50 beans | manhattan cold-brew crawl

A few weeks ago, I went out to new york with a few college buddies for the US Open and whatever other shenanigans that presented themselves. The trip started when we found this price-war between american, united, and virgin america. It was a one-day sale for SFO-EWR, so we booked it in a hurry. Good thing we were able to get it on the same week as the Open semi's and finals. And hey, while I'm in new york, why not try out the coffee? Now, most of the 3rd wave coffee hubs are in the west coast (portland, sf, seattle); however, micro-roasters have sprung up in new york, because, well, why not? It's a huge market with international residents, so someone's bound to appreciate good coffee right? So here's part one of the NY coffee crawl...these are all non-NY based coffee places that have set up shop in NY. The next trip (whenever that is...) will explore the local ones.

Blue Bottle Coffee – Rockefeller Center
The first full day in new york, Gaj and Alex were on their way to Rockefeller Center to check out the view from the observation deck. Since I had already been up there before, I decided to head on over to 5th ave to get my watch regulated at the boutique (the NY has an onsite watchmaker) and was planning on meeting the others when they were done with Top of the Rock. When I got to Rockefeller Center, they were still on their way up, so I decided to hit up blue bottle in the basement of the building and wait for them in the square below (read: people watch).

The shop was pretty small, but they managed to have two separate registers/lines. Even though they have pretty much the same roasts (e.g. hayes valley, 17ft ceiling, giant steps, etc) as the ones in SF, there was still a decidedly new york flair to the coffee shop. As it turns out, blue bottle opened a roaster in Brooklyn, and are now operating three shops in manhattan. Since it was a bit warm outside, I figured it’d be perfect for some new orleans iced coffee (cold brew, milk, and chicory).

The coffee was as expected, the chicory adding just the right amount of sweetness. The barista adds the coffee for you, and in my opinion, added a bit too much milk. Aside from that, the coffee was perfect. I parked myself on a bench outside and just watched people walk by, which was pretty entertaining. It’s funny to see just how many different types of people cycle through new york on a daily basis. I heard so many different languages and accents, saw people from all walks of life, and even eavesdropped on two attorneys next to me who are apparently defending an underground art dealer. **sigh** only in new york...

Intelligentsia Coffee – Highline Park
A coffee roaster that hails from Chicago, Intelligentsia coffee has also now set up shop in new york, with a shop in the highline hotel, and a training lab over by NYU. Located on the side of an old brownstone building, they, like blue bottle, have two separate brewing areas. The first, being a small shop inside the building, the other being a coffee truck outside – very much like a taco truck, but filled to the brim with tasty coffee.

Since we were based in midtown (51st and Lexington), this was quite a trek for us (lower east side). We had an entire day of tennis ahead of us, so Sean, Alex and I took the E train down to Chelsea and hoofed the 5 blocks to hit up Intelligentsia for some brew before making our way over to Arthur Ashe in Flushing. Gaj and Bo were meeting us there (Gaj waited in line for 3.5hrs to get us some original cronuts).

Since it was the first time I’ve seen a coffee truck, I figured I gotta try it right?? Once again, I opted for cold brew (hey, why mess with a good thing?). The brew here is a lighter roast that what blue bottle offered for their new orleans iced coffee. It’s a fruitier taste, and pretty much renders cream and sugar unnecessary.

another blue bottle sighting

After getting our coffees, we decided to take a walk down highline park before heading over to Flushing. Highline park is an old elevated train track that runs 20ft above the city streets. After this route was retired, a plan was put in place to turn the tracks into an elevated park. It was pretty cool, they have lawn chairs out there, some benches, even some coffee places (blue bottle has a stall here too). We even saw the place where my roommate Arian proposed to his wife. It’s pretty unique to new york, and a good way to repurpose obsolete equipment.

Stumptown Coffee – Chelsea
This coffee roaster, originally from Portland, established its presence in new york by setting up shop in the ace hotel, followed by another one further downtown. The midtown location was a few blocks away, so we decided to swing by on the way to the Met.

The location was much smaller than Intelligentsia, and had a line that went all the way around the corner. Unlike Blue Bottle and Intelligentsia, there was only one line and one place for them to make the coffee, so it sort of held the line up. Aside from that, the place was pretty cool. They sell all kinds of hipster coffee equipment and coffee supplies.

Since I didn’t want to break my cold brew streak, I opted once again for the cold stuff. The coffee here was quite similar to the cold brew at Intelligentsia. It too was a light roast, and the coffee was quite enjoyable.

After picking up the coffee, we headed back uptown to the Met, which featured some pretty cool 19th and 20th century impressionist paintings and 16th century Americana (e.g. George Washington crossing the Delaware). I think I’m going to come back here the next time I’m in new york.

good to know.

my foray into ice-cream-making

The concept seemed pretty simple, make ice cream with flavors you wouldn’t usually be able to get in the market. I had done this once with regular vanilla ice cream with some decent results, but that was on such a small scale that it wouldn’t have been able to be enjoyed by more than one person. So I decide to try making a pint.

Now, normally, making ice cream at home with an ice cream maker is kinda pointless, especially since they’re kinda expensive and you can just buy it at the store (and it’ll probably have better texture). Well, the exception to that would be if you have access to dry ice. Fortunately, in Davis, there are two such places to get it: Save Mart and Nugget. Apparently, with dry ice, you can make ice cream in just a few minutes, as the -160F CO2 blocks can cool down the mixture in a matter of minutes, giving a pretty good texture ice cream. Of course, finding that right mixture is key.

Ok, so I would also venture to say that, making regular flavors is kinda pointless as well. Why go through the expense and time of making vanilla ice cream when it’s 2.79 at nugget? I figured I needed to go for the one-off flavors, the kind of stuff you can’t get in markets. In other words, I wanna try the odd flavors like dragonfruit or cucumber or chicken. So, inspired by Heston Blumenthal’s bacon-and-eggs ice cream that he serves at The Fat Duck, I decided to give it a shot.

I started off with strips of bacon cut into segments, cooked in a pan until it started caramelizing. I poured in 2 cups of whole milk and started stirring. I let it simmer for a bit to give it the bacon flavor. I added eight egg yolks to it, and started stirring. Unsatisfied with the bland flavor, I added a few shots of bacon syrup to see if it’ll impart more bacon-y taste to it. Well, it most certainly did. By now, the egg had started to slightly scramble, which is what I was going for (apparently when eggs start to scramble they take on more of an eggy flavor). I took it off the flame and immediately strained it into an ice bath. This was followed by crushed dry ice being sprinkled in slowly and stirring until it thickened. It was pretty cool seeing the haze of CO2 arising as I stirred. The bubbling is pretty fun to watch too.

Of course, if you were at Luke’s fourth-of-july potluck, you know the rest of the story, but for those of you who weren’t there, well, you’re just gonna have to try it out and see if you like it. Personally, I thought it had a little too much bacon flavor and not enough eggs, but others differed in how they viewed the ice cream. As Luke puts it, he doesn’t seem to have ever recalled a stronger reaction to a single bite of food. Since this one clearly wasn’t a hit, I’m thinking of tweaking the recipe to see if it’ll work better next time.

pune | a380 review

I think this would be a fitting wrap-up to my India series, and to cap everything off, I had the opportunity to check out the new (well relatively new) Airbus A380. Now, I’m not as much of an airliner nut as LynnKai, but I do like planes and ships, and I will admit getting excited over a chance to fly on an a380 from Frankfurt to SFO (LH454). In case you aren’t familiar, this Airbus is the world’s largest passenger airliner, and can seat over 500 people in a typical 3-class arrangement, or up to 853 people in an all economy configuration. Basically, this plane is a beast.

three bridges to load passengers

another a380 taking off

My first impressions of the plane were that it was pretty cool. Everything was new (I don’t really know what a new plane smell would be, but I’m sure it had it) and it seemed like the equipment was well cared for. I took to exploring the plane a bit, as I heard there were things on this plane that are pretty unique. Sadly, I was unable to explore the other deck, as the stairs were blocked off (supposedly to prevent passengers from drinking too much and falling down the stairs during flight – I don’t buy it).

the other a380

takeoff!!

bird's eye view

I was quickly able to find a few things that piqued my interest. The first was the exterior cameras. There are three cameras on the outside of the plane that showed what was going on. It was pretty cool being able to watch things like takeoffs, landings, and the bird-eye view was cool for watching the ground. Of course, in midflight all three camera showed the same thing: clouds.

The second thing that was pretty neat was the fact that one of the bathrooms had a freaking window! I know, this may not be interesting to most people I meet, but it was pretty cool. I was able to look down at clouds as I used the facilities. It was quite pleasant. It also made the bathroom feel a lot less claustrophobic as just a little bit of natural lighting helped make it feel roomier. Of course, it was still an airplane bathroom, so you never really wanna stay in there too long.

While the plane was pretty cool, there were some really perplexing things about the plane (or more specifically, what Lufthansa did). So, Lufthansa got the new planes in 2010, and overhauled their terminals in Frankfurt (as well as other airports) to accommodate the sheer size of the new planes. The weird thing was, even though they designed new gates to accommodate the height of the 2nd deck, they built the a380 gates too high. Even for the 2nd deck, you end up going down a flight of escalators to get there. There aren’t any plans to build any planes even bigger than this, so what exactly was the point of that?

The next odd and fairly disappointing thing was the fact that Lufthansa went through the trouble of procuring a fleet of new a380’s, but they then put their old design seats in them, even though they had a new design in production. Now, only 3 years in, they’re going through the hassle of retrofitting the planes with the new seats. I don’t understand why they don’t just put the new seats in there in the first place.

I was kind of hoping to be able to walk around the plane more and be able to check out the other floor, the flight attendants somehow frown upon you walking about the plane. Also, apparently there’s an FAA regulation saying you can’t congregate anywhere (only applies to US-bound or flights out of the US), which makes sense from a safety point of view, but I wonder how that would work for Emirates or Korean Air A380’s that have a bar at the back of the plane?

Overall, the A380 was a pretty fun experience. Again, it would’ve been fun to be able to walk about the plane a bit more, but it’s ok…I’m sure the other floor looks pretty much the same. Next on my airliner bucket-list is the boeing 787, which recently had battery issues (but hey…the risk adds to the excitement right?), and the boeing 747-8, which was apparently built to compete with the A380. I also hear British Airways is supposed to have a great A380 when it is available in October…mm maybe next year when I get more vacation days.

pune | the last weekend

do not get into a staring contest with this guy...you will lose.

For my last weekend in Pune, I hit up some suggested sights in the old-town. The office was nice enough to extend one of their drivers through the weekend so I could do some last minute shopping, sightseeing, and get to the airport in Mumbai. Of course, since my luggage space was limited, I ended up just doing a bit of sightseeing and wandering around the old-town part of Pune.

There was a museum that everyone recommended called the Raja Kelkar museum, which was the private collection of some guy that spent his life accumulating random artifacts from india and parts of asia. The museum was pretty cool, and had an eclectic collection of random things. There were lots of random idols, wooden artifacts, foot scrubbers (I know…it was weird), and household items.

weird collection of foot-scrubbers

There were some museum items that were pretty odd. One of the was a scale model of the taj mahal. It was damaged around the edges, and some of the towers were damaged as well. I remember seeing it and thinking it was built around the time the real taj was built, and I thought “oh it’s in pretty good shape for being a few hundred years old”. Then I looked at the sign: circa late 20th century. So basically somebody built it back in the 80’s or 90’s. In that case it’s in surprisingly horrible shape for being only 20-30 years old. Another odd thing was the collection of foot scrubbers. Apparently this guy had a huge collection of foot scrubbers for the callous on the bottom of your feet. Who collects stuff like that?!

The museum was situated in an old house, and upon getting there, I was reminded of my home in Shanghai. It was a weird feeling, because the museum doesn’t look anything like my home, but at the same time, I knew that eventually where I was living would be turned into a museum in a few years (I live on a cultural street, and all the homes were getting bought out by the city to turn into museums). I dunno…just an odd feeling as I walked in.

apparently chess is from india...

After the museum, I headed over to Laxmi road to see where locals go for shopping. At this point the driver just dropped me off since I didn’t want him to wait and I figured I could easily get a rickshaw back to the hotel. I was looking to buy some souvenirs for my folks, but soon I realized this is where real locals come to do shopping…and real locals don’t buy souvenirs. Apparently the shops were for pots, pans, household items and home-improvement stuff (i.e. sinks and pipes). Yeaaa…good luck finding scarves and elephant paperweights.

Of course at this point it started raining. And by raining I mean it was more like a torrential downpour. This is also the point where I learned that rickshaw drivers don’t like to drive in the rain. Every driver I approached turned me down. Finally I was able to flag one down that was willing to take me back to the hotel. Of course by now I was drenched…he wasn’t too happy about me dripping in his backseat =/

The rain didn’t stop the next day (apparently during monsoon, it can go on for weeks at a time). The original plan was for the driver to take me sightseeing in Mumbai for a bit before heading over to the airport. We ended up leaving the hotel at noon for a 2am flight since I figured I could go around Mumbai for a bit. Of course…the rain didn’t let up, and at this point parts of Mumbai were starting to flood so the sightseeing plan was pretty much scrapped.

awesome.

Since the airport doesn’t allow people to check in until 3 hours before the flight, I ended up getting dropped off at the ITC Muratha, a hotel near the airport, to wait it out and have lunch/dinner. The hotel was pretty cool, but the prices for food were ridiculous. I mean…at other hotels like the JW Marriott the Grand Hyatt, food prices were relatively reasonable (it is india afterall). But here the prices were roughly 4x as much (seriously?? USD15 for a bottle of kingfisher??). Oh well…still cheaper than getting a room for 8 hours I guess. I ended up just bumming around the hotel until it was time to check-in.

**the next post will be the last in this series…**

pune | getting out of town for the weekend pt. 2 – Agra

Sunday morning was my scheduled trip to Agra – a trip that didn't go completely without hiccups. Delhi (well, Noida), where I was staying, is around 190km from Agra, where the Taj Mahal is located. So, in order to get to Agra, you pretty much had to take a train or get a car. So, since I was a foreigner, one of the guys at work, Rakshit, was arranging transportation for me from Delhi to Agra for the day.

As it turns out, his friend's car agency didn't have any available drivers. Of course, since everything was done last minute, I found this out saturday night while at the hotel. No worries...maybe the hotel can arrange for a car – apparently it'd cost 3x as much. Well, since the main reason for going to Delhi in the first place was so I could see the Taj Mahal, I figured I might as well bite the bullet and give it a go. I was all set to book when Rakshit (yes...it's his real name...) called me again. Apparently there were no drivers, but the guy that ran the car agency could take me, which was cool, except for one minor detail: he doesn't speak english. Hmm...I guess that could work, so we confirmed it.

He came around to the hotel at 7:30am and we set off to the Taj! So, within a few minutes of leaving the hotel, we tried to chat a little about random things, and yes, his english really was very limited. We ended up working out a communication system where we would point, laugh, and use facial expressions, which if you think about it...isn't ideal when you want your driver to be looking at the road. oh well.. =) He did have one subject in which he was well versed in english: the road. Apparently since he runs a car business, he can talk in english about roads, so he gave me a 20 minute spiel on the pros/cons of asphalt vs. cement freeways...in near perfect english. Then when I asked him about the weather...nada. Go figure.

Most of the journey was quite uneventful, except we saw a monkey crossing on the Delhi-Agra freeway. Sadly one of the younger ones didn't make it across in time.. =( The odd thing about driving to Agra, is that there is really nothing on the road. It's straight for miles at a time, and the landscape is quite desolate...kinda like the drive down to LA.

Once we got to Agra, it was kinda disappointing. I had envisioned a decent mid-sized town with buildings and stuff kinda like Pune. Well, let's just say it was like driving down Main St. in Dixon. It was fairly quaint...a few cows, some guys pulling an ox-cart...nothing really going on. Then all of a sudden, boom...taj mahal on the left...then your look ahead and it's like 500 tour buses showed up out of nowhere. And then tourists. And then hawkers. wow...that took me by surprise. I was beginning to think the taj was just a photographer's optical illusion...where it looks huge in pics but in real life it was the size of a kid's sand castle. Well, suffice it to say, I definitely felt validated.

one of the gates in

Of course actually visiting the taj was a very frustrating experience for me. I mean, it was amazing, but I'm one of those guys that doesn't like large crowds of people, and I quite enjoy my personal space. The second I left the car all the way to the gate is roughly 0.5km...which is not very far to go, but try walking that distance with 50 people trying to slow you down by getting you to buy stuff. The kids were quite organized too...one or two will walk in front of you to slow you down while a 3rd, 4th, and 5th will try to sell you fridge magnets for usd20 each. It was very annoying because not only are you trying to tune out the kids yelling at you, you're also trying to keep from getting pick-pocketed too.

Finally I got to the gate and was able to go in. One thing I noticed in India, is that the government likes to charge indians different price than the foreigners. For indians, the Taj ticket is Rs20. For foreigners? Rs750. Quite the price hike. Oh well, I'm here. Once I got in, it was amazing. The kids had to stay outside, and you're now among the company of tourists – not that much better but at least they're not trying to get you to buy stuff. Oh, and there was the Taj.

The mausoleum was huge, and require booties to get in...which was cool. It was ridiculously hot that day: 45C (113F) and quite humid. Don't even get me started on the smells. Anyways, every once in a while you have to take a water break, and one of the more memorable ones I've had was actually sitting in one of the inlets on the side of the mausoleum. It was 10 degrees cooler in the shade and actually quite nice to just hang out there and look at the stone detail-work on the side of the mausoleum.

On the inside it was quite nice, except for the fact that there are attendants with whistles making sure you're not loitering, and that once you've seen it for 5 seconds it was someone else's turn. Once back outside, it was time to walk around the courtyard and head back out.

After the Taj, we headed over to Agra Fort to have a look. This was a pretty cool place, and had been around at the same time as the taj mahal. It was situated on a hill, so you can easily see the taj from the fort. The fort itself was huge...16 sections and large open courtyards. It was a pretty cool place to check out.

On the drive back home, we stopped by a roadside stand for some quick food, and made the 3hr trek back to Delhi. The driver was a big fan of bollywood movie music, so most of his music selections were film soundtracks. About 30min into the return drive, he points at my phone and asks "music?" I looked at my phone, and remembered that since I only used it for music when boarding flights, and so I had very limited selection of music on my phone, as everything else was on my ipad at the hotel. I took a quick peek at the playlist: Pitch Perfect soundtrack (don't judge me), B.o.B., and Far East Movement. I plugged my phone in, and we went through all three albums. Even though it was a Tata car, that thing had a really good sub. So there we were, two guys who could only communicate back and forth with facial expressions and pointing, driving back to delhi with far east movement blasting over the speakers...quite a fitting end to an odd once-in-a-lifetime day.