East Village

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I’m waiting on you, Spring

I don’t know what the groundhog saw when he made his big appearance a couple of months ago but it must have been dark, scary and apocalyptic because there has been no sign of spring in New York. Well, no, there have been signs, I guess, but they were just a tease, just a fleeting peek into what feels like what will never come. Every one day of sunny weather is followed by a week of either icy rain and grey skies, or if you’re really unlucky, actual snow.

I would make this my favorite spring drink if spring would ever get here...

So what I want to know is, just what the hell did you see, groundhog? Maybe if you’d seen a frosty and delicious drink like the one I had recently at Vandaag in the East Village instead of your shadow or more winter or the grim reaper or whatever it is you saw, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Because how, after having such a bright, cheery drink as the Radler I enjoyed with a group of girlfriends recently, could you want it to be anything other than that never-long-enough season where it’s no longer cold, but not infernally hot yet either, that wonderful happy time in New York called spring?

The Radler, with its warm sunny color, and bright, zesty sweet notes of ginger, pineapple and lime, mixed with the slight bite of alcohol from the Belgian wheat beer and the pineapple infused aquavit, was like spring itself had been liquefied and poured into my glass.

Spring, I’m not sure where you are, but until you’re ready to come hang out, I’ll be at the bar, with a Radler if I’m in the East Village.

 

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Happy human birthday!

Birthdays always call for cakes!

Even though I’m neither Chinese nor due for a birthday for another seven or so months, I celebrated both the Chinese New Year and my birthday yesterday. Well, not technically just my birthday. I celebrated your birthday too. Mine and yours and the rest of humanity’s because yesterday was the Human Birthday, or the seventh day of the first month of the Chinese calendar (Chinese New Year having been last week), when according to Chinese customs, it’s everyone’s birthday!

In case you’re wondering how or why I know all of this, it’s because one of my coworkers is Chinese. When on the Chinese New Year he told us about our upcoming collective birthday, we decided  the only logical thing to do was have an office birthday party, complete with a birthday cake, which one of our other coworkers was so awesome as to get from Momofuku Milk Bar. (My company takes birthdays pretty seriously, but birthday cakes even more so.) Continue reading →

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When the going gets cold, the cold get soup

Hate the cold? Quit your bitching and get some soup.

Twice last week, I woke up to a city blanketed in fresh snow. On Monday, I walked to work, wrapped up to my ears in a thick scarf, while my fingers, though gloved and burrowed in my pocket, went numb.  At 8:30am, the thermometer struggled to creep up into the double digits.

Today, the snow was back, swirling in pretty white gusts outside my window, big fat snowflakes fluttering by dizzyingly.

Needless to say, winter is in full force in New York, and while some people absolutely hate it and are already counting down the days to spring, I for one, am enjoying it.  And why would I not, when there’s so much good soup to be had! Continue reading →

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I’m telling

Hungarian Rhapsody

Growing up, my best friend used to always say, “Secrets, secrets are no fun. Secrets, secrets are for everyone.” Really, she only said that when she wasn’t already in on the secret, which as it was, wasn’t often, because she was always in on the secret, but still. She didn’t like not knowing things, and either do I.

Which is why it was annoying me that I hadn’t been to Please Don’t Tell yet. I had been to Crif Dogs, the East Village hot dog shop with the phone booth that you have to go through to get into the not-so-secret speakeasy, but never actually inside the bar itself. The place is small so reservations, which can only be made by calling at 3pm the day of, go pretty quickly.

But recently, I got let in on the secret, and so now I’m gonna blab about it, because even though the name is please don’t tell, everyone knows half the fun is in telling. Continue reading →

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The great pumpkin binge of 2010

I’ve been a terrible, negligent blogger recently and I’m really not ok with it. Since moving back to the city, I’ve shamefully posted only three times. Three times! It’s been a month! I used to post three times in a week, and now look what I’ve become. Ugh.

And not to feed you a bunch of excuses, but my life in the past month has made consistent blogging damn near impossible. The biggest obstacle in the way of my routine blogging schedule is the fact that I still don’t have my own place to live. Finding an apartment has proven to be a far bigger nightmare than I expected it to be and if it weren’t for my awesome friends who have taken me in, I’d be just another crazy New York city bum.

On top of all that, I’ve gotten back into the habit of going to the gym (read: even less free time between work and bedtime), and still don’t have my boyfriend around (meaning my dinners for one often include bowls cereal or Twinkies— hardly blog material).

But rest assured faithful readers, all uhm, five of you out there, I’ve still been eating. In fact, in the past month, I’ve been on my annual pumpkin binge. It happens every fall, and this fall even boyfriend and apartment-lessness hasn’t stopped me.

Pumpkin muffins are always around somewhere, and this year I had mine  at Le Pain Quotidien. Soft and moist with a subtle cinnamon and pumpkin flavor, these, like most of the baked goods at PQ, were pretty good. I liked the toasted pumpkin seeds which gave it a nice tiny bit of saltiness.

Pumpkin muffin from Le Pain Quotidien

Continue reading →

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The importance of appetizers

Appetizers are the foreplay of meals. Great appetizers get you in the mood, they get you excited about what else lays in store for you. Similarly, bad appetizers can get things off to a bad start, leaving you wondering if the rest your experience will be any better. Sure, you can recover from a bad appetizer with a good entree but those points will always be deducted from the overall performance.

Last week, Flaneur and I, enjoying our last days together in New York, went on a serious restaurant bender. I don’t think we ate at home the whole week. It was glorious. One night, we went to Momofuku Ssäm Bar, which had long been on our to-do list. While everything we ate at this East Village hot spot was mouthwatering in its perfection, it was the appetizers that really did it for me.

Bread and butter is a pretty standard pre-entrée feature at most restaurants, from high-end to low, but the bread and butter on this menu was anything but average. Two warm, toasted baguettes came with two ramekins: one with a creamy, pale yellow butter mixed with sea salt and the other…oh, the other… that little ramekin of deliciousness… brace yourself… was filled with whipped lard.

Bread and butter... but better

Yes, lard. Those of you reading this will fall into two distinct groups. Some of you will be horrified. You’re thinking, “Ugh, she’s finally gone too far. She’s eating straight up fat now.” The rest of you I hope, will have had lard before and will now that in small doses and executed correctly, it can be a wonderful, amazingly delicious thing to be savored and drooled over. I felt like the first group until I lived in Italy and was given a crunchy piece of toast straight out of the oven with a thin, translucent slice of lard melting over it. It was simultaneously one of the fattiest and most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. But whipped lard? We’d never heard of that before, but it seemed like a good idea. And it was. At first, we were civilized, using the butter knife to delicately spread the lard over the toast, but after the second or third piece, both of us were using the bread to scoop big globs of lard, leaving the ramekin shiny and clean. Continue reading →

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Mama knows best

Earlier this week, when I opened the cupboard and found nothing but dust bunnies, and knew that the only thing in my fridge was a bottle of mustard and a root beer ice pop in the freezer, all I wanted was a plate of good food that tasted like home. Not a big going-out-to-eat ordeal with a hostess to walk us to our table, a long menu to sort through, and servers to listen to. I just wanted a good, simple home-cooked meal… from someone else’s kitchen. And because we recently sold our kitchen table (in preparation for moving), I also wanted to eat it at someone else’s table.

And for that, we went to Mama’s Food Shop. It certainly didn’t taste like anything my mama ever made (i.e. because it was actually de-friggin’-licious) but the slamming screen door, ceiling fan circulating warm air and the homey dishes our food was served on made it feel like I was over at someone’s home. Somewhere far away from the city, in the south maybe.

Mama’s is simple. You can have basics like chicken (roasted or fried), meatloaf, tilapia and pork shoulder. With that you get sides: collard greens, mashed potatos, corn bread, mac n’ cheese and potato salad to name a few. There’s no waitress. but it’s definitely not fast food either. You just order up at the front and take your plate to your table. It’s no frills and it’s great.

Fried chicken and macaroni and cheese

There were lots of veggie side options but I went in with the ol’ go-big-or-go-home mentality and got the  fried chicken and macaroni and cheese. I’m not a huge fried chicken fan in that I rarely order it and don’t even really crave it often but this fried chicken was incredible! I’m not only going to crave this from now on, I’m going to dream of it when I sleep and fantasize about eating buckets and buckets of it when I’m awake. (If my eyes are glazed over and I’m drooling, now you know what I’m thinking about.) The chicken meat (I went with white over dark) was tender and juicy, but what made this fried chicken phenomenal was hands down the thick, crunchy, batttered, seasoned-with-herbs-and spices fried skin. Not rubbery or fatty, just perfectly crisp with little bits of rosemary like I’ve never seen on fried chicken before. This was NOT the colonel’s recipe, that’s for sure. Continue reading →

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In search of burgers and happiness

Cheddar cheeseburger and sweet potato fries

For me, the pursuit of the perfect hamburger is a lot like the pursuit of happiness. It’s a constant work in progress.  On any given day I might think I’ve found one or both, happiness and/or the perfect burger, but the search is never over. Just because you’ve found what makes you happy—maybe the love of your life or a great apartment or a dream job—doesn’t mean you stop, right?

Well same goes with burgers. Especially in New York. Why stop looking just because you’ve found the softest bun or the juiciest patty or the crispiest fries to complement your burger (because a burger with no fries just isn’t complete)? The burger with the tangiest pickles or the thickest melted cheese might still be waiting to be found. Continue reading →

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Talk about a sugar rush

The Candy Bar Pie at Momofuku Milk Bar should come with a warning: advisable only for those with a seriously intense sweet tooth. (Ahem, me.)

Everything at Milk Bar, from the cinnamon bun frozen yogurt to the multilayer chocolate cake to the buttery crack pie,  is delicous and tooth-achingly sweet but the Candy Bar Pie takes it to a whole new level.

Pie for the ultimate candy bar lover

Under a crisp, thin blanket of chocolate there’s a crunchy pretzel on a bed of creamy peanut butter nougat, on top of a gooey layer of caramel, all on a dark, thick chocolate crust. All at once it’s sweet, salty, crunchy, sticky, crumbly and smooth. It’s a candy bar wrapped in a candy bar wrapped in another candy bar.

My dentist would not be happy about me eating this.

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Yucca, ceviche and caipirinhas, oh my!

I was on the phone with my mom recently when she asked me if they sold yucca in New York City supermarkets. I told her that with the amount of Hispanic people in New York, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and every other nationality south of the border, I was sure they did. I had never seen it myself but that’s just because I never looked for it.

Yucca, a starchy vegetable which is actually the thick, gnarled root of the plant it’s part of, was just as commonplace in our kitchen, if not more so, than your standard potato in a regular American household. My mom cut off the thick, ugly brown exterior to reveal the white, fibrous inside, which she then either boiled, mixed in soup, mashed, or fried.

Fried yucca

“Ok, well I think I’m going to mail you some,” she announced.

“NO!” I blurted out. “Please, do not mail me any yucca. Please.”

I imagined myself opening a box at work, where she usually sends my packages, and pulling out the large, ugly, almost turd-like yucca roots. What would I even do with that? My flimsy set of butter knives and the one fruit paring knife I own wouldn’t know what to do either when attempting to get through the yucca’s tough outer layer.

Thankfully, I was able to talk her out of it. Continue reading →