and it’s tasty. after an afternoon browsing the racks at atlantis avenue, the thrift store right next to brunch spot + bar harefield road, our appetites were whetted. it had been a good day of shopping: a mustard yellow lacoste polo and buttery yellow guy berra button up for husband, and a blue skirt with brown flowers (five bucks) and a velvety blue and chocolate brown striped sweater (ten bucks) for me. yay!

but shopping makes me hungry; that, combined with the absolutely dismal weather yesterday, meant we should treat ourselves. it must have been a day for adventures, because from the new (to us) thrift store we went to the new (to our block) sushi place. a sushi place on my street! now this *really* is the perfect neighborhood.

its name is sankura and it’s your typical small sushi restaurant – pretty fans on the wall, nothing else too exciting. and the sushi was decent, although the spicy tuna came doused in waaaay too much mayonaise. i had a sweet potato tempura roll (not bad, but can you really go wrong with fried sweet potato? and i’ve actually had definitively better versions) for four bucks, and a tokyo roll (baked eel, crunchy asparagus and avocado that i couldn’t taste at all, topped with hunks of spicy salmon) for eight bucks. it also came with free miso soup – a little watery, but that’s ok, because the adverse would be too salty and that would be worse. sankura definitely does not skimp on the portions – my two rolls filled me up beyond belief. husband had a philly roll (fine) and some other fancy pants roll with shrimp tempura in it and flying fish roe and that was pretty good. and heath had the spicy tuna roll and something else with baked eel in it that i didn’t try. and we were all stuffed! as in, we left almost an entire roll’s worth of pieces untouched. and we had been hungry too, so that was pretty successful.

also, they give you these cute little pickled dishes before they bring out the sushi (bean sprouts, one had mushrooms in it i think, and i dunno what the other one was but i ate it all). and the water cups are huge! which i like because i am a camel and never get enough water when i’m at restaurants. so: is it the best sushi in the city? nope. but a good meal for a not-bad price? sankura seems a pretty solid choice. and did i mention that it’s spitting distance from my house?

after six and a half hours at my work study (signing in mini-ballerinas at dance forum, so precious!) subsisting on crumbs of the driest chocolate chip muffin to ever degrade the title of muffin-ness (seriously, NEVER trust a pre-wrapped muffin! they contain death. in the form of over-dryness and lack of tastiness), i was ready for lunch. luckily, husband, brenna and danny were too.

to avoid some of the union square madness, we wandered down university to check out spice. despite the throng of teenagers that congregate outside its doors, inside things smelled mmgood, and the air conditioning was a plus. chairs were these retro molded plastic things in a clean white and surprisingly comfortable, and the space was well-lit with cute circle-y decorations on the wall (all plusses), but pretty cramped (minus, but expected – this is manhattan). service was good, and they timed the dishes to arrive perfectly, so that our entrees came just after we finished our appetizers. I LOVE WHEN THAT HAPPENS.

we started with the emerald vegetable dumplings (pretty tasty, but dumplings usually are) and fresh summer rolls (meh). danny had a decadent thai iced tea. then our entrees came: brenna had barbecued chicken that came with a tiny cone of white rice on a separate dish (probably the smallest serving of rice any of us had ever seen…but it’s all refined starch or carbs or whatever i.e. not that good for you, which i think is crazy cos i think rice is the *best* thing there is for you, but science disagrees, so whatever. meh.) danny went for the pad thai with shrimps (no lime! boo), and husband got the drunk man’s noodles with tofu, served in a cool goblet-looking thing. didn’t see any chinese broccoli in there, and i thought drunken noodles always came with chinese broccoli (at least it does at galanga), but husband dumped too much chili sauce in there for me to try to find out for myself. and what did i get, you ask? A SHIT-TON OF GLASS NOODLES! YAY! happiness all around for shit-ton of food. i *heart* vermicelli noodles. and there was napa cabbage in there. and maybe some other stuff. oh yea and tofu. but no lime!

a guest judge on top chef (can’t help it i love it SO MUCH!) recently (as in this season) said that too many chefs make the mistake of over-salting food when it really just needs some acid to brighten it up. and that was definitely the case. plus thai noodles with no lime = criminal. i’m pretty sure. also, apparently husband’s noodles were too greasy. (mine were on the greasy-ish side as well, but i only ate half, so i suffered less from lead-weight-in-stomach-syndrome. yay me for having any self control whatsoever!) total bill for four people: 52 buckaroos, with tax and tip, which isn’t bad considering that i snagged 2 meals out of it (maybe more like 1 1/2, but still).

afterwards headed back to union square, where i got: a bag of baby bok choi, a yellow onion and three red potatoes for three bucks; cheese ravioli, carrot pasta, regular pasta, and a dozen brown eggs for nineteen bucks; damn-good granola for six bucks; two carrots for a buck forty; and a little basil plant for four bucks. yay! my bag was full at that point, so monday i plan to go back for french radishes and apples and a red onion (to eat with my potatoes). yay!

then dinner tonight was leftovers: risotto with ramps and parmesan cheese, and steamed vegetables (broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrots, scallions, green beans and tofu), all mixed in a bowl and crowned with a fried egg, topped off with some newman’s own vodka sauce. SO YUM. now must succumb to food coma to deal with massive portion. oops.

shake shack had a monstrous line, but it was dericious! the ’shroom burger is really perfect…deep fried mushroom with perfectly crunchy tasty crust stuffed with gooey melty cheese and sandwiched in a nice little bun…only sadness it that i wished there was more when i was done eating, and it doesn’t come with fries (and shake shack fries are so good! ridged and the perfect amount of crispy and salty). and it’s kind of expensive. but whatever. it was good. then court and i split a “concrete” – frozen custard with lots of things mixed in to make it extra tasty. we went with the hopscotch – hot caramel sauce, toffee bits (they were heavenly!) and chocolate chunks. sharing was perfect too since the thing is huge!

after seeing court off to the airport, went to the union square farmer’s market with daniel. got a dozen brown eggs (3.50) and some fresh ricotta-stuffed ravioli (6.50), a bunch of ramps ($3 – first time i ever bought any! going to make a risotto, methinks, hopefully that turns out well), a bunch of scallions ($1.50). also picked up the cutest little salt and pepper shakers for mother in law (late for mother’s day, i know…but i’ve had finals! plus they compensate for being late by being super cute). they’re brightly colored, little sculpted figures that hug each other when you put them together – i got them in orange and blue and i’m shipping them on monday and i’m so excited cos they’re perfect. i’ve seen them there before, and always wanted a reason to buy them, and today came. good day.

final # 2 was completed yesterday, so we went to town tavern for some celebratory beers (also because you can’t beat the deals: bud light and coors light are $2 each during happy hour – what should really be their normal price, if you’re equating cost with quality – and burgers during happy hour are something like four bucks – so everyone wins!). since it was only five o’clock, an ungodly hour for dinner, i went with cheese fries…and when the menu offers a mountain of cheese fries, they really mean a mountain. even with sharing, i only made it half way through. the fries are pretty good, and smothered in an appropriately massive heaping of shredded cheese (to my dismay, some of the cheese wasn’t melted which is a sign of sadness in cheese fries) and a tub of ranch dressing (in case you had to be 100% sure of achieving a heart attack). at seven dollars, you definitely get your money’s worth in quantity of food and tastiness of fry (but not in terms of meltingness of cheese).

afterwards went to the union square movie theater to catch iron man…the 6:30 show was sold out, the 7:00 show was sold out, so we bought tickets for the 7:30 show and…waited. i hate waiting. but waiting was made better by a new discovery, courtesy of jocelyn, at the concessions stand. i never buy snacks at movies because they’re so ridiculously overpriced, but it was a celebration, of sorts, and when i saw chocolate-covered gummy bears (named muddy bears! too cute) i had to buy them. they were so tasty! you get a ridiculously small serving in each box (luckily i bought two – there were five of us there!) but they may be my new favorite movie-snack. at least in the top five.

now it’s off to the shake shack to say bye to court before she abandons us (temporarily) for d.c., and a trip to the greenmarket afterwards. i *heart* saturdays.

so they keep saying about finals time. it’s tough to keep slogging through. and, as with marathons, adequate nourishment is important.

it’s been hard finding time to shop for groceries + cook + do the dishes afterwards + bathe occasionally, so the first three have suffered a bit (i don’t think i’ve fallen behind on the showers…at least, not compared to the law school population generally). and it’s the end of the semester, so funds are running low. so basically, studying has been fueled by coffee, diet pepsi, and reese’s pieces (the little m’n'm sized ones, not the peanut-butter-cup-grown-ups). but today was an eight-hour exam, so i made an exception.

breakfast was a cranberry muffin and iced coffee from esperanto cafe on macdougal. they’ve enchanted me previously with their exposed brick walls and double chocolate chip cookies, but today…well as with most things today, kind of a let down. the coffee was fine (for some reason i had to repeat my order three times – me: can i get a large iced coffee please? dude: yea…wait, you want coffee? me: yes please. dude: milk? me: no thanks. dude: what size? me: large. dude pours hot coffee. me: brain explodes. or something like that). the muffin was terrible! that it was pre-wrapped in plastic should have tipped me off, but it looked fresh, the cranberries looked big and juicy…it was so tempting! and right there! and i was hungry! but it was baaaad. dry and crumbly and missing all the tastiness of a good muffin. even the school muffins are better…but the stupid lounge isn’t serving food during finals. boo.

four or so hours into my final i couldn’t even read what i was writing because my brain was bleary from hunger pangs. lunch break!

i’d heard a lot about shade, the restaurant/bar on the corner of sullivan and west third. supposedly the crepes were fantastic…not! first of all, the shade-to-go window took foreeeeeever (picture the fat kid from the sand lot saying it over and over andoverandover again) – just one guy working, with one little…whatever the thing is that you make crepes on. he only had one of them. so he made one crepe at a time and with three people ahead of me…well, it’s a good thing i wasn’t short on time on my exam. anyway, i finally get up there…seven bucks? it’s more expensive than the cart outside moma, and those crepes were great so…we’ll see. spinach + mushrooms + goat cheese…should be delicious, right? sad faces all around. spinach was fine, but mushrooms absolutely flavorless and sucked the joy out of the goat cheese, of which there was definitely not enough. sad times. i had to resort to a bag of cheez-its from the vending machine afterwards to make up for the lack of cheese in my crepe…and they were more repulsive than usual, so my mouth was not a happy camper.

but i survived the eight hour monstrosity that was my constitutional law exam (or at least, i think i did…grades come back mid-summer, which is too long for me to keep my fingers crossed otherwise i would…every little bit helps, and at this point i’m pretty sure i need a lot of luck). went to ballet class afterwards to clear my head and get the blood flowing to other parts of my body…broke a sweat from the physical activity instead of stress, so that was nice. and walking through the farmer’s market afterwards, i stopped by the red jacket orchards booth (pretty much the only one left, and they were packing up – it was past seven, don’t really blame them). picked up a hefty-sized bag of apples for four bucks and the lady threw in a farmer’s market tote bag for free. sweet! the day ends on a nice note (as it should – happy cinco de mayo!).

one down, two to go…

i’ve yet to master traditional mexican rice and beans (why, when my husband’s aunts and mom do it so very well?) but i’ve fashioned my own version of rice and beans that is tasty, cheap and easy. and did i mention tasty?

put rice in pot. i make rice in a haphazard fashion that involves eye-balling and sticking my finger in it. any true azn knows, the way to measure how much water to put into rice is: put rice in pot. pour water in pot. put finger in pot. when water comes to the first line of the index finger, you have the right amount of water. now boil!

of course, the alternative is to use a rice cooker. i have two. this food works in that contraption as well.

anyway, so you have your rice (i like to use brown but white would work too) and you have your water, and now you have your heat on. start chopping an onion. chop up the whole thing! (if you like onions. if you don’t, you could use less onion – or no onion!) today i experimented and used a small white onion (had to fight through the tears…mind over tears…) and most of a medium-ish red onion. pretty colors = yay. the white onion went in first. then i chopped up some jalapeno peppers (i went with about five – take out the seeds first, obvi). added peppers to the mix. then the red onion. stir. throw in some adobo seasoning (which has salt, so no need to salt separately) and chili powder. stir. watch it bubble. decide to be productive – so go on to the next step.

open can of black beans. open can of corn. look in pot. poke with spoon/stirring implement. hum. (humming optional)

chop up a tomato. when the rice looks close to being done (and the onions and peppers are soft and edible), add the black beans and corn and tomato. stir. add more seasoning if you didn’t put in enough the first time. let it finish cooking – when the rice is done, it’s all done. yay!

top with lots of cheese and let it melt. can also top with cilantro – cilantro is yummy. spoon into a warm tortilla if desired. eat lots. be happy.

but be warned, jalapeno peppers will burn your skin! no matter how many times i wash my hands after chopping them, it takes a few days before i can touch my eyes safely.

and i turn to food for my relief.

although i’ve sworn myself to eating as thriftily as possible (read: no more going out!) i haven’t had the greatest success. although i’ve been doing better than before on the spending horizon – packing lunches, bringing my own coffee, etc. and when i do eat out, it hasn’t been expensive, per se…

sunday was brunch with husband and sam and jenny at harefield road (which is also a nice place to go if you’re looking to go to a bar, and then it is a good place to go to for brunch, so harefield road wins).

eleven bucks for “harefield eggs” (eggs benedict with smoked salmon in place of ham; as i feared, the salmon was too salty – i missed my eggs florentine! – but the eggs were perfectly poached and the hollandaise sauce wasn’t overwhelming) + fruit + crispy yummy breakfast potatoes + coffee + mimosa = sure guarantee that it’s going to be a lazy sunday. mmhmm. jenny’s cobb salad was ginormous and husband was a fan of his breakfast burrito (with chorizo, otherwise i would have been on it like…white on rice? but the menu warns you rather sternly no substitutions! so i went with the harefield eggs – you didn’t forget already, did you?). sam seemed like the winner with his huevos rancheros. after the heartbreaking disappointment that was phoebe cafe’s huevos rancheros, i was buying into that salsa commercial that scorned the salsa from *new york city* (i can hear the disbelieving cowboy drawls now, but for the life of me can’t remember the brand name). i was wary of huevos rancheros in new york, but after seeing sam devour his plate, i think i’m ready for a second try.

for dinner last night we went to najeeb’s. husband goes there about once every other week and has been a fan, but falafel’s never quite done it for me. so for my first trip i got the vegetable combo plate: cold spinach with chickpeas, lentils with cracked bulgar wheat, and dolmades. husband had brought home the dolmades before, and they were expectedly delicious, and i love the yogurt dipping sauce, and the lentils were good but the spinach was…ugh. the spinach was the reason kids grow up thinking they don’t like spinach. spinach is so much tastier than that!

but i don’t fault najeeb, because he does so well with everything else. husband got the falafel platter (chris opted just for a falafel sandwich; difference seems to be that the platter is a sandwich deconstructed, with more hummus) and the falafel were *good*! Like, so good. the happiest little orangey balls of fried chickpeas you’ve ever seen. they look more like funky meatballs than falafels; more orange than brown, smaller, less green bits when you bit into them. maybe not so much what meatballs really look like, but what they look like in a kids picture book. yea, like that. yum. no but really they were. one reason might be because they are smaller, so you get a better ratio of fried crust to…innards. but even the innards were good (and i never like falafel innards!) so go najeeb. and husband likes them more than other falafels, and he likes falafels, so it’s wins all around.

husband also got mint lemonade with rose flavor and i had a cardamon iced coffee. coffee tasted like iced coffee, not like cardamon, but like really good iced coffee – maybe the extra goodness was the cardamon and i just don’t have a sophisticated enough palate to notice. mint lemonade tasted like lemonade, and then after swallowing a mouthful, you got a face-ful of rose. sweet! i dug it. husband dug it. i think chris dug it. good stuff.

so dinner was good, and afterwards was good too. we chatted with najeeb, who turns out to have a house in southern california, so he told us about that and about the yearly pilgrimages he makes to mount whitney (to shit! because he likes to shit in the highest place in the [continguous] united states! najeeb’s a great guy). and then he charged us $22.50 so husband gave him $25 and he gave us back $17.25 in change. huh? najeeb, you crazy. but we dig it.

obviously this meant we had enough left-over (though not really – even when i spend less money than i owe, that’s more than i’m supposed to be spending, since i’m not supposed to be spending *any*) for ralph’s! chris went with the reliable honeydew, but since it was cold out i wanted something more substantial (from my frozen dessert), so i picked the chocolate peanut butter cup (which they finally had! they didn’t have it when they first opened a few weeks ago). which meant that husband picked out most of the peanut butter bits. but it was still delicious and satisfying, in that what a great dinner we just had and this is going to be a good night, if only i didn’t have to study-way. yea. like that.

and realized my last post was about a week and a half ago. and i ate so much between then and now. i didn’t even mention my return trip to quantum leap for their weirdly quirky mix of steamed vegetables (not that steamed vegetables are ever quirky, but they put together a truly odd selection of things that don’t seem to go with other things, so i’m calling it quirky) and a massive order of sweet potato fries. and i also forgot to mention the magical uber-whipped cream cheese that the jewish law students association put out for passover – the super-whipped-ness of the cream cheese made it actually possible to spread it on the matzoh (instead of being like normal cream cheese, which always ends up in cracking the matzoh with its resistance to spreading easily, leaving me with a lap of matzoh dust and nothing to put in my mouth).

and there are other things i’m sure i forgot to mention too. and this was a light week! (it being passover and all, and finals supposedly keeping me locked inside, and student loans getting thin, my ability to go out and eat/cook fancy meals has been severely limited)

i am a glutton. but at least a glutton surrounding by tasty food, which is better than being a glutton surrounded by sad, not-tasty food.

and so much eating in the interim. rare, seared tuna in a crunchy salad and my favorite “squeaky” fried cheese curds (but the name lies! THEY DO NOT SQUEAK) at half-pint (also trusted purveyor of the delicious leffe blanc – don’t know how to say it’s name, but it’s a yummy, light, fruity beer that they always have at half-pint).

pistachio macarons at tisserie that were spring-time in cookie form (so much pistachio-ness! the prettiest green color, the perfect flavor, so rich and chewy-crispy with squishy middle). what else? i can’t even remember all the yummy food. chinese take-out from friend house (love the name!) – definitely beats suzie’s, and it’s pretty much the same price. cheese fries at yola’s and greek yogurt salad at oasis.

hosting my first passover seder (the ugliest matzoh balls ever, but they were fluffy and delicious! along with my first savory kugel – adding an almond and parmesan crust was a stroke of genius).

giant bubble teas from tea spot, gelato from yolato (but they never have their incredibly refreshing aloe flavor! sad times) and the newly opened grom (i think my school is located in the most ice-cream heavy district in the city). sushi at the new sushi place in the village, gen sushi (far surpasses doo zo, and for the same price – i’m sold).

trips to the union square farmer’s market for the biggest carrots and apples in the world (husband had fun playing with the parsnips – they’re such weird-looking vegetables!). and just this moment, ending the passover celebration with a trip to mighty diamond, which has redeemed itself since our first visit with hot curry “goat” (seitan), “creamed” corn, garlicky collard greens and chili-lime quinoa, among other tasty dishes.

so much good eating. but so much studying for finals that i’ve been remiss. one day this will be fixed. for now, you just got the highlights, so what more do you want from me? my brain is mush after spending too many hours on judicial review, so i’m sure i’ve left out something delicious, but i’ll add that when i remember again. yay.

this weekend was not good eats. this weekend was a) studying or b) procrastinating (a.k.a., not studying but not able to do anything else because of feeling guilty about not studying). but prior to weekend-proper starting, despite school’s best attempts to bury me alive in gratuitous make-up classes, i made it to buddha bodhai.

buddha bodhai is heaven on earth. it’s the most fantastically delicious place in the world and is a) cheap and b) full of deliciousness (as i’ve already said, but maybe you weren’t paying attention. IT IS DELICIOUS.)

it’s a chinese/dim sum restaurant in chinatown, and because it’s buddhist, everything is vegetarian. and delicious.

what it is not, is efficient with the use of space. there were a few large round tables, and many small tables, and when we got there with our group of seven, the two large tables were each occupied by no more than two people, while many of the little tables were wiiiiide open. stupid. after being angry, the waiter offered to seat us at two separate little tables that weren’t even next to each other (because there were people sitting at the separate little tables but spread out all over the restaurant so that no two open tables were together, although there were many open tables). after watching us struggle to divide ourselves into two tables, one of the groups at a large table offered to move to a little table (and thank goodness, because they were eating slowly, and i don’t like having to deal with splitting up a group, it’s too difficult).

we thanked them profusely and helped them move their tea and plates to their new little table and then settled in and proceeded to order (practically) one of every kind of dim sum on the menu. again, buddhist, so all the regular dim sum substituted their meat portions with soy fakes. SO MUCH DELICIOUSNESS.

we got: some kind of taro jelly/pudding thing with bits of vegetables in it, lots of “pork” buns, durian pastry (actually not as offensive as durian generally is – flaky pastry crust and mostly generic yellow custard filling), two kinds of sticky rice (the regular kind, studded with “pork”, and the kind that comes wrapped in bamboo leaf and is stuffed with “meat”), two kinds of dumplings (fried and steamed), two different kinds of “short ribs” with black bean sauce (really more nuggets than anything really resembling ribs; don’t really know what the difference was between the two dishes, but one seemed more barbecue-y and came with napa cabbage….yummy napa cabbage), fried mochi balls (light and crispy with sesame seeds on the outside – one of my highlights of dim sum at jing fong, where i take the meat-eaters for dim sum)…i forget what else, but there was lots of deliciousness. and tea. our bellies were groaning afterwards. my mouth is salivating now just remembering all the tastiness.

the waiters just get bringing different dishes to the table, an endless parade of yummy happiness. and as they kept bringing us different things i kept eating, no questions asked: whatever they brought went in my mouth. one of my favorite ways to eat (that is, when it’s all delicious; point is, i don’t like having to stop and ask what is in each dish just to make sure i can eat it). after we had cleared the mondo mounds of food, what was the bill? eight dollars per person. that’s it! i couldn’t believe it either. it was the best.

and they sell lots of things for take-home too, so andy and i both got boxes of their yummy, yummy pork buns (six hefty buns for $5.50). then stopped at a bakery on the way back to campus to get portuguese-style mini egg custards…so much flaky buttery crust and creamy eggy yellow custard filling, with little burnt spots speckled across the top, leading to many mouthfuls of happiness and satisfaction (all for one dollar!).

i love chinatown. and buddha bodhai. and egg custards. so hungry now.