The heat wave coolers edition 🍉
A watermelon mint mocktail, iced lavender latte, and a shrimp party for one.
Watermelon and mint mocktail at home
Why not your home, too?
I love love watermelon in the summer and crave it constantly, but my fridge (and apartment) is so small, there’s nowhere to properly carve one in my studio apartment, which is why I turn to cold-pressed watermelon juice. I don’t know why watermelon juice isn’t more popular than it already is because it’s the most refreshing beverage I can imagine. I like to buy cold-pressed watermelon juice from Trader Joe’s, which allows me to fuel my juice addiction on a reasonable budget. To make the juice last even longer, and taste twice as refreshing, I muddle a few sprigs of mint in a glass, add ice to fill, pour half a bottle (6oz) of the juice, and top off with seltzer and a juicy slice of lemon.
Babyface Ho Ho Té
805 8th Ave, New York, NY 10019
In order to enjoy this beverage you must first reach Asian Level 100. I am Asian Level 85, I will drink black vinegar straight, I will eat beans for dessert and every ligament, but even I could not slurp down this many mushrooms in my sweet tea. I am sorry to disappoint you. I really like medicinal, herby Chinese summer drinks, so when I read the description for this beverage (“snow fungus cooked with raw sugar and goji berry no extra sugar added”) it seemed right up my alley. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that snow fungus is basically wood ear fungus, a popular mushroom for savory dishes with a gelatinous texture, so when I was sipping this tea, it felt like I was eating an accidentally sweetened, globby mushroom soup.
Lavender iced latte made with Copper Cow Coffee
Plus other flavors, available on their website.
Hey, remember my Prepper-obsession with instant coffee? I forgot all about it for a while, but then this latest surge in Delta variant cases has kicked my search for the perfect craveable cup of instant coffee back into full swing. And, I am proud to announce, at long last I have found a just-add-water brew kit that’s cravings-worthy. Copper Cow’s Lavender Latte is not a regular instant coffee -- it’s a tiny, disposable pour-over kit (my favorite technique to make coffee!). There’s a little cardboard, pop-up filter cone, and you pour boiling water over the grounds, just like my usual Melitta setup, only on-the-go. For a creamy, iced version, I fill a tall glass with ice and let it drip over. They include a packet of sweetened condensed milk, so that it comes out like a Vietnemese coffee, which I personally love but you could buy Just Black packets if you’re not into that. The only issue is that it comes out to about $3 a cup, which means that you’re paying almost Brooklyn coffee shop prices for something that comes in a packet, but in my opinion that only contributes to the experience.
Yuzu Chuhai (cocktail) at Yopparai
49 Clinton St, New York, NY 10002
Yopparai is a cozy izakaya in the Lower East Side best known for its large and thoughtful sake selection. However, being the contrarian that I am, I actually liked their Yuzu Chuhai the best. There’s only one cocktail option on the drink menu, the chuhai, which costs $10 for a huge pint glass and is essentially a tasty shochu soda. It comes in six flavors, Calpico, green tea, pickled plum, oolong tea, lemon, and of course yuzu.I am a sucker for anything citrusy, and since yuzu is like an even lemon-ier lemon I really enjoyed the chuhai. All of the flavors sound deliciously refreshing for a hot summer’s day, and I absolutely want to go back to try them all, but in the meantime I’m going to try my hand at some recipes at home.
Shrimp party at Joe’s steam rice roll
265 Canal St, New York, NY 10013 (Canal Street Market location)
There is only one way to order Chinese food on a Sunday the day after you come home from your college friends’ wedding, which is to order so much food that they give you two sets of chopsticks. You want that perfect trifecta of sweet, salty and spicy, which for me. For me, that always means a creamy, sugary, uber-caffeinated beverage (I love the sweet flavored iced coffee drinks they pour half and half into that you can get at Chinese bakeries), a big order of steamed rice rolls (with shrimp, egg, scallions, bean sprouts and cilantro), plus a side of curry fish balls, which are the perfect compliment to the soft, eggy rice roll. I pour chili oil over the top of the rice roll, then take a sip of the iced coffee, a bite of rice roll, and a curry fish ball, and repeat until my stomach is full and my soul is satisfied.
Have a good weekend,
Soph
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