a surprise midweek jaunt into the city put me once again outside the plexiglass lockers at breadtop, looking in. the buns sat there, glowing a faint green… and then i bought them, finally.
a single hefty green tea melon bun, and a bag of six little green tea buns, filled with red bean paste.
the green tea melon bun — where the melon refers not to a flavour, but the crisscross pattern on the surface of the bun — has all its flavour concentrated in the crust. you crunch through this sturdy green armour to get to a plain yeasty sweet bun beneath. it’s like kogepan’s friend, melon-pan, come to life! a life that sadly came to an end after dinner wednesday night, washed down with a pot of jasmin green tea. mmm…
the next morning, a green tea-red bean bun fulfilled its destiny. this bun had green tea flavour (and colour) all through the soft dough, and contained just the right amount of sweet red bean mash.
the next morning, the kid and i, and another kid and her mum, trundled down the street in the rain, to about life, again! clearly i am deluded about the amount of money i’m earning with my high-flying, stay-at-home mothering, extremely-part-time graphic designer job (except, i’m not, because i just calculated my entire year’s earnings for my tax return, and even though i thought i was doing more paid work than last year, i actually ended up with less money! sucks when that happens!)
but my $9 bowl of mushroom soup made it all better. up on the chalkboard it said “cream of mushroom soup”, but after interrogating the countergirl to find out if there were actual mushroom bits in it, i was delighted to receive an enormous bowl of pureed brown mushrooms, with mushroom bits, slices even, all the way through.
maeve ended up eating most of the oversized inside-out unagi maki that i’d thought we’d share. it was a splendid vision in the glass case, its outer layer made up of artfully sliced avocado and seaweed sprinkles. it came with a salad of lightly dressed rocket leaves, and a little receptacle of wasabi and soy sauce fish.
we are thinking of moving in.
8 Comments
do it!
i went back on tuesday morning for the smoked salmon omlette – it was so very tasty.
it must have been your week with all this green food.
which reminds me i need to do my tax too.
once upon a time you were going to move into donuts luncheonette on seventh avenue in park slope, brooklyn! none of these options is my flat!
deb: hmm… despite all this green food, i have still managed to come down with my fourth cold of the season. where am i going wrong??
also, clearly we are the about life tag team. when i returned on thursday, i availed myself of more 2-for-1 organic chocolate. perhaps you will be in there next week for a bowl of mushroom soup? 😉
nellie: if you had started your tart regime earlier, it may not have come to this, and i might have been typing this from the very edge of your kitchen table, where the signal is strongest. we would have cups of muji chocolate-orange tea, and a dish of cider truffles. ch.
you need some chicken soup! i’ll see if i can make some in time for friday!
actually i’m hoping to convince the boy to drive me there tomorrow… to get more chocolate. suprisingly he liked the cherry + dark chocolate … quite good for someone who doesn’t like cherries.
i’m sure there’ll be some nourishing tea that will heal me… chicken tea? anyway, it is my plan to be all healed by then anyway.
yeah, the g+b chocolate bar was better than i thought. somehow i’d had something of theirs a while ago and was somewhat underwhelmed. nellie can probably attest to this, maybe, but that might set this conversation off on who knows what tangent. 🙂 in fact, i didn’t get the milk with three nuts bar first time round, but on thursday i got one of each.
my chocolate dish is empty; it is time for you to return.
i don’t remember what the story is with the g+b chocolate. is there one? ok lah! you were unimpressed. but that is because we kept spoiling you with the maison du chocolat chocolates and the fortnum & mason chocolates.
oh. maybe it was just you were saying that everyone in london was mad for it (like cows), and maybe you were unimpressed that it was the only option when what you really wanted was the scharffen-berger. or something? S.L.S.
oh good. perhaps i was just looking for a reason to make the chicken and matzo ball soup from charmaine solomon’s family recipe book which a kind lady at work lent to me.
the boy says he isn’t driving to balmain just for chocolate. sometimes i wonder ….
anyway that nut one was quite nice. i wish it came in dark.