Alice’s Tea Cup October 25, 2008

My friend Ying Ying and I went to Alice’s Tea Cup today. I really like tea houses because they always have yummy food and yummy tea. We went to the East 64th St. location. While it was quite small with not much to look at, the food was great. The service was decent and there were a lot of waitstaff though our waitress kept forgetting what peopled ordered because she didn’t write things down – I saw this happen twice. Since there was a party upstairs and only a couple of tables downstairs, go early or be prepared to wait. I put my name down at 11am and got seated pretty quickly, they’ll even call your cell phone when a table becomes available.

Pumpkin scone, banana chocolate chip scone, and cream with raspberry preserves.

Tea with a kitty drip catcher. Isn’t it so cute?! That little thing by itself is $10!!

We shared a scones with tea ($10) and had the pumpkin scone and banana chocolate chip. I ordered the Symphony tea which was a strawberry and chocolate flavored Indian black tea. Wasn’t too impressive. The pumpkin scone was to die for! More cakey than scone like but full of pumpkin flavor and lightly spiced. I didn’t care for the banana chocolate chip flavor but the texture was great. Ying Ying ordered a peach and flower Bellini ($12) but it didn’t taste so good to either of us.

Half finished french toast.

For our main dishes, I ordered the Alice’s Special French Toast ($9) and Ying Ying had a Ham and Gruyere Crepe ($12) with mixed greens salad (no pic because she wanted to eat haha). Both our dishes were delicious and cooked perfectly! My french toast was SO good but I was actually full from the scones so I took half of it home. Crispy, soft, warm, sweet, flavorful, and covered in fresh berries. The savory crepe was a nice change from all the sweets and tasted wonderful.

Isn’t Ying Ying so cute? =D

Next time I go, I’m going to have to try their cupcakes and maybe a burger and of course, more tea! Who wants to go with me?

Oh and then we went and bought a car!! Ying Ying’s newest car is a Honda Civic in sexy black. Very nice.

Reviews: Otafuku and Podunk! September 28, 2008

I finally got to go out today and spent the day exploring two new restaurants and shopping at Union Square with two of my friends, Ying Ying and Mou. It was a lot of fun and I liked both restaurants so I recommend them to you! I definitely want to visit these again. Too bad the weather was humid and rainy. We even walked through a street fair along Broadway but I didn’t bother taking my camera out in the rain.

We first went to Otafuku for a snack (breakfast for me.. it was 1pm). Otafuku specializes in Japanese street food and offers a very limited menu of yakisoba (seafood fried noodles), takoyaki (octopus balls – also in plain or cheese), okonomiyaki (pork, beef, shrimp, squid, corn w/ scallion), edamame, some drinks and some desserts. The food ranges from $3 to $8 excluding drinks and dessert.

Here’s Ying Ying enjoying her $1 iced barley tea on the one and only bench outside the restaurants. There isn’t any seating inside. Mou is inside ordering.

There is very little space inside and they don’t like you staying in the restaurant to wait. They make you wait outside once you’ve placed your order and paid. Here’s the dude filling the giant takoyaki pan with batter. You can see the okonomiyaki (savory pancakes with cabbage and meat) being fried in the front.

Close up of the dude putting the second layer of batter on top of the octopus filling. They later flip the balls over with a stick but I missed it. Crappy pic because it’s dark inside.

Here’s a half eaten picture of Combo B – 6 octopus takoyaki and 1 order of shrimip okonomiyaki. It takes 10 minutes for them to cook the pancake. Mou got his takoyaki much faster than us because those were made from the last batch. Everything was smothered in a tangy dark sauce, mayo and bonito (fish flakes). Yum. Combo B was $8. It was a filling snack.

After that we walked around the fair and shopped at 14th Street. By then it was around 4pm and we were dead tired so we walked all the way back to 5th St to have some tea.

We went to Podunk, a quaint little tea house run by a quaint little old lady. I loved the place, the small room was full of old fashioned memorabilia and had a mismatched assortment of picnic-y tables and chairs. Most seated only 2 people while there was a party of like 6 by the door when we entered. The place filled up quickly after that.

Counter where you place your order. There’s no wait service here, you order, pick up your things, bring it back and pay after you’re all done.

View of the rest of the room from our table by the counter.

I had the Nibbler Tea which was $16 for one person (different price if shared). It included cheddar crackers, apricots stuffed with Gorgonzola cheese, spiced cookies, mini scones, mini apples, clotted cream, apricot jam, and what I believe to be fig jam with herbs (not sure). The pot of tea was included and I went with the recommendation of apricot tea. Oh my goodness this was fun to eat. The jams and cream were absolutely delicious. And the tea was divine.. with sugar and cream as well as without.

Ying Ying had the Cream Tea which was maybe $12 or $14? I forget. Hers included scones, mixed berries, straberry and apricot jams, clotted cream and grapes. She also went with the recommend tea of ceylon (being poured in the background).

Picture of the tea with sugar, cream and lemons. Not pictured was Mou’s peppermint tea in a blue pot.

The teas are around $5 to $8 for a personal order if I remember correctly. They have a large tea menu with iced teas as well. Also several “teas” that include food and tea going up to $25. Everything isn’t cheap but since everything is hand made and presented so beautifully, it’s worth the experience. The owner is polite and doesn’t rush you at all to leave at all (though she did seem to get annoyed when she called an order out and the girl on the cellphone didn’t go pick it up). My order didn’t come with the chocolate truffle as mentioned in the menu so we asked about it and she said they ran out. So she let us choose any replacement! We got a pretty pink frosted cupcake. We also asked for more water in the teapots and she had no problems refilling them. The tables are first come first serve though so get there early if you don’t want to wait.. I think people usually stay for a long while once they’re there. I’m still craving some apricot tea.. and now I must buy my own cute little teapot. ^_^

Franchia Vegetarian Tea House August 23, 2008

I met up with two of my good girl friends today for lunch at Franchia (34th St. and Park Ave). One of my friends is a hotelie graduate so she always picks the yummy restaurants. My other friend is vegetarian so we decided to try out Franchia which is a vegetarian Korean tea house. It was a really nice experience. Very relaxing decor and music. I loved the hanging linen fabric sheets near the entrance and the intricate wooden ceiling in particular. There is outdoor cafe style seating and seating indoors in a cool three level style that allows for openness yet still private.

Dishes range from around $8 to $20 or so and the teas and specialty drinks range from $5 to $10 or so. I had the Penang stir fried noodles with “beef” ($10) and a Green Tea Tealatta ($6). Both were delicious and portioned just right. The noodles reminded me of the typical Chinese chow har fun dish but with thinner rice noodles cooked just right (not mushy and had a nice bite). The faux beef looked very realistic and was a nice texture though it lacked a bit in flavor. The bean curd pieces that was also included were tasty. The tealatta was really good – cold, sweet, slightly creamy, and made from real tea leaves. I also shared a Crispy Tofu Skin sushi and that was really good too. Great flavor and very fresh.

My hotelie friend went for the 5-course pre-fixe with a seaweed soup, 2 appetizers (3 dumplings and 3 “chicken” satay sticks), entree with fried tofu, pumpkin and other items with brown rice, and finally dessert of soy ice cream (butter pecan I believe) and choice of tea. She tried 2nd-pick green tea (whatever that means.. Franchia offers tea classes). My vegetarian friend went for ramen noodle soup with “lobster” balls because she was feeling under the weather. She also had a white peony tea with honey. She said she couldn’t taste the honey but loved the restaurant.

Afterward, we took a peak at the gift “shop” which is really just a shelf on the wall with really nice tea cups, tea sets and tea. Oh yeah, you can even order things to go. We all decided we must go again to try more of their menu. Overall it was a really relaxing lunch with good food and good friends. 5-stars.

Since I forgot my camera (smacks fore head), all I can leave you with is a picture of the soy ice cream that I found on the internet.