The forecast for Valentine's Day was brutal and we all knew it, but people still went on their dates and spent their day like any other day. New Yorkers really don't give a shit about the cold unless it's a blizzard warning. That's when Trader Joe's shelves looks empty as fuck. This Valentine's Day is probably my most memorable and most likely the best one I've ever had.
My friends and I seem to have this thing for going out on extremely cold days. We had dim sum one time at a very windy Flushing at low thirties. Then we went to Mitsuwa in the winter another time at 29 degrees. This time, we hit a new low. 19 degrees, but you know the drill, feels like negative 2. Why are you out in the cold?? Shouldn't you be at home?? That seems to go out the other ear every time.
Our main goal that day was to get food. I had nothing to do anyways and what better to do than to celebrate Valentine's than with a best friend. Friendships are very easily the most neglected thing on Valentine's Day. Most attention is shifted onto romantic love because it generates most revenue for businesses, but don't take friends and family for granted. These are important relationships in your life as well. You better treasure these bonds while you can. I mean where else can I find a friend who is willing to eat with me in the freezing cold?
We agreed on Yuca Bar the night before for brunch. I was down for it. I never had brunch before so now would be a good time to try it. The menu looked very appetizing. $12 for most plates. A dollar or two dollars more for a la carte items. All sides are $5. I got myself a yuca benedictos for $12. My friend got arepas benedictos for the same price and we both shared a plate of yuca fries for $5. For those unfamiliar with yuca, it's this large shrub with brown waxy skin. It may be known to you as cassava or tapioca. I never had yuca, but I would always see it in my supermarket. As a fry, it has an even more viscous texture than potato. It makes me wonder how it held its shape when it was fried. It melts in your mouth. Served with a chopped cilantro oil mix, the yuca fries are a delight. It tastes even better with ketchup.
Our coffee that day was served strong. I am always a kid when it comes to coffee so my cup is loaded with cream and sugar. When I had my second cup, the coffee was way too bitter, left on the burner for way too long. It's nice to know that they serve turbinado sugar and the eggs here are organic. Our plates arrived and they dominated our table, literally. The tables were small to begin with and the plates were huge. If we had ordered another plate ... well we had to leave our stomachs room for something else. Yuca benedictos is poached egg with hollandaise on top of guacamole, yuca hash browns, and baby shrimp. Wow, it was an eye opener for me.
Raw eggs is always on my list of things I don't eat. Poached eggs naturally would be on the same list. However I decided that day to try it. The whites are cooked so it shouldn't have that raw smell that I don't like. I pierced the egg with my fork and watched the yolk run over the hash browns. I gave it a try. Hmm I'm beginning to understand why people love it so much. It's the creaminess that people enjoy. With a fresh egg, you also enjoy the fragrance of the egg itself. Ok, I guess it wasn't a bad experience. Yuca hash browns are a great substitute for potato hash browns. Its fibers though are really strong. The baby shrimp cooked with red peppers tasted fresh. On the large white plate, the meal looks small, but it was actually quite filling. The hollandaise is actually really light and you can adjust by adding salt, which was what I did. Not too overpowering and saturated for a brunch.
After Yuca Bar was our next stop, Veniero's. Yes, we were going to have cake. What can I say? We love food. It was a short walk, but the windchill made it painful to work. Even after bundling yourself with layers, having wind hit your face did feel like knives slicing your skin apart. Veniero's was fairly empty when we came in. It was probably just hitting 1pm, but in half an hour it became packed. I got myself a raspberry mousse cheesecake for $5.25 and English breakfast tea for $3. Raspberry mousse was not too sweet. Cheesecake was on point. Ganache was nice and thick. We stayed for a long time and I thought it would be our last stop for the day. But the sun hasn't set and we were still walking places.
And as the hours passed, we walked to more places, store after store. It's like each time we walked into a store, another store caught our eye. We visited Broadway Panhandler and Astor Wines and Spirits again. We also walked into Sunrise Mart for the hell of it to see what interesting groceries we could get. I grabbed a free copy of Chopsticks NY. The frozen takoyaki was looking good and cup ramen was cheap. We even walked into M2M to see their selections. That's when I learned that there were canned silkworms. Oh damn, the more you know. By the time we decided we really needed to go home, it was 5pm. We had been out for nearly an entire day. Goddamn. How the hell did we survive this?
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