Food II: Cambridge

The Sugar & Spice restaurant, just north of Porter Square on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, is an excellent inexpensive Thai restaurant, where I often go when in town. Last night four of us went (I have switched domiciles to give everyone an equal chance to either enjoy or avoid my company), and among us tried three dishes. All were excellent, and here they are:

“Crying Tiger” beef with lettuce and a side of sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf (not shown):

Hor mok, described on the menu as “a delicious and truly authentic curry with steamed salmon, shrimp, egg and vegetables in fresh whole coconut”:

And a green curry with chicken:

If you’re in Cambridge around Porter Square (about a 20-minute walk north of Harvard Square), this is a good place to eat.

This morning, staying at Andrew and Naomi’s, I had my usual breakfast: the British cereal Weetabix (Andrew is a Brit), the UK equivalent of Shredded Wheat, but better.  Andrew claims that, averaged over years of life, he’s eaten more Weetabix than any human alive. When he was at Oxford, he eschewed the meal plan and ate Weetabix three times a day: two biscuits for breakfast, four for lunch, and six or more for dinner (he was saving his living stipend for traveling). The only deviation from this pattern was on Tuesday nights, when he got Chicken Madras at a local curry house.

Since that time, back in the Cretaceous, Andrew has continued to eat Weetabix daily: always for breakfast and sometimes for other meals. (He insists that they must be eaten in multiples of two.)

Below: Andrew and his favorite food. I photographed him showing me the proper way to eat Weetabix. (The first photo is hand held under incandescent light and so is a bit blurry.)

Only two Weetabix per portion, please (though you can have additional aliquots of two):

Putting the banana on top, cut with a spoon so as to avoid soiling a knife.

Adding the milk, always before the sugar to avoid dissolving the sugar into the bottom of the bowl. You can see from Andrew’s concentration the solemnity of this operation.

Only then can you add sugar, but within just one or two seconds of having poured the milk. This avoids the Weetabix becoming too soggy:

Then, dig in and enjoy! Make sure that you tilt the bowl toward you when cutting off a bite so that the milk sloshes onto the biscuit at the very last moment, preserving the crunch:

I apparently fail in my Weetabix consumption in three ways: I like to eat three at a time; I like them a bit soggier than does Andrew, thus adding more milk; and I fail to do the crucial bowl-tilting move, which also makes my biscuits marginally crunchier (though they’re too soggy to begin with). Thus, breakfast with Andrew is always a stressful affair in which I’m castigated for bad eating habits.

Lunch, from which we returned a few minutes ago, was at the Hourly Oyster House in Harvard Square. I had fish and chips with a Full Sail Blood Orange wheat beer, while Andrew had a TBLT (tuna steak, bacon, lettuce, and tomato):

A selfie (with Andrew) over the oysters:

Free postprandial coffee in the Biolab: here’s the free espresso/cappuccino setup on the first floor. It’s Harvard, Jake, and coffee is essential for science! Note the bean grinder; milk is in the fridge below the machine:

An official machine!