The Flushing Mall Food Court

Last weekend during my visit in NYC, my friends Daniella and Anna decided to take me to the Flushing Mall food court. It's funny to think that we made the long trip from Manhattan all the way to Queens just to eat at a mall food court - especially when growing up I had always been under the impression that food court food ranks just barely above hospital food and just below airplane food in palatability. However, this place has had good reviews, and when Daniella told me that they offer Japanese-style ice cream crepes there, I was sold. While common in San Francisco (and obviously in Japan), I've been hard-pressed to find ice cream crepes on the East coast. Very painful, since I've been craving them since the last time I was in SF's J-town over a year ago.

The first thing I got after arriving was a banana-Oreo crepe with coconut ice cream and topped with caramel and whipped cream:

Daniella ordered soup dumplings, because generally soup dumplings are a good choice. Sadly though, these had skin that was way too thick and were not nearly as attractive -nor nearly as yummy as what you would get at Joe's Shangai:

To add insult to injury, they gave her only a small, flimsy plastic spoon to eat them with - which was not even big enough to hold the soup that kept spilling out of ALL of them. Yes - there was lots of soup spillage, even despite the dumpling's overly-thick skins.

For my entree I chose the pork potstickers - 10 pieces for $5 - a great price considering their size, but the potstickers themselves were disappointing. Like with Daniella's soup dumplings, the skin was too thick, and the filling was bland in flavor:

Daniella also got chili dumplings:

Anna ordered seafood noodle soup which ended up being too spicy for her to tolerate. Check out the scary bug-eyes on the shrimps that still had their heads and shells attached:

While I was pretty darn pleased with my ice cream crepe (it's hard to mess up anything that consists of ice cream, whipped cream, and Oreo cookies), overall I was disappointed by the other food offerings in the Flushing Mall food court. Don't get me wrong - for a food court they had a much wider variety and higher quality of food options than most, but this place is definitely not a good replacement for real restaurant cuisine.

Overall rating: 5/10

New World Mall Food Court

4021 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11354-4432

Laduree

This weekend was a coveted "golden" weekend and I was able to make trip down to NYC where one of the first things I did after arrival was visit Laduree, which recently opened a shop on Madison Avenue.


This Parisian bakery is known for it's macarons, which are so popular that there's been a line going out the door and wrapping around the corner ever since they opened their new location two months ago.



While waiting in line, a random passer-by questioned us: "What are you in line for?"

Macarons

"What's so good about them? Are they free?"

Nope. They're actually rather pricey - but they're yummy!

*Rolls eyes and walks away*


In all, Daniella and I waited for about an hour and a half (you can see her pictured above with our bags of goodies). You would expect the line to move more quickly - given that all the macarons are pre-made and it should be a simple matter to just box them up and charge the customer. Wrong. The problem is that people are so darn indecisive. They stand there pondering and pondering what flavor(s) to get. C'mon people!!! Are you REALLY going to waste 15 more minutes of your life weighing the benefits of vanilla vs. chocolate? You've already waited in line for over an hour. Make the wait worth it and get both, dammit! My transaction was simple: "How many flavors do you have?"

15

"Ok give me one of each. Thanks."


The end. The sales-person is happy (I just dropped $45 on a 3-second encounter), I'm happy (yummy macarons!!!), and the people in line behind me are happy (Helllls yeah - one more person down, almost my turn next!).


Were these macarons worth the money? Or more importantly - were they worth the hour and a half of my valuable weekend? Totally. They're light, and airy - almost melting in your mouth. The flavors are true to what is advertised, and the textures of the filling are appropriate to the flavor (for example - the caramel macaron not only had caramel flavored cream, but also had a layer of caramel). By far the best macarons that I've tasted so far (and believe me - I've tried almost all the other macaron places in both NYC and Seattle).

My only warning: I've been told that each one of these babies has almost 200 calories, so don't eat all 15 at once

Frambois (Raspberry):


Lemon:



Caramel:

I'm currently still working on the other 12...


Overall rating: 9/10


Laduree
864 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10021

North Street Grille

Last weekend my friend Jesse came up from NYC to check out Harvard's B-school, and we were able to snag brunch together at North Street Grille on my day off:

Jesse got the banana nut waffles with a side of bacon (not pictured):



In honor of my West-coast roots, I decided on the California omelette (avocado, tomatoes, and mushrooms):



The food was yummy, portion sizes were good, and the restaurant was clean and cozy. Not too far outside was an old-looking tree that a bunch of tourists were taking pictures of. Neither Jesse nor I could figure out what was so special about the tree... free cupcake to anyone who can answer that question for me!

Overall rating: 7/10

North Street Grille
229 North Street
Boston, MA 02113