NY Dining, Winter 2025 Edition

I can't believe I just had to type 2025!

And yes, despite the extreme cold that's been hanging around in the mid-Atlantic region, I packed my stuff and headed to my personal Disneyland, my happiest place on Earth--New York City. And I ate some stuff. But not as much as usual. Still, stuff. Allow me to share my musings on my dining experiences.

My first meal of the trip was a Monday lunch. I briefly contemplated two courses at Cafe Carmellini, but decided the handsome amount of money that would involve should go toward a bottle of perfume. My main agenda for the three day excursion revolved around visiting various perfume shops, with the intention of making at least one fragrant purchase. (I made five.)

One of the stops on my list was The Maker Hotel shop on 16th Street, so for the sake of convenience, I ate lunch next door at The Grey Dog Chelsea.

Guacamole toast? They were very generous with the toppings.

The avocado toast sounded good. What I wanted was a nice piece of seeded multigrain toast topped with several slices of perfectly salted avocado and a fried egg. I got the bread, but the avocado was excessively lime-y, rather mashed, and much more like guacamole than I was in the mood for. My over-medium eggs were perfect though, and the side of home fries was tasty enough though completely unnecessary. (I can't put away as much food as I was able to in the past.)

I had popped into Levain Bakery before lunch to grab a gluten-free cookie for later. It was one of their typically behemoth, scone-sized, lumps--which is really quite delicious when made with gluten. And not at all delicious when made with gluten-free flour. It tasted...gluten-free, which can be a rather sad flavor when one is used to the taste of wheat flour. 

That evening, I had dinner at the bar at Zaytinya. One of Jose Andres' original DC concepts, there is now a location not far from my usual hotel. Since I had passed on a spendy lunch and was disappointed with what I did eat, I thought I'd splurge on something that was bound to be delicious. After all, one of my favorite meals in NY is pretty much anything at his Hudson Yards food hall, Little Spain. Especially the eggs with morcilla (blood sausage). Incredibly, I found everything at Zaytinya to be...meh. The za'atar margarita seemed a little saltier than a normal marg, but it didn't scream of za'atar. The scallops were a relative bargain at $23 for four fat ones, but the rather flavorless apple cacik (the Turkish version of tzatziki) really didn't work for me, and the promised "sesame rose spice" was undetectable. I hoped the smoked beet salata would remind me of the incredible beet and pistachio salad I had eaten last summer at a local French restaurant. It did not. There was too much arugula and the honeycrisp apple chunks had zero flavor (and was probably the same kind of apple included in the scallops' sauce). The beets themselves were fine, though I'd have preferred more of them. Finally, though I didn't need a third dish, I ordered the brussels sprouts because the waiter was still looking at me expectantly. I requested the garlic yogurt to be served on the side (and should have done so with the cacik) as I am lactose-intolerant. The sprouts were nicely crispy, but were otherwise rather boring. A disappointment.

My palate fared much better on day two, which I started at Dominique Ansel Workshop. A perfectly fluffy and tender French omelette filled with Boursin cheese and nestled into a crisp croissant made a perfect breakfast, especially paired with a big cup of La Colombe cafe au lait d'avoine (oatmilk). 

scallop toast

Later, I met up with my friend Daisy, whose company makes even the most delicious meal that much better than it would be without her. We dined at Chinese Tuxedo, a contemporary Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. Among the dishes we sampled were the braised black pepper oxtail bun, crystal shrimp spring roll, and scallop toast from the dim sum menu (all fantastic)...

...and the Johny fried rice with shrimp, char siu, and pork floss, the stir fried Snake River beef sirloin with kampot pepper, and the stir fried iceberg lettuce. Again, all fantastic. I'd eat there again.

Mealtime with Daisy usually means multiple stops, so after walking a bit, we took a cab up to Koreatown and had a few super crispy wings at Turntable on 33rd Street. The flavors were bright and the texture appealing. In retrospect, these wings were the culinary highlight of my entire trip.

The next morning, I had a nice breakfast at The Harold, which is conveniently located near my hotel. I ordered the wild mushroom scramble, which was had to include 3-4 eggs and a good half pound of mushrooms. I knew there'd be toast, but not the rosemary potatoes. They're delicious, but made for far too much to eat in one sitting. Next time, I'll ask them to omit the 'taters. 

For a snack, I enjoyed a Midnight Dream (black sesame, espresso, oatmilk) at Elorea, a cute Korean perfume shop with a coffee bar at the back. (I will be going back someday to make a fragrance purchase.)

Finally, I had an early dinner/late lunch at Parm. This is their eggplant parmesan on a sesame seed roll. My server said it was his favorite thing on the menu, and suggested I get the hoagie-sized version so I could take half home for later. I stuck with the small. It was good, but lacking in textures other than soft. I've mentioned this in the past, but I really miss my mother's fried eggplant. But maybe I'm just obsessed with the memory of the flavor of Progresso Italian Bread Crumbs?

The Grey Dog

242 W 16th St, New York, NY 10011

thegreydog.com

Levain Bakery

2 W 18th St, New York, NY 10011

levainbakery.com

Zaytinya

1185 Broadway, New York, NY 10001

zaytinya.com

Dominique Ansel Workshop

17 E 27th St, New York, NY 10016

dominiqueanselworkshop.com

Chinese Tuxedo

5 Doyers St, New York, NY 10013

chinesetuxedo.com

Turntable

20 W 33rd St, New York, NY 10001

turntablenyc.com

The Harold

1271 Broadway, New York, NY 10001

theharoldnyc.com

Elorea

41 Spring St, New York, NY 10012

elorea.com

Parm

248 Mulberry St, New York, NY 10012

parmitalian.com

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Throwback Thursday: Manhattan's K-Town

This originally appeared here on March 11, 2019.

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I’m going to let you in on a secret: I am not a New Yorker. However, I visit on business (and occasionally pleasure) several times a year and always try to stay in the same hotel. Or at least in the same neighborhood--Koreatown. This little one-block square area in Midtown Manhattan runs from 5th Avenue to Broadway and includes 31st and 32nd Streets, which actually makes the “block” a trapezoid. There’s a bit of spillover to the other side of 5th Ave, too. In any case, this compact area is studded with restaurants, bakeries, and bars, a handful of hotels, and is a convenient 2-block walk from Penn Station. That was the original selling point for me, the proximity to transportation, but after staying in the area a few times, I realized that if I were ever too busy to think about where to eat, I could have breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks without going very far in any direction. (Truthfully though, there has never been a time in my life that was too busy to exclude thoughts of food.) I also discovered that the alleged “city that never sleeps” does indeed roll up the sidewalks after dinner, at least in Midtown on a Monday night. On one occasion, I emerged from the Herald Square subway station at 1am after spending most of the evening elsewhere in the city. I was somewhat alarmed to realize that I was the only soul on the street. Fortunately, my hotel was nearby, in the middle of a block that is always busy, thanks to the surfeit of 24-hour Korean BBQ restaurants and late night karaoke bars.

Bibimbap at New Wonjo

 Among those 24-hour BBQ joints are The Kunjip, New Wonjo, and missKOREA, all on 32nd Street. missKOREA involves three floors of bbq, each with different decor and separate menus. The first floor has a somewhat naturalistic, hanging-out-in-the-forest, vibe, the second is more serene and modeled after traditional Korean study rooms, and the third floor is contemporary and spare. Diners have the option of ordering bbq both in set menus and a la carte, but also as part of multicourse feasts that include starters, a course of either hot pot or crepes served with meat and vegetables, the bbq main dish, a noodle or rice preparation, and dessert. The Kunjip and New Wonjo are both more casual restaurants with fairly straightforward menus that include stews, noodle dishes, and bibimbap as well as bbq cooked at the table.

Matcha latte at Grace Street

Three other restaurants, Gammeeok, Shanghai Mong, and Abiko Curry, are also open around the clock. Gammeeok specializes in seolleongtang, a rich soup made by simmering beef bones for many hours so all of the marrow, fat, calcium, and collagen are extracted, broken into tiny particles, and suspended in broth which turns a milky white, rather somewhat like tonkotsu ramen broth. They also serve bossam (braised pork belly, sliced and served with kimchi and usually cabbage leaves in which to wrap it), housemade sundae (blood sausage), and a few kinds of Korean pancakes. Shanghai Mong bills itself as an Asian Bistro; in addition to Korean dishes, they also serve pad Thai, udon, pho, and many Chinese-restaurant-style dishes like General Tso’s or sweet and sour chicken. If you like Japanese-style curry, and you like it spicy, you’ll probably enjoy Abiko Curry. Curry was introduced to Japan by the British, and it’s flavor is closer to the yellow-hued curry powder in your pantry than to that of Indian dishes like vindaloo or rogan josh, yet it’s also very much its own thing. Abiko simmers their curry for “100 hours” and offers a gravy-like version served with rice or noodles, and a thicker cream sauce mixed with pasta. Dishes can be customized with toppings like fried squid, raw eggs, pork cutlets, and cheese; the spiciness can also be ordered to taste, but be forewarned that even “level 2” packs some real heat. I like the donburi bowls, a mound of rice topped with some sauce, lots of sauteed onions, and a protein of your choosing. It’s not spicy at all but completely delicious.

Donburi at Abiko Curry

Several other BBQ joints dot the K-town landscape on both sides of 5th Avenue: Jongro; Her Name is Han; Dons Bogam; Kang Ho Dong Baekjeong. All have more limited hours than the round-the-clock places, and each has its fans. On quite the opposite side of the spectrum; rather than piles of meaty goodness, mushrooms and tofu are the stars at Hangawi, the rare Korean vegetarian restaurant. They also have what might be the ultimate Instagrammer’s meal: a hot stone bowl filled with rice, vegetables, and...avocado. Beats avocado toast any day.

If you’re in the mood for something sweet, you’re in luck. Everything from green tea lattes to fancy French-style cakes can be found in Koreatown. My favorite bakeries are Tous Le Jours and Paris Baguette. The former has a wide variety of pastries, both familiar and not. Croissants are big and brown and beautiful, but the much more homely hot dog encased in a squid ink roll with cheese inside and out has its merits, too. There are also French baguettes and loaves of fluffy Korean milk bread, donuts, and flaky pastries filled with everything from red beans to chocolate to sausages. Paris Baguette has a smaller selection of similar products, plus fancier layer and roll-style cakes. Both bakeries offer specialty coffee drinks as well. More coffee can be found at Grace Street, an expansive cafe that has an equally large menu of hot and iced coffee and tea drinks, including matcha, milk tea, and cocoa. Grace Street also serves waffles with various toppings, and something called shaved snow, a light and feathery frozen dessert made from blocks of flavored ice milk shaved into silky ribbons.and topped with things like red beans, condensed milk, or mango puree. Across 5th Avenue one will find Besfren, a dessert shop with a much smaller selection of pastries, but also delicious giant triple chocolate chip cookies, matcha/taro swirl soft serve ice cream, and a selection of ginseng products. Only want tea? Gong Cha is a closet-sized space that serves a seemingly infinite number of hot and cold tea drinks in flavors like familiar Earl Grey and Oolong but also wintermelon and taro. Order your tea topped with simple milk foam, or with boba, red beans, basil seeds, coconut or herbal jelly, or pudding (somewhat like flan)...even with all of the above. Don’t forget to grab a wide straw to suck up all the solids, because a regular straw simply will not do the trick.

If you’re not sure what exactly you want to eat, step into Food Gallery 32, a food court where you’ll find everything from Korean fried chicken, bibimbap, and ddukbboki to the savory Chinese crepes called jianbing, churros, and frozen yogurt. Seating is communal and the place always seems crowded, but it’s great for the undecided among us.

Fried dumplings at Mandoo Bar

And that’s not all, folks. There are at least two gastropubs in K-town, Itaewon and Osamil, and restaurants specializing in fresh tofu (BCD Tofu House) and Korean dumplings (Mandoo Bar), plus a somewhat more fancy restaurant called Gaonnuri. Located on the 39th floor of 1250 Broadway, overlooking Herald Square, Gaonnuri has some of the best panoramic views of the city. They offer both tableside bbq and entrees like bibimbap, but also fish dishes involving black cod, sea bass, and monkfish. I like the seasonal tasting menu, which at $115 per person isn’t exactly a bargain, but it does include 6 savory courses and dessert. There’s also a more economical $55 three-course prix fixe that includes bbq, but the whole table must participate.

I’m sure I’ve missed more than a few places, but I hope I’ve hit on enough to lure you into a stroll through New York’s Koreatown. There’s no shortage of food (there’s even an H Mart if you are in the mood or have the ability to prepare a meal for yourself) in this relatively small area. Shops too, if you’re into Korean beauty products. It’s definitely a neighborhood worth a visit.

Posted on Minxeats.com.


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Throwback Thursday: Guan Fu

This post originally appeared on Minxeats.com on July 30, 2018.

I can't believe the amount of food that I consume when I'm with my friend Daisy. It's as if I sprout a second stomach to hold it all. I liked this place a lot, so of course it closed. :( 

---------------------------------------------------

I have always loved Chinese food and can still remember the taste of my very first shrimp in black bean sauce. I was on a "date" with my Dad. My mother had shooed us out of the house so she could have some quiet time with my newly-born baby brother; this makes me about 5 at the time. I had already eaten plenty of American-style Chinese food by that age, but the piquancy of the fermented black beans was a new flavor to me. And I liked it.

Sichuan food appeared on my table sometime in the late 70s, and though may palate was not yet accustomed to heat, I appreciated that the flavors and ingredients used were a bit different from the usual celery, onions, and starchy sauces used in familiar dishes like moo goo gai pan and chow mein. Though the Sichuan and Hunan dishes I ate in my youth were quite different from the ones I ate as a small child, they were still fairly Americanized.

In 2018, there doesn't seem to be as many Chinese restaurants in Baltimore as there used to be. Certainly no good ones (I am sure someone will be happy to argue that point). I've had a hard time finding even mediocre food in my neck of the woods. Thankfully, there is some really good Chinese food to be had outside of Baltimore. I've spoken here many times of my love for Grace Garden in Odenton, and for Hunan Taste in Catonsville. Asian Court in Ellicott City is my place for dim sum. And of course there are plenty of places in Montgomery County, which is a bit of a hike. Chinese food has gone from being a regular weeknight meal to something for a special occasion, but that makes me appreciate it all the more.

New Yorkers, however, don't have to struggle to find really fine Chinese food from many different regions of that vast country. There's a Michelin-starred Sichuan restaurant in Midtown, for god's sake, not to mention the five locations of Xi'am Famous Foods! Flushing, Queens, a half hour subway ride from Midtown, is rife with Chinese restaurants, which made it a bucket list destination for me.

My friend Daisy knew I wanted to eat good Chinese food when I was in NY, so she took me to Guan Fu, in Flushing. The New York Times gave it three stars, which normally doesn't happen to non-European ethnic restaurants. It had to be good, right?

And it was.

The restaurant is full of dark wood, with large tables to hold ample feasts. There are also comfortable wide chairs--which easily accommodate ample posteriors, like mine. The menu has photographs of every dish, which is nice, but only makes one's choice more difficult. Everything looks great.

Daisy had eaten at Guan Fu before, and had tasted a good deal of the menu. I was happy to let her decide what we would eat. Or over-eat, as the case may be. We ordered five dishes, and did a pretty good job of finishing almost everything. It helped that only two of the dishes contained meat, and only one as the star of the dish, but none of them were small.

Dishes were served family-style, arriving at the table in the order in which the kitchen finished preparing them. The bean jelly noodle salad is served cold, so that came to the table quickly. It was spicy yet refreshing, the gelatinous texture of the noodles holding a chill quite well--much appreciated on a day that had reached 98°F.

The Guan Fu style fried yolk corn was perhaps the most intriguing and unfamiliar dish. It was also the largest. The giant plate contained a mountain of fried corn kernels dusted in dried egg yolk; they were both sweet and salty, with a crisp-tender texture that made them a perfect snack. Except eating this dish was slow going, as chopsticks made it difficult to pick up more than one kernel at a time.

Speaking of chopsticks, Guan Fu has a novel approach to them. Rather than using coarse wooden disposable chopsticks, or plastic ones that require washing, they use chopstick handles with replaceable wooden tips. The tips come in little paper packages, which the diner removes before screwing the tips into place. This way they use much less wood and paper than traditional disposable sticks, and there's no doubt that the tips are sanitary.

We also ordered Chinese black fungus in Guan Fu sauce, a quite spicy (three chile peppers, according to the menu) dish of snappy-textured mushrooms (also called wood ears, commonly used in moo shu preparations) with raw onion and chiles in a clear, ginger-forward, sauce.

Our lone meat dish was a stir fry of chicken with Sichuan prickly ash. Prickly ash is a member of the citrus family, which explains why Sichuan peppercorns--which are actually buds--are somewhat lemony in flavor. Oh, and they have a numbing quality, too, with which those who have tried them are familiar. The combination of Sichuan pepper numbing and chile pepper heat is known as ma la, and this chicken dish was loaded with it--but not in an uncomfortable way. There were also bits of crispy potato and even crispier lotus root in the dish, which added some textural contrast.

My favorite dish was the dumplings, which, oddly enough, appeared in the dessert section of the menu. I have been looking for a dish of dumplings in hot chile oil like the one served at a place called Szechuan Best, in Randallstown. We went there semi-regularly in the 80s, and I had to get the dumplings every time. The sauce was hot and oily and redolent of five spice. I think. It's been a long time, but I would know the flavor if I tasted it again. The dumplings at Guan Fu were not the same, though the delicate wrappers filled with pork seemed somewhat similar. The sauce, however, was its own thing. No five spice, and actually quite mild to my palate, but eminently slurpable. Now that I think back on it, I can understand how their relative mildness (only two chile peppers) might be a relief after eating an otherwise highly-spiced meal.

Overall, I liked Guan Fu. I think it's on par with Grace Garden and Hunan Taste, and I'm happy to have been able to compare them so favorably. However, each restaurant has its own personality. I'd definitely like to go back to Guan Fu and get to know it better.

Guan Fu
39-16 Prince St g01
Flushing, NY 11354
http://guanfuny.com/

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Pizza! Pizza!

I wouldn't call Baltimore a pizza town, but the city is currently more deserving of that title than it was in the past. Regular readers might remember me railing on about the "fresh dough" pizza craze in the 70s and 80s, the days of flabby, undercooked crusts, insipid sauce, and rubbery cheese. Papa John's and Pizza Hut continue that sad tradition to this day. 

I enjoyed Pappy's pizza as a child, and my favorite pizza during high school came from a little carry-out on Harford Road called the Hamilton Eatery. Their pizza had a crispy crust, flavorful sauce, and the perfect amount of stretchy cheese--and it was 100% a frozen product from some food service company. One day I watched them transfer a frigid disk from freezer to oven and was shocked that it hadn't been made in house. I remember their pies being delicious; perhaps they were, only in comparison with the other pizzas I so hated. The most loathsome pie came from a place called George's Beef and Beer, on Broadway in Fells Point. It was largely pale and flavorless, with the standard dull toppings scattered on a soggy, doughy, crust. On Saturdays, my Uncle Frank, who lived downstairs in the townhouse we occupied, bought lunch. He was no gourmet and offered only two choices: fried chicken from a stall in Broadway Market, or pizza from George's. I preferred the chicken, but good as it was, it was a chore to eat it even every-other week. On pizza weeks we experimented with toppings, hoping to find something worth eating, but nothing overcame the overall blandness of the pies. (Onion and black olive was probably the best of the bunch, but still not great.)

George's is long gone--thank the pizza gods!--and slowly but surely Baltimore has evolved a far more interesting pizza culture. One with quite a bit of variety, too. There are standard round thin crust pies that claim to be "New York-style," pies with super thin crusts, square pies, pies topped with stuff like figs and brie, and pies with crusts that don't fit into any particular genre. People still eat the crappy chain pizzas, too, which baffles me almost as much as why people prefer P.F. Chang's to actual Chinese food made by Chinese people. 

One pizza that I did enjoy in my youth and still eat today is Squire's. The crust is firm and sturdy, with a nice crunch, the sauce is herby and a tad sweet, and they are more than generous with toppings. Our go-to order is a large "everything" pizza, minus the green pepper. 

can you tell from my expression that I can't wait to take a bite of
 this "everything" (minus green pepper) pie from Squire's?

We get a pie from Squire's at least once a year, as a reward for getting our taxes done on time. (Our accountant is in Dundalk.) If we're lucky, we'll find an opportunity to visit again a few months later. If not, we usually bring home several slices to tuck into the freezer to enjoy on another occasion.

There are several Baltimore area restaurants serving Neapolitan-ish pies. Traditionally, a Neapolitan pie has a thin hand-formed crust and is baked for a brief time (up to 90 seconds) in a screaming hot wood-fired oven. In Italy, these pizzas must be made with very specific ingredients in a very specific way, but that goes out the window here in the states. A Neapolitan pie also tends to have a soggy middle, which doesn't really fly here. So while restaurants might use wood-fired ovens imported from Italy, and make the crust in the prescribed manner baked at the proper temperature, Neapolitan-style pies in the US play more fast and loose with the type of cheese and the crispness of the crust. Personally, I enjoy a thin and flexible crust that has some charring underneath and leopard spotting on the cornicione (the outer edge). 

everything at Hersh's is wonderful, but especially the pizza.

Among my favorite local pies that are made with the Neapolitan sensibility are those from Hersh's in South Baltimore and Paulie Gee's in Hampden. Both establishments are creative with their toppings-- the smoked mozzarella and fried eggplant on Hersh's Fumo e Fuoco, and the dried cherries and gorgonzola on Paulie Gee's Cherry Jones--but somehow everything seems to work perfectly.

there's nothing like a pizza from Ledo.

Then we have the "is it really pizza?" pizza: Ledo. The crust is buttery and flaky, as if a pizza and a croissant had a baby. The sauce is sweet, and there is a ton of cheese, but the combination of all of the above works to produce a delicious whole. I especially like their "cannonball" pizza, which has half a giant meatball perched on every slice. Oh yeah, the pizzas are square, too. Weird, maybe, but so am I.

Detroit pizza is all about the toasted cheese that forms around the border of the pie.

And then there's Detroit-style pizza. A relative of the Sicilian pie, the Detroit pizza has a thick crust with no cornicione. The cheese goes on first and is spread from edge to edge, which produces a caramelized crustiness where the cheese hits the hot metal pan in which the pie is baked. Toppings like pepperoni are next, followed by stripes of sauce. I've only ever had this style of pizza from one place, Underground Pizza Company in Towson, and I don't think I ever need to eat it elsewhere. I don't know if it's a perfect Detroit pizza, but I can't imagine a better crust. It's like the most fabulous artisan bread you can imagine, but with crispy cheese edges. My favorite pie there is topped with fancy roasted mushrooms, but their vodka sauce pies are also :::chef's kiss::::

I know there are lots more pizza restaurants in Baltimore that I haven't included here, so let me mention a few more that we visit: Earth, Wood, & Fire; Ribaldi's, Il Basilico; The Arthouse. We're also fans of the pizzas at Cosima. Even longer is the list of restaurants serving pizza that we need to visit are JBGB's, Verde, Johnny Rad's, Kneads Bakeshop, Gil's, Pizza John's, and Little Donna's. 

What's your favorite?

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Best/Most Memorable Meals I've Ever Had

On a recent episode of The Dave Chang Show podcast, Dave and co-host Chris Ying listed their best and/or most memorable meals of all time. As I listened, I realized that I have lots of memorable meals, but they're not necessarily the best. Some meals are memorable because of bad food or service. Creating a list, even a short one, of truly great restaurant meals, is a difficult task for me. Perhaps I am jaded. Though I haven't eaten in the world's greatest restaurants--excepting Le Bernardin--I have dined in as many notable places as a person who doesn't travel much and who isn't wealthy can dine. 

Here's a list of restaurant meals that were highly memorable, even if they weren't the best, in alphabetical order.

pasta tasting menu for August 2004

Babbo - We celebrated Mr Minx's 40th birthday here, back in the early aughts, before we knew that Mario Batali was a rapey douchebag who stole his staff's tips. Mr Minx was somewhat of a pastaholic back then, so we opted for the seven-course pasta tasting menu with wine pairings. This was in the year before we started Minxeats, so there's no official write-up of the meal, but we did save the menu. I do recall that the starter was a bit awkward to eat. Whole cannellini beans on crusty bread might be a traditional antipasto, but it was impossible to take a bite without beans rolling off the bread and onto the table and the floor. Why not smash the beans? Dunno. Seems logical. In any case, the rest of the meal was fantastic, the first course being the best. So simple. So much butter. So good. We also enjoyed the wine pairing with the cheese course, a sweet sparkling wine called Brachetto d'Acqui. Sometimes we buy that to drink on New Year's Eve instead of champagne.  

foie gras with raw tuna 

The Bar Room at the Modern - I was in NYC for a Sniffapalooza event. I had not yet met my current NYC dining companion, Daisy, so I usually dined alone. One afternoon, I blew a wad of cash on a rather extravagant meal at the bar room of MOMA's restaurant, the Modern. The restaurant was an oasis after my morning of mingling with a crowd of chatty individuals amid clouds of perfume. Service was excellent--eager but not obtrusive--and the food was interesting and quite good. The unusual foie gras and raw tuna dish was particularly memorable.

Charleston is an example of a meal that has stayed in my mind for the wrong reasons. I had enjoyed a meal at Cindy Wolf's Savannah at some point in the 90s and looked forward to having a similarly splendid meal at Charleston. Instead, I found an oppressive atmosphere created by the ever-looming waitstaff. A "wilted spinach salad" arrived as a unadorned mound of barely cooked spinach with all its harsh tannins present. Cindy was at the pass and let this dish go by even though it clearly was not a salad and not particularly edible. Finally, the sauces for our entrees had been so over-reduced that it literally glued our lips shut. Even after eating dessert, I had to work to open my mouth to speak. The rest of the meal was unmemorable.

We've never been back, though we have eaten at other of Foreman/Wolf's restaurants. They may be run by one team, but I find the quality of them overall to be inconsistent. Pazo and Bar Vasquez were the best of the bunch; both are now closed. Petit Louis is a distant third. We haven't tried Cindy Lou's Fish House yet, and we miss the original Milton Inn. 

Harry's Seafood Grill on the Wilmington, Delaware waterfront was the site of a fun birthday lunch hosted by my best friend Kate, who had recently moved to Wilmington. While checking out the local restaurant scene, she had befriended a chef couple, one of whom worked at Harry's. Chef Applebaum generously sent out a couple of dishes in addition to the three courses we had ordered for ourselves. There was too much food, and all of it was delicious and of high-quality. I especially enjoyed my first sticky toffee pudding and my first taste of soft shell crab.

Herb & Soul is the site of another memorable-for-the-wrong-reasons meal. We had eaten there in the past and mostly enjoyed our food. It wasn't perfect, but the biscuits and fried chicken were stellar. On this particular occasion, we partook of a multi-course meal arranged by a member of the local Chowhounds board. I'm not sure whose idea it was to serve a selection of New Orleans-inspired foods, but it was pretty clear that the chef wasn't particularly familiar with any of the dishes he cooked that night. The first course of crawfish and octopus with brussels sprouts comprised two fingernail-clipping-sized shreds of crawfish on my plate and a dried-out, chewy octopus so small it was probably a fetus. Another dish was billed as an etouffee (which means "smothered") yet barely had any sauce. The bits of alligator meat in it were so chewy, if I hadn't washed them down with water I'd still be chewing them 9 years later. The fourth course was better: a well-prepared half chicken served with not nearly enough of a very good fig pan jus and a soupcon of cauliflower puree. The best course was dessert, French beignets (made with choux paste rather than a yeasted dough), and I could have eaten several more of those. Thankfully the dinner was dirt cheap. 

barely cooked scallop in brown butter dashi

Le Bernardin -- Mr Minx's next milestone birthday was celebrated with a 6-course lunch at Le Bernardin, a 3-Michelin star restaurant in NY. The service was impeccable, and the food almost perfect. I know, who am I to criticize a dish served at one of the "World's 50 Best Restaurants?" I'll tell you: someone who doesn't think a dark red wine sauce works well with wild rockfish. Mr Minx agreed with me. So there. The scallop in brown butter dashi, however, was mindblowing. So simple, yet so delicious. My one regret about the meal: I didn't take a roll every time the bread guy came around. There were about eight kinds of bread on offer, and I was only able to taste three of them. Le sigh.

NOLA - Back in the days before Minxeats, even before Mr Minx became Mr Minx, we took a trip together to New Orleans with a group of rabid Emeril Lagasse fans whom I had met online. Someone or other from that group was up our butts every time we tried to turn around. One person in particular stuck to us like a tick. After a couple days of eating at only Tick-approved restaurants, my beloved and I snuck off to have lunch at NOLA, one of Lagasse's more casual establishments. We ordered starters of gumbo and turtle soup, and a couple of pizzas to share. My soup was very good, but Neal's seafood gumbo was insane. We stopped short of literally licking the bowl clean, but we were tempted! 

As fate would have it, the man who made that gumbo now owns Cajun Kate's, a restaurant in Wilmington. We make a pilgrimage every year to keep our freezer stocked with gumbo.

my favorite course at Volt, tuna tartare in a delicate rice gelee wrapper. Photo credit: Kevin Eats.

Volt - We discovered Volt during chef/owner Bryan Voltaggio's turn on Top Chef. After our first delicious meal there, I was obsessed with getting seats at Table 21: a 21-course meal served in Volt's kitchen. We made our reservation ten months in advance, and the wait was worth enduring. For a measly $121 per person, we had 21 courses of surprising and delicious food. Sadly, this was back in the foodie stone age (2010) and I didn't have a phone with a good camera. Rather than bothering with my crappy little Canon, I sat back and enjoyed the meal. (Check out the post linked in the caption above for excellent photos of a meal very similar to the one we ate.) 

While the food was incredible, the service was a tad annoying. Servers replaced the silverware with each course, whether we had used a particular utensil or not. Remove clean spoon, replace with another clean spoon. Having disembodied hands appear over my shoulder or beside my forearm (we were seated at a counter in front of the garde manger station and couldn't see the utensil movers behind us) was a little disconcerting. It was like being served by Thing. I'm not a fancy-service kind of gal. Just give me my food and if I need a clean fork, I'll let you know.

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I'm sure if I thought about it a little more, I could come up with a few more meals to add here. These were off the top of my head, clearly very memorable. I hope to have many more meals like these in the future. The good ones....

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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My Poison Pen

I'm going to come right out and say it: writing positive reviews for good restaurants isn't fun. There are only so many ways of saying a dish works, that it's tasty, fun to eat, well-conceived, yadda yadda. There are myriad ways, however, of saying something is bad. While a meal might be unsatisfying during the eating aspect of it, the glee I get from trashing it verbally can more than make up for shitty food and worse service. The crazy comments a negative review can inspire are also pretty damn amusing. 

The highlighted text below contains links to my original posts, if you are so inclined to read them.

A long-ago visit to The Melting Pot in Towson left us wondering why anyone would pay good money to eat hot garbage. On the upside, the meal provided me with a fun-to-write blog post. Additionally, some unhinged TMP stan left an outrageous comment while posing as a West Coast food journalist. That got its own blog post.

Milan was a restaurant/club that was not well-received by its Little Italy neighbors. We ate there once. The food was actually pretty decent, but our first impression wasn't so great.

"Stepping into the restaurant, I was immediately struck by a smell. No, not of garlic and shellfish, nor of long-simmered tomato sauce, but of bathroom. A nasty chlorine+potty smell. Granted, we were the first people in the restaurant, and possibly when there are more people in the place and the kitchen is in full swing, the smell isn't noticeable. But it's really off-putting for that to be the first sensation encountered. (I eventually got used to it.)

"Once upstairs on the main floor, I saw that the glossy veneer from two years ago, when the restaurant was new, has faded. The black paint on the wood floor is worn off in paths, the paint on the ceiling has bubbled and cracked, and the tables and chairs show wear. One of the high-backed chairs, which doesn't quite match the others, is patched up with white tape. I'm guessing that the intended effect of the stark white decor with touches of scarlet is "modern" and "classy." And I suppose it is. Classy like a strip club with bottle service. It's a place where Pauly D and The Situation would be completely at ease, hanging out one on of the lounges covered with upholstery straight out of a '72 Nova."

From a write-up about a quick trip to NYC, which included dinner at A Voce in Columbus Circle:

"While the first course was successful, the pici that I ordered for my entree was a total disappointment. Pici is a hand-rolled pasta, somewhat like a thick spaghetti. Imagine making a snake of modeling clay by rolling it between your palm and a table top, and you've got pici. Because they're somewhat thick and about  4" long, picking them up with a fork is like wrestling with a bowl of tarantulas. They're not easily twirled, so a fork full had random ends hanging out in each direction, some of which were happy to slap me in the face as I brought the fork to my mouth. Eventually, I used my knife to cut them into shorter bits. In any case, awkwardness was the least of the dish's problems. The sauce was a bolognese in name only. It had an agrodolce (sweet and sour) thing going on that could have been quite delicious had the sauce had any other thing going on, too. The tiny nubbins of ground duck (which could have been any meat - turkey, rattlesnake) served as a textural element only, and I couldn't taste the cocoa in the pasta. After three or four bites, I was bored with the dish. Thankfully, it wasn't a large portion, so I pushed on and finished it, knowing that a doggie bag wouldn't safely survive the three-plus hours it would take me to get home."

Restaurant Week is always a fine opportunity to eat crappy food. I have always thought that the reason for Restaurant Week is to lure in new patrons with a reasonably priced menu, hook them with amazing food, and turn them into repeat customers who are willing to pay full price. Apparently that memo is only in my head. A 2008 RW meal at Tabrizi's had a high point or two, but was otherwise unexceptional.

"This unadorned plate of worms/bran buds/Plah-Doh after a trip through a Fuzzy Pumper play set is actually Mr Minx's chocolate mousse. Or, more accurately, chocolate ganache - melted chocolate whipped with heavy cream. If it was real mousse, with egg in it, I'd be very surprised. It tasted ok, but really wasn't worth the effort of washing out the ricer."

Another fun post to write involved our 2011 meal at Alchemy, in Hampden. It was Restaurant Week, and clearly Alchemy couldn't handle the extra-ness of it all. Though we normally eat on the early side of dinnertime, when the restaurant isn't busy, the kitchen still had a problem getting the courses out on time. The first course took forever, and the entrees came out while we were still eating our apps. Our waiter, who had promised to "take care of us," never gave us a second look, even while we were juggling five plates of food on a tiny table. The food itself was uneven, perhaps too ambitious. Dishes had multiple components that were under-seasoned or improperly cooked, though the proteins were pretty good. My dessert, a cabernet blackberry sorbet, was outstanding, and the only thing that would prompt my return to Alchemy. As it was, we never went back, and the restaurant closed a couple years later. If you check out the post, do read the handful of entertaining comments.

Occasionally, friends rave over a restaurant enough that Mr Minx and I have to try it. Over the years, I've learned that not all of my friends have good taste. One couple in particular loved Silver Spring Mining Company. I suppose lots of people like the place, as the restaurant has multiple locations. We, however, were not impressed. The food we ate was...edible...but not good enough for a return trip. I took umbrage to a mixed-protein creole masquerading as a jambalaya, and a "Reuben" sandwich that had rye bread and thousand island, but not corned beef, sauerkraut, or Swiss. Additionally, it contained a "razor-thin slice of nearly-white supermarket blandness that is a sin even during the Winter, but worthy of eternal damnation during tomato season." I stand by that opinion.

Some people think I'm a food snob, but that's not true at all. I just expect good-tasting food that is properly made and falls within standards that are acceptable to any local health department. My BFF's 50th birthday party was held at the Kentmorr, a seafood restaurant on the Eastern Shore. The only thing I remember about that meal is being served tepid crab soup, one of those half-and-half jobbies that was a mix of Maryland crab and cream of crab. Apparently, someone had accidentally turned off the burner under the pot of cream of crab, which remained on the stove long enough to get cold. Soup with cream and seafood in it. Yeahhh....no thanks. 

Occasionally an otherwise decent meal has dishes that fall short of expectations. And sometimes those dishes are pretty bad. But that makes them fun to write about.

Barcocina dip

"The Barcocina dip, listed on the menu as "an Oaxaca queso fundido" had a curious fluffy texture studded with odd rubbery and flavorless bits of chorizo, topped with a whole poached egg (not fried, as the menu indicated). While the yolk was runny, the white was very firm and required a knife to cut and distribute through the dip. The accompanying tortilla chips were weeny, as if made from taco-sized tortillas, and not big enough to scoop up a decent amount of dip."

While we adored Jesse Wong's Hong Kong, a restaurant on the lakefront in Columbia, we felt the opposite about his Hunt Valley restaurant. Jesse Wong's Kitchen served various Asian cuisines, including sushi, but wasn't particularly good at any of them. At least not the food we tried on our two visits. After our disastrous first meal, a lunch, I swore I'd never set foot in the place again. Then we received a gift card from my Dad's girlfriend, which made me eat my words. Sadly, they were tastier than the food at Jesse Wong's Kitchen. Turns out the gift card had no balance, and I had to pay for the crap we ate. I was pretty pleased when the restaurant closed, though I was sad that Hong Kong eventually shut down as well.

I'm sure I've written about several more poor restaurant experiences over the years, but I want to include just one more in this post. It's another Restaurant Week meal, this time at Oyster Bay Grille. The problem was not the meal itself (which was pretty good), but the way management handled a situation.  

"In a few moments, the man who had shucked the oysters came by, ostensibly to apologize. Now, let me give some pointers on apologies for restaurants. Restaurant Apologies 101, if you will. The very first thing to do is to say, 'I'm very sorry.' The next thing to do is to offer recompense. 'Let me take the oysters off the check,' or some such. And that's it. Then go away and let the diners finish their meal. Sticking around to make excuses like, 'they were hard to open,' and 'this is why we put oyster forks out' are not acceptable. (Especially when there was only one oyster fork present, and it was jammed into the rind of a lemon. Were we to wrestle it out and then share it?) You work at a damn oyster bar--learn how to shuck a fucking oyster. Bleeding customers are not happy customers, and Mr Minx spent the rest of the meal in a foul humor. Especially when another man, presumably an owner or manager who had been randomly wandering, came around to say he saw something going on at our table. He did not offer an apology or anything else; it seemed that he was there simply out of curiosity. When each of these men returned to our table yet again, individually, to ask 'you ok?' later on during the meal, it must have been the thought of liability niggling them. It just plain annoyed us." 

OBG's chef read my post and, in a comment, offered a free dinner. Because he knows how to treat guests properly. We declined, but I had enjoyed my rockfish entree enough to request the recipe for one of our books. 

Have you had any bad meals or bad service recently? I'd love to hear about it....so leave a comment!

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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100 Best Restaurants in NY 2023

New York Times restaurant critic Pete Wells just dropped his ranked list of the 100 best restaurants in New York City. I was surprised to see that I've eaten in two of the Top Five, but only four overall: Le Bernardin (#3), Via Carota (#4), Empellon (#19), and Mercado Little Spain (#63). 

barely cooked scallop in brown butter dashi, at Le Bernardin

I took Mr Minx to Le Bernardin to celebrate his 50th birthday. That restaurant has maintained a 4-star rating from the Times since it opened in 1986,  has 3 Michelin stars, and is on the list of the World's 50 Best Restaurants (#44 at press time). It is likely the best restaurant the two of us will ever experience, and was featured here back in 1994. Another restaurant I've visited and have written about is Empellon. My experience there (granted, it was only one meal) earned a big fat "meh" from me; I am surprised to see the restaurant on a 100-best list. 

pappardelle with wild boar ragu at Via Carota, the watermelon salad,
and another dish that I do not remember particularly well

I dined in the other two restaurants during the pandemic, when blogging wasn't my focus. After seeing many positive Instagram posts and hearing a friend talk up Via Carota, she and I met up there on my first trip back to NY after a year-plus-long forced hiatus. It was a first stop on our usual Walking Tour of NYC Food Orgy, so we only ordered a few smallish dishes. I do remember that what I tried was delicious and would love to visit again.

morcilla and eggs at Spanish Diner

As for Mercado Little Spain, I've dined there three times so far, twice on my own in Spanish Diner, and once with my BFF at La Barra. (If that seems confusing, I should explain that Mercado is actually a food hall that has both stalls specializing in ice cream or wine and a couple of restaurant spaces with tables.) The convivial Spanish Diner is located in an expansive self-contained space with a long windowed wall that can be opened up onto the street in warm weather. The menu is short and very diner-y, with an emphasis on egg dishes. I enjoyed pork meatballs in a cuttlefish gravy on one occasion, and eggs with morcilla (blood sausage) on another. La Barra is within the main portion of the food hall itself. The menu focuses more on tapas-type items, with a few larger plates. Andree and I were particularly enthused about the pollo Catalana, a dish of chicken stewed with plums. Spanish Diner--a quick walk from the Javits Center--will probably get another visit from me in June when I'll be in the neighborhood for the Summer Fancy Food Show.

pollo Catalana with patatas bravas in the background, at La Barra in Mercado Little Spain

Four out of one hundred restaurants seems a tad pathetic. I think I need to bring my list of personal visits to NY's Top 100 Restaurants up to at least ten. Let's see how many I can achieve! I'd love to go to Tatiana (#1), though I never find myself in that part of town. CheLi (#8) looks incredible, as does Shukette (#20). Yoon Haeundae Galbi (#59) is down the street from where I normally stay when I'm in NY, so that should be do-able. Same for Cho Dang Gol (#40). I'd like also to visit Great NY Noodletown (#37), Dirt Candy (#60), and Casa Mono (#24). Heck, I'd eat pretty much any place on that list!

Have you been to any of Pete's Top 100? Leave a comment and let me know!

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Stuffing My Face in New York - Day Two

I did and didn't eat as much on Day Two as I did on Day One. I ate fewer meals, but the sandwich I had for lunch was honestly enough food for the entire day. Read on.

My regular NY breakfast habit is a stroll down to Dominique Ansel Workshop in Flatiron. I've never been to the original bakery on Spring Street so have never eaten a Cronut. But I have eaten gingerbread croissants, pear tarts, canele, and kouign amann at his Workshop. This time I tried a coffee creme brulee pull-apart bun, made with the same laminated dough as most of his pastries, filled with a blob of coffee cream and topped with a wee creme brulee. Sweet, crispy, creamy deliciousness. I love that they serve La Colombe coffee, a brand out of Philly, and had one with some oat milk, which I sipped as I sat at an outdoor table and watched a crew of people unload what looked like pieces of a set from an enormous truck.

Daisy and I had both recently read about All'antico Vinaio, a Florentine import that opened last November on 8th Ave near Times Square. Though I had wanted to eat mostly Asian cuisines on this visit, after I looked at their menu, I was game for an Italian sandwich. La Paradiso, in particular, caught my eye--mortadella, pistachios, a pesto-like pistachio cream, and stracchiatella (fresh mozzarella soaked in cream) layered between slices of schiacciata, a bread that seemed the love child of focaccia and ciabatta. I thought we could share a sandwich, since these babies appeared to be around 8 inches square and 2 inches thick, but Daisy seemed shocked at the suggestion. We each ordered a sandwich and had them cut in half so we could share. Her choice was La Schiacciata Boss, with Tuscan ham, Pecorino, and truffle cream. Both sandwiches were stellar, with great bread, just crusty enough on the outside, and tasty fillings.  

top: Boss, bottom: Paradise

After that massive lunch, I just wanted a nap; instead we hopped on a bus for a trip to sniff fragrances downtown. We spent quite a bit of time at Mizensir, a narrow boutique filled with the creations of master perfumer Alberto Morillas. He is the creator of familiar fragrances like CK One, Acqua di Gio, and Marc Jacobs Daisy, as well as Must de Cartier, Penhaligon's Iris Prima, and Thierry Mugler Cologne. My rather vast collection of scents includes those last three, and may well include a Mizensir fragrance in the future.

At some point, Daisy suggested we stop for tacos, and I looked at her like she had three heads. I was still working off that colossal bologna sandwich! I did find enough room for a tiny bit of gelato from Gentile. I noticed that they had sorbetto flavored with chinotto, a variety of bitter citrus popular in Italy. Recently I sampled fragrances from Abaton, which specializes in scents made with the fruit, and was curious to taste it. To balance the icy sorbet, I also got some plain fior de latte gelato.

Later that evening, we stopped into the new Manhattan outpost of Nan Xiang, a Flushing, Queens favorite for xiao long bao, aka soup dumplings. Daisy chose the popular pork version of the dumplings, and I went for the Lucky Six combination platter that included pork, chicken, scallop and pork, pork and crab, pork and truffle, and gourd/shrimp/pork. While the oversized dumplings were tasty, the wrappers were somewhat uneven and doughy in places. Still, I enjoyed them, though I really didn't need any more food at that point.

It's amazing I got any sleep at all on this trip, with all the food I ate so late in the day. Perhaps my body was simply exhausted from all the digesting it had to do? Or maybe the 44,000 steps I walked in three days had something to do with it.

If you missed Day One, you can find it here.

Read about my sole meal on Day Three here.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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Stuffing My Face in New York - Day One

My eating adventures in New York have been a regular feature on Minxeats for years. Check out the posts found here, here, here, here, here, here, and so on. Neal and I always ate well when we visited NYC, but since I met my friend Daisy in 2017, food consumption has gone up quite a bit. When Daisy and I get together, we may have 2-3 full meals, a couple of snacks, and a stop for drinks in an 8-hour period. Now, it's not constant eating; we do pop into various shops and boutiques that seem interesting, and always make time to sniff perfumes. But still--it's a lot of food consumed in a relatively short amount of time.

On my most recent trip, I met up with Daisy at Golden Diner. It's located in Chinatown, and the location reflects on the otherwise typical diner-style dishes. I ordered the chicken katsu club, featuring tender chicken cutlets, red cabbage slaw, blt, and bulldog sauce on the typical myriad slices of toast. Daisy had the Chinatown egg & cheese sando, the NY standby, but with exceptionally fluffy eggs on a sesame scallion milk bun. Now that I peruse the menu again, I kinda wish I had ordered the Thai Cobb, partly because of the clever name but also because it sounds delicious. 

Let me backtrack a minute. The Golden Diner meal was at about 3:30pm on a Sunday. I had arrived in NY noon-ish, and after tucking my bags safely away with the hotel porter, I headed to a Thai restaurant near Penn Station called Random Access. I'd wanted to eat there for a while and had even made a reservation the last time I was in town, but plans changed.  This time, I was able to satisfy my curiosity about the place with an order of sriracha lime dumplings and an egg pancake. The former comprised steamed chicken dumplings with a spicy mayo, plus cilantro, red pepper, shallots, and coconut. The latter was a roti flatbread merged with an omelet, topped with squid, mussels, bean sprouts, kale, coconut, and a sweet sriracha sauce. Both dishes hit all the right spots, and were a flavorful contrast to the rather wan Thai food I had back home in Baltimore earlier in the week.

Now back to the Daisy-led Food-O-Rama.

We wandered around a bit before visiting Michaeli Bakery. We were there for donuts, but it was too late in the day and they didn't have much of a selection. Instead, we split a rugelach. The rugelach I'm familiar with are made with a sturdy cream cheese pastry and filled with nuts, jam, chocolate, or all of the above. This one was a tiny croissant-like pastry with a chocolate filling rolled into it. It was very good, if very different.

Our next stop was King Dumplings. It used to be a "dollar dumpling" joint when it opened a couple years ago, but now the price has gone up a few bucks. Ten really good pork dumplings for less than $5 is pretty amazing though. 

If you're counting calories, we're probably at 3500 so far.

Our next stop was Kopitiam, specializing in Nonya (Chinese Malay) cuisine. I wanted to try everything on the menu, but we settled on three dishes + dessert. We tried the Nyonya Bak Zhang, a dumpling of blue and white sticky rice with minced pork, mushrooms, winter melon, and salted egg, all wrapped in a mile of some sort of leaf (banana, I'm guessing). I was expecting something yummy like one of my favorite dim sum dishes, sticky rice in lotus. Sadly, the dumpling was cold and overcooked, the salted egg yolk was dried out, and the whole of it pretty flavorless. The tok tok mee made up for it, reminding me of chow fun with its wide noodles in a dark sauce studded with pork, shrimp, and other goodies. 

The pandan chicken was also tasty. The three triangular chicken meatballs were wrapped in pandan leaves and served with a sweet chili sauce.

Asian desserts are not French pastries, so I shouldn't have been surprised when one of the items we ordered was on the gelatinous side. The kuih talam was described as salted coconut milk over a pandan cake base. Yes, those were the flavors, but the "cake" was not the western-style flour-based cake that I expected. The kuih lapis was a "1000-layer" cinnamon butter cake, rather like a crepe cake or maybe a Smith Island cake, only without any frosting. Both desserts, I think, would make a great afternoon snack with some tea.

I opposed the idea of eating a burger next, so we parked ourselves at an outdoor cafe and enjoyed an adult beverage instead. There was plenty more to eat the next day.

* Any products in this post that are mentioned by name may have been provided to Minxeats by the manufacturer. However, all opinions belong to Minxeats. Amazon links earn me $! Please buy!

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