Entries from February 2010
Uh oh, we went to the Clinton St. Baking Company again! It is Pancake Month, afterall. Yesterday and today’s pancakes were with crunchy bananas with cinnamon chili chocolate sauce so naturally, that’s what we got.
Also, eggs benedict:
This time we didn’t have to wait for two hours, which was nice. We just walked right in. It’s nice the things you can do when you take a day off of work.
And… today’s my birthday! I’ve got some fun plans for today and I already got some cool things in the mail (panda skillet, what?) so it’s looking pretty good. Have a good weekend! :)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: breakfast, clinton st baking co, eggs benedict, food, happy birthday to me, lower east side, new york, new york city, pancakes
Where do you go to lunch when one of your friends from Michigan comes to the city? The Adore of course. It’s one of my favorite little places in the city. It’s a Japanese French bakery of sorts which means it’s French but the chef and everyone who works there is Japanese. They close early (around 4 or so everyday) but if you’re lucky enough to get a banana cupcake (read: the best muffin of your life) or a sandwich before they sell out, it’s really a treat. And it’s my favorite hot chocolate in the city.
It’s a tiny space and you might never know it, but there’s seating space upstairs if you’re staying for lunch. So we did. We each got baguettes (hers grilled eggplant, mine a croque monsieur) and spinach puree soup.
It was very green and very delicious:
It looks a little intimidating, but I assure you it was good.
Besides that, last night Kayti and I had the best night of our lives. We went to a speakeasy of sorts and got the number for another speakeasy of sorts that I thought I probably was never going to be able to go to. So we’ll be going there tonight. I’m having the best birthday ever. :)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: baguettes, best hot chocolate, birthdays, food, hot chocolate, lunch, manhattan, new york, new york city, sandwiches, soup, spinach
Meet Kayti and Amanda circa Dec. 2006 in East Lansing, Michigan. Go Green! We were blondes back then.
Miss Kayti D is coming to New York today for my birthday and I am SO excited. I think in the past six years, there’s only been one birthday I’ve spent without her. Last year, she was here in NYC with me too. So I am pumped. So pumped that last night I looked at a bajillion pictures of us from college, pictures that I cannot BELIEVE we used to post on Facebook for everyone to see.
We have lots of plans for this week/end so stay tuned, y’all. :)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: birthdays, flashback, friends, michigan state university
Welcome to Grandma’s house! Except this is not Grandma’s, this is Friend of a Farmer and I think the grandma I had who actually used wallpaper would have killed herself before she actually died if her house looked like this. Is that cryptic? I loved my grandma! And the fancy glasses she used when she served us Red Pop. And how she would tell us when we were singing off key in the car on the way home from church. Haha. See you in heaven, Grandma!
Anyway. I feel like it’s been really hard to pin down some of my friends lately. Work is crazed for everyone or they’re out of town or blah blah blah and I think I’ve been kind of flakey myself too, but yesterday I was finally able to catch up with my friend Melissa for a Sunday Brunch.
I’ve noticed Friend of a Farmer before because of the line. It’s kitschy (see above) with that whole back-country kind of feel going on. So it’s not like going to my grandmother’s. It’s like going to a friend’s grandmother’s. In Kentucky. Who sits on a rocking chair and knits things on the porch.
I had the raisin french toast (duh) and Mel got the healthy farmer’s omelette, which I laughed at because it actually had the word “healthy” in the title. This is what brunch should look like: food, mimosas, and a girlie friend. :)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: brunch, farmers, faygo red pop, food, french toast, friend of a farmer, friends, grandma esther, kitsch, mimosas, new york, new york city, omelettes
Would you like some Dr. Pepper ribs? Or how about some bacon mac and cheese?
I’ve decided nobody really cares about the music I go see because no one ever comments when I talk about it. I cannot imagine being a music writer because I do not know how to put sounds into words. At all. I mean how do you convey the experience of a concert through type? Well, I don’t know! So here’s some food to make us all feel better.
It’s from The Brooklyn Star, where I went with Kelly last week. I think we are doing an entire food tour of Williamsburg with the way this is going. Next up is Marlow and Sons.
The first thing you should know about The Brooklyn Star is that it is tiny. From the outside, I thought I was just peering into the bar area, but it was the whole restaurant itself!
There’s a tall table in the middle that I think would be really fun to sit at. It would be like sitting at a friend’s dining room table. The second thing you should know: food here is good. We had biscuits to start and I had the Dr. Pepper ribs and the mac and cheese, which I took home for lunch the next day. I love day old mac and cheese. Kelly got chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and warm cole slaw. Good, good.
Basically, Kelly and I only go to romantic places together because this would be another great place for a date. And they have Brooklyn root beer!
I had just been reading about The Meatball Shop earlier that day and they have root beer on tap so I was like, “Whaaa? I need that.” This wasn’t tap but I’m sure I’ll be at the Meatball Shop soon.
And there you have it: The Brooklyn Star.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: brooklyn, chicken fried steak, food, mac and cheese, new york, restaurants, ribs, the brooklyn star, williamsburg
Cool people play in Brooklyn. Like Ebony Bones, straight out of the UK. She is something, peeps. Something indeed. She rocks the beat. And she makes the crowd dance, which is what I like to see. My friend Missy posted a video of the craziness but even that doesn’t do it justice. Her entire crew rocked ridiculous outfits: pants with clouds on them, jumpsuits with lego piece patterns, an entire Native American get up, and a tie-dyed girl with a sax. She was my favorite. She was so little so she looked like an elf and the eyelashes she wore were huge. I would love to wear those crazy fake eyelashes for something ridiculous. They had to be at least two or three inches long. She looked sweet. Ebony also had two back-up dancers/singers/bottle tappers and they didn’t hold back either. And then there’s Ebony herself, who changed half way through the set and who also came into the crowd to dance on more than one occasion. We saw her at Southpaw and it was really fun except for that guy who kept trying to hold hands with me. And then stalked me on Facebook. Ha.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: british, brooklyn, dancing, ebony bones, music, new york, pants with clouds, shows, southpaw, the uk
Look who finally went to the Clinton Street Baking Company! This girl! And MB!
This was my third attempt going to this overly popular, little pancake heaven. And third time is the charm. Usually when I go with people, (always on the weekends, cause we’re really smart) whomever I’m with takes one look at the line and jumps ship. I knew with yesterday being President’s Day and a lot of people off of work, we’d have the same kind of wait, but MB was a trooper and we waited together for… dun dun dun… just over two hours! Two hours for pancakes? These girls have got to be crazy. And we are. But so were the five billion other people standing in the cold.
We had lots to catch up on and found a bench across the street in the sun, so it wasn’t bad at all. And guess what, it was worth it. It is Pancake Month afterall.
First things first. MB ordered a coffee when we first sat down so I got myself a little hot chocolate:
It was realllly good. I fear it may be encroaching on the number one top spot in my book of hot chocolate in NY, which is currently The Adore. This had the perfect amount of cocoa and the perfect amount of sweet:
I will come back to the Clinton Street Baking Company just for this.
And now what we came for… the panacakes!
I mentioned it was Pancake Month, so Clinton Street had a different flavor every few days and yesterday’s was raspberry, chocolate chunk. Also, the syrup is fantastic. MB was singing its praises before we got our food and now I know exactly what she was talking about. It’s not as sticky as your run-of-the-mill maple syrup, and I’m not sure exactly what it is, but it’s really smooth. Like butter. So maybe it’s butter.
Because the pancakes are so, so sweet, we got some eggs so that we could split two orders:
Why is breakfast the best meal ever? We also got some sugar-cured bacon which was delish. And here are the pancakes after we gave them some love:
Perfect.
Also, if anyone has any interest in perhaps MB and I starring in a show on the Food Network or something, where we travel and eat foods from all over in search of the BEST, let us know. I mean, I know there’s a ton of shows like that already out there, but they don’t have us! :)
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: breakfast, clinton st baking co, eggs, food, friends, hot chocolate, lower east side, new york, new york city, pancakes, restaurants, waits, yummies
So many good things happened this weekend. But the first I want to tell you about is my Valentine’s Day. I have no idea what I did for Valentine’s Day last year. Really. And it’s been driving me nuts, so if you did something with me that night, please let me know. Obviously whatever it was, it wasn’t as lovely as what I did this year.
I had four Valentines and me and my four Valentines made sushi, salad, and miso soup. We are champs.
Prep:
Instruction:
Goof:
My fingers got so sticky! Missy taught Lindsay and I how to make nigiri and hand rolls: inside AND out. It was really fun. Some of the rolls turned out “ugly” but in a cute sort of way and it was okay because Lindsay and I were beginners. Laura and Missy on the other hand: pros.
Laura made the miso soup:
And here’s some of the final sushi product:
It was so good. We used salmon, avocado, cucumbers, and carrots. And it was delish.
For dessert, Mister Mike had picked up some Japanese desserts for us:
Some weird rice crackers and a bar of soap. Not really, but we like to joke. :) We had some sort of mochi, which I’ve actually never tried. I’m not really a fan of jelly-like desserts. I mean I guess I like jello, but mochi… I don’t know. Mike loves the stuff. We also had almost pocky sticks which I love.
AND in completely keeping with the Japanese/sushi theme: I brought cupcakes! Ha!
From Sugar Sweet Sunshine, my dears. And I mean come on, it was Valentine’s Day. Or as Liz Lemon told us this week: it’s Anna Howard Shaw Day, too.
It was a lovely, lovely evening hanging out with all of them. It’s really fun making dinner with a group of people, I don’t know why I don’t ever do it.
I hope everyone had a great Valentine’s Day, too!
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: 30 rock, anna howard shaw, chocolate, cupcakes, dinner paries, food, friends, happy valentine's day, holidays, japanese, japanese food, liz lemon, miso soup, mochi, pocky, sugar sweet sunshine, sushi, valentine's day
This is Jodi. She lives in Michigan. And she came to the city last weekend to play.
Six of us went out to dinner at Bondi Road. I had been there once before for brunch and it was completely packed, but when we went to dinner it was the complete opposite experience. It was dead and they made the biggest deal about not seating us until we were all there. And when they finally sat us with five people, they asked how far away the sixth person was. It was so strange.
Anyway, it’s an Australian restaurant and it’s pretty legit. Australian owners, Australian staff, and Australian clientele. Well, except for us. Half of us ordered different kinds of fish but it was the those of us who ordered the fish stew that were the winners.
Delish, delish. All kinds of fishy goodness in there. The other ones just got a piece of fish and were starving after they finished and they didn’t feel like ordering anything else and waiting for it. They may or may not have stopped at a Burger King afterwards. Ha.
Anyway, it’s a cool spot. You just may be better off going for brunch.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tagged: australia, bondi road, burger king, fish, fish stew, food, LES, lower east side, michigan peeps, new york, restaurants
