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What I ate last week
EPISODE 50
My first food job at B.East https://www.yelp.com/biz/b-east-new-york#reviews
Circa 2009 in proto Dimes Square; 171 E Broadway which later became Mission Chinese’s second LES location. Their first location had an infestation issue but was neat; I attended a James Beard party there when I worked at Milk Bar. There was a strong MC / Milk relationship. I ate the steak sandwich for lunch everyday which is probably why they went out of business. Yelp review from Anna C: “really depressing”
Inventory Update: Jar of “turmeric ginger pickle” from small village in India
Olive Garden and edit Bauer both owned by General milks
SCENT REVIEWS
Le Labo Gaiac 10
Official description: “Gaiac is a very hard, greenish wood that isn’t as dry as cedar, but is as subtle, profound, and stable. GAIAC 10 is a tense formula built on gaiac wood and surrounded by musk notes (4 different types in all), with hints of cedar and olibanum (incense)”. The reviews on Fragrantica are saying that this smells like BBQ ham.
My review: Notes of burnt wood and men’s cologne immediately transported me to my uncle’s old bedroom in my grandmother’s house that was turned into a TV room, except my uncle’s desk and old textbooks were preserved. My uncles would watch sports in this room. The burnt wood aspect also reminded me of the living room in my grandmother's basement where we would watch TV on a large braided L.L. Bean rug, the smell of cold air rushing down into the fireplace and pushing the smell of last night’s burnt wood and ash from the fireplace into the room. It’s the smell of fire, but cold. This is the transcendent woody scent that I’ve been after. It is just soapy enough to feel clean.
Le Labo Lavande 31 (revisited):
Official description: “In true Le Labo form, LAVANDE 31 knocks all preconceived notions of lavender on its head. Its bergamote and neroli essential oils give it a fresh lift-off to reveal a lavender of the greatest purity, where only the flower buds are distilled, giving the creation verticality and richness. Its foundation is pure Le Labo: ambery, dirty, and musky notes, blended with notes of tonka to give this perfume a regressive classic style that is both clean and dirty, recognizable yet truly unique. Nope, this isn’t the lavender you thought you knew. Welcome to a new reality.”
My review: truly smells like an expensive beach trip; I have a grey sweatshirt that I brought on a beach trip to Pawley Island and folded it up and put it back into my closet and when I revisited it, it smelled amazing and fresh; less sharp and white floral forward than I remembered; the Reddit comment about it smelling like a European cleaning product really clouded my memory of it and made me think it was more astringent than it really is, especially compared to all of the more neroli-forward scents I’ve been trying. Despite being co-opted by the fuck boys of Dime Square, Le Labo scents really hit for me.
INTERNET
Texas Roadhouse Reviews https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8HwoBPJ/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP89tRsRy/
Moldovan pickled watermelon https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP89t3Vxe/
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP89Tj9gu/
https://www.tiktok.com/@bulbasaurmast3r/video/7477719869400648991
Just wanted you to know that people are doing this and this is an option https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP89wdvKw/
Recipes of the Epstein files https://carolinefitzhenrymort.substack.com/p/the-recipes-of-the-epstein-files?r=1v8n6k
Restaurants I want to eat at in Hillsville, Virginia
B & P Drive In
Pizza Perfect On Main
Slyders
Earl's Diner
February 9, 2026 (Monday)
9am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home, and a bowl of cornflakes with milk.
1pm: Whole Foods restaurant style tortilla chips and Tacodeli white queso with jalapenos.
5:30pm: Kettle jalapeno potato chips and two Malvi passionfruit marshmallows.
8pm: Haagen Dasz dulce de leche and Blue Bell coffee ice creams.
Nice so I basically ate corn all day
Love these marshmallows despite bovine gelatine being an ingredient
Haagen Dasz is noticeably creamer, side by side.
February 10, 2026 (Tuesday)
9am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home, and a bowl of cornflakes with milk.
12pm: Kettle jalapeno potato chip crumbs.
1:30pm: Heritage grain sourdough toasted in butter with goat cheese and sriracha, made at home.
5:30pm: Chicken curry with Japanese white sweet potato and basmati rice, made at home, and turmeric ginger pickle from an unknown small village in India.
8pm: Tony’s white chocolate.
Chicken curry
Marinade: Yogurt, Sassool shawarma spice blend, garlic powder, aleppo pepper
Curry: Butter, sliced onion, mustard seeds, grated garlic and ginger, curry powder, tomato paste, passata, cream
February 11, 2026 (Wednesday)
7:30am: Leftover coffee with half & half.
9:30am: A cup of coffee with half & half at the office.
Cake room: A single square vanilla shortbread cookie in a plastic package from At Home by Ferrington Village and NYT Page-a-Day recipes for Skillet Ginger Chicken With Apricots and Cauliflower Salad Sandwiches.
10:30am: A turkey and avocado BLT, a side salad, and a small coffee with half & half from 1922 by Carolina Coffee Shop in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
5pm: A slice of pepperoni pizza from Whole Foods and a pour of GT’s ginger kombucha.
7:30pm: Half of a hazelnut cream shortbread cookie from the Whole Foods cookie bar and a Malvi passionfruit marshmallow.
Every restaurant is just Sysco food prep station; nasty water logged tomato; I appreciate having the option to grab a quick lunch but for $20, this is not it. I’d rather go to Cook Out. Same food quality, half the price.
I wanted cheese pizza but it looked overcooked. The pizza was fine but the sauce tasted like straight up tomato paste, which my mom used to do in the early 2000s, probably because she saw somebody do it on the Food Network or PBS. It’s too sharp for me or reminds me of eating a tomato-based dinner every night in the 90s and getting sores on my lips and mouth from the acid.
Hazelnut cream cookie was decent. Shortbread was very crispy and possibly had shards of a caramel or toffee in it.
February 11, 2026 (Thursday)
8am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
9am: A bowl of cornflakes and milk.
12pm: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home, beef soup with tomato, couscous, mushrooms, chickpeas, and carrots, made by Anne, and two black & white cookies.
2:30pm: Tacodeli white queso with jalapenos and Whole Foods restaurant style tortilla chips.
6pm: Chicken meatball soup with scallions and leftover basmati rice, made at home.
7pm: Blue Bell oatmeal cream pie ice cream.
Unmarked van of black & white cookies
Tacodeli white queso with jalapenos is too thick and salty
Chicken meatball soup that I saw someone’s Japanese mother make on TikTok like a year ago; I’ve been thinking about it ever since but rarely have the desire to buy ground chicken, until this week when some high quality ground chicken was buy one get one 50%
Meatballs: ground chicken, 4C seasoned bread crumbs, soy sauce, mirin, grated ginger, garlic powder, chicken bouillon powder, salt
Soup: Chicken stock, soy sauce, lump sugar, white pepper, scallions, onion, garlic, basmati rice
I don’t like white pepper
Oatmeal cream pie was the best soft serve flavor that Momofuku Milk Bar ever made. That and the sour gummy worm, which wouldn’t freeze properly. Neither of them did, actually.
February 13, 2026 (Friday)
7:30am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home, and a bowl of bran flakes with milk.
9am: A cup of coffee with half & half at the office.
Cake room: A plastic clamshell container of Wegman’s mini assorted cupcakes, four out of the twelve remaining, and NYT Page-a-Day recipes for Pickle Soup and Chocolate Lava Cake for Two
11am: Leftover chicken curry with rice at the office.
3:30pm: Jasmine tea, pork, shrimp, and leek dumplings, spicy oil-splashed chili broad noodles with yuk choy, and eggplant with garlic sauce over rice at Chengdu 7 in Cary, North Carolina.
6pm: Half of a lycee blossom chocolate, half of a passionfruit elderflower chocolate, and half of an earl grey chocolate from Escazu Chocolates in Raleigh, North Carolina, and black and white cookies.
Chengdu 7: I typically avoid restaurants, and bands, with numbers in their names. But Taipei 101 and Chengdu 7 are proving my theory wrong. Amazing ambiance. Very unclear how to walk around the random layout of the restaurant. Felt like a gas station” - Brian. Jazz weather channel music, blown out air brush print textured mural wallpaper, the texture made me think that it was originally intended to be a backpack or a reflective strip on a sneaker, electric blue vinyl booths, man trapped in a plexiglass booth in the middle of the restaurant slamming dough on a table and pulling noodles, fluorescent lighting. “ They gave us a random pair of scissors to cut our noodles. The whole stripmall felt abandoned and you couldn’t see into any of the windows. There was a middle eastern bakery, Japanese grocery store and “gift shop” that sucked.
These chocolates were trying a little too hard. The chocolate itself was very dark.
Earl Grey: dark chocolate ganache infused w/ Earl Grey tea
Lycee Blossom: dark chocolate ganache infused w/ lychee blossom tea
Passionfruit Elderflower: passion fruit pâtes de fruits layered w/ Elderflower ganache, Vegan | Contains Alcohol
February 14, 2026 (Saturday)
8am: Leftover coffee with half & half.
10am: Leftover curry over basmati rice.
12pm: A pour of GT’s ginger kombucha.
2:30pm: Half of a double smash burger, half of a chicken tender with ranch, Ched ‘R’ Peppers, and a soft pretzel with cheese sauce from Sonic in Creedmoor, North Carolina.
6pm: Half of a bourbon chocolate caramel, half of an Oliva Oil heart, half of a bananas foster chocolate, and half of an orange rosemary heart from Escazu Chocolates.
7:30pm: Leftover noodles and eggplant from Chengdu 7.
Tried a strawberries & cream zero sugar Dr. Pepper that was leftover from a Valentines “Thirsty Thursday” party at work. Tastes exactly like a pink Starburst which controversially is my least favorite Starburst flavor.
Great smash burger but could have used more salt. Cheese sauce, burger sauce, diced onions, pickles. Chicken was decent. Ranch was salty. I now have two packets of BBQ sauce and two packets of ranch in the fridge; plus I found an extra Cook Out Buffalo sauce ramekin that fell into the back of the fridge from when my sisters visited and the Cook Out gave us two fistfuls of sauce packets. Jalapeño poppers were great. Pretzel let me down because I heard this was a good one for fast food, and I’ve been wanting a soft pretzel. Too sweet and bready but I ate the whole thing. There is a stuffed pretzel place in NC. https://www.google.com/viewer/place?mid=%2Fg%2F11yc5b569g
Bourbon chocolate caramel tasted like alcohol, oliva oil heart tasted like sunflower oil, bananas foster was shockingly my favorite due to the cinnamon and rum and subdued banana flavor, and the rosemary orange tasted like straight up rosemary essential oil
February 15, 2026 (Sunday)
8am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
10am: Orecchiette with arugula, butter, parmesan, and romano cheese, made at home.
3pm: Tortilla chips with guacamole, nachos with grilled chicken, queso, sour cream, and refried beans, and a margarita at Toros Tacos and Tequila in Franklinton, North Carolina.
5pm: A pour of Fleur de Mer rosé at Brian’s parents’ house.
It was either another mexican restaurant named Toros that may or may not give us food poisoning or a sports bar with a 25 foot television. “They have a TV bigger than my house”. Big sloppy mess of nachos. Margarita tasted like watered down orange juice with a salt and citric acid rim that Brian thought might be a chemical cleaning solution. Guacamole was grey. There is also a cigar bar across the street called Tap That Ash.