Tuesday, August 14, 2007

New Food Craving

I recently ate at Otafaku, a small Japanese place in the East Village that offers what I'm guessing is Japanese fast food. It's been around for years, but I never ate there until the other week, and I now have a new food craving: Japanese egg and cabbage called okonomiyaki. I love 'em! I believe their replacing my lust for the sesame wontons at Plump Dumpling. You can also get yakisoba, which is sort of like Japanese lo mein, and these fried balls with a bit of octopus in the center. I like those too, but I love the pancakes, which are like Japanese egg foo yung. Also, I usually dislike unsweetened iced tea, but I love the unsweetened iced tea here, which is called muggi chai or some such, and it's a barley tea, which a great flavor, very satisfying.
Anyway, always like to expand my food horizons.

Manhattan Special Comes to Inwood! Joy!!!!!!!

I live up in Inwood, and have for about 20 years. I like the neighborhood, it has the most parks of any Manhattan neighborhood, and it is pretty solidly working and middle class with little chance of genitrification. There's no Starbucks up here, hell, there isn't even a Dunkin Donuts!! But the local C Town has begun carrying food times I love, including Murray's Organic chickens, Pellegrino sodas, Stonyfield Farms ice cream (there Javaliciousi is the best commercial ice cream on the market), San Benedetto iced tea (my favortie brand), and recently Manhattan Special Coffee Soda. Those not in the know may not know that Manhattan Special, made in Brooklyn, was for years available only in Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. Only in the past few years have they been distributing it above 14th St., and now up in my neck of the woods. I love this stuff, the best espresso soda there is, not that there's much competition for this title. Now, if they'd only start carrying Boylan's Black Cherry soda...

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Butter & Sugar, oh my!

I've been having some Proustian madeleine moments recently, mostly over forgotten breakfast foods. I've written here earlier about eating fried egg and bread sandwiches, but I recently was reminded of a forgotten treat when I came across a posting on Chowhound about eating butter and sugar as a kid. I remembered that I used to love toast, spread with butter and sugar as a kid myself. I hadn't thought about that in decades. It's nothing I'd want to eat now, but I ate a lot of it as a child, and I had completely forgotten about it, until this posting caused me to recall it.