Thoughts & Reflections

Tag: Lunch

  • Pok Pok Phat Thai

    Pad Thai

    As much as I love eating Thai food, I was never a fan of the country’s most famous dish (in the States, at any rate), pad thai. On the rare occasions that I would order it at restaurants, I’ve always found it to be too sweet for my tastes. But now, there is one place in the city where I would happily order it: Pok Pok Phat Thai.

    It’s an offshoot of Andy Ricker’s main restaurant (which is excellent) in Red Hook and it specializes in the noodle dish, offering about three or four variations. On this visit, I stuck with the regular pad thai and a Thai iced tea (with lime, not milk). It makes for a great lunch when I’m looking for a quick bite and I want something hearty but not too filling. The restaurant is tiny, with maybe about a dozen seats; there have been a few times when I’ve gone when it’s crowded but there were plenty of seats when I went yesterday.

    And you know it must be pretty good when your Thai friend thinks it’s pretty authentic. We both love the Brooklyn Pok Pok but Pok Pok Phat Thai is a lot easier to get to when you need to satisfy a craving.

  • Lunch at Haven’s Kitchen

    Soup and Sandwich

    I only recently learned that Haven’s Kitchen is now serving a more substantial menu in their café, not just the baked goods and pastries I’ve seen offered whenever I’ve visited in the past. It’s now been added to the list of places for me to grab a quick lunch when I need a bite and break from running errands on Saturdays (they are closed on Sundays).

    The menu changes weekly but the lunch combination seems to be very popular: half soup, salad or sandwich. This past weekend, I went for the spicy chicken and lime soup and the pulled pork sandwich. I really liked the soup and thankfully, it wasn’t too spicy. But just in case, I also ordered a small iced tea (served in a mason jar) to help cool down the heat from the soup.

  • Hi-Collar

    Tamago sandwich

    On Saturday, I had a sudden craving for an egg sandwich for lunch. Not the typical bacon and eggs on a roll but something a bit different. So it was off to Hi-Collar I went.

    On my first visit many months ago, I wanted to try their pork katsu sandwich but it was sold out and I ended up ordering the Tamago sandwich instead. The menu describes it simply as an Osaka-style omelette and cucumber sandwich and it looks exactly that, with a mound of fluffy egg nestled between slices of soft, buttered bread. But just one bite of it conjures memories of childhood, sitting in a Chinese cha chaan teng and eating a Western-style breakfast. There’s a bit of horseradish (of which I’m not really a fan) in the sandwich which can taste too sharp at times but I can quickly wash away the aftertaste with a cup of perfectly brewed (via a small hourglass timer) tea.

    A “salad” is served on the side: diced peaches swimming in slightly thickened evaporated milk. It’s one of the my favorite parts of the dish because it is exactly something I would find in Chinese restaurants years ago, usually as a topping (fruit cocktail from a can and a splash of evaporated milk) to a bowl of cold almond tofu. To me, it was more of a dessert, something I saved to finish my meal with.