The Girl Who Ate Everything

Sorry for the big gap between posts. :( My previous post was written at the cusp of getting the flu; I sort of wallowed in my diseased-ridden bed for the next three days while wondering when my body would stop feeling like I had had fallen on my back out of a two-story window. Thankfully, it was a short flu that made me do two things that rarely occur in my life: sleep more and eat less. THANKS, FLU! Really, it was good for me. And over the ridiculously beautiful weekend, I took a trip to Philadelphia for my first much-needed foray out of the Tri-State area in about HALF A FUGGIN YEAR. It involve two Capogiro outings, so you know it was good.

Ihawan.

"I can feel my pants tightening," Veronica said while shifting in her seat at Ihawan.

[ROBYN, COME UP WITH WITTY RESPONSE]

"I'm not wearing any pants."

[...OKAY, THAT'LL DO.]

Well, it was true. While my pants-wearing friends—Veronica, Kelly, and Francine—were constricted by their pants' waistlines, I was mostly unhindered by my elastic banded dress. So I kept on going. The theme of the day ended up being "No Pants, No Limits."

But we all packed away a good amount, whether wearing pants or not. Here's the spread:

MOUNTAIN OF FRIED!

Lumpiang shanghai ($7 / 12 pieces): I can't eat at a Filipino restaurant without ordering these deep fried finger-sized rolls filled with minced pork and shrimp. Super crisp shell + lil' bit of meat filling = I'm gonna shove three in my mouth at the same time. (Okay, not at the same time, but in quick succession.)

Oh dear god, I'm really slipping with my posts. Sorry, guys. I have a unique reason for this week's slip: My roommates are on vacation and I'm taking advantage of my solitude by practicing my guitar (my skills have progressed very little in the past 10 years; it's more for fun than anything else) and my newly acquired autoharp without fear of annoying the hell out of anyone else. ...Unless my upstairs neighbors can hear me. But I tell myself that they can't.

Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

Not the cup I ate last week, but it looks about the same.

I like the idea of Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. They provide a different dessert option among the sea of Chinese bakeries (there's also a Häagen-Dazs across the street, but I'm in the mindset that I should support the local business over the one owned by General Mills, even if the latter is tasty), they offer Asian flavors that you won't find at regular ice cream shops, and their mascot is that cool fat dragon dude who looms over Bayard Street.

But I never recommend it to anyone these days (maybe I would've back in 2005 when I first tried it), an idea reinforced by my visit there last Wednesday out of convenience. My tummy said, "Give me taro ice cream." Despite remembering that their taro wasn't all that awesome the last time I tried it over two years ago, I gave it another go. And the result was this string of unsophisticated thoughts: "This doesn't really taste like taro. And there are all these funny little bits in it. Are these taro bits? They don't really taste like taro. What does this taste like? Vanilla? Not really. Sweet? Yeah, ok. WHAT AM I EATING?"

The black sesame fared a bit better in the flavor department, but the texture killed it. String of unsophisticated thoughts, part deux "This is rather fluffy. And not all that creamy. And not very smooth. I haz a sad."

Update (4/19/10): The bake sale raised over $1000! Awesomesauce! Thanks to everyone who came out on Saturday!

Cookies!

My homemade Ad Hoc chocolate chip cookies, among a bagillion other tasty sweets baked by the hands of New York City food bloggers, will be available this Saturday, April 17, at the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Green as part of the first National Food Bloggers Bake Sale. Proceeds will be donated to Share Our Strength, an organization working to end childhood hunger in the US.

My cookie dough is sitting in the fridge now (to be baked on Friday night); it's WAITING FOR YOUR MOUTH. TO EAT IT.

I'm dropping my cookies off at the market around 10 a.m. If you're there at the same time for some crazy reason—and that is crazy early for a Saturday morning, my god, sleep in—say hi to me, even if I look half dead. And buy a cookie! Or something else. No pressure. Just think about all those hungry children.

[Thanks to Jacqueline for organizing the bake sale!]

Brooklyn Flea
176 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, New York (map)
10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (bloggers are dropping off their baked goods at different times of the day)

This post happened on March 14th. Better late than never? Ehhh? Eh.

Fish. Sammich.

"I'll get the fried fish sandwich. Does it come with anything on it?"

"No, it's just fish," the waitress replied.

"Can I add cheese to that?"

"Sure! How many slices would you like?"

"Two slices of American." A second later, another crucial element popped into my head: "Could I also get tartar sauce?"

Tartar sauce.

Yup, I was recreating a McDonald's Filet-O-Fish. You're allowed to do that when you're at a diner, such as Little Poland, site of that night's group dinner. Half the table went with Eastern European fare—pierogies, stuffed cabbage, borscht—while one unhungry friend sipped on a cup of tea, another went with grilled cheese, and I writhed with indecision between grilled cheese and a fried fish sandwich. And then I realized, "Wait, I'm at a diner; I can combine the two. Hell, I can order whatever I want. Heehee. Bwahaha. BWAHAHAHA [continue with drawn out evil cackling and the like]"

I've sucked at updating this lately. I know. If it makes you feel any better, I barely write anywhere, even at Serious Eats (as evident in the links to my SE posts in the right column); I think most people think I write, when in reality I edit more than I write—words and photos. I have no idea how other bloggers manage to get their photos and posts together in a timely fashion. To make up for what may be another blogging dry spell, here's one huge ass entry about my weekend in Philadelphia from April 2 to 4. It'll take hours to write, but just minutes to read. Yaaaaay! [sobs in a corner]

GELATO!

It started with gelato. As I've mentioned before, Capogiro is always the first stop when I make my occasional Friday-to-Sunday weekend trips to visit Alex in Philadelphia because gelato is one of the best things to ever be crafted by man. Wheels, steam engines, transistors, sandwiches...gelato. All good things.

Although I'm not a big fan of Capogiro's pistachio gelato (pistachio usually being my gold standard of gelato awesomeness)—I prefer L'Arte del Gelato's version—they have a wider range of interesting flavors than gelaterias in New York City, and everything is "good," if not, "OMG [brain sputter] FRIGGIN' GOOD." In my cup of hazelnut and ginger, hazelnut was "good" while ginger took the brain sputtering trophy. What made it better than other ginger-flavor ice creams? It tasted better than ginger. Not the face-punching sort of ginger, but more mellow and fragrant. I ate it three weeks ago so I'd be lying if I said I remembered every nuanced layer of flavor (...okay, I wouldn't remember every nuanced layer of flavor even if I ate it an hour ago), but I do recall looking at my melting spoonful and thinking, "Man, this is good." And then sticking it in my mouth. That's about as contemplative as I get.