Category Archives: Food

Today ends our 2-year streak of going to Manhattan Chinatown almost every weekday

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I knew today would be a bittersweet day for all of us given that it’s Kaia’s last day of summer camp at her school for the last two years in Chinatown. Tomorrow, we fly out to San Francisco, so while I wanted to get some takeout for our last evening, I knew I needed it to keep well in the freezer since we’d likely have leftovers. So after my haircut this afternoon, I walked down from the East Village to Chinatown to several locations to mark the end of an era for us:

  1. Super Taste: The divey, hole-in-the-wall Lanzhou restaurant on Eldridge Street that churns out some of my favorite dumplings and noodles in all of New York City. It was shocking to me that this tiny place, where my friend and I used to go in the early 2010s for casual and cheap dinner catch-ups, had completely blown up because of foodie influencers. It used to be very quiet, discreet, with mostly Chinese people speaking Chinese in it. Now every time I pass it, there’s a line of people of all backgrounds waiting! They’ve also expanded their menu quite a bit. Somehow, they still manage to keep their prices relatively low. Tonight, I picked up two orders of dumplings (“open mouth” fried pork and chive dumplings and zhong shui jiao, Sichuanese style fat dumplings) — 20 dumplings total for just $13! Crazy cheap for 2026, and still so, so good!
  2. Kuih Cafe: Honestly, I’ve neglected this place for the last couple of years. I was one of her original customers when she first opened in February 2020, right before the pandemic almost ended the world. This used to be a regualr stop on my Chinatown list when I’d bring back lots of little things from lots of businesses to try. I was scared, given the timing of her tiny storefront opening, that her business wouldn’t make it. Now 6.5 years in, she has a very, very loyal following with people of all backgrounds and tourists from all over the world lining up to get some of her goodies. And she’s only open three day a week — Friday through Sunday! Veronica focuses on desserts mostly (kuih and Southeast Asian style cakes), but she used to do savory dishes that I enjoyed. It had been a long time since I’d come, so she did not recognize me. This visit, I ordered the pandan mochi waffle with a taro kaya filling. I asked for the kaya on the side since I’d be transporting it home and didn’t want to get it soggy. She looked down her nose at me and asked why I wanted it on the side. When I explained this, she looked relieved (probably didn’t want to hear a story about some picky eaters who didn’t want the kaya!), then instructed me to either oven toast or air-fry the waffle promptly when I got home to maximize the texture. This mochi waffle with the taro kaya was so delicious. The textural contrast between the crunchy waffle outside, the chewy mochi inside, and the soft, sticky taro kaya was super addictive. The pandan was really fragrant. Chris only had a bite because he said he was too full from dinner, but he missed out a lot! Kaia wanted the waffle by itself after she had one taste of the taro kaya and said, “That is for adults!” Then she kept nibbling on the waffle, mumbling between bites, “Tasty! So good! So yummy!” I feel like I need to go back here more. I was behind a woman in line who pre-ordered her Mid-Autumn Moon Festival mooncakes. Maybe this is the year I actually splurge and buy them? Chris isn’t a mooncake fan, but I’m sure I could get Kaia to eat them. The only one she’d previously enjoyed was a red bean one that came straight from Malaysia courtesy of the Sambal Lady!
  3. Hay Hay Roasted: Chris asked for roasted meats, so he got roasted meat. I stopped by this little restaurant on Mott to pick up their honey-roasted cha siu. It’s a little more expensive than Green Garden Village depending on the day (Green Garden’s pricing is always fluctuating), but their lean cuts are very, very lean. And the honey flavor is subtle but done really well. I also appreciate that service is very fast, efficient, and friendly.

And then after a stop at Hong Kong Supermarket to stock up on oyster sauce (the current bottle in my fridge is only a quarter full — gasp!), I picked up Pookster, stopped by a street kiosk to let her buy a surprise end-of-summer gift she’d been asking me about since June — a K-Pop Demon Hunters themed pushy game (no idea what these things are called…), and then off we went home!

I still have too many bookmarks for the Chinatown/Lower East Side area that I haven’t gotten to. Now when I go down there, inevitably every time I come home, my shoulders will be heavy carrying a lot of goodies back, just like the way it was pre Kaia being in preschool.

Chinese yam, pork, and carrot soup – a Cantonese soup standby

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It’s a bittersweet week this week for us, as it’s Kaia’s last week at summer camp at the same school in Chinatown for the last two years. She spent 3K and 4K/Pre-K at this Chinese immersion, dual language school, as part of New York City’s UPK program. It’s been a gift (and quite the savings…!) to not have to pay for school for the last two years, other than after-care fees and summer camp. What this also means is that this is our last week having daily trips to Chinatown… a very sad reality I have to spend time mourning. So I started going through my list of things to stock up on and also remembered a couple of things I wanted to make with fresh ingredients while I still have easy access to them.

This year, I was able to achieve my goal of making soups more frequently. According to TCM, soup is a nourishing component of a meal. In Chinese culture, it’s often noted that a complete meal should be “san cai yi tang” (三菜一汤), or three meat/protein/vegetable dishes and one soup, served alongside rice. I had a lot of bone broth in the fridge I made from chicken wings and chicken feet I got from Chinatown. And I ended up using it today with Chinese yam (or huai shan), pork shoulder (also from Chinatown!), carrots, red dates, ginger, goji berries, and shiitake mushrooms. Chinese yam is a pretty traditional Chinese vegetable. It’s used both fresh and dried; today, I bought it fresh for this soup. It’s considered a nourishing root vegetable that supports digestion, stabilizes blood sugar, and boosts overall vitality. I remember my grandma using it in soups growing up. The texture once cooked is almost like taro. When Chinese yam is raw and fresh, the stalks are long, hard, and thin. It has a really tough brown skin with lots of “hair” on it — definitely not the first vegetable you’d pick up when adventuring to explore new produce, as it’s on the “ugly” or even borderline “scary” looking side. And once you peel the skin off, the white flesh is hard to grasp firmly, as it becomes very sticky and gummy. On the plus side, the fresh root has active digestive enzymes; supposedly when you have mucus, it can help clear it for you!

So I made this soup today. I even served it for Chris and me with a tiny little shallow dish of high quality aged soy sauce for dipping the shredded pork pieces into — super traditional and like we had it growing up. And inhaling the familiar aromas and eating it really did remind me of home — at least, the happier parts. It’s funny that it’s taken me to age 40 to really understand and appreciate how much love and care my grandma put into all the soups she made for us almost every single day. I actually cannot remember a day living with her when there was not a huge pot of traditional Chinese soup on the stove!

And while I dipped some pieces of pork shoulder into the soy sauce, I could also faintly remember watching Ed try to fish out the biggest, most tender pieces of pork out of the stock pot so that he could eagerly dip and eat them himself. I always just ate and drank what was served to me and didn’t care about which pieces I got. Most of my happiest childhood memories are tied to food.

Eight more days of almost-daily access to Chinatown

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We knew the time was going to come, but as I get older, the time seems to pass by too quickly. After today, we have just eight more weekdays of taking Kaia down to Chinatown for summer camp. In September, she will be starting at her new K-8 school walking distance from us, and so there will be no reason to go to Chinatown every day anymore. It’s funny to think how just before she started 3K, part of me was dreading having to do this commute daily. But after a week, it just became part of our routine. And I loved having easy access to all my Asian groceries. I never had to plan in advance all my lists of sauces, condiments, produce, noodles, canned goods, etc., that I needed because on a whim, I could pick it up within just a few blocks of her school. I am really going to miss this, as I will also miss the convenient access to great restaurants that I relied on for Friday takeout. I will miss having easy access to Green Garden Village for last minute cha siu, roasted duck, crispy pork belly, and soy sauce chicken. I will also miss having Asian vegetables every single week. And for the summer time, no one does it better than the Vietnamese fruit ladies at Mulberry Street off of Canal for lychees, rambutans, longans, and other exotic Asian fruit we love.

I already started making a list of sauces and dried goods I need to stock up on before we end our daily trips to Chinatown. So far, I have already picked up replacement bottles of light soy sauce, fish sauce, and fermented bean curd. I put a bag of pressed five-spiced tofu in the freezer for future use. I also got some more dried noodles, canned bamboo shoots, and brown jasmine rice. I still need to get a new bottle of aged Shaoxing wine, medium grain white rice, plus extra dried and canned goods. And for backup freezer food, I need to pick up a bag of frozen pork/chive dumplings and several zongzi. There’s so much to stock up on!

Who knows — after Kaia starts at her new school, I may find a reason to take a trip down to Chinatown every other week or so just to buy groceries and takeout. Well, why not?

Xia pi 虾皮 aka “shrimp skin”

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Although I’ve been cooking since I was a teen, I am most definitely always learning about new ingredients, techniques, dishes, and recipes. When it comes to ingredients, it can get really overwhelming even in a single cuisine. Chinese cuisine could easily be hundreds of different cuisines across the entire country. Although “Eight Great Traditions” of cuisines are recognized across China, I still think this is simplifying the country too much given exactly how large it is and how many influences different parts have given their neighboring countries.

For a long while in the back of my mind, I’d been wanting to buy some xia pi 虾皮 or literally “shrimp skin” when translated into English. These are not actually shrimp skins, but are teeny tiny translucent sun-dried shrimp, just a bit bigger than a peppercorn, that are used as a savory, umami-rich condiment in Chinese cooking. They add a strong, salty sea flavor to dishes like soups and stir-fries. Given its strong umami flavor, they can replace salt in a dish and would definitely require you reduce any added salt/soy sauce to a dish. And because these shrimp are sun-dried, they make for great long-term storage in your fridge or freezer, and can even be used directly from the freezer and added to stocks and stir-fries. I got reminded of xia pi again when I was at the Elmhurst Chinese supermarket I used to frequent when living in the area yesterday. I saw them in packs of half a pound in the refrigerator section and decided that today I’d finally buy some and use. I am looking forward to adding them to near-future soups, vegetable stir-fries, and even an omelet.

I love discovering and trying out new ingredients to make. But I definitely need to balance it with all my other seemingly endless ingredients at home! This is definitely a “first world” problem or challenge, but at least it’s a fun one!

Broken eggs

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Early on in my days living on my own post college, I would be *that* person at the supermarket, opening up the egg carton and removing every single egg, checking its bottom to ensure that there were no cracks. If you buy and eat eggs, you know that cracks in eggs are quite common, and some of them are so tiny that if you do not inspect them closely, you may actually miss one! So whenever I am shopping to buy eggs, I do this exact practice, every single time. I do not care that it takes a little bit longer. I definitely have never cared when I see people looking at me. Because in the worst case scenario, you realize you have a cracked egg. It may even be contaminated. Are you going to go all the way back to the store for a refund? Or, will you just suck it up, eat the egg (and risk getting sick), or just toss it and accept it as a sunk cost?

I hate food waste. It totally infuriates me. When I think of wasting food, all I think about is my mom constantly telling Ed and me when we were kids that she grew up barely having enough plain rice to eat, and that my dad went to sleep hungry many nights. Sometimes, he even ate spoiled leftover food and got food poisoning. So, you can bet that a) I don’t want to waste the food and b) I definitely do not want to waste the money, or the time it takes to return and exchange.

So Chris brought home a carton of eggs from Whole Foods yesterday where three of the eggs were cracked. I realized this when I carefully lowered two of them into boiling water to make boiled eggs yesterday, and both immediately ballooned white into my boiling water. I immediately knew this was not user error. Then, I went to inspect the rest of the carton and found a third egg bubbling with its white oozing out. So, off to Whole Foods I went to return them today. And I wanted an exchange. So, I went to the eggs section and carefully lifted every single egg out of the carton to inspect them. As I did this, another potential egg buyer, noticing what i was doing, decided that she would also inspect each of the egg bottoms while I did this. And then, we looked at each other, made eye contact, and I gave a little head nod of approval. She gets it.

I did the exchange swiftly. The cashier didn’t seem to mind and was totally unfazed. Now, I get all 18 of my eggs fully in tact.

Peanut punch in Trinidad and Tobago

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When traveling, amongst a whole host of things I love learning is finding out what different foods, drinks, and condiments people love in other cities and countries that are different from what I have been exposed to. Everyone’s “normal” around the world is very different, and it’s fascinating to learn about. Pepper sauce is huge throughout the Caribbean, with different types of peppers and seasoning combinations in every place. In Barbados, one of our Uber drivers told us they have a hot sauce so hot that they use just “one drop” of it on their food, and it’s enough for good flavor AND some heat that will set your mouth on fire. The same driver told us that they have another hot sauce that is glaringly hot that many locals don’t even touch it. Colloquially and locally, they call it… the n-word sauce (I mean, he said it; we didn’t!). While in St. Lucia, we tried a few different restaurant variations of pepper sauce that were both very different from each other, but both with very rich, distinct flavor. And at our Port of Spain, Trinidad hotel, the pepper sauce was FIERY. We asked what peppers were in it, and our server at breakfast said it had scotch bonnets (which we figured) and chocolate moruga peppers, which are one step down from one of the hottest peppers on earth — the scorpion pepper.

One thing I noticed at multiple shops, convenience stores, and supermarkets while in Trinidad was peanut punch. It seemed to be pretty mcuh everywhere, and I even saw some people on the street drinking from containers that had “peanut punch” on the label. So one night when we went out for doubles and quick drinks to take back to the hotel, I grabbed a single-serving bottle of peanut punch just to try it. It tastes like you’d imagine: peanutty and milky, but very, very sweet — almost too sweet! The surprising thing was that there was another ingredient I wasn’t expecting: whey protein powder! It was the fourth ngredient listed on the label after peanuts, water, and sugar. Unfortunately, this is more of a “treat” drink than a body builder or workout fanatic’s drink, as the sugar content is far too high on this to be considered a regular protein drink. But I could see a variation of this (with a fraction of the sugar) being a good protein add in one’s diet. The “high protein” lifestyle is one that I’m slowly but surely adapting to in my 40s, so this is always top of mind for me now even when I’m not vocal about it.

Mangoes with black spots = sign of ripeness in other countries, but a sign of rot/”bad” in the U.S.

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One thing I noticed while eating the many varieties of mangoes we were lucky to taste across four Caribbean islands on this trip was that many of them are ripe when they have black spots. This is actually a good thing, not a bad thing: it signals to us that they are ready to eat, and we should eat them right away! This was the case for the Julie and mango longues, and especially true for the starch and dodo mangoes. We got told from multiple vendors, as well as our smoothie guy who gifted us the five cutlass mangoes in Port of Spain, that black spots were a positive thing. The funny thing is that I told Chris that this would absolutely not fly in the U.S. You could never have a display of mostly black spotted mangoes in the U.S. and actually get those to sell — no freaking way!

The strange thing, though, is that black spots with mango varieties readily available in the U.S. — so Ataulfo (champagne, our default from March to June) and Kent — actually are not good when they have black spots. For these two mango varieties that come from Mexico, black spots are a sign that they have really gone bad or are about to go bad. I know this after peeling and cutting hundreds and hundreds of mangoes over the years. Sometimes we don’t monitor the mangoes closely enough, and the black spots appear. And once the spots appear, this is truly a sign of rot. Those parts don’t taste good, or they actually smell off. Some of them become mush in the parts where the black spots are.

The American public is quite superficial when it comes to produce. Everyone wants picture-perfect fruit and vegetables, oftentimes at the expense of taste, flavor, and even nutrition. It’s partly why mainstream supermarket tomatoes look super red and plump but often taste like nothing or are mealy in texture inside. So I doubt that even if Trinidad and Tobago could export mango longue or starch mangoes to the U.S. that they would do well from a sales perspective outside of ethnic markets in neighborhoods with a large Caribbean population. That is sad, a real loss for someone like me who wants every single mango variety possible at the tips of her fingers!

Eating out while in the Caribbean – so many fresh vegetables!

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While we stayed at four different hotels across four different island countries in the Caribbean, and two of the hotels were all-inclusive, I felt like from a vegetable-eating standpoint that this was likely the best trip we’ve had to date for vegetable access. Since we were out and about in Barbados and Grenada where we stayed at all-inclusive properties, we still managed to have some meals out while on the go. In the all-inclusive buffets, it was easy to get vegetables. At the restaurants om property, getting vegetables was straightforward. And with most dining options we had, vegetables were quite ubiquitous. This is always what I’ve enjoyed about dining out while outside of the U.S.: it never feels like vegetables are add-on sides that are terrible value. I guess there are some exceptions to this (while in Taiwan, I do not recall eating many vegetables to be honest; street food in Taiwan is not very vegetable forward!). Vegetables are usually included as side dishes you order. Sometimes, the vegetable options are fixed. Sometimes, the vegetable options are what you choose. And other times, the vegetables are half fixed, half chosen by you. While you may order ginger pork or grilled fish as we did during our one lunch out in Grenada, those mains came with several vegetable options, like stewed pumpkin or callaloo (like Caribbean spinach), bok choy, coleslaw, or taro/sweet potato. I really enjoyed eating all the different vegetables we had across the Caribbean and seeing different preparation methods. Before this trip, I also had no idea how popular sweet potato and pumpkin in general are across these countries. I knew callaloo, taro, and spinach were popular. Potato and coleslaw seemed like predictable dishes to have on menus. But the pumpkin being everywhere was a surprise to me, especially since I consider it a fall/autumn vegetable. So, I’ve definitely learned a lot about Caribbean food culture in the last two weeks.

Whenever we’ve come back from trips where we haven’t eaten too many vegetables, it’s like Kaia just knows that she misses her vegetables and especially her Asian greens, so she physically will stuff her mouth with the greens after I’ve plopped them onto her plate. This is a pattern she’s exhibited since she was very young. But this time after coming home from a trip, she wasn’t really vegetable deprived. I think she had a good share of vegetables across the last two weeks away. Yet still, she quickly gobbled up her roasted bell peppers and blanched bok choy at dinner.

I think the U.S. could learn a lot from other countries around the world about a lot of things. But specifically from these four Caribbean nations, the U.S. can learn to stop having menus with mains that are just a single thing (e.g. pasta, steak, a quarter of a roasted chicken) without also including vegetable sides — and have that be included in the freaking price. Stop up-charging for vegetables and just have them built into the main price!

Day trip via ferry to Tobago; reflecting on cultural differences with respect to “dinner”

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We woke up at 4am to catch a 6:30am ferry from Trinidad to Tobago today. The ferry ride is approximately three hours, and with a scheduled 4pm ferry ride back to Trinidad, we really only had about 4.5 hours on the quiet island of Tobago before going back. Chris figured that since we were already in this part of the world that we might as well just go since we were already here. Unfortunately for Chris, no Marriott hotels are currently on Tobago, as the hotels I could see during our time there and on the map all look to be local/independent places. Despite our time being short there, it was nice to have some beach time at the beach there, with its teeny tiny waves, extremely clear, turquoise waters, and tiny little silver fish swimming around at less than waist-level deep water. We decided to base ourselves at Store Bay Beach rather than Pigeon Point Heritage Park because we wanted more local food with a local feel. Store Bay has a a cluster of tiny buildings selling full meals, juices, snacks, ice cream, and clothing, whereas Pigeon Point, which requires an entry fee, is more resort-like and manicured as such. At Store Bay, we sat down and ate a small meal of blue crab curry and dumplings with provisions and some fried shark. The blue crabs were predictably teeny tiny and very not satisfying given it was so much work to get the little meat, but it was still fun to have the experience of eating the local dish here that Tobago is known for.

While on the beach, we paid a local vendor for some lounging chairs and an umbrella. The vendor was so nice that he took a quick drive back to his house and picked us some chenet fruit, also known to us as mamoncillo that we had while in Colombia and El Salvador. These were by far the sweetest of the three times we’ve enjoyed this tropical fruit; both other times, it was more sour-sweet. These were so sweet that they were like fruit candy! This time, Kaia was old enough to handle sucking around the big round gum-ball like pit (major potential choking hazard for littles!), and she got to try one. She didn’t seem to enjoy it too much, though; I think she thought it was too much sucking for very little reward… which is kind of true with this fruit, especially since you have to pick the thin skin off it before sucking the gelatinous pink flesh off the pit.

We arrived back in Port of Spain just after 7pm, and I was going through my list of restaurants on my map when I realized that pretty much none of them served dinner; every place I bookmarked was for breakfast or lunch. And then it dawned on me that Trinidad likely doesn’t really have much “going out” dinner culture, as most of the iconic Trini foods are daytime foods, like doubles, roti, bake, aloo pie, roti shop curries, macaroni pie. Doubles is usually a breakfast/early day food, but as we saw our first full day, it can also appear later at night after partying, when people set up their trucks and sell it on the street. There was one Trini fusion dinner place that Claude recommended when I was doing research, but unfortunately that place has since closed down. So we figured that in Trini culture, “sit down restaurant dinners” aren’t really a thing. It’s an interesting thing to think about when traveling — the cultural differences across the world with dining practices and times. In Trinidad, a sit-down dinner in general isn’t really part of the social rhythm. But then if you are in places like Argentina, Chile, or Spain, an 8pm dinner is considered too early, and some places may not even be open for food!

When there are restaurants open in Port of Spain, they tend to skew more “restaurant/bar” rather than traditional Trini. Or, they are not Trini restaurants. So it’s common to see French, Italian, Japanese, or Chinese restaurants open for dinner. But if a restaurant has Trini food, it’s usually just part of the menu (that is quite eclectic with other options like wings, tacos, etc.), and also has a big bar scene. So we ended up back on Ariapita Avenue and chose a casual bar-type spot called Wing It, where we had some grilled fish and jerk chicken alongside some drinks. It was quite loud and boisterous in there, with a World Cup match on the big TVs and lots of loud soca music. This was Kaia’s first “night out” on the town — at age 4.5! She seemed to love the vibe overall despite it being quite loud for her little ears.

And just like that, our Caribbean island hopping trip is coming to an end. I can’t remember ever having this much tropical fruit, crazy mango variety, sun, and beach time in a single trip before this! I could get used to this!

Trini mango varieties at a wholesale market and the most delicious “buss up shut” roti of my life in Port of Spain

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After chatting with our smoothie guy about Central Market and Chinatown as being the best places to get local fruit, we made our way to Central Market this morning. It’s a wholesale market that runs late at night, with peak times being around 11pm, then again at around 4am. These are not times I would ever be at any market, so when we went this late morning, it unfortunately was not surprising to see that a lot of vendors were sold out or already gone for the day. However, we did find vendors selling some mango varieties that we had not tried yet, and did not even know about. We sought out and got five starch mangoes for $20TTD, and we also picked up some mango vert (vert means “green” in French, but these are actually yellowish green). The teeny tiny mangoes that were next to the mango vert were “dodo” mangoes, named because of how small they are; four can comfortably sit in the palm of your hand! They are very sugary sweet mangoes that are considered “snacking mangoes” here given their size. Each mango can yield about four small bites before you hit the pit. Of all the mango varieties, this was likely the most one-dimensional tasting one — just straight forward sweet with zero complexity. I would not get those again.

And where there is a wholesale market, there must be ready made/made to order food. So we popped into the indoor area where vendors had different stalls. Most were closed, but a couple were open, including one that had a promising “fish broth” sign. Given fish is part of the market, we thought this could be really good. The older lady operating it said she’d add a fish steak to my soup, so she asked me to give her some time. When she presented the massive bowl with the fish steak on top, I couldn’t believe how massive it was. Good thing this was going to be shared among three of us! The vendor called the fish salmon, but it actually wasn’t salmon: it was a white sea trout. In Trinidad, as I later learned, people refer to sea trout as salmon, but I’m unclear why. It was very flaky, meaty, and lean. The fish broth was really rich, likely made with endless fish bones!

Our next stop was at Dobson’s Roti Shop, which is a popular institution amongst locals and tourists alike in Port of Spain. Our driver for the Caroni Bird Sanctuary told us it was her favorite roti shop. So while you may be familiar with Indian roti, Trinidadian roti is slightly different. Trini roti is also referred to as “buss up shut” roti, derived from their accent when they say “busted up shirt” (this really makes me chuckle), a paratha that is super soft, flaky, and endlessly layered. The name is perfect to describe its appearance because while cooking the roti on the tawa, it is “crushed” and beaten a few times with metal spoons/spatulas to separate its delicate layers. So in the end, it really does resemble a “busted up” shirt! This roti was originally brought to the Caribbean by East Indian indentured laborers, and is known as one of the THE foods representing the multi-ethnic culture of Trinidad and Tobago. Like in India, this roti is used as an edible utensil to sop up gravies, stews, and curries.

We got to the roti shop just ahead of prime lunch hour, so we ordered a beef curry roti with no line. The roti came hot and steaming, wrapped in foil, alongside a big styrofoam takeout container which included a huge portion of curry beef, mashed spiced savory pumpkin, chickpea curry, and a very thick mango chutney, complete with its skins and all. When I unwrapped the roti, I knew it was going to be good: it was this HUGE piece of paratha, with layers that basically draped and fell all over the place. Kaia was obsessed and kept reaching for more roti between bites of beef and channa. I’m honestly not sure what I liked more: the doubles from the previous night or this insanely delicious roti! Roti was definitely meant to be taken away or eaten on the go, as we had the only two seats at the one tiny table in the front. But we were thrilled to see they had a tiny little sink with soap for us; roti is meant to be eaten with your hands – definitely not a fork and knife situation!

After lunch, we stopped at a nearby shop for some ice cream and got soursop and peanut flavor. Peanut flavored things are huge here: you can see lots of shops selling chocolate candy bars with whole peanuts, peanut punch (peanut butter, whey protein, milk, and sugar!), and peanut desserts like this one. Of course, soursop is huge here. The soursop ice cream was very good — the cream and sugar rounded out some of the “oil spill” flavor I tend to get when I have soursop straight as a fruit, which makes me a bit wary of having it as fresh fruit. Since soursop has a high concentration of natural sugars, when the fruit becomes overripe or sits too long at room temperature, wild yeasts on the skin can break down these sugars. This process produces ethanol and other alcohol byproducts. So, in concentrated amounts, this chemical fermentation smells and tastes intensely sharp, similar to turpentine, gasoline, or nail polish remover. This is the flavor I unfortunately get frequently when trying fresh soursop fruit!

We have to wake up for a 6:30am ferry to go to Tobago on a day trip tomorrow, so our dinner tonight ended up just being a bunch of the mangoes we got at the market, along with the cutlass mangoes gifted to us. Kaia loved the mango vert and the starch. “I WANT VERT! I WANT VERT!” she kept yelling. I love seeing her get into all the Caribbean mangoes here, especially after she refused to try a single mango variety our entire time in India together just three years ago. It was a very delicious day in Port of Spain, for sure.