhere? This makes sense to me, as why would you feed your kids something that you may not want to eat (I don't think parents would really want turkey twizzlers)? I'd apply that same idea to pets. If I had a pet, I can't imagine popping open a can of mysterious meat parts and deeming that as food.

Georgia says that this show saved Jamie's reputation. I have to admit that I found him kind of annoying during certain parts, but the project obviously demanded a lot from him. It took time away from his family, time away from his primary job, time away from...sleep. He handled it well and made major accomplishments that make me feel like I'm not going to do anything with my life. I think he was 28 or 29 during the taping of the show—that's pretty young. Dammit! I'M GETTIN' OLD!!!

Elaine, I LOVE CHICKEN POT PIE! Oh god. Pie. Of chicken chunks and creamy sauce that has a real name, but I can't remember it so I'll just call it "cream sauce". I ate loads of chicken pot pies as a kid, although I never made one from scratch until two years ago during my cooking class. As for not eating breakfast, I don't eat breakfast either. For some reason (perhaps...all the execss baggage), I don't have much trouble eating my first meal in the late afternoon. It's good if I'm stranded somewhere, I guess.

Cat, I'd be interested to hear more about the school lunch change program!

Jessie, your classmates sound like douches! Maybe I was lucky that no one asked me if I was eating dog. :\ As for the three potato chips, my god that sounds so sad.

Bowb, it is pretty sad that ketchup is considered a vegetable. Here's an article from a few years ago about frozen fries being classified as fresh vegetables. Yaay, progress! I hate that schools rely on funding from food companies to sell snacks and soda. :(

Alright, this entry is finally over!

For those unfamiliar with Ridgewood, it's a town that has a gajillion restaurants all splodged up against each other down East Ridgewood Ave (and the streets branching off of it), akin to restaurant-heavy streets in NYC except that Ridgewood is much cleaner, has more trees, and contains no hipsters.

When my family wants to go out to eat, we usually (perhaps 95% of the time) head to Ridgewood. I'm not really on a mission to try every restaurant in the main downtown area, but...hey, maybe I should. An eating mission coupled with a nonexistent exercise regiment probably isn't the best idea, but then neither was my birth.

not edible

Yesterday I went to Ridge Thai with my mum and brother. I don't know how old the restaurant is, but I suppose it's fairly new, maybe...around...ah, I have no clue. I think the former business was a bakery, the only bakery in that area. NOW THERE ARE NO BAKERIES! Who's idea was this? Tear down the GAP and put up a bakery, someone!

Uh, back to food. The restaurant was empty when we were there (around 6:30), so perhaps it gets more crowded later. There are 30 seats and the decor is nicer than what you'd think from looking at the outside. Or what I would think. I liked the simple, white, porcelain dishes of slightly unconventional shapes. "Look, this plate...it's square! My mind is blown." It does make a differerence to have a rectangular plate instead of a circular one, yes? Crazy! In a way you'd think that the simpler the plateware is, the less obtrusive it would be to the dish, but I tend to notice it more. Sleek, white dishes are a style in themselves, I guess. I think someone needs to make a new trend: Lisa Frank designs on everything. (I have no idea if that stuff is still popular. When I was a kid, girls loved that stuff. Except me.)

Wow, I'm digressing.

musaman curry

While my mum and brother steered away from anything spicy, I ordered the musaman curry (peanuts, onion, and potato) with pork (other choices being chicken or beef). The waitress wanted to make sure I'd get a spiciness level that wouldn't kill me and let me choose between mild, medium, and very spicy. When I went with medium, my mum gasped as though I were commiting suicide...and she probably thought I was a moron.

Mom: That's really spicy, Robyn.
Me: Uh...no, it's medium.
Mom: Well I'm the mom, blah blah blah, I know everything, blah blah blah, something.
Me: Uh...okay.

My memory's kinda iffy.

Anyway, "medium" was a good hotness level; it had some kick, but didn't make me cry a river or give the sensation that my mucus membranes were being attacked by lasers. My mum ended up taking many spoonfuls of my creamy curry sauce to use on her pad thai. Silly mum. I ate every last drop even after my tiny bowl of rice ran out because...it was yummy. I like crunchy things and the peanuts were perfect in fulfilling my quest to have the crunchy sounds of destruction reverberate through my jaw. The potatoes and onion tasted just right to me texture-wise, but I thinik the thin pork slices could've been cooked a little less as they were a smidge tougher than I would've liked. Of course, I still ate it all, so maybe it doesn't matter.

pad thai, duck stuff

My mum ordered the paid thai (stir fried rice noodles with shrimp, egg, chopped peanut, scallion, dried bean cake & bean sprout) and my brother went with ped pad khing (roasted duck stir-fried with ginger, carrot, onion & mushroom). When my brother realized there was ginger on his plate, he somewhat lamented, "Whoa, there's a lot of ginger in this. Could I have gotten it without the ginger?" My mum and I gave him a funny look. "It's a flavor!" Damn, it's not like he's allergic. It reminded me of the multiple times that my mum has ordered quesadillas without cheese. Yeah. That's what I said. She's not allergic to cheese—she's just not a fan of eating it melted. I obviously didn't inheret her preference.

My brother managed to get over the ginger and eat most of the dish, except for the garnishes. "Am I supposed to eat that?" I'd say if the garnishes in question more resemble a small salad than a sprig of clinatro, then..yeah, you're allowed to eat it. You could eat the cilantro too, of course. My mum's pad thai was yummy; I can't say I've ever had a bad one, although I probably don't know what "authentic" pad thai is.

colorful

Later that night we went out to Baskin Robbins (holy crap, there's one in my little town) to take advantage of their two-for-one sundae deal on Tuesdays (and there are only so many places you can go in the suburbs). Crazy, man. If you went alone on a Tuesday and got a sundae, you'd have to get another one just because you can. Let that gluttonous poiwer roam wild and free. I got a two scoop sundae with pistachio almond and a chocolate truffle something or other covered with hot fudge, whipped cream, and mini M&Ms. My mum wasn't very happy with my artificially colored topping and artificially green pistachio ice cream choice, but hey, she didn't chime in with any suggestions and it's not like you go to Baskin Robbins to indulge in all-natural wholesome ice cream. I can't say I'd go to BR if it weren't a special deal—the ice cream wasn't very flavorful (although the texture was pretty good, not too airy) and my favorite part ended up being the chopped almonds in the pistachio ice cream. However, a sundae is still a sundae and it's my main excuse for eating something with hot fudge and cream. It's good...only on Tuesdays.

interior shot, woohoo

A few weeks ago I went to Radicchio in Ridgewood with my mum since neither of us had been there before and the restaurant has existed for as long as I can remember (which probably isn't that long, but pretend it is). It is so far the only restaurant I've been to in Ridgewood (hell, in most places) where almost ever entree was more than $25. Holy crap. I know it seems like I spend a lot of money on food, but rarely that much. Balthazar is the only place where I've spent that kind of money on one dish and I wasn't convinced that it was worth it. Radicchio didn't convince me either. It's not that the food was sub-par at either restaurant, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect food to taste in the upper stratosphere of "awesome" if I'm expected to pay that much. I desire stratospheric awesomeness, which can be hard to find.

tuna tartare

My mum ordered the tuna tartare in sweet soy marinade for an appetizer after asking me what tartare was. I don't dislike raw fish, but I'm not about to wolf it down by the bucket either. My mum and I thought the presentation was cute and it must've been pretty good if she ate it all.

risotto with sausages

I ordered risotto with sausages since I've never actually ordered risotto in a restaurant before and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. One day when I must've been really bored, I made risotto that was surprisingly edible and not a pain in the butt to make (stand there, stir, continue to stand and stir). Would $26.50 risotto beat my risotto to a pulp, torture it with pointy sticks and then beat it some more? Not exactly. There was nothing bad about the risotto, I just...expected more. Like the appearance of angels. I think I just have to face the facts that I'm not a huge fan of risotto nor possibly most Italian food (I don't eat it much), but that's too general a statement for someone who hasn't eaten much Italian food.

tricolor linguine

My mum enjoyed her tricolor linguine except for the slightly sandy scallops. I can't say I have much problem with sandy scallops since I'm used to them (that's probably not a good thing), but I don't have much taste for scallops or most shellfish in general. I hope you don't hate me for saying that. Of course, I've tried a variety of shellfish (mussels, raw oysters and clams, other blobby looking things) to come to the conclusion that I'd rather eat something else. Like cake.

my cake sprung a leak

Speaking of cake, of course we got dessert, aka my favorite part of the meal. Although my chocolate souffle look oddly frosty from afar, it was warm and oozed with chocolatey goodness in both viscous liquid and deep, chocolatey scent (yes, I used the world "chocolatey" twice in once sentence...I don't really care). The smell alone told me it was going to be good. What made it even better was the large scoop of uber-smooth vanilla ice cream that came with it, thus allowing me to indulge in the gluttonous joy of combining warm, gooey "cake" seemingly made of airy fudge with cool, melty creaminess. Mmhmmmmhhm mmhmhm. Why is something appealing if it oozes when you puncture it? I guess it'd be a different story if it had exploded.

tiramisu

My mum gets tiramisu almost every time we eat at an Italian restaurant. This was too alcohol-y for me to enjoy, but you might prefer it.

Overall, Radicchio is a nice restaurant with friendly service that makes good food in reasonable portions, but since I'm a cheap bastard it's unlikely I'd go back. From observing other customers, I felt like many people were actually regulars, or quasi-regular. Damn, I'm not a regular anywhere. Just always on the prowl for more...

Too lazy to use google, eh?

Ridge Thai
50 Chestnut St
Ridgewood, NJ 07450

Baskin Robbins/Dunkin Donuts
754 Franklin Ave
Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417

Radicchio
32 Franklin Ave
Ridgewood, NJ 07450

random food related stuff

New Threadless shirt: Where'd this baby come from?

Jesus Pan. ...Wow.

Smilingbread is an LJ community dedicated to cute things, mainly in the form of food.

This isn't food related (still gonna leave it in this section though, har har!), but Momu's latest LJ entry about couples and surfing on the Internet is interesting if you're a heavy Internet user. And if you're reading this, you probably are. I don't relate to the entry, but it's funny to read what other people's experiences are. Also, it makes me feel like less of a freak. You think I have Internet-addiction problems? Wellll...

Oh, I also think what he in one of his comments is funny, although may not be true:

More than anything, I think it's fantastic that I've met someone that doesn't try to stage an internet addiction intervention.

That's rather sweet! The problem is not so much getting over our addictions as finding good ones!

If your addiction is bad, you probably should get over it. But there are some good, non-extreme addictions, yes? Liking things a lot isn't always bad. What if you replaced "addiction" with "passion"? Saying you have a passion for baking sounds a lot better than saying you're addicted to it. Having a passion for alcohol sounds kinda weird though.

I don't have a passion for nor an addiction towards these new Thom Yorke tracks, but...I like them a lot. A lot lot lot lot. I DON'T CARE IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, STOP LOOKIN' AT ME THAT WAY!

I really love Pimp My Snack.