James Christopher Hall

We didn’t get back until 1AM last night, so today was also off to a slow start, but we planned on that. I DoorDashed us breakfast. John got a blueberry muffin, and I got an everything bagel with American cheese, egg, and a meat called “Taylor ham”. Taylor ham is a New Jersey pork roll concoction.

We hung out at our place in Jersey until I got done with a Zoom call for Harvust. And then we went to NoHo for some “street meat” as John calls it. I got some chicken shwarma, and John got some vegetarian thing. We decided to eat it in Washington Square Park. Unfortunately timing wise things were about to become problematic. John’s mum, Stacy’s flight was an hour early, and traffic was causing an hour delay. We realized there was no way we’d make it to the airport to greet her in time. So John arranged for an Uber to collect her and bring her into Manhattan. During that time we did some shopping, including at Harney & Sons tea shop. I don’t drink tea, so there was nothing for me there, but John tasted a flight of teas at their “tea bar”. They had all of their teas arranged on the wall, with a rolling ladder to access each tin.

After all of our shopping we still had time to burn, so we decided to once more find a bar for a quick drink. After walking into two separate bars, only to be told they open at 5, we finally landed at South SoHo Bar where I ordered a French 75, and John had the same. We chatted with the waitress there, and learned that she is also a native Oregonian! It was at that point John made the observation that people who live in Manhattan are not from Manhattan.

When Stacy arrived we went back to Jersey so she could get settled, and John could tend to the dogs. Stacy, quickly decided the neighborhood she booked the Airbnb in was dangerous! So when John went to take the dogs for a walk she started haranguing him about being safe, after a little bit of back and forth John declared “Mom! I have great situational awareness!” And as the words were slipping out of his mouth, he ran head first into the edge of the front door! Time to resurrect ye old recess helmet again!

We decided to stay in for dinner, and I ordered us some dumplings without consulting anyone. While this move initially caused quite a bit of distress for John and his mum, when it arrived all were happy. So happy that we decided to try a restaurant in Jersey for dessert…that was a mistake.

We hailed an Uber to go to this restaurant “Plate of Cake”. It looked like it had a lot of offerings on the menu, so we decided it would be a good bet. Well when we arrived we found a half abandoned building with a tiny little store front extremely well lit. And in the window we found this was not just “Plate of Cake” but three other restaurants!

We had accidentally decided to dine-in at a cloud kitchen! This one kitchen operates four different “resturant fronts” for use almost exclusively on delivery services like DoorDash, UberEats, and Grubhub. It’s a “restuarant business in a box” style business, where the operator buys the brands, the menu, the decor, the promotional materials, and the food. The actual kitchen operators are just reheating and plating the items. Over half of their kitchen was a walk-in fridge. As someone who works in food, it was so fascinating to se behind the literal curtain (see below) of a cloud kitchen!

The food itself was of course unremarkable.

Tomorrow is my last day in NYC, and I’ll be back in Walla Walla by the end of the day thanks to the time change.