I saw in my Upper West Side Neighbors group that it was official: HMart at 70th Street and Amsterdam was finally opening today. So I knew I wanted to stop by to see if there were any grand opening specials or giveaways. I haven’t lived this close to any Asian market since I lived in Elmhurst from 2008-2012, and even then, I was about a 20-minute walk away from the markets along Broadway in the main drag in Elmhurst. With HMart at 70th Street, I am now less than a 10-minute walk from Asian groceries! Granted, I have some mixed feelings about HMart: The prices for a lot of day-to-day items can be very high, and in some cases simply price gouging. The freshness of the produce is not always optimal (I remember recently going to one location where the cilantro looked sad and wilted). I also dislike how a lot of the fruit and vegetables are wrapped and packaged in excessive plastic wrap and styrofoam. But it’s nice and comforting to have an Asian market so close and walking distance from where we live.

So I went to the grand opening today. They had lots of flowers on display to celebrate the grand opening. There were clearly a lot of managers (and even owners) who were walking the floor and watching how people received the new HMart. They also had a lot of security at the entrance, exit, and walking up and down the aisles. Much to my dismay, they did not have that many specials or sales. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all the Pulmuone brand organic tofu was reasonably priced — I really like that packaged tofu brand and wondered if they decided to lower prices indefinitely.

I ended up purchasing three items: a bag of dried japchae/sweet potato noodles, a frozen bag of Bibigo chicken and vegetable dumplings that were $2 off, and the biggest find of the day: a yuzu-honey jar of about 450 grams to make an instant yuzu-honey tea (just add water!) for only $4.99! It’s supposed to yield about 42 total cups of tea, and it’s definitely Japanese as all the writing on it is in Japanese, and it’s imported from Japan! I panicked a little when the cashier rang the yuzu-honey jar up and the screen read $16.99. I gave him a sad look and told him that the shelf said it was only $4.99, and if it was really $16.99, I no longer wanted it. He asked another worker to do a price check for me, so I waited at the register patiently. Lucky for me, the shelf was correct and the scanner was wrong: it really WAS $4.99! So I told him I’d take it. I paid for my groceries, and he gave me the grand opening gift: a set of five pairs of bamboo chopsticks with a fun design on the top. Not dishwasher safe, but hey, I’ll take some nice bamboo chopsticks! They’re supposed to be eco-friendly. 🙂

Since I was in elementary school, I knew I wanted to live in New York City one day. The concrete jungle, tall buildings, bright lights, and endless people fascinated me every time I saw photos or videos of this cosmopolitan city. And now that I live here, there really is never a dull moment or day in New York City — if you are bored of this city, it is most definitely a “you” problem, not a problem with New York itself. And when it comes to the sheer variety of cuisines, there’s probably very few cities in the world that could come to compete with the number of cultures represented from a culinary standpoint against New York.

Years ago when I lived in Elmhurst, Queens, I ate at the very first (supposedly first, anyway) Egyptian restaurant that opened on Steinway Street in Astoria called Kabab Cafe. It was a total hole-in-the-wall, and when I went to eat there with my then-roommate and then-boyfriend, there was no menu: we simply told the chef-owner what we liked, and he whipped it all up for us on the spot. It was a little mysterious, fun, and delicious. It was a true eating adventure, especially since I had never had Egyptian food before. Since then, I’ve eaten at Mombar, another Egyptian restaurant completely outfitted in Egyptian textiles and decorations (all hand carted back by the owner and his family themselves) twice. And on Chris’s parents last full day in New York City this time around, we ate at Sabry’s, a cooked-to-order Egyptian seafood restaurant we’d been meaning to try.

Sabry’s was likely one of the most sumptuous meals we’d had in a while. We started with freshly steamed clams in a white wine sauce, plus a seafood soup with shrimp and calamari. We also ordered a mixed seafood tagine and a seabass barbecued Egyptian style (black!).

The first thing to come to our table was a big straw basket of piping hot Egyptian flatbreads, which could have been a side in itself. The breads are freshly made and baked on the premises, and the first bite was so hot and delicious that it took a lot of self-restraint to not fill up on this. A salad also arrived with our two starters. The clams were huge, fat, and juicy; the delicious clammy sauce it left behind could have been drunk up on its own with how flavorful it was. These were probably the fattest clams I’ve had in a while; I am still marveling over how large they were and wondering how they were sourced. Kaia especially loved the clams, eating about five of them all by herself, which surprised us since she’d never really had many bivalves previously. She also slurped up the lightness of the seafood soup and even ate some calamari.

The tagine came to the table with a separate plate of brown rice cooked in a rich seafood broth. The tomato sauce it was cooked it was very rich, brothy, and well spiced. While everything that came to our table was impressive, the sea bass is probably what blew me away the most: the server brought it piping hot to our table, served whole with the head and tail on, and it was BLACK! There was some sort of reddish spice paste slathered all over it. And when you cut the fish open, a beautiful, moist, meaty white flesh was revealed that was ultra luxurious. Kaia insisted she didn’t want fish when she saw it, but when I left it on her place mat, she eventually picked at it and gobbled her whole portion up, asking for more.

In addition, Chris’s parents had a freshly blended mango juice each, and Chris and I shared a “lemonade,” which really felt more like an Indian lime juice, which was a bit tart and very refreshing with the flavors of all the seafood we got to enjoy. It was an extremely memorable meal, one I hope we will revisit in the near future. Astoria has other fresh, made-to-order Egyptian seafood restaurants which are also on our list. That’s one of the most delicious things about New York City: even if you cannot afford to travel to places like Egypt, you probably can afford the $2.90 subway ride to a place like Little Egypt, Astoria, plus a full meal there to feel like you visited Egypt. The whole sea bass itself cost only $34, and honestly, it almost felt like robbery because of how high the quality was. I never stop marveling over how great and delicious this city is.

Sometimes, I still can’t get over how helpful and genuine my neighbors are through my neighborhood Buy Nothing group. It’s almost like whenever you need something, anything, even a unicorn ask, someone somewhere in these boundaries will help you!

I remembered that I’d lost my oversized glasses case for my one pair of designer sunglasses last summer while we were in Baltimore. And with summer around the corner, I wanted to start wearing them again, but I always fear breaking them without a proper carrying case since the arms are so delicate. So I posted on the Buy Nothing group earlier this week to ask if anyone had a spare oversized sunglasses case to spare. Someone replied, saying that she was getting a new sunglasses delivery this week, and she never uses the cases and usually donates or tosses them. So she’d be happy to message me once her delivery arrived.

Well, she made due on her promise: she messaged me yesterday evening to let me know her glasses had arrived, and so whenever I was ready, I could come over to pick up a new sunglasses case. I went 14 blocks north to pick up the glasses today and thanked her for her generosity. And the bonus: these really were brand new! I put my sunglasses into the case, and they fit perfectly.

New Yorkers get a bad wrap, but I’ve always loved how kind and helpful people in this city are. I’m proud to call New York City my home.

From the period between March and July, our house is always full of mangoes — ataulfo (champagne) mangoes, to be specific, since here in the U.S., these smaller yellow variety of mangoes seems to be the most reliable when it comes to sweetness, flavor, as well as lack of stringiness. Americans who say they don’t like mangoes generally think this because of previous experiences with sad “stringy” and flavorless mangoes. Ataulfo mangoes are never, ever stringy unless you are extremely unlucky.

Although I love to cook and bake, I rarely do either with any of these mangoes. I usually just peel and cut them for all of us to eat. Occasionally, I’ll make mango lassi, and that’s it. But this weekend for a lunch at a relative’s house, I’m planning to make no-bake mango tiramisu. I got the idea from a popular Indian food blog I follow, and I figured it would be a tasty idea to incorporate our favorite and seasonal fruit. I’m pretty excited about this mini project.

But late last week, Chris got upset when he discovered that I had not cut up any mangoes for his after-dinner fruit. For Chris, mangoes are king, and there is no greater fruit on earth than mangoes (I would agree with these sentiments). He asked if we had run out of mangoes. I replied, no, we have them, but they just aren’t ripe enough to eat yet. I usually “socially distance” the mangoes by the window to prevent them from releasing too much ethylene gas and ripening too quickly. But Chris got impatient; he was not satisfied with the raspberries, grapes, or even pineapple that I had cut and prepared. His “after dinner fruit” NEEDED to include mangoes, otherwise to him, there was simply an absence of actual “fruit.” So he stuck all the mangoes right up next to each other to encourage them to ripen more quickly. He called it the “mango orgie.” Then, in the next two days, he kept checking on them and asking me if they were ready yet. For Chris, asking if the mangoes are ready yet is akin to asking, “Are they ready for you to peel and cut for me to eat?”

We are a family of mango lovers… even if Kaia is currently on a mango strike. I swear she must be doing this to spite her parents.