They Gave it in a Bottle

             Looking for a shortcut to the Cross Bronx Expressway, I came up with the idea of cutting through the Zerega Industrial Business Zone. The area has historically catered to scrap yards, small factories, mechanic shops, and depots. One wouldn't see any type of eatery or even a candy store within many blocks, which I always found strange because it would seem to be a good idea to have a place to serve food to the many hungry surrounding stomachs. While driving down the block my eyes popped open at the sight  that a diner was having a grand opening. The name of the establishment is Ralph's Diner. It just seemed so out of place among the many blocks of parked trucks and junk yards, but the bold idea forced me to return a few days later to try it out.

              Parking on the street could be quite tough as the spaces fill rather quickly with the many workers nearby, but luckily Ralph's Diner offers a spacious lot. There was only one car in the parking lot when I arrived and the Grand Opening signs were still up, so I wasn't sure if it was a case that they were open for business or they were just setting up for the opening. The front door was held open, so I took it as a gesture that they were serving customers. I slowly walked in to scan the inside, and I found that the place was completely empty. When looking forward again, I saw the salad bar was fully stocked and there were two pots of coffee on, so it appeared they indeed were open for business. Finally, I saw some humans; one was a Chinese guy who appeared to be the owner or a manager, and the other was a Chinese lady who was dressed as a waitress. This sent off alarm bells in my mind as usually Greek people have a handle of this type of business, I had never seen a Chinese-run diner before. The concern I had would be the same as if a Greek person was going to make me a small chicken lo mein.

             With the inside totally empty it would've been a little silly to ask for a table, so I just sat up at the long counter. The guy noticed I was staying, so he took the remote control and turned on the two flat-screen televisions that are perched over the counter. The menu options were very ordinary for a diner and didn't list anything unique from the rest of the pack. When judging a diner, there's three important factors that determine if it will make it or not: breakfast, cheeseburger, and coffee. The time of the day was in between breakfast and lunch, and since coffee doesn't go well with a burger, the best way to at least sample two of the three requirements would be to order breakfast and coffee. I selected the french toast with blueberry (compote) topping and a cup of coffee. Interestingly enough, unlike most other diners, they actually heated the blueberry compote instead of serving it cold, and I found it to be a delightful idea. Another pleasant surprise was when the waitress brought out the syrup; it wasn't in the small Smuckers packages that you peel open, it wasn't in the glass jar dispenser you open with your thumb, it was in a regular syrup bottle that you would buy in your friendly neighborhood supermarket and use at home. The heating of the compote would've been worth the trip alone, but then having the syrup in the "home" bottle certainly put it over the top.

               While I was there for thirty minutes with my breakfast and my refill of coffee, no one else happened to venture in. Most of the time the waitress just looked out the window while the guy hurried around doing small errands. I wondered perhaps if the two of them were married or related somehow. Around the time I was done I saw a few more employees come out from the back. It seemed they were doing some other type of work as they certainly weren't needed to handle the large crowd of just me. The inside is done up nice, there's plenty of room, the flat-screen television sets, the breakfast was good, as was the coffee. It seems all the ingredients are there for a successful franchise, its just a matter whether the local workers will use it for breakfast, coffee breaks, and lunch. Foot traffic is also important for any business and there's no reason for people to really be walking around there unless they work in the area, so Ralph's Diner certainly has that fact of life not in their favor.

              They're just going to have to hope many other people are looking for shortcuts to the Cross Bronx Expressway with an empty stomach....

Chinatown Noodle Soup Hopping

             When visiting Montreal back in November, the lady and I started our noodle soup love affair after stumbling into a nice Vietnamese restaurant in the Chinatown area up there and ordering up a few bowls of noodle soup. Upon her return from Haiti, one item we had on our itinerary was visiting the Manhattan version of Chinatown to continue our noodle soup romance.

              Unsure where to really start and with a countless number of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants in the area, we picked one street to walk down and whichever places seemed most appealing, we'd go in. Starting at East Houston we went with Mott Street and went straight down through the Little Italy and Chinatown neighborhoods, although the Little Italy part is all about gone. After passing by some trendy blocks we finally saw Chinese lettering on upcoming stores and knew we were getting closer to the noodles. We began to get a little nervous we wouldn't find a good place to eat because the stores we were encountering at first were all market. The streets were lined up with establishment after establishment offering rice, vegetables, fish, crabs, oysters, and even frogs, swimming the last days of their lives in a cramped bucket. Since it was a bright sunny day, the heat reflecting off the fish wasn't lending to the best of smells. I needed to stop off at a bakery to get a glass of iced tea and cool off a bit, as well as escape the fishy scent in the air for a minute.

             Our goal was to visit at least three places and share one soup each time so our bellies wouldn't get full too fast. I knew we would likely get full after eating at just one restaurant, but I figured if we just kept to soups them maybe we could get two in for sure. The first restaurant we came upon was Big Wing Wang Noodles and I had a good feeling they would make a good bowl of soup when I saw the line of roasted ducks hanging by their necks once we entered. The waiter had us take the table near the entrance and gave us two hot glasses of tea. They do sit-in meals as well as take-out, and since we were in the middle of lunch hour, there were plenty of people on line waiting for their orders. Even though we originally said one soup per place, we both ended up wanting our own soups. So with starting out with a steamed dumpling in oyster sauce appetizer, she ordered a beef tripe (stomach) noodle soup and I went with a less adventurous roast duck noodle soup. I though the dumplings would come out on a plate, it turned out they came out in soup form as well. It was actually shrimp dumpling soup, and when adding the two soups we ordered, it turns out we were going to have to eat three soups in just our first sitting. We thought maybe we were going to have to take the dumpling soup to go, but I felt a burst of adrenaline after finishing off my duck and was able to put away most of the dumplings. The prices were amazing as both large soups and the appetizer all came out to about fifteen dollars total.

             Already stuffed and unlikely to be able to eat anymore that afternoon, we decided to take our time walking and getting too see all the Mott Street restaurants before making any possible next selection. There were a few thin streets with names such as Mosco that I never even heard of before, that gave an excellent view of the Freedom Tower as it continues to make it progress. We also passed by the Transfiguration School, which has a nice brainwashing ring to it, but is actually a religious US Department of Education fusion sort of situation. Once we reached the end of where the restaurants were, we turned around and felt too full to check out any of the other places we saw, so it was decided to just head back to the subway and go home. That was until she spotted charming establishment called the New Bo Ky Restaurant (I'm not sure what happened to the old one). Instead of tea, they gave us complimentary cups of water, but I was in mood for more iced tea so I had a can of Nestea as well. This time we were going to skip any appetizers and go right to the soups. In keeping with her digestive tract theme, she was drawn to the pig intestine while I had the (mystery meat) homemade beef ball. When they brought out her soup first it was perhaps one of the worse things I've smelt in weeks up to that point. The taste wasn't all that bad, but it was certainly something to not put your nose close to. There was nothing extraordinary with my beef ball soup and overall we declared Big Wing Wang Noodles as the champion restaurant for the day, with specifically my roast duck noodle soup the highlight. I was able to finish my second soup, but after only a few bites she needed to take the rest of her pig intestines to go. The bill again was a very modest twelve dollars for both soups, and combining everything for the afternoon, our Chinatown adventure of five soups cost less than thirty bucks.

              If I wasn't so full of noodles and mystery meat, I might've considered helping those frogs escape....

The Terracotta Warriors of the Pond

            The Discovery Times Square Museum is a favorite of mine because it regularly borrows famous attractions from all of the world, and instead of having to fly for ten hours to see them, I could take a thirty-minute subway ride. My past visits have included the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Tomb of King Tut, and the Lost City of Pompeii, the next showing I had my eye on was the Terracotta Warriors. The first emperor of China, Qin Shihuang Ling, had an army of eight-thousand clay soldiers, plus chariots and horses, created to serve the purpose of "guarding" his tomb once he was dead and buried. Back in 1974, some farmers in China were innocently digging in the fields and came upon one of the figures, then after some more digging the entire ancient Chinese legend was unearthed. The only downer about the museum is that they don't allow picture-taking inside, but its still a worthwhile visit all the time.

             The exhibition made a trip to New York and will be around till late August, but I didn't want to delay in seeing these two thousand year-old warriors any further. Usually when I go to the Discovery Times Square Museum the place is an absolute mob scene, and even with buying a ticket online ahead of time, the line is extremely long and it takes at least an hour of waiting. Its the perfect tourist magnet and with many tourists around the city on weekends, I decided it would be best to go on a lazy Wednesday afternoon. Admission cost was a pricey twenty-five dollars and I purchased my ticket at home before heading down to Manhattan. The weather was warm, but the skies were grey and I was hoping the threat of rain would keep the tourists in their hotels. Times Square was rather full as usual when I got out of the subway, but it wasn't unbearable to walk around as it could be most of the time. I saw an ad for the Terracotta Warriors on a garbage can and knew I was well on my way. With the giant neon signs of Times Square a great back drop behind me, I made several unsuccessful attempts to take a good picture of myself. A Chinese lady saw my predicament and offered to take a picture of me. Perhaps she was a descendant the Terracotta Warriors.

             Once I was inside the Discovery Times Square Museum I was shocked to see there were only about four or five people on line before me. In my previous experiences there would be several hundred patrons in front of me and I would have to wait about an hour as they would bring groups of people in at a time. This time the wait was only a few minutes and they let us begin; they first take you to a small theater to watch a short video, then the wall lifts open and you walk into the exhibit. Actually, very little is known about Qin Shihuang Ling and his giant tomb was only a myth until a farmer whacked it with a shovel in the 1970's. Qin became leader of the Qin state by the age of thirteen and by the time he was twenty-two, he conquered the surrounding states and formed what became known as China. He had work started of the Great Wall of China as well as the Grand Canal in the south (still the biggest canal in the world). Qin brought modern forms of government and law into effect which are still present in Chinese culture. Infatuated with immortality, Qin spent alot of time looking for magic elixirs and wanted his terracotta warriors built to stand guard at his tomb in case he did die eventually. At age forty-nine, the First Emperor, the title he took, did pass away around 209 BC and its suspected it was from mercury poisoning that we thought was one of those immortal magical potions.

             Rebellions in the years after the Emperor's death did cause destruction and dis-colorment to the warriors in his tomb, as only a very few had color. In addition to those nearly six foot statues, the exhibit included alot of other artifacts from that time period from weaponry to currency to even cookware. Towards the end of the walk-through there's even a sizable section dedicated to the Han Dynasty, which came later on in Chinese history. I learned a few different items while there, such as having pigs was a sign of prosperity, and hair worn loosely in those days was reserved for the criminal culture. Without the hundreds of other annoying people in the way, I was able to get through the exhibit in roughly under an hour. Once I was out, I only had to look a few yards for my next stop, Carmine's restaurant, just a few doors down. It was still during lunch hours and the place wasn't crowded at all either. I didn't want to eat a heavy meal, so I just started out with a dozen oysters and a glass of pinot grigio. As a passing waiter cleaned my table before the food came out, he complimented me on my grey sweater (which has been a compliment magnet in recent months) and was excited to hear when I told him the Terracotta Warriors were down the block.

            Those dozen oysters were nice and went down smoothly, but I was still a tad bit hungry. The food options at Carmine's, even from the lunch options, are always heavy, so I had no choice but to order more items from the raw bar. With a refill of my wine glass, I went with only a half-dozen of cherrystone clams to complete my "light" lunch. By this time the grey skies had disappeared and the sun was out in a full bloom. This gave me no choice but to head over to Central Park for a nice stroll in perfect weather. I decided to walk it from Times Square, and knowing I was going to need a shot of energy for the long hike, I stopped off at Edible Arrangements for a large strawberry-banana smoothie. The lady behind the counter was somewhat sassy as she made it seem I was taking too long to make up my mind, but I was seeking something more than the typical strawberry-banana combo. She offered me a chocolate-covered strawberry sample while she made the smoothie, but I had no interest in that.

            The park was looking as wonderful as ever and I couldn't wait to check out some of the animals inside such as the ducks, geese, squirrels, robins, and amazingly so, turtles, which I saw sun bathing the last time I was there. I was passing by a small pond and when I looked down I saw a number of ducks cleaning themselves with their beaks. There was a couple (humans) sitting on a rock not too far away from the pond, but other than that nobody had taken notice of these ducks, I could have them all to myself. As I paced closer towards them I was expecting them to flee into the water, but just the opposite happened, they acted as if I didn't even exist. I know, especially in that park, the animals are used to the millions of visitors, but I never had ducks provide this time of unprecedented access before. Other than trying to touch them, which I tried a few times, they would let you do anything else and take all the pictures you wanted. I can't recall ever being so up close and personal to a duck like that without it being stuffed in a museum or served on a plate with a side of rice. I spent a good fifteen minutes there at the edge of the pond and probably could've stayed for the day, but my legs were getting tired from all the walking I had done. Unfortunately, I had to carry on and after passing the Central Park Zoo (with a self-promise of visiting this summer) I did get to meet up with a robin and a squirrel.

           The photogenic ducks had left a big impression on me, even bigger than the two-thousand year old warriors, and they didn't cost a dime.....