Marching On

Monday, March 28, 2011

Just when I planned returning to chocolate chip cookies, I read an article about Paris in the Travel section of yesterday's New York Times. "For macarons, I learned there was only one place to go: Pierre Hermé on the Left Bank. If I was alone, I took the delicate ganache-filled meringue cookies to the Square des Missions Étrangères, a small spot of green in the center of the well-to-do Rue du Bac neighborhood, and ate them in gleeful silence." Imagine reading that will eating a tuna fish sandwich at your desk.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

I’m wireless. I stayed home today and the company that may be called Verizon installed fiber optic cable and a wireless router in the Palazzo di Gotthelf. The pair of installers were neat and efficient and, by day’s end, at less cost than we were accustomed to paying, we were blessed by the NHL Network and other benefits of civilization.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Rong Hang Restaurant, 38 Eldridge Street, is relatively new. It is open and airy with seven round tables with turntables and 2 smaller round tables. The two interesting chandeliers on the ceiling are less effective in establishing the decor than the large beverage cooler, almost fully stocked with Heineken's, standing next to the cashier.

The cuisine appears to be fuzhounese, with frogs, various intestines, duck’s tongues (Where is the rest of the duck? No other parts are offered on the menu), and seafood. Not a chicken in sight. I ordered hot and spicy yellow fish ($8.95) which was cooked with mushrooms, red peppers, green peppers, onions, bamboo shoots, cauliflower, garlic, tomatoes, and pea pods in a brown sauce. It was tasty, but not particularly hot and spicy. The sauce was good and abundant, crying out for a side of fried rice, which, as I have lamented before, you just can’t get.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Teariffic, 51 Mott Street, is not quite that, but it is very good. It’s a step up from Quickly (March 14, 2011), but similar in concept, featuring a much wider variety of beverages and snack foods, about 100 of the former and 50 of the latter. The store is about 15' x 25', with about 1/4 of the space taken up by the food and drink preparation area. It has 15 square, dark wood tables, moved around to accommodate various size groups. You sit on dark wood backless stools, very Asian in feel. A woman at the cash register by the front door takes your order and delivers to your seat.

I had deep fried chicken strips with spices ($3.25), one of the best deals in Chinatown. The portion was large, main course size. The chicken was real, not odds and ends glued together, and near greaseless. I also had steam (present tense) vegetable dumplings ($3.25, in fact 13 of the 14 Authentic Delicacies were $3.25 and the last was Assorted Snacks Combo for $3.95). The eight small dumplings were good, but cooled off very quickly. Soy sauce and duck sauce were served in little plastic pouches.

I walked into an empty Teariffic, so much so that I wondered if it was open at the height of the lunch hour. In a few minutes, however, a dozen or more people were sitting on the cute stools following in my wake.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Ding Bing. I typed "new york rangers schedule" (pardon me for succumbing to the lazy habit of not using capital letters) into a Bing search box on my Internet screen. The first response was a list of the first three games this season of the TEXAS Rangers baseball team. Then and only then came two handfuls of web sites pertaining to my beloved New York Rangers hockey team. Is it any wonder that our nation's children trail the world in math and science?