Tom Kim

Tiffin
710 W. Girard Ave.
215-922-1297

Indian takeout and delivery. (Pressured by No-Libbers to add sit-in within the storefront). Highly recommended
Created by a founding partner of Karma. Order early off the web for a discount.

Metro Diner
Upper West Side
2641 Broadway
New York, NY 10025
(212) 866-0800

Diner. Good egg cream. Also tried: hanger steak salad, fries. Recommended

Kunjip
9 W. 32nd St., New York, NY 10001
212-216-9487
Open 24 hours

Korean food
Serves kae-rahn-jim as part of the pahn-jjan!

Chapter House Cafe
620 S. 9th St., Philadelphia, PA 19147
7 days a week: 7-10
215-238-2626

Really great lattes. Wifi. Nice, airy atmosphere. Gets crowded with Jefferson students.

Holds a monthly literary event: Chapter & Verse

coffee, wifi, art, cafe, south philly

Man, I’m still thinking about the cake Rafaela made for Colleen’s New Year’s party. So good. Fortunately, she left us with the recipe: google Emeril Lagasse’s Tres Leches. Here’s the recipe found on the Food Network (cut and pasted for my convenience and posterity):

Cake:
6 large eggs, separated
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream topping:
1 14-ounce can evaporated milk
1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup heavy cream

Icing:
3 tablespoons water
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large egg whites
1 ripe mango, peeled, seed removed, and thinly sliced
1 ripe papaya, peeled, seeds removed, and thinly sliced

To make the cake: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease and flour a 9 by 13-inch baking dish and set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, beat the egg whites on low speed until soft peaks form. Add the sugar gradually with the mixer running and peak to stiff peaks. Add the egg yolks 1 at a time, beating well after the addition of each.

Sift together the flour and baking powder and add to the egg mixture, alternating with the milk. (Do this quickly so the batter does not lose volume.) Add the vanilla. Bake until golden, 25 minutes.

To make the cream topping: In a blender, combine the evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream and blend on high speed.

Remove the cake from the oven and while still warm, pour the cream mixture over it. Let sit and cool to room temperature. Cover and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 4 hours or overnight.
To make the icing: Once the cake is completely chilled, in a saucepan combine the water and sugar. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Cook until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage, 235 to 240 degrees F. Remove from the heat. In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites to soft peaks. While beating, add the hot syrup in a stream. Beat until all the syrup has been added, the mixture cools, and a glossy icing forms.

To assemble: Remove the cake from the refrigerator and spread the icing evenly across the top. Arrange the mango and papaya slices over the top and serve.

One of my secret reasons for anticipating my weekly Bible study meeting is to enjoy a really, really good cup of coffee. When the Lai’s came back from Australia, they were raving about Le Cube, a single-cup coffee maker from Nespresso — Nestle’s line of high-end boutique coffee products. They even got themselves an Aeroccino, an automatic milk frother.

Look, I’m not a coffee aficionado. It took me a long time to get used to the stuff, and I eventually started drinking my daily cup for the same reason everybody else does — the caffeine. I got in the habit of masking the bitter taste with lots of cream and lots of sugar.

I’m a recovering addict. I don’t drink coffee every day anymore; I actually find that it exhausts me more often than not, and is a potent diuretic for me. I also find that I simply do not like the taste of most coffee, including, and especially, coffee shop coffee. Starbucks, ugh. Did you know Starbucks deliberately amps up the caffeine in their coffee?

This stuff from Nespresso is glorious, though. It’s got a silky smooth mouthfeel. I don’t even need to add sugar; I can enjoy it on its pure merit. It’s like the difference between foie gras and liver.

It’s expensive, and I probably can’t justify getting one of my own in my current income bracket, but I would suggest you find a very generous neighbor, like I did, or maybe pool together some money with a bunch of buddies. Man, coffee… mmmmm.