Over the weekend I met a friend at a Vietnamese establishment in Manhattan Valley, an area close to the west side of Central Park. This place, this Vietnamese place, has been moderately praised, and as I don't have much exposure to the cooking of Vietnam, I was excited. As it turned out, the place was fine but is not worth going into details about.
After, I walked to the closest French bakery I could find, wanting to drown my Vietnamese disappointment in cream. Luckily for me, I was not far from a delightful patisserie. I ordered a Paris brest, a sumptuous treat of tender and flavorful pastry filled with the most luscious, delicate cream. I ate my Paris brest as I walked down Amsterdam Avenue, and as I munched into the seductive mound, cream squirted everywhere. At one point a dump of cream erupted forth and propelled into an innocent woman, who was quite upset.
"Watch your creams!" she said.
"Ok" I said.
The creams made up for the mediocre Vietnamese; they made up for everything; although an innocent woman was creamed, it was a sacrifice worth making.
