Random Eats: Sago Tea, Roberta's and a Japanese / Korean Block Party

In the past couple of months, I've had some random weekends of food.  Here are snapshots from one of them:

After eating Xian in Flushing on Saturday, Thanan and I grabbed some tea and dessert at Sago Tea, which is located conveniently across the street from my beloved lamb skewer cart.

I ordered hot black milk tea with pearls.  Thanan did not want his pearls, so he dumped all of them in my cup.  Your cup should not look like this heaping pile of tapioca doody, but should look fairly similar.  They serve the hot milk tea in a regular teapot, and you pour it yourself into the porcelain teacup.

The milk tea and pearls were actually pretty good.  The pearls were on the smaller side, but delightfully bouncy, and the tea was smooth and not too sweet.

I ordered the condensed milk toast for dessert.  My mom used to serve me toasted french baguettes with a cup of condensed milk when I was a child, so I was especially excited to have this for dessert.

The best kind of dribble.  This toast was pretty good, but I didn't love it.  The bread was absurdly buttered (as you can see from the yellow coloring on the edges above, so the salty buttery mixed with the thick condensed milk created a weird  / unappetizing texture on its own.  If I order this again, I would request the bread to be unbuttered.

The following day, I wandered near the Madison Square Park area only to find a fun little restaurant and gift market.  One of the wonderful randoms that you come across just living in New York.  The restaurant area featured about a dozen local restaurants from Manhattan and Brooklyn boroughs including Pies & Thighs, Fatty Cue and Roberta's.  I've been meaning to try locavore pizza spot Roberta's for some time, so I was so happy to see it conveniently before me.  Like, this is destiny, y'all.

Roberta's is located in a warehousey area of Brooklyn and specializes in thin crust pizza; they have their own rooftop garden from which they produce about 20% of their ingredients.  Food scraps from the restaurant are composted and used as fertilizer for their garden.  So green. So cute!

I ordered the margherita pizza, a personal sized pie topped with fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and bright fat basil leaves.

So. Thin. But so flavorful.  The pizza was bright, light and completely satisfying.    I need to try their actual restaurant sometime soon.  There is a kale pizza with my and Greeshma's name on it.

I stopped by Fatty Cue and grabbed a nice slice of the s'mores pie.  I cannot get enough of this pie with is homemade marshmallow fluff and creamy chocolate filling.  Perfect afternooncap!

Then later that afternoon, I waltzed by the periodic Japanese / Korean block party - which would blow Greeshma's mind for sure from all the Asian boys freely strolling the streets.  They hold the fairs about 20 times a year.  On this occasion, there was an ike-men (eye-catching men) contest.  Despite the Asian beefcakes, my eyes were more on the food (of course).  I love Japanese people because they are just so over the top with the ultra-excitedness and over-the-top gimmicks.  Here are some Japanese cowboys grilling eel and squid:

A Japanese pancake made out of cabbage.  Super unique and delicious.  They are not sold at any restaurant currently though, so best to try to find them at future Jap-Ko block parties.

To go with the pancakes, I ordered a couple skewers of squid legs.  Delicious!

Sago Tea

39-02 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11354

(718) 353-2899

Roberta's

261 Moore Street
NY 11206-3816
(718) 417-1118

Japanese - Korean Block Parties