The Queens Vibe

It is a rare pleasure to spend the day at the beach and the night in a fine Italian joint, but that was the story of my Saturday. We started at Cedar Beach, past Jones in Long Island, where we arrived early and inconspicuous enough to pirate a small dog onto our private slice of sand. The heat propelled talk of ice cream and ices and we decided that a trip to Long Island would be incomplete without a pit stop at the Lemon Ice King of Corona on the way back.

The name is a misnomer, because the Lemon Ice King actually serves twenty-five different ices, and only one of them is lemon. Sizes range from pizzeria standard (a whopping $1.50) to a full gallon (price unknown) with a range in between. T. ordered mint chip, a vibrant green, but I prefer a fruitier style. I almost fell for my all-time favorite, rainbow, but I veered at the last minute and found surprising joy in fruit cocktail, which had real fruit floating around in all that ice. The Lemon Ice King is open all year long and if Corona was a little closer to Astoria, I might find myself saving my spare pennies for a daily ice. Where else can you sit in a park full of old timers watching bocce while sucking your ice from a dixie cup?

Our final stop was in Woodside, where we hit up Sapori d' Ischia, known to insiders for its incredible pasta. We could have skipped our sloppy mushroom salad (too many ingredients, we decided) and the passable carpaccio (canned truffles on top were impressive, but not that impressive), but we could go back again and again for that decadent pasta. Our pick? The restaurant's famous fettucini, made fresh and tossed with ham and cheese and heavy cream in--get this--a hollowed wheel of Parmesan. If you're wondering whether this is cheese overkill, well, it isn't. The dish never bores me and I am easily tired of dining trends. But that soft and toothy pasta in all that cheese was our perfect sunset.

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Lemon Ice King of Corona

5202 108th Street

Corona, NY 11368

718.699.5133

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Sapori d' Ischia

5515 37th Avenue

Woodside, NY 11377

718.446.1500

Breakfast Of Champions

I had some tasty things at Roberta's last night, most notably a spicy ramp pizza featuring charred ramps.  (In their cheeky way, they called the pizza the Stephen Hawking, a tart joke I didn't exactly find funny.)  Afterwards, I stopped at a deserted Italian ice store in Maspeth--fyi, driving to Bushwick is easier than taking the train--and had myself a rainbow ice like the kind my dad used to buy me at the Park Slope pizza joints when I was six or seven.  But enough about that. 

When I woke up and tried to convince my boyfriend to take me out to brunch, he countered with a request for breakfast in bed.  Um, no.  I do NOT like the idea of food anywhere near my clean sheets.  But I did agree to raid the fridge and make breakfast/brunch for us both. 

I had three eggs.  I whisked them together with a little half and half (no milk in the house), some sea salt and cracked black pepper.  In a small frying pan, I heated some chopped prawns, asparagus, and red chili oil leftover from Chinese takeout night (Tuesday).  I added the eggs and, voila.  Spicy shrimp scrambled eggs.  

Next up, pork belly fried rice.  I chopped the leftover sliced pork belly and also used the chili oil from that dish to start the sautee.  Then I added a carton of brown rice and cooked it until the rice began to adhere to the bottom of the pan.  In Spanish cooking, the burnt brown ends are considered the prize of the paella.  

Finally, I threw halved whole-wheat English muffins under the broiler until they were just short of black.  These I served with kimchi butter that I bought at Momofuku Milk Bar last Sunday.  The kimchi butter was spicy.  It also had rendered bacon in it (I kind of feel like they should have told me this before, but whatever).  My companion claimed it tasted like a Slim Jim.  I'm not sure if I disagree, but it doesn't really matter; it was still good.  

Asian leftovers may be the best equipment for a spontaneous meal, assuming you can handle the spice in the morning.  As for me, I have an iron stomach.