This is one of the rare posts that is SHORT. Yes, I know I usually write Bible-length posts but for once I’m keeping it short because my mind’s getting a bit burnt from writing the articles for Gotham Digest. I’m not complaining. I’m just tired. Also the time lapse from eating here was three weeks so my memory’s dissipating about the food. I just hope you’ll tolerate with this very short post.
Whenever I’m at work, I usually chat online with Kathy and Robyn talking about various things about our lives and most of the time about food. Since Kathy (back nearly three or so weeks ago) was finally free from her former, hellish client and wanted to have lunch. All three of us talked back and forth what the heck we want to eat. Since Kathy’s had a major craving for fried chicken and Robyn didn’t want to trek out far from her office at Serious Eats, we decided on going to BBQ Chicken. I brought Helen along since she can do lunch with me from her internship at Cornell Hospital.
Last Saturday was officially my last day of school. No more classes. No more quizzes, papers, and tests! Good riddance…at least for now. I’m giving myself a break from school for a year. Get a real job (but still go out eating, of course) and then go through the madness of applications of either law school or grad school. To kind of celebrate this event, I asked several friends to have lunch with me at Taïm.
Seungmi was in the city before the supposed time where all of us should meet, I hanged out with her, browsing through a few stores on Greenwich Avenue. That’s until our old high school friend, Si called me and said she’s here and can’t find her way in West Village since she doesn’t come down here often and she goes to Cornell.
Eventually we all met up and Seungmi’s ranting that she’s starving and threaten to pass out due to the lack of food in her stomach. Since it’s about fifteen minutes ’til everyone’s supposed to meet, we went into Birdbath just to warm ourselves up and Seungmi gets something to nosh on.
Note: I had other food stuff to write beforehand but this post is waay more interesting. I’ll rewind later on this week, if I have the chance.
Yesterday was arguably the best day I’ve ever had in a while, besides my birthday lunch/celebration. What made it memorable is the fact that since I’m going to face finals next week(!) and my indecisive phase of life contemplating about my career. I don’t know if I want to do paralegal work or flirt with the idea of immersing myself to the food writing/photography world. The latter is quite tempting to go for but since I’m considered a newbie to food writing (and I’m just a blogger, for goodness sake), my chances are almost zilch. I’m freakin’ screwed…. As I’ve rambled a few seconds ago, my nerves are strained, stress is high, and I’m still sick. This day is and was my only highlight from any other day that has passed or coming upon my pending days of doom. Doom.
Anyways, going back to the happier times of yesterday. I got a call from Ariel while I was in my school campus taking care of last minute stuff near 1 PM. Here’s the general idea of our conversation:
Ariel: “Hey. What’s up? Are you in the city by any chance?” Me: “Uh…nothing much. I’m in the Upper West Side. Why?” Ariel: “Well, I’m in the city since I was locked out by [something, I don't recall since he's rambling quite fast]. I’m in the East Village right now and I want to check out this coffee shop that New York Magazine just written about…” Me: “Oh, you mean Abraço. Yeah, I’ve been there before [Note to you people, I've forgotten to write about it but I've posted photos of that visit on my Flickr page back on October 30th.] Ariel: “You wanna go there again?” Me: “Yeah. Sure.” Ariel: “When will I meet you?” Me: [looking at my watch] “Um…I’ll meet you at 1:30.” Ariel: “Cool.” Me: “Alright. See you then.”
After taking care of my school stuff, I hauled my ass downtown to the East Village. Once I arrived there, Abraço‘s packed with too many bodies, I mean people. I called Ariel since I don’t see him outside the place nor inside but he’s not picking up. Eventually, a few people left that place and I managed to squeeze myself into this tiny coffee bar with at least ten other people, since I don’t want to escalate my cold to pneumonia.
Eventually I saw Ariel appeared outside and called me which, I picked up and he asked me, “Where are you?” I just reached for the door and opened it for him, giving him my answer. Anyways, I never felt so claustrophobic before. I mean, I’ve ridden in packed subway cars where you’re standing elbow-to-elbow with everyone, but that’s typical; in a coffee shop it’s almost unforeseen for me. Some, like Ariel, would say this is cozy but I like to have some space.
On Saturday, Robyn invited me and a bunch of her friends to her extremely belated birthday dinner (since her birthday was on late August). I honestly have to say, this was my highly anticipated event of the season. I mean, you’re hanging out with the coolest and funnest food bloggers and her friends, and eating a huge hunk of pork, which will be spoken about later. On another note why I am saying it’s a highly anticipated event it’s because it’s my first time eating at Momofuku Ssäm for dinner; I hang my head down in shame for being the smallest minority who is a New Yorker, foodie, and a food blogger. It’s an embarrassment.
Since I was free around 3 PM, I texted and called Robyn if she’s out in the city before the dinner, she called me and said yes, she’s already visiting one of her friends at work in SoHo. She’s planning to meet another friend, Alex (who happened to be a vegetarian) soon, at the Spring Street stop. As I hauled my butt downtown, there’s a huge confusion in the subways where the E train doesn’t take the normal route of going to Spring Street and the C train goes express, (which I took since the announcement from the conductor of the E train said so earlier) and ended up in the Canal Street stop, where it borderlines TriBeca and Chinatown. Ugh, Don’t I just love the subways systems here…
Note: I’m going to write about Café Gray on a separate post. I know probably a few of you might have seen the photos but I’m not going to talk about them today…but sometime very soon.
On Monday, I went was around Union Square during my lunch break since I have about an hour and ten minutes after commuting down there via the subway. Since I’m tired of eating at City Bakery and I don’t want to eat sweets that day, surprisingly (probably due to the fact that I was semi-sick?), I went to Maoz Vegetarian.
For a long while now, I’ve always wanted to go to The Spotted Pig but I never have because I keep forgetting to go there because it’s somewhere hidden in the crazy maze of West Village and the fact that I need someone else to eat with me since I don’t want to make multiple visits. But finally, I went there the past Thursday for lunch with my friend (that I know from Kim) Eno.
As my original fear for coming, Eno had a bit of trouble finding the place (thankfully I was prepared by remembering the map online) and we eventually found each other by talking to each other on the phone and I moved my butt over to the busy intersection off Hudson Street to make it easier for her to find me. Anyway, we exchanged greetings and complained about our apparent state of starvation as we walked to the Pig.
As promised from my previous post was my lunch at Tia Pol with Ariel. I originally picked out this place for two reasons: I haven’t eaten tapas for lunch before since there are not that many restaurants serve it for lunch. The other reason is because of Yumondo; I need something trendy and ethnic kind of place to write about before I officially sign off from my temporary position there. Since tapas is meant to be shared and I don’t know anyone who would leave work for a good hour or so for the sake of food (and not get fired), Ariel’s my guy.
Holy jeebus, I ate so much freakin’ food last week just reviewing my photos on Flickr. It’s scary…and it’s a good thing I paced myself and this week but I’m not going to write about that yet since the week’s not over. Anyways, here’s a week’s worth of food (again). Strap yourselves and hang on for the ride!
Last Tuesday morning I went to Bis Co Latte mainly for biscotti, those wonderful twice-baked Italian cookies. I know biscotti is not an equivalent to donuts or muffins but really, I don’t care. I just want to sink my teeth in some tasty, crunchy cookies dipped or served with some good cappuccino.
I know there’s a huge gap of time between my dinner at Alta and what happened on last Friday. The reason is that I’m working in Queens. Yes, I know it’s the U.N. sitting in one borough but the area where I’m working at is near a mall…and the food scene seems very depressing to say the least.
Moving on to last Friday…I have planned a huge outing for most of my close friends, most of them are from St. John’s and there’s Ariel who was the newcomer of the bunch, but he’s cool in my book. What I originally planned was inviting these people to see the first concert at South Street Seaport’s Music Festival, since I’m a fan of the Animal Collective and have dinner afterwards nearby the Seaport. I left work early that day and I had some time to snack on a couple of things, particularly with the fact that I received an email from La Maison du Chocolat at Rockefeller Center, that they were selling ice cream!
There had been a recent quarrel about finding a good donut in New York City. It’s been a few years since I’ve been to the Doughnut Plant and if memory serves me well, it was inspiring that Mark Isreal (the guy who owns and created the place) created innovative, gourmetized flavors for a donut. But I didn’t like the texture too well. It was too chewy, a bit dense, and leathery. But that’s my opinion…
As most of you know, I frequent Bouchon Bakery and Caffe Falai pretty often as of recent. Last time when I visited Caffe Falai for breakfast I was deprived of donuts, or what they would call it, bomboloni. As for Bouchon, they don’t make donuts during the weekdays; only the weekends. Since I had the opportunity to have some before classes for the past week, I had my filling of (in the voice of Homer Simpson) “Mmmm….donuts.”
Starting with Caffe Falai’s bomboloni; they sell these by the pair for $4.
BBQ Chicken
