No Momos

Monday, January 15, 2018

Kim Kardashian allegedly has 106 million Instagram followers.  I confess that I am not an Instagram user for at least 106 million reasons.

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It took 38 minutes to inform Hawaiians that ballistic missiles were not headed their way.  Even with the troubles that we are having with New York City subways, they usually arrive in less than 38 minutes.
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The real estate section this weekend had an interesting column on the availability of homes throughout the US.  There was an evident trend, a substantial decrease in the number of homes available in many parts of the country. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/realestate/finding-a-home-became-harder-in-2017.html?_r=0

The article offered no theory for this and even my occasionally hallucinatory imagination comes up dry.  Too expensive to move?  Satisfaction with present accommodations?  Fear of change?  Are you staying put, and why?
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We were shopping downtown and found a special place to have lunch, Egg Shop NYC, 151 Elizabeth Street.  Indeed, almost every dish on the menu has one or more eggs as a component in relatively familiar, but tasty arrangements.  I had an egg sandwich on a buttermilk biscuit with maple pork sausage and Vermont white cheddar cheese, accompanied by a little dish of Harissa, a very hot chili pepper paste, which I sampled in minute amounts ($12.50).  I also ordered a side of fried chicken, two smallish boneless pieces, very crispy, nearly greaseless, with a drizzle of maple syrup ($7).  It made for an excellent lunch.

Egg Shop is very small, 10 two tops and another 8 stools at two counters.  On Sunday, the wait for a seat was 30 minutes or longer.  Fortunately, the store that we were headed for was around the corner, so we we were able to use the interval productively.  Otherwise, with no room indoors, people are directed to a coffee house next door and are summoned when a space becomes available.  Until the weather warms up, you might try for the Egg Shop on a weekday.  You don't work, do you?
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Last week's memories of a tongue sandwich in the food halls at Harrod's, the London landmark, brought responses from Lord Kennington over there and Edith Greenberg over here.  Lord K confirmed the current absence of a deli counter at Harrod's by visiting in person.  He did suggest that what I ate back then was ox tongue, not beef tongue, and that may well have been.  He and Edith both recommended that I try Selfridges, another London department store, a little further down the scale than Harrod's.  Indeed, the Brass Rail at Selfridges flagship location, 400 Oxford Street, serves hand-carved salt beef (corned beef), pastrami and beef tongue sandwiches (£8.95 regular and £12.25 large).  Founded by an American Gentile 110 years ago, it nevertheless offers a bowl of matzoh ball at £6.50.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Even though it was snowing this morning, Tom Terrific's e-mail message came as a ray of sunshine.  Since I had left the house early (too early to read the newspaper) to get my car serviced in Queens, a distance of 4.5 miles that took 65 minutes to traverse, Tom's citation of Amdo Kitchen, a food truck parked in Jackson Heights, commended by the New York Times this morning, was news to me.  It was good news, however, momos, beef dumplings, served hot from the steamer by a former Tibetan monk.  Better news was the short distance between the car dealer and the food truck, not likely to have more than ordinary traffic at midday.  

It was quick and easy to get to Amdo on 37th Avenue, just off 75th Street, in the heart of a dense South Asian shopping district, rife with sari shops, mobile telephone vendors, all-you-can-eat lunch buffets and jewelry stores with vividly bright golden items filling their windows.  Unlike all of these other enterprises, Amdo was shut tight, even though it was just a couple of minutes before noon.  No motors were running, no sounds or smells came from the truck's interior.  Were they out to lunch, or merely off reading their favorable review from the New York Times over and over?  

I slouched off to Prince Kabab Chinese Restaurant, 37-54 74th Street, for some tasty tandoori chicken cooked earlier this century.

Thursday, January 18, 2018

I went for my annual physical examination today at the more than capable hands of Dr. Michael P.  I liked the part where he kept repeating my age, as if it didn't correspond to the results before him.  We got off to a great start when his medical assistant told me that the examining table that I was seated upon had a built-in electronic scale, saving space in the office.  Wow, 230 lbs.  That's so exciting it had to be wrong. 

I insisted that we find a trustworthy mechanical scale, you know the kind with the sliding weights, and another examining room provided me with a Pyrrhic victory.  250 lbs.  That proves that I can hold my weight steady on my diet of Chinese food, ice cream and chocolate chip cookies.