Hodge Podge

i was perusing  NY Serious Eats on-line wherein they rated the "25 Best Pork Sandwiches [They] Love in NYC."  i stumbled upon the Prosciutto Sandwich at Ground Support. intrigued, i looked up the cafe and realized: i've been here before. which then triggered the question: why was i there?

i don't often find myself in Soho, so why was i there that day? and then i remembered what a hodge-podge of a Sunday that was. JimmyDean, MrsButterworth, and i found ourselves on our way to Jing Fong for NannyDiary's bday brunch. we got there uber late thanks to JD, who didn't warn us that the uptown 6 train we transferred to at the Brooklyn Bridge/City Hall stop was going express to Union Square, although he knew it when we got on the train. so we ended up having to take another local 6 train from Union Square down to Canal Street.

aside from my recent experience at Sunshine 27, this excursion to Jing Fong was one of my less pleasant dim sum dinings for the following reasons:

1. ND had invited so many people that we were separated into 2 tables. totally deprives the whole purpose of dim sum dining. you're supposed to be chatting over tea and exclaiming over the diverse variety of food together. kind of hard to do when you're sitting at separate tables.

2. every separate group of friends had their own dining check. wha?!?! i didn't even know Jing Fong would let you do that, let alone WHY you would do that. yes, it would make splitting the check a lot easier. except chinese food is all about family-style. which always ends up being less-per-person cost-wise anyways. and chinese restaurants aren't that savvy when it comes to splitting checks. e.g. JD, MB, and i got charged everyone's teas which was just weird.

3. because we arrived late, everyone had already eaten a decent amount. so we were pretty limited in what we could/should get to eat since there were only 3 of us eating whatever we ordered.

4. BUT of course that didn't stop us. or more correctly, JD, who hadn't been out to dim sum in quite a while. so he went a little buckwild when it came time to order and grab food. and this is an observation coming from one of the worst offenders of this type of conduct. since i'm used to eating dim sum with my family since i was a little babe, there are certain staples that i insist on eating at dim sum, or else i feel incomplete. but this type of behavior, coupled with JD's ended up with us having too much food, and not finishing most of it. although, it was a little absurd for JD to order 3 orders of Steamed Pork Buns and Sauteed Snails (which of course everyone had a bite of and then abandoned as weird).

5. we spent $20/person on dim sum for what ended up being an unsatisfactory meal. and that never happens to me at dim sum (until recently). i'm gonna have to remedy this soon.

so after this dim sum fiasco, we parted ways with ND's party and went our own separate ways.

wherein i stumbled upon my current favorite bubble tea place: Kung Fu Tea. we happened upon this shop and noticed it was having a grand opening. when we first went in, there was only 1 customer in the store. i was super happy to see they had Winter Melon Tea on their menu, which i ordered with no boba and 50% sugar. this was the perfect antidote to my bloated dim sum stomach, which wasn't very happy with the prior dim sum meal.

we then perused Soho stores since JD and MB had some errands to run and i could use the walk to walk off all that food.  and that's how, a few hours later, JD and i found ourselves at Ground Support Cafe while MB shopped at the Anthropologie next door.

Turkey Picnic

the cafe is super cute inside, and pretty spacious, with a hipster vibe. and they serve wine which i though was interesting since it seemed more like a coffeehouse from outside. but the best part was that after 5 pm, they have half-price sandwiches. and so although i wrestled with it, i ended up buying two sandwiches to take home: 1 for dinner and 1 for lunch the next day. i got the Turkey Picnic (turkey breast, aged gouda, pickled red onion, potato chips,  bbq sauce, bibb lettuce, and tomato) ($9.50) and the Cuban (turkey breast, berkshire pit ham, gruyere, pickles, peppadew relish, dijoun remoulade) ($10). both sandwiches were good and refreshing, but nothing i'd travel for.

Cuban