belly happy: eddie's sweet shop
Oh man, have I ever tasted ice-cream before today? Despite the chilly winds that swept through the city today (rainy days are here again...) there was no way I was going to miss out on frozen, creamy, sugary goodness. Eddie's Sweet Shop has been around for eons - it's located along Metropolitan Ave in Forest Hills, Queens, in a quiet, mom-and-pop sort of neighbourhood. You have to make the trip out for it - since it isn't near any subway station, getting there involves either a long walk or a couple of bus rides, but the shop and the ice-cream make the hunt totally worth it.
The shop's exterior draws you in first: little display shelves filled with small plastic dolls' house furniture and other random bits and pieces. It's a decorating style echoed in the interior; the chandelier just inside the doorway, for example, has old stuffed toys and Beanie Babies dangling from it, and the display cabinets facing the ice-cream counter are like a museum display of retro plastic figurines from the 1960s and 70s. Everything in the shop is old-fashioned - the cash register, the ancient fridge (in this case, more appropriately called an icebox), the dimly-lit wooden booths in the corner.
We sat at the counter, of course, and shared an ENORMOUS Banana Royal sundae with three scoops - chocolate, cherry vanilla (my favourite) and maple walnut. It was drenched in hot fudge (not from a bottle!) and a mountain of whipped cream, which is hand-whipped on the premises and has a denser, richer consistency compared to whipped cream from an aerosol can. It was served in old-fashioned metal dishes with the fudge sauce and cream dripping off the sides. It was decadent, and it was very, very good. The ice-cream has that slightly sticky texture to it that comes from extra egg yolks (?) or extra churning (?) but I rather like it. The flavours are intense and distinct, despite being topped off with whipped cream, fudge sauce, nuts and the like. I am not a fan of butterscotch but I had a taste of my cousin's sundae and it was surprisingly good. None of the chemical-y flavour of commercial butterscotch.
Good thing, then, that we all had a longish walk/hike through the Forest Hills Park before our sugary binge. I can't seem to ever get tired of looking and smiling at all the flowers and trees out in full bloom. Cherries, dogwoods, magnolias, Japanese maples - it's like the trees have distinct personalities and they are out to show them off after dreary winter.
Today while walking around Forest Hills, it was a little hard to remember Manhattan's skyscrapers and its omnipresent scream of sirens. Our little jaunt through the woods brought us along horse-riding paths (we saw two ponies, they were so pretty), disused railway tracks, and empty forest paths. One slightly scary thing though was a man running out from nowhere in the middle of the woods who almost crashed into us. He was not a jogger; there was an air of desperation in his eyes.
Back on (the expensive side of) the residential area, the houses were stately and huge, with well-kept gardens on tree-lined streets. We kept oohing and aahing at the cherry trees in people's backyards and front gardens. How nice it would be to have your bedroom window open out into a fluffy mass of cherry blossoms! My bedroom window in Manhattan looks out into a concrete yard (okay, with some rather ragged bamboo trees) and a bunch of other buildings, and we often wake to the sound of police sirens and helicopters overhead. That's one of the things I like about NYC though - its diversity and its neighbourhoods.
The shop's exterior draws you in first: little display shelves filled with small plastic dolls' house furniture and other random bits and pieces. It's a decorating style echoed in the interior; the chandelier just inside the doorway, for example, has old stuffed toys and Beanie Babies dangling from it, and the display cabinets facing the ice-cream counter are like a museum display of retro plastic figurines from the 1960s and 70s. Everything in the shop is old-fashioned - the cash register, the ancient fridge (in this case, more appropriately called an icebox), the dimly-lit wooden booths in the corner.
We sat at the counter, of course, and shared an ENORMOUS Banana Royal sundae with three scoops - chocolate, cherry vanilla (my favourite) and maple walnut. It was drenched in hot fudge (not from a bottle!) and a mountain of whipped cream, which is hand-whipped on the premises and has a denser, richer consistency compared to whipped cream from an aerosol can. It was served in old-fashioned metal dishes with the fudge sauce and cream dripping off the sides. It was decadent, and it was very, very good. The ice-cream has that slightly sticky texture to it that comes from extra egg yolks (?) or extra churning (?) but I rather like it. The flavours are intense and distinct, despite being topped off with whipped cream, fudge sauce, nuts and the like. I am not a fan of butterscotch but I had a taste of my cousin's sundae and it was surprisingly good. None of the chemical-y flavour of commercial butterscotch.
Good thing, then, that we all had a longish walk/hike through the Forest Hills Park before our sugary binge. I can't seem to ever get tired of looking and smiling at all the flowers and trees out in full bloom. Cherries, dogwoods, magnolias, Japanese maples - it's like the trees have distinct personalities and they are out to show them off after dreary winter.
Today while walking around Forest Hills, it was a little hard to remember Manhattan's skyscrapers and its omnipresent scream of sirens. Our little jaunt through the woods brought us along horse-riding paths (we saw two ponies, they were so pretty), disused railway tracks, and empty forest paths. One slightly scary thing though was a man running out from nowhere in the middle of the woods who almost crashed into us. He was not a jogger; there was an air of desperation in his eyes.
Back on (the expensive side of) the residential area, the houses were stately and huge, with well-kept gardens on tree-lined streets. We kept oohing and aahing at the cherry trees in people's backyards and front gardens. How nice it would be to have your bedroom window open out into a fluffy mass of cherry blossoms! My bedroom window in Manhattan looks out into a concrete yard (okay, with some rather ragged bamboo trees) and a bunch of other buildings, and we often wake to the sound of police sirens and helicopters overhead. That's one of the things I like about NYC though - its diversity and its neighbourhoods.