*beam* here von!
new york i: eatingday two in new york began late, but very sweet, in the form of magnificent apple turnover at the pastry shop that the columbia kids call the hungarian, which is not really hungarian at all but very pleasant and yen says quite pretentious, the sort of place where you're obliged to read a high-brow book *grin*. the apple turnover came as a large wonton of castor sugar and almond slices filled with very thick, sweet apple. we were supposed to breakfast quickly so that addy could get back to work on her thesis presentation and i could be on time for yeen teck, who was on his way back to philly from new haven. then addy and i got talking about this and that and when i finally got to grand central station i was 25mins late for yeen teck. i flew at him and swung myself around him about twice and cried sorry! sorry! i got lost! to mollify him before he could give me a lecture on punctuality. it worked, and was easier than, "well you see i only left columbia at - and there was no train (the whole time i was there, the train didn't stop at columbia, so had to get off 20 blocks away) - the apple turnover was too good - and we forgot the time - " and satisfied him because aiyah, country mice get lost in the city don't they. *grin* hopping on and off the train, and scurrying along in the rain with my pink umbrella (which kept turning over in the wind) feeling like one of those ya huans in period movies and having to shelter the shao ye going out, i follow yeen teck while he describes in great detail the frozen hot chocolate he was leading us to, to serendipity 3, where we were told there was a 45mins wait, which, seeing it was already 1.20, we went next door to cpk, for though su-lin will be outraged, no chocolate, however ambrosial, can make me miss my one chance to go to the nyc ballet. (it was wonderful too. they did jerome robbins' gorgeous i'm old-fashioned and balanchine's who cares, during which the man sitting beside me kept humming to the songs, which made me want to too! afterwards, walked around the new york state theatre floor by floor looking at the picture gallery of dancers and thinking how beautiful tanaquil leclercq was and wishing i could get a print of a particular photo.) over lunch, yeen teck gloated about his thesis plans, and divulged what kind of nefarious plot he and von had been planning to throw on me in charlottesville. haven't been in a cpk for at least two years, i think. shared a peking duck pizza and some thai chicken tortillas, which were not as good as i remembered them, and had to dash off an hour later so that i could be on time for yen at the ballet, yeen teck gallantly paid for lunch and we sped back to the subway station. (still with my dinky pink umbrella, which he offered to hold, but i said no because he was shorter than me. hee)
met addy after the ballet and after walking around and through the village (also past smalls which i'm very sorry not to have gone to) and finally coming to a small cosy italian restaurant called monte's. addy said she's previously avoided the place because she saw that there was linen on the table (i.e. probably not for poor students) but safety in numbers and very tired feet and a friendly owner urging us in we found cheap prices and homey food. addy had a very delicious lemony-doused sole and yen the chicken masala and i had tortolenni in a creamy sauce. charlotte church was playing the whole time we were there, and we were talking about how american friends find it very peculiar to share food. celine came over from nyu after dinner and we went down to caffe dante (heh) where by this time, faced with the most decadent dessert menu i've ever seen, (the kind with alluring photographs calculated to make the indecisive wail) there was a heavy squeezing pain in my stomach that made me woefully reject the menu for a pot of tea. finally, an hour and a half later, when i was able to breathe again, i was prepared to eat something light. for $6 you could get gelato. in a peach, a mandarin, or a lemon! it took me a lot of time to settle for the peach, but my anticipation was punctured when i saw the peach come from the freezer prepackaged in plastic bags (oh! oh!) and the peach container was frozen so hard you couldn't get the flesh off it. nonetheless the gelato was a lean smooth one and an eruption of peachiness on the tongue. very satisfying. monday noon, still elated (in a nervewrecked way) from meeting mike seidel (yes i did!) we arrived with my bags (which have now increased to four, including a box of jam cookies and 5 huge black and white cookies which i had to repack my bags for, that i got at the deli opposite addy's dorm) at saigon grill on amsterdam ave. for $4.95, the largest portion of vermicelli and satay chicken i've ever seen was placed in front of me (von it was about twice the size of the one we had at pho pasteur), had to ask for it to go at 1.20, being only a third of the way in and about to be late for my 2pm train at penn station (why is penn station called penn station?) ate the rest of it for dinner on the train back, when we were passing through maryland, to the envy of those around me. *beam*
haven't talked about day one, because it was virtually food-uneventful, or at least bad-food eventful. on the way up: an aggravatingly slow bus that took, disproportionally to the initial delay, an extra hour and fifteen minutes to arrive in dc, thus causing me to miss my express train. i had to go on the next train that was a) slower and b) was itself delayed even further. i didn’t get my lunch, which my one hour connection would have afforded, the result of which was my first encounter with the inedible sandwich on the train. tibor fischer's description of the inedible cheese sandwich in custody comes to mind quickly. and of course everyone knows that food sold in airports and on trains are generally overpriced and sawdust to the taste, but this was bad. it was as if all the bad sandwiches you’ve ever heard about that someone else had at some airport or other were just shadow-sandwiches, and here, this was the real, ideal platonic bad sandwich. otherwise there was a non-descript dumpling soup dinner at the korean restaurant across addy's dorm before yen and i left for la boheme. i'm absurdly hungry now.
