Food and Beverage
Warning: Undefined variable $category_id in /home/juanmonr/juanomatic.net/wp-content/themes/monroy2014/category.php on line 7
Food and Beverage
One of the drawbacks of being on the western edge of Long Island City is that for nearly half the year, we don’t have weekend access to our main subway line. This year, we were scheduled to go twenty-two weeks without weekend service on the 7 line between Queensborough Plaza and Times Square.
But we’re expecting a snow storm Sunday night, and the scheduled repair work is cancelled.
The following Weekend Planned Service Change is CANCELLED.
No 7 service between Times Sq–42 St and Queensboro Plaza. Originally scheduled for: 2 AM Sat to 5 AM Mon, Mar 1 – 3
The cancellation now leaves us with twenty-one weekends of no 7 train service, provided they don’t tack on another weekend to make it up.
Graffiti on Number Seven Subway. Andy Nguyen, 1980. Washington Square Park and Washington Square Area Image Collection, 1850-1990. New York University Archives.
Twenty-one weekends sounds like a long time, and many local merchants bemoan that these repairs keep Manhattanites out of Long Island City. I don’t know if they ever thought about the locals who are trapped and might be compelled to eat a meal, have a drink or watch a comedy show or dance performance in our own neighborhood. Why not create some 7-themed special like $7 cocktail, appetizer, or cover specials? We’re all in this together, right?
As for me, the weekend work doesn’t bother me all that much. I rarely pine to ride the rails out of LIC. But if I did, thankfully, my club’s Spring Training Series starts next week, which means I’ll be spending most of my Saturdays on a bike again.
Heaven forbid I have to spend a weekend in Long Island City.
Someone I see often and is currently counting calories excitedly told me a “fun fact.” She said, “Did you know that those Natural Power-Fu eggless wraps have only 200 calories?”
Immediately, I remembered that Casey Neistat video, where he takes a sample of his diet to two food scientists. They run those foods through a calorimeter to determine whether the posted calorie counts at chain restaurants and on packaged foods are accurate.
The biggest discrepancy was one of those Natural Power-Fu sandwiches. The calorimeter detected about 300 more calories than what the label specifies.
An employee at the tofu sandwich company, whose sandwich had nearly double the number of calories the label stated, told me that he wasn’t sure how the company came up with the data. He said the company would look into it and, if it found results similar to mine, would change the information on its labels.
But they’re healthy calories, right?
As New Yorkers, we stand in line for some pretty stupid stuff that isn’t free: cronuts, brunch, and modern art installations, and San Franciscans have taken note.
Taking place at Dear Mom, the Mission’s magnet of mediocrity, budding restauranteurs importers Sonya Haines and Wes Rowe unveiled their “Eastside Bagels” hustle, which sees Russ & Daughters bagels flown in from New York and flipped for $6 (bagel with cream cheese) to $12 (full bagel sandwich).
We get it, San Francisco. No one is confusing you for LA, which we know you hate more than any place on earth. But you really need to stop trying to be New York. We’re not buying it.
(Via NY Today.)
One of my favorite coffee places in the whole world is Cafe Dulce in LA’s Little Tokyo district. In true Southern California fashion, this gem is in a mall, specifically the Japanese Village Plaza around 1st Street and Central Avenue. They not only serve the best pour over coffee I’ve ever had, so much so that I ultimately became a Chemex loyalist, but they also bake some of the most creative donuts south of the Pearl District.
On my recent trip over the holidays, I noticed Cafe Dulce was selling a five-pack of single-serve, portable pour-over packs. These are made by an Arcadia, California–outfit called The Humble Cup. Each single-serve pack consists of a sturdy paper filter that sits on a cup. To brew, you pour hot water into the filter, similar to a Hario-style dripper. It includes locally roasted coffee, finely ground for the paper filter.
I brought a pack home and brewed a cup yesterday to stave off jet lag.
Brewing a cup is the same as a pour-over, except that you need to constantly keep pouring due to the filter’s small capacity. Because you’re not weighing and grinding coffee beans, the process is considerably quicker. However, because your coffee is already ground, you’re sacrificing freshness. The instructions recommend starting with a small amount of water, presumably to allow the coffee to bloom, and then pouring about another six-to-eight ounces of hot water. I didn’t measure the water like I do with the Chemex, but I eyeballed it to a little less than the volume of my usual cup.
The coffee was a tad stale, undoubtedly due to the coffee being pre-ground, but it held up well. The Humble Cup’s developer, Leon Li, insists he wanted to use good coffee, and it shows. The coffee was a pleasant departure from burnt, dark roast coffee that one endures with Starbucks VIA. The Humble Cup five-pack I bought came with three different single-origin coffees: El Salvador, Colombia, and Ethiopia. I drew the latter in my first brew and found it having a pleasant chocolate flavor to it with hints of citrus. (And here are the official cupping notes.)
Along with a pack of mixed nuts and a hand-sanitizer bottle, I’m adding a Humble Cup to my travel backpack.
Also, let me know when it comes to New York, as it is currently available only in Los Angeles.
The above links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy something through those links, I will earn a commission fee.
New Yorkers around the Internet are bemoaning that the Greenwich Village outpost of Gray’s Papaya, a once mighty hot dog chainlet that dotted the city with cheap but hearty frankfurters and fruity juice drinks, has closed. According to Eater New York:
An employee at the Upper West Side original confirmed that the Greenwich Village location had closed, although he was unsure if it was done for good, or just shuttered for a revamp. But it looks like this goose is cooked.
Wait, did Gray’s ever serve goose hot dogs?
Probably not, but I ask because one of the biggest mistakes of my life was eating at this very Gray’s Papaya two days in a row. The now-closed Village location was a block from the West 4th Street subway station that I took from Washington Square to Washington Heights, where I first lived upon my arrival in New York. Gray’s Papaya was cheap, and I was receptive to the “Recession Special” because you got two dogs and a juice drink for about six bits and a ha’penny. I don’t remember why I ate there on consecutive days, probably because you can’t find any good food in New York City, but on the third day, that “goose” I ingested started to peck its way out of my gut. Suffice to say, I didn’t return for the hat trick. On the fourth day, I found a new route to the West 4th station that bypassed Gray’s Papaya and the smell of sizzling tube meat. That proved difficult because I later lived just one Avenue block away from this corner, off West 8th Street.
To this day, if I catch a whiff of Gray’s Papaya hot dog, all I remember is my visceral pain from many years ago.
I am not bemoaning the loss of a hot dog stand.
My garlic bread is shaped like Kentucky.
Each year, Maker’s Mark, a subsidiary of Beam Inc., sends its ambassadors a little Christmas gift. The gift we’ve used the most was a set of ice sphere trays, giving new meaning to bourbon balls. Back in 2011, they sent their loyal customers an “ugly Christmas sweater” that fit its 750-ml bottles of bourbon. I didn’t have a full-sized bottle at the time so instead I put it on a pint-sized, 375-ml bottle.
The Makers Mark Ambassador gift from 2011: “He’ll grown into it someday.”
This year, while shopping at a liquor warehouse in Lexington, Kentucky, we saw that same sweater. Both the bottle and the sweater it was wearing, however, were much bigger.
An “ugly Christmas sweater” Makers Mark display at a Liquor Barn in Lexington, Kentucky.
Is it too late to print Christmas cards?
Remember how I was getting fed up with Ron Burgundy? Not only did he grace the cover of the current issue of Rolling Stone, which include two long feature articles that overshadowed the cover story, but I also encountered Burgundy at a Liquor Barn in Lexington, Kentucky.
No, I didn’t get any of the scotch.
According to the local blog not run by an ideological nut, my favorite coffee place is opening an outpost in the new nearby park.
The owners of a popular Long Island City cafe will be opening a waterfront concession in Hunters Point South Park in January March. The new establishment will be called ‘LIC Landing by Coffeed’ and will be operated by the same eco-friendly team that owns Coffeed at 37-18 Northern Blvd.
Consider me excited.
It’s hard to have a favorite coffee place because I’m a home brewer, and my relationship with coffee places tends to consist of only shopping for beans or sipping the occasional espresso drink. As the owner of our local coffee king, Sweetleaf, said to me: the real coffee nuts (I’m paraphrasing) just brew at home. In other words, I don’t go to coffee shops lest I risk serious hyper caffeination.
Coffeed is one of those places I fantasize about going to, but as it is currently on Northern Boulevard, a very heavily trafficked thoroughfare in Queens, going there requires a fairly “exhilarating” bike ride. And there’s not even a bike rack. Consequently, I don’t get there too often. Coffeed not only serves coffee, but they roast it in Queens. And it’s good, certainly worth the $18 a bag they charge this coffee dork. Ask for a brewed cup, and it’s terrific. Want something less bitter? They’ll do a Hario pour-over, like just like any premium coffee shop does. But the unique thing about this place is that they have my two favorite brewing methods: the vacuum press for hot coffee, and the Japanese-style ice brewer for cold brew. I dream of having these contraptions but the thought of spending almost $100 or over $200, respectively, for something that is almost entirely glass makes me nervous.
And with good reason. I broke my Bodum stovetop vacuum pot two years ago.
Did I mention they’ll serve sandwiches, smoothies, and beers? Bring on the fancy beans and brews.
(Via LIC Post.)
The above links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you buy something through those links, I will earn a commission fee.
Guess where I ate today?
