Tea and lemons, but no honey

After the Sunday Gospel Brunch, I decided to hit the Upper West Side. There was a period of time when I used to be here often, but these days I'm rarely in the area unless I'm going to attend something at Lincoln Center. Since I had a free afternoon, and I was close enough already, I caught the 1 train at Times Square to 72nd Street.

After poking around in Fairway for a while, where I bought some cheese, JSK joined me and we headed to Arte Around the Corner.

I'd been wanting to try one of their herb-honey slices after reading about them here and here, but there was no sign of them on display. And mysteriously, when I asked the woman behind the counter about their availability, she seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. No herb-honey: an effect of the honey bee crisis?

My plans thwarted, I chose a lemon oil cake for us to share, along with two cups of English Breakfast tea.

The cake, while surprisingly homely in appearance, was moist, light, tender, and flavored with just the barest touch of lemon. The texture was very similar to that of the paper-wrapped, popover-shaped sponge cakes sold in Asian bakeries, which are usually just vanilla. Luckily, I'm quite in love with Asian sponge cake, so I was happy with this selection.

If you look carefully, you can see where JSK had started eating from the other side.

Eventually we parted ways, JSK to deliver a Playstation 3 back to his apartment, and I to wander around Columbus Circle, where I loitered outside of the Time Warner Center for a bit before heading home. I did debate going inside to check out Bouchon Bakery, but enough was enough.

Somewhere, there is an entire set of prom photos that were taken in front of this globe…not mine of course. No, never.