The Wandering Eater

I am very well aware most of you are still visiting my site for updates…and well, you know I’m not doing it that often. I apologize for not doing much just because I’m working (as I hope most of you know) and the area where I’m working at lacks any good food that doesn’t warrant my efforts on posting. So, there’s my reasons for not updating so often. I’m sorry and I thank you for my fans out there who still check on my site constantly. Did I mention I love you for doing that? If I haven’t, I LOVE you!

Onto the food…as I’ve mentioned earlier, I don’t eat out that much which means, I’m baking/cooking more often. So, I ended up baking a batch of walnut brownies from on Ina Garten’s Outrageous Brownies. And boy, aren’t they awesome…

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I want to apologize for not writing in a looong time. I’ve been stressed with work at the office I’m working at and my Internet connection was down for the past two and a half days. Both are long stories that I would like to spare you from reading.

Okee…moving on. Last Friday, I went to Takashimaya, a Japanese owned, gorgeous, luxurious boutique store on Fifth Avenue (and yes, I know their site is in Japanese). I go there just because of their tea shop in their basement, not the other stuff.

Anyhow, since it’s past 3 PM they were serving tea. After being seated in the small, earth-toned café, I perused their tea menu. The usual suspects for tea are there: pastries, tea sandwiches and cookies, along with their well known teas. I ended up ordering their “East-West Afternoon Tea” ($18) and I asked the waitress for a recommendation of what tea would go along with this set (the tea is included). Since I told her I wasn’t feeling for green tea (I’ve been drinking it for ages at home), she recommended me the Takashimaya Rose black tea, and that’s what I’ve ordered.

Cup of rose tea

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Last week, technically last Friday, was my dad’s birthday. I was a bit belated in celebrating his birthday since I was working that day and all I said to him was, “Happy Birthday.” What I did to make up for the lack of presents or anything to commemorate the day of his birth was to bake for breakfast. Yep, he loves bread and sweets as much as I do except he doesn’t love chocolate like my mom does.

Anyways, I ending up baking a batch of vanilla sugar encrusted, grapefruit-cranberry muffins and about two dozens of my interpretation of the traditional mantou. To my readers who are bakers, the recipe for the muffins will be at the end of the post.

Cranberry confetti on the batter; yellow hue from the zest sitting in the milk

Plate o’ muffins for dad…

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I recently visited the city for lunch with my friend Dave. We ate lunch, or least I did when we stopped by to Gray’s Papaya for their hot dog…or is it a frankfurter?

Interior

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I know there’s a huge gap of time between my dinner at Alta and what happened on last Friday. The reason is that I’m working in Queens. Yes, I know it’s the U.N. sitting in one borough but the area where I’m working at is near a mall…and the food scene seems very depressing to say the least.

Moving on to last Friday…I have planned a huge outing for most of my close friends, most of them are from St. John’s and there’s Ariel who was the newcomer of the bunch, but he’s cool in my book. What I originally planned was inviting these people to see the first concert at South Street Seaport’s Music Festival, since I’m a fan of the Animal Collective and have dinner afterwards nearby the Seaport. I left work early that day and I had some time to snack on a couple of things, particularly with the fact that I received an email from La Maison du Chocolat at Rockefeller Center, that they were selling ice cream!

My scoop of caramel ice cream

Close up of ice cream (more…)

I have heard soo many great things from foodies about Alta that I was dying to go there for the past few years. The two things that held me back was the fact that they only serve dinner and I don’t have anyone to eat out with me. That’s until I went there a few weeks ago, my friend Dave was willing to come along with me.

Entrance to Alta

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I’m still waaay behind on posting my fooding since I’m still stuck with last week and this week is ended…eh. I’m sorry. It’s just my day job is killing me with stress and I’m tired therefore the lack of writing. Moving on…

Last Wednesday, I went to the Financial District for Dine Around Downtown.

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