West Village: Rain is flooding the roads and soaking our clothes. Ky and I are sharing an umbrella while walking through Bleeker Street. Hunger shoots through our bodies, enraging our souls nonetheless. In front of us is our savior: a Japanese grocery store. We carefully wrap up our umbrella before entering through the doors. Snagging affordable sushi, our selections are being scanned quickly by the impatient cashier. I hand them a twenty and receive my change before I can put the receipt in my bag. I fumble. On the same street, we find our guilty pleasure: matcha. We secure a matcha parfait, napkins, and some forks for our food. It is only then that we begin to scout for a non-soaked place to devour our food. Pushing each bite into my mouth, the insatiable hunger subsides, overtaken by a taste of pleasure. We are not done. A sweet treat is a necessity to our food crawl before we may return to campus; so we hunt.
Flushing: Monica knows food better than I know myself — a severe understatement. Monday, she feels a craving for hotpot and I, the tag-along, devote my Friday to scheduling our outing. With each day, I can almost smell the sauce bar. Friday rolls around and there is a fire in Monica’s eyes like no other: a fire that tells you it is time for a feast. From 116th to 42nd, then we transfer to make our way towards Queens. As we emerge, a sense of panic hits me. My vision is engulfed in a sense of crowdedness that I have never felt so helpless to. Taking my hand, Monica guides me through the maze of people to the most gorgeous hotpot place I have ever been to. A giant wheel sits in the very center. We order to share and the glory begins. Bite by bite, we extinguished the fire that began on Monday. Even soon, we find ourselves satisfied and grabbing the check. Every time is the same: Monica pays using her credit card and I sell her back. As we exit the huge wooden door of the soup-haven, we find milk tea surrounding us. Monica, however, is an outlier to this treat. She prefers the comfort of a Venchi gelato so we ride the train all the way down to her favorite location by 14th street. Sitting vibrantly, we are revived to our former selves. We remember the spark we had prior to the swap of exams or stress of early career development. We relax.
Local: “Have you ever tried MAKI?” This is how I spontaneously implore an idea to Irlene after our gym session. We are walking down Broadway after hitting the gym and I am in no condition to be starved. She luckily agrees to my sudden craving; thus, here we are walking towards Harlem. I order then she does too. She gets beef and I get tuna. As we wait, our conversation flows towards her week and mine. Soon enough, I found myself in an intensive discussion on race and gender in the middle of this small shop. Questions are being raised and we know better than to give each other fake assumptions. Taking our bags home, we head towards our dorm together as she is also my suitemate. Our strides slow to match our discourse about the world, and I take in her perspective as much as I can. Her insightful comments linger longer as I smell the sauces of our bowls leaking through the bags. My head is full of imagination — one about the picture of what this donburi will look like and two about the conditions of society and politics. From one another, we learn.
The essence of expected or unexpected food runs is that they create time for connecting with others and even learning from one another. Setting aside time to grab food with someone can be so meaningful even in the smallest of actions like choosing where to eat. It is an understatement to implore everyone to make food-crawls with friends a forefront activity.
In any case, your foodie author advises this as a crucial part of survival for college as a method to getting to know others outside the campus bubble you quickly become trapped in.
By Alyssa Hong
Alyssa Hong is a rising Junior at Barnard College, studying Political Science with a minor in English. As a first-generation, low-income student, she writes about moving across the country for college and its adjustments. She utilizes entertainment, wellness/health/food, and fashion/beauty as methods to making new connections with others whilst always learning.
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Tags: food, food crawls, food with friends, foodie, hotpot, matcha, Restaurant