The Stylish Coat I was Never Allowed to Wear, circa 2005
What can I say about Hoi An, the UNESCO designated World Heritage Town? How about: “Deliciously relaxing, relentlessly sewing garment town?” I came to Hoi An in early 2005 and loved the town. I have to say it was one of the highlights during my travels through Vietnam. Despite the local’s efforts to persuade you to buy, buy, buy, the town seemed like a great place to relax.
Six years later, just as many garment shops line the streets, with all their employees inviting you come in to have something made. People selling tourist trinkets still demanded that you buy from them. Western tourists – young backpackers and older, package-tour travelers alike – still mostly outnumbered the Vietnamese in the old section of town. Little appears to have changed.
I don’t remember much from Hoi An the first time around except that I loved the food, I loved sitting by the river and looking at the boats, and I got a bunch of clothes made that I really didn’t wear much. My better half always made fun of one of my coats, so I donated it to the New York Cares Coat Drive. Now a needing New Yorker now has a pretty flash winter trench coat. I also donated most of the rest of the clothes I had made in Hoi An, but I do still use the stuff sacks.
This time, I didn’t really want any clothes made. I’d like to say it has to do with an intellectual stance that stems from a graduate degree in development, talking with visa applicants in the garment industry, and reading Pietra Rivoli’sThe Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, but really, it’s about being lazy. You would think that getting good clothes in Vietnam would be easy. Lots of the good stuff we wear in the US is made here, right? There are tailors everywhere begging you to let them make beautifully fitted garments for you. Your imagination is the limit.
Well, the global distribution chains preclude the good quality stuff from being available here in Vietnam. Those clothes are made for export. Many companies even buy the cast-offs so they don’t wind up diluting the brand image by being available overseas. And, then there’s the fact that I’ve done it once and remember the back and forth that goes with getting your clothes fitted – anything that isn’t super simple requires multiple fittings from people who really don’t care. How can you when you’ve got dozens of different people everyday coming through your shop? Well, OK, you can, but your pay is not determined by the perfect garment, rather the garment that gets that paying customer out the door and onto their next city. Because when you’re on holiday, what are the chances that you’re going to come back and complain? So quality, in general, and easy are kinda out.
Then you add in that I know that the person who made my shirt or jacket or coat earns about $200 per month, at most. More likely they earn about $150 a month. Yes, you read it correctly. One hundred fifty dollars. I have it on good authority – the workers themselves. A group from Da Nang came through and I asked each of them what they made. That’s what they told me.
So, when someone says a shirt will cost you $20, you know the worker who spends say 2 hours making that shirt gets somewhere between $1.40 and $1.90 of that $20. The rest is materials, rent, wages for the English speaking staff who took your measurements, and of course profit. As Pietra points out in her book, the girls in China who are working in textile factories are so much happier doing that in deplorable conditions than the alternative life they left on the farm, where mind-numbingly tedious repetitive tasks await them. It’s likely the same for the folks in the shops and garment factories where they work in Hoi An. Still, there’s something galling about the store-front person charging $20 when the person producing what I want doesn’t even see 10% of that.
So, with all this in mind, I was happy to just look, enjoy the clothes in the windows, enjoy the architecture of the old town, and soak in the little bit of sun we could get before the tropical depression arrived. And arrive it did. Before we get drenched, though, we got to do my favorite thing: eat. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, but eating is so much more pleasant when you’re not soaking wet.
My better half did a great job planning for the trip. She found a highly rated cooking class at the Morning Glory Restaurant. Let’s just say my faith in Vietnamese food has been revitalized by the delicious dishes we cooked. I don’t know much about traditional Vietnamese cuisine, but the heavy use of sesame seed and oil, as well as the “Chinese 5 spices” leads me to believe that Chinese traders in the town left their imprint in the cuisine as well as the architecture. Regardless of who can claim credit for the delicious cabbage soup, the to-die-for mango salad and barbeque chicken, or the bánh xèo, I ate it all and was very, very happy. The pace of the class was good, as were the portions of food. The only complaint is that the hard stuff – like some of the pastes and sauces – was already done for us. But, if that’s my only complaint and the plate below is just one of the things we made and ate … I’m fine with that.
Lunch
Back at the hotel, we rested and stayed out of the rain. For the money, the Hoi An Pacific Hotel was just fine. It was more expensive and lacked charm. It was a big Asian hotel. There’s not much more to say.
Bargaining with people was interesting. Now that I speak some Vietnamese, it’s a lot more interesting and challenging. It’s interesting because I can actually talk to them – a little. It’s challenging because in Hoi An, they speak with the “yuh” of the south. I would say something like “ow zai” and they would say “ow yai”. You think that’s not much, but through it into a native speaker’s mouth, at the native speed, add in some weak everyday life vocabulary of the listener (me), and you’ve got a real mind bender coming into your ears when all you wanted to know was how much this thing cost. It’s not a southern drawl to the New Englander’s ears, it’s a bit more like Spanish and Italian.
In talking and observing, I learned two things. First, the girl working at the state-run shop selling lanterns and stuff has a ninth grade education. She said her family had no money for her to continue school, so that was it. Where is the nearest Blue Dragons office? And why didn’t someone put her there? (Answer: Blue Dragons has the Hoi An Children’s Home that helps kids who would otherwise drop out of school, and I don’t know why she didn’t go to them.). What change can this girl see in her future? Marriage and kids. That’s about it. I know what makes me sad – it’s not her choice to work in that shop, it wasn’t her choice to stop going to school. She was born into a family that doesn’t have much money and she’s just stuck in that cycle.
The second thing I learned is that when you actually know what something costs, you’re much better at bargaining. Let’s go back to dress making. Marjie has a cute dress that she wanted replicated, except the dress is more like a Sunday outing dress than a work dress. If you just lengthen the skirt part below the knees, then you could. Easy, right? We walked into one shop and asked how much it would cost to replicate the dress. The employee said $55. I laughed, said we bought it for $12 in Hanoi, and we walked out.
This simply proves my point. We know what it cost to buy it off the rack. The other person didn’t. She took a wild guess for a price we might think is reasonable and came up way outside the bounds of what makes any logical sense given that we know about how much it should cost. Even when you add in a premium for tailor-fit clothes, you would think the cost shouldn’t get much higher than about $20. Oh well. Next trip, we might try to negotiate from the position of “This cost us $12 in Hanoi, can you make it for a competitive price?”
Though the 9th-grade dropout story makes me sad and the crazy prices of the shopkeepers irritates the crap out of me, I do love Hoi An. Good food, cool architecture, and best of all, my better half bought 10 small lanterns for $4. Now that’s a bargain.
This past Memorial Day, a team of folks flew down to Ho Chi Minh City to compete in the 2011 Mission Cup. The flight to Saigon (we can say that) was only about 2 hrs and came with a delicious meal of instant raman and fish – or pork. Though I poke fun at the food on the flight, at least they served it on a 2hr hop. Can you imagine a US airline these days offering you free bathroom privileges on a flight that short?
The Pack
But, I digress. There are few photos from the weekend because I packed light. I only had my 65 liter REI Flash backpack … No, it wasn’t full, but you’ve got to have the essentials. Changes of clothes, cleats, your uniform, stuff to read, a small bag of 1st Aid items (ibuprofin, moleskin, bandaids, and sports tape), etc. My only complaint about the pack is that the detachable top does not have a strap to convert it into something like a messenger bag you can sling over the shoulder.
But I digress, again. The whole point of the pack photo is to add visual appeal given that I didn’t bring my big camera down to HCMC and instead relied on my iPod for photographic masterworks. I took no photos at the game, took few photos of sights, and even fewer of food.
Despite the crushing, 3-0 loss, I had a good time in HCMC. Fortunately, I can claim I had no part in the loss because I was never on the field. Or perhaps that’s the reason. My nuclear-powered uniformed was not dirtied up by the diluvial rains that started as soon as the referee blew the starting whistle. Hence, my shining beacon of a uniform on the sidelines (and dug out to avoid said rains) blinded my teammates, prohibiting stellar displays of ball skills and team work. I don’t think the field turned swamp had anything to do with our loss, or the hometown refs. Not that the Tigers don’t deserve their victory … But we’ll get the cup back next year.
The game was not just a game. There was a banner, there were dragon dancers for our pep rally, there were cheer leaders for both sides, and there were supporters. Lots of folks flew down from Hanoi and lots of folks from the Consulate came out to support the teams. It was a fun festive atmosphere with the Tiger supporters wearing fun, light orange t-shirts with just enough black straps in the shape of a cat’s face to know it’s a tiger. Very cool. Too bad I don’t have a photo.
Aside from being drenched at the game – I only got a little wet at the game – I proceeded to walk all over the downtown area of District 1 for the next two days. I probably sweat out three hundred pounds of water. I know my shirts at times were as wet from walking around as my jersey would have been had I played in the rain. No, it wasn’t all that hot, just humid as all get out.
Impressions of the City
Saigon, as compared to Hanoi, is orderly, clean, cosmopolitan, and relatively easy to navigate. I make this bold pronouncement based on the tiny area I walked around this weekend. To be more precise, being in District 1 was a pleasure. People followed the traffic rules. The flow of traffic appeared to have rules that needed following. There were intersections with lights to regulate flow. And for the most part, traffic did flow.
Overall, it just felt like a cleaner place. The buildings were taller. They looked newer. Someone compared Saigon to LA – a big sprawling city. Perhaps it is. But, District 1 is still much more organized and pleasant to walk around than any part of Hanoi I’ve seen so far. I’d say Saigon is a little more like New York and Hanoi is a whole lot like DC.
Food
Elbow Room Interior
Loved it. I ate at a few amazing restaurants. La Brasserie, The Brick, The Refinery, and Elbow Room. So far, I haven’t eaten at restaurants with offerings like these in Hanoi.
Let’s start with La Brasserie. I don’t have a good address for the place, but I know I wound up eating there in District 1, not 7 (go to the website to see what I’m talking about). The point is, two of us went out looking for some pho. Someone pointed us down the road. We walked and didn’t see a whole lot that fit the bill until we turned down one street. We saw a sign for pizza and thought that would do – not pho, but close alphabetically at least.
Lovely ladies from the establishment next door tried to lure us in, but that was not the sort of thing either of us were interested in. The first clue we should have had when we stepped inside was cigar smoke. Yes. Cigars mean you’re in a classy place, so prices are not going to be pho prices. I about choked at the idea of a really expensive meal, considering I had $10 in my pocket and I was a little worried about how much I might spend the rest of the weekend on a trip to Can Tho. We sat down anyway. Good choice. My calzone was absolutely delicious and huge.
The crust was perfect, the tomato sauce on top was perfectly done, and the oregano flakes just added that final dose of realness to the whole thing. Not Fat Boy’s pizza. The other guy loved his spaghetti, too. Well worth the money and a propitious omen for other meals to be eaten this weekend.
The Calzone
Cuc Gach Quan (The Brick Cafe)
The next good meal was at The Brick. I could read the website and paraphrase it for you, but this was Vietnamese food at a delicious level. We had vegetarians in the group, so we had tofu bricks, morning glories, mushrooms, brown rice (yes, brown rice in Vietnam), as well as chicken, beef, and pork for the meat-needers. It was all good. What else can I say? The ambiance simply added to the ease with which the mojitos and conversation could flow. From the Mad Men fan (shown in this photo) to the cool arrangement of dishes and the dangerous (in wet weather) staircase up to the second floor, it was a night of food to remember.
Death by Chocolate, Elbow Room
I only ate a chocolate mousse at the Refinery, but the set-lunch menu looked great. Elbow Room had a great looking menu of American cuisine – burgers, wraps, pancakes, and dessert. I got the death by chocolate (on the right). It was a gooey-center of molten chocolate encased in a crusty cake shell. After a Santa Fe chicken wrap, this was the perfect way to end my Saigon culinary experience. Other folks had salads, burgers, and the pancakes. All left full.
Killing Time
I taught one of our local staff the phrase killing time. I did a lot of that in the city. Between meals, I figured it was a waste to sit in the guesthouse room. And it would have been. I did what I did when I spent 18 months on the road. I walked around, took in the sights, got my bearings, avoided the people trying to sell me crap or talk to me – “Where you get that hat?” (yes, I had my Pearlis adventure hat on) – and just let my mind wander in a way you can’t let your mind wander in Hanoi. If you mind wanders you wind up under a bus, car, or motorbike.
I didn’t have any where to be and no place I really wanted to go. I don’t need to buy stuff. I don’t need to see another big market with lots of crap mass-produced in China – though I did walk through Ben Thanh to kill time and check the box. And I don’t really care about the local historical sites – yeah, a cathedral in Saigon. So, I got to wondering, how the hell I spent 18 months on the road, doing this day-in, day-out. I moved from hostel to hostel, carried a crap ton of stuff, and just kept going. Youth? I don’t know. All I know is that after just a few hours of aimless wandering and a little too much coffee, I was ready to be back somewhere to relax and read while not sweating profusely and not having to listen to crap music.
Perhaps I’m old and soft, but I don’t think so. OK, well, I’ve definitely gone soft – sitting does that to a person – but I think I’m just less inclined to be places I’m not thoroughly thrilled to be. My time is important to me and so I want to spend it doing what I want to do. Trying to kill time, anywhere, isn’t really something I want to do.
So, there you have it. A long ass piece about a few days in Saigon where is rained a lot, I ate a lot, and I walked a lot. I’ll be happy to go back whenever I get the chance.
This past weekend was my first weekend in Vietnam. My sponsor at the embassy invited me to join the family on an afternoon trip to the Bat Trang pottery village. Now, any of you who know me at know, must know it’s killing me not to write Bat Trang properly. But I’ve been lazily avoiding any real upgrades to the website and blog because that would require effort. Right now, I’m keeping efforts to a minimum …
Need two giant vases? No problem.
I digress. The Bat Trang village was great and the usual all wrapped into one great big tourist attraction. What was great? Seeing the motorcycle driver getting ready to deliver two huge vases to someone. There were also some very interesting pieces of pottery. I’ve got patters I like posted on the flickr site, but you can get a good idea of what’s there by going to Pearl River Market (in NYC) or a Chinese shop in any other country. Marjie said she read somewhere that the village has been flooded with cheap, mass-produced crap from China. Someone else I met said that the Delicious pottery place, yes Delicious is apparently the name, has unique pieces and small sets made by a real Vietnamese potter. So, next time I go to Bat Trang, I’ll have to check Delicious out.
All that is wrong with tourist traps...
What’s horrible? Let me show you. It is all the squirrel and dog statuary that is available for purchase. I mean maybe we could use a squirrel on our balcony, but maybe Marjie and I just found a good wedding present for Billy and Clare. Be on the lookout youngins.
So, it’s easy to poke fun at these pieces obviously aimed at Western tourists. The real joke is that after you buy the thing, you have to transport it or pay extra to have it shipped.
I didn’t buy anything. I figure Marjie will want to come visit and I know our tastes tend to run at opposite ends of the spectrum. My man-cave/room already has too many items from previous travels to be immediately inundated with new purchases from my first few jet-lagged days in Vietnam. Besides, if we missed the Delicious shop, then we definitely need to go back to look for art, which would absolutely be worth buying!
After visiting the pottery village, we stopped at the artist village, just down the street on the way back to Hanoi. There was more of the same sort of pottery in a more scenic setting (photos on Flickr). Because it was more tourist friendly – cafe on the lake – it was also more expensive to buy the pottery. Though I didn’t take a photo of it, one of the recurring pieces was an attractive Vietnamese woman on all four, looking back a little with a Mona Lisa like smile while her pants were falling down to expose the top of her butt. I can understand who buys a pottery squirrel, but who buys a slightly suggestive porcelain woman? It was very odd.
Like it?
The best part of the artist village was the flower I found. There was a neat path of concrete circles in a pond of water plant. It wasn’t really a pond, more like a 4 or 6 inch pool, but the effect was neat. This flower poked up through the green plants. Though my photos might not do the flower justice, the flower definitely made it worth the trip.
Would I recommend visiting the village. Yes. If you want to get some pottery and dishware made in Asia (most likely Vietnam, but potentially China, too) then definitely come visit. If you want some sort of unique cultural experience, well, perhaps this isn’t the place, unless seeing what a tourist-focused town looks like is a unique cultural experience in your book.
To end it all, I quickly edited a 30-second clip of the car ride back to Hanoi. There’s nothing really special (other than the music (Cette Planette, Club Sushi Remix by JP Juice that I heard when I was in LA), but I thought you might like to see a little of what suburban sprawl looks like in Vietnam.
So, this post is about two difficult things. First, there’s learning Vietnamese. As if learning the tonal language for a tone-deaf person like myself weren’t hard enough, the continuation of my study is a series of one-on-one sessions with a few different teachers for 5 hours each day. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to focus on a foreign language for 5 hours a day, but it’s really hard. There’s no one to lean on. No Adam, Tree, or Claire to listen to while I think of what to say or lean on while they figure out what the teacher said so I can just copy their response. Nope, in the one-on-one it’s you and the teacher. Of course it’s a lot more learning time, but there is no room to hide. If you don’t prepare and you don’t study, they’ll know it.
I did enjoy my day, though. Cô Quyên is very nice. I have two other teachers that I should meet the rest of this week. No funny stories from language training, just a full brain.
The other thing that’s harder than you think is finding a place to eat. For a tortured, tone-deaf soul like myself who spent quite some time backpacking around places like Vietnam, you would think that finding food places should be easy. I used to eat every meal out. But something seems different this time around. I think it’s more of a thought about hygiene and what’s in the food. Where have the clams come from? That disgusting lake with lots of pollution? That doesn’t sound terribly tasty. Then there’s the question of where they get the water they use to wash their pots and pans, or even cook the food in. As the questions about how clean the stuff is mount, I realize it’s been a long, long time since I was a cautiously adventurous backpacker. I console myself with the observation that this is only day 5 of a roughly 760 day adventure; perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. But, the once-more-adventurous backpacker in me thinks I should be eating at all the local places instead of going to nicer restaurants.
A little Pho gà on the street
So, last night, I finally sat down at the street side pho place (can’t write it properly with WordPress). It’s about two blocks from my apartment. I picked it because there were a lot of people there. Delicious. As seen by this photo. The meat was all white, no grizzle, and the broth was quite tasty. I was happy and satisfied to have been on the street. I think they overcharged me a bit for the pho, but I’m not really going to haggle over a dollar if it tastes good, is better quality than other places and I don’t get sick.
Today, I continued the eating on the seat of my pants trend and let myself be talked into a bun cha place. I was walking from the language class back to the office and I was starving. There were a bunch of teenagers encouraging passers by to come into the restaurant to eat. I had already been thinking about bun cha, so I let myself be stopped. Then I let myself be led to a seat. As soon as I sat down and immediately a bowl of dipping sauce, grilled meat, rice noodles, and other vegetables all appeared. Delicious.
Of course, bun cha is grilled pork, which I knew in the back of my mind before my teacher confirmed it after lunch …. So … Oops. Doesn’t make it any less delicious, just not what I had hoped the meat would be. The ground pork is grilled to a blackened crispy exterior, then lovingly slopped into the bowl of sweet vinegar sauve that you drip (or dump) your noodles into. Now that was really delicious. No photos of my bun cha, but it’s so close to the office, I suspect I’ll be back there.
So, to find street food is a harder than you think when you don’t know anything about quality, you don’t really know what you want, and there are so many options to choose from. Wait until you come visit and you can see for yourself!
We went to the Sea Pearl restaurant this past weekend because one of our friends had recommended. It’s out in Merrifield, VA. I thought it was an Asian Fusion cuisine, but apparently I can’t read. The website clearly says that Sea Pearl serves modern American cuisine with a California flare. More important than all of this is what’s on the menu.
I ordered the Lemon Ricotta Pancakes … simply amazing. They weren’t too heavy, but were pretty rich and deliciously sweet with the distinct lemon flavor that made me eat the whole stack. Marjie ordered an Egg’s Benedict with smoked salmon over a bagel. Um, delicious doesn’t really go far enough to describe it. The eggs had the perfect amount of run and mixed deliciously with the salmon and bagel.
I highly recommend the place and look forward to going back for another round of pancakes.
So, this weekend we might have gotten a bit extravagant with the choice of restaurant we went to, but it was worth it. Marjie and I went to Asiate to celebrate something special. We got the 7 course chef’s tasting menu. I had mine paired with wine. Unfortunately, I’m writing this post about 5 months after the meal, but I still remember it.
What was most memorable? I don’t like seviche, but one of the first courses had a crab meat seviche where lime juice did the seviche-ing. Amazing. There was also a buckwheat noodle with tiny egg course that was similarly delicious. With each course, I had a different wine or sake. By the time we got to course 4, Marjie tapped out. She couldn’t eat any more. Not one to waste food, I ate all of the remaining courses. Needless to say, this gluttony was rewarded with the need to stop on a bench near the Waldorff Hotel on our way to the Metro. Or maybe we took a cab. After all that wine and with such a full stomach, it was a long, long, long time before I was able to go to think about anything else.
Yes, A-100 is only 5 weeks long and it’s 2.2 weeks since we graduated. Life always gets busy. Rather than lots of boring details, let me give you the broad overview of the past couple weeks.
First, the briefing pace never let up. Some were excellent, others were not. We learned about Afghanistan policy, USAID, diplomatic history, cable writing, how to hand questions from challenging audiences, to reclaiming the torch of knowledge from the titans. OK, maybe we were not all prometheans, but we did participate in an off-site leadership exercise. The off-site was quite a bit of fun and provided tons of opportunities to bond.
Second, I signed on with Trident MMA down in Dale City. I only get to go twice a week, but I love the Filipino Martial Arts and Thai Boxing that I get to do down there. I highly recommend the place if anyone is on the market.
Third, I’ve been eating food. Enough said. I finally ate at a place called Ravi Kabab on Glebe Rd. Amazing Pakistani food. I’ve had both the lamb and chicken kebab lunch and both are delicious. I highly recommend the place to anyone in the area.
Fourth. In case you missed the headline on the front page, Marjie and I are being posted to Hanoi, Vietnam. We ship out some time in the Spring of next year. I’m going to be a consular officer. Yeeha!
Finally, that’s it for this update. Not too much else to report. I’ll start Vietnamese language class in September. Aside from the basic consular course in July, life is pretty relaxed and focused on how to be useful when I get overseas.
Tonight, I put together a red bean sauce, using the base recipe from crockpot.com. I started it last night around 7pm. It began to smell super delicious right around the time I wanted to sleep. The intoxicating aromas made me think about eating, rather than sleeping. The night began restlessly, then moved to down right maddening when the bubbling sauce caused the lid of the Crock Pot to rattle, incessantly, at 4am. Never again will I cook the red bean sauce overnight.
That said, it was delicious. I put it over brown jasmine rice and devoured it. Wow! What was in this deliciousness?
1 red onion
1 green pepper
3 stalks celery
3 tbs chopped garlic
1 package chicken andouille sausage
1 lb red beans (boiled for 10 min, left to soak for 60min, and rinsed)
25 oz beef broth
2 cups water
Emeril’s Creole seasoning for flavor (needed more)
Today was a delicious day. It began with a peanut buttered flat bread and coffee for breakfast. Although not necessarily considered one of the world’s greatest culinary delights, I thoroughly enjoy it as a morning starter.
The real fun, though began with the food tour. In October 2008, when my mom came to visit, I signed us up for a food tour through the UVa Club. We did a dessert and wine tour around the 70s on the Upper West Side. The company that provided the guides and was City Food Tours. We enjoyed it so much, I thought it would be great to go on another.
Fast forward to today and I’m on a tasting tour of the Lower East Side. It’s the place of immigrants. Early in the history of the city, it was farm land, but soon after the Revolutionary War, it began to become a merchant’s district. In the mid 19th century, the successive waves of immigrants seemed to find their way to the dilapidated tenements that characterized the area and left their ethnic imprint.
Although we saw quite a bit of Chinatown’s spillage into the Lower East Side, Nicole pointed out quite a few Jewish places that show the Old World past of the businesses and neighborhoods.
The Doughnut Plant
We began the tour with the Doughnut Plant. I’m not really a big donut fan, but these are made with fresh, organic, homemade ingredients. Apparently the creme brule donut is to die for. The owner spent a couple months perfecting the donut. We had pistachio donuts and cranberry jam filled donuts. They were light, sweet, and delicious. When we finished, I didn’t have any of the heavy feeling I usually get after thinking about eating a Dunkin Donut.
From there, we moved to the Bialy place, Kossar’s. I’d never heard of a bialy, much less tried one, before I moved here to New York. They are similar to a bagel, but not quite. They are not boiled before they’re baked, they don’t have a hole in the center, and usually there is a sprinkle of real onion in the middle. The result is a tasty treat – when well done – that hits the spot. Not too heavy, not to light.
Pickles!
Next stop was the Pickle Guys. I’m not really a pickle fan; I enjoy a good relish like everyone else, so I wasn’t terribly excited. Still, how do you expand your horizons without trying something new? Nicole, our guide, gave us three varieties of pickles – a new pickle, a sour pickle, and pickled carrots. The carrots were soaked in vinegar and had a heated kick to them. They were my favorite. The pickles were cucumbers soaked in the brine solution for varying lengths of time. The full sour pickle has soaked the longest and tasted, well, sour. Imagine that. The new pickle tasted more like a salty cucumber.
We wandered north, toward Houston Street, where we stopped for a coffee at the Roasting Plant. There a former Starbucks executive, and manufacturing engineer, had designed a machine to roast, grind, and brew your coffee to order. Guatemalan coffee too light and the Yirgacheffe too bold? No problem, just ask the staff to mix them to your preference. The system looks like a 1980′s sci-fi mail chute with the vacuum tubes that connect the roaster to the storage spots to the grinder. Still, you have to admit, the coffee was delicious. I would highly recommend a visit, paired with a tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, to kick start your day.
Coffee!?!?
After the Roasting Plant, we went to Piada for a sandwich. I had La Dolce Vita, which is bresaola, parmigiano, and arugula. There was also a balsamic vinegar to give it a little umpf. Delicious. No two ways about it. Simple and delicious. We chased the sandwich with a chocolate bon bon from the Cocoa Bar.
It was a great morning with beautiful weather – sunny and mostly above freezing – that complimented the gastronomic delights we sampled. I highly recommend this tour – Nicole was a great guide – not only for the food, but also the wander through the ancient history of New York.
So, with all this in mind, I was happy to just look, enjoy the clothes in the windows, enjoy the architecture of the old town, and soak in the little bit of sun we could get before the tropical depression arrived. And arrive it did. Before we get drenched, though, we got to do my favorite thing: eat. Not that the two are mutually exclusive, but eating is so much more pleasant when you’re not soaking wet.
