Black Sesame Ice Cream???

One time… (I don’t remember any of this) as a baby, my grandfather who was visiting Hawaii from the mainland came to visit. He took me out to a Dairy Queen and that afternoon, brought me back home to my parents with really bad brown squirts…My mom told him it was the ice cream.

One time… as an adult…while touring with a children’s theatre company based out of Atlanta, I complained every single afternoon of having mild stomach pain (no squirts or gas, just pain). Tisza was on that tour with me and she said to me :

“Maybe it’s something you are eating every day. Is there something that you have consistently every day?”

I thought about it.

There was something I was having every day: MILK CHUG. I always stopped by the convenient store and bought a banana and a MILK CHUG for breakfast. “Maybe you have a milk allergy or are lactose intolerant” Tisza said.

I stopped drinking milk for a whole week. I even cut out cheese and ice cream. That whole week I did not have any stomach pain. I went to my doctor who said to me “you are probably lactose intolerant. Ask your parents, especially your mom, because it’s really common in Asians”.

“But I have been having milk and cheese and ice cream my whole life!” I explained.

“Well, people can develop lactose intolerance, especially since we are not baby cows and shouldn’t be drinking baby cow formula” my doctor said.

I called my mom.

“Yes, you always had a problem. Remember when your grandfather took you to the Dairy Queen?” she said.

“I was a baby!”

“Well you had diarrhea all over the place, it was running down your legs” She told me.

“When were you going to tell me this?  You always gave us ice cream and milk and cheese when we were growing up!” I asked her.

“Because milk is good for you, good for you bones. Besides, you stopped getting sick after a while”.

From that point on, I stopped eating all dairy products which was a HUGE mistake. I didn’t get the upset stomach anymore, but when I did have milk—it was really bad. Diarrhea 20 minutes afterwards that smelled like a rat crawled up my ass and died—10 days dead! When I was having the daily milk chug, I had some sort of tolerance. Now I had none.

Today I take a pill every morning called Digestive Advantage Lactose Intolerance.
It’s much cheaper to pay $10 for 30 pills and take it every day once a day, rather than buy Lactaid pills at $8 for 10 and having to pop two EACH time I have something with milk in it (which could be several times a day).

Because of the magic pill I’m allowed to have Ice cream. Digestive Advantage doesn’t always work though. SOMETIMES, (not always) I will still get diarrhea but with Digestive Advantage, at least it’s not 20 minutes later. I won’t even have stomach pain. I’ll just go to the bathroom and notice that it’s not solid.

Some of my friends say it isn’t fair. They think that I can skip the pill, pig out on a large meal,
and then for dessert have some sort of milk product—where the milk will go right through my system taking the large meal (and all the fat and calories) along with it. Sometimes, after a large meal if I feel bloated I will do just that, drink a glass of milk. TADA! Instant flat stomach! HA! (yes thats really a pic of my stomach-- is my new years abs plan working??)

 I usually take my pill every morning because I want to be able to have milk products, especially to cool off in the hot NYC summer months. So what do I do to cool off?



Well, I could go chasing after the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, but there is really nothing gay about it (except maybe the way I run screaming after it). It’s still Mr. Softee Ice Cream just hiding behind a rainbow colored logo and clever marketing.

Or I could have
famous Soap Opera stars like Aiden Turner and Kamar De Los Reyes from All My Children come to my office and make me smoothies. But that doesn’t happen every day.
Besides, it makes it a little awkward fawning over a soap star especially when his wife works for the same ad agency. Just think how embarrassing it would be to explain drooling over this picture on your desktop-- to his wife!



So… to cool off, I head down to the Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory just off the corners of Bayard and Mott Streets in Chinatown.



It is considered one of NYC Chinatown’s oldest businesses having been there for over 28 years.
Known for their uniquely flavored ice creams, they have taken America’s most popular dessert and coalesced it with an exotic Chinese twist, that makes them an unofficial landmark.



As you walk into the very busy store,
you will notice such flavors as Ginger, Almond Cookie, Wasabi, Zen Butter, and Black Sesame to name a few--not your average flavors.



I decided to go for their signature flavor of Black Sesame Seed. The cream itself looks exactly like Oreo Cookies and Cream until you get up close and realize all those tiny black flecks-- are toasted black sesame seeds in vanilla ice cream. The vanilla ice cream is just the right amount of creamy and just the right amount of sweet. The black sesame seeds gives it an Oreo-esque flavor (or is that my mind just playing a trick on me?), but with a hint of (burnt)toastiness that totally compliments the cream. DELICIOUS! Even Herbert who tried a bit of mine said that the next time he came he would get the black sesame seed ice cream.

Herbert decided on the Zen Butter. It looked like a creamy French vanilla ice cream but the taste was to die for. We couldn’t put our finger on it at first. In the cream you see toasted white sesame seeds, but there is something more to it. It wasn’t until later that I picked up a menu and saw that it also contained peanut butter. This did not taste like JUST a peanut butter ice cream. It was DELICIOUS and like its name, brought you a sense of sweet Zen.



If you are looking for a nice way to cool off this summer, and are sick of the overly sweet flavors of Coldstone (in my opinion), try The Original Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. If anything, you get to try something new and I promise you won’t be disappointed.


As for my lactose intolerance….Did the milk pill work for me?

I wasn’t running to the bathroom 20 minutes later. I got home several hours later with no stomach pains or excessive gas. But the ice cream still went right through me. Instant flat stomach.!

For Real! Seriously!

Eat your Bitterness Away!

If you want to travel to someplace exotic and new, you don’t have to even leave your own city. In NYC, it’s a matter of going to a different neighborhood. Ever since I came back from Atlanta 3 weeks ago, I have been battling a cold. Antibiotics from the doctor didn’t do much. My Doctor told me "It's a virus, you just have to let it run its course".

When I am sick, I want comfort food. For me, that is Asian food specifically a chicken soup recipe my mom makes using something called Bitter Melon-- a long green bumpy pod that has a very bitter taste but chock full of vitamins and antioxidents. The Chinese call it Vukwa, the Hindu’s call it Bitter Gourd, and Filipinos like me call it Paria. It always makes me feel better.



It’s an acquired taste, and all of my friends who have tasted it, immediately spit it out saying that it is too bitter. I LOVE it, especially when cooked into chicken soup (chicken soup will cure a cold). Whole Foods Market sometimes carries it, but not consistently. So I asked Herbelicious to come with me to the one place in NYC that I knew I would find it amongst the other interesting and different things—Grand Street, CHINATOWN.


Chinatown is a place worth exploring. Not only will you find knock-offs of Gucci and Prada bags (from shady people holding pictures on street corners who lead you in to back alley sweatshops whre old women are sewing), but you will find great deals on almost anything, and great food too. As soon as we got off the D Train at the Grand Street stop, we were greeted with exotic items. Strange fruits like Rambutan and Dragon Fruit (I know of Dragon Fruit only from some iced tea drink that I bought that had a picture of it on the bottle), and items you would probably never find in your local grocery store like salted duck eggs, or jellyfish (I think it was jellyfish, it could have been some sort of mushroom growing in water).

The seafood here is so fresh, that it is still swimming in the tanks; Or if you prefer, dried fish of every kind including eels.


How about a fresh roasted chicken or duck? YUM!

Herbelicious and I enjoyed stopping at several shops, looking at different kinds of jade and beaded jewelry.

In Chinatown, you also have to look for the “hidden doors”. There is so much going on in the streets that you walk past tons of doors that lead to underground arcades and even more shops. Herbelicious and I found such a door that led to shops with cool anime action figures (too sexy for children),
and unique jewelry very similar to those you might find on Chokerz4Men.com (Gay Boy Jewelry!). There were also tons of mini trinkets for cell phone antennas such as mini action figures and Mini shoes.

All the shoes in the picture here,can fit into a single regular sized shoe box! There were even Asian brand condoms in fun flavors! (Mini??)

We also found an herbalist who I decided to tell about my cold. She sold us some chinese capsules for $2.95 that contained acetaminophen, caffeine, and a bunch of herbs. They cleared my nose, gave me energy, and took away my aches!

As we continued south towards City Hall, we came across a park full of elderly Chinese People. Herbelicious commented how beautiful Chinese culture is to revere their elderly. Here they all were, in a park listening to live Chinese music, playing Chinese Board games, or participating in some sort of Martial arts. They were having a great time.

On the other side of the park we found a whole street of Chinese Funeral homes and Funeral Products. These stores specialize in creating items out paper called Joss Paper items--paper houses, cars, or money called Hell Bank Notes. In one Chinese custom (believed to be a mix of Buddhism and Taosim), Burning these items would send the items to heaven where the dead relative could access them.

Since paper is cheaper than the actual items, in theory, you could send your relatives things they never owned in their lifetime. cool! I did think it was shady however, that all these funeral shops popped up on the side of a park where elderly people congregate- like AMBULANCE CHASERS! HEARSE CHASERS!

It was in the park that we saw a little Chinese boy eating a bowl of noodles. It smelled so good, and looked so good, that Herbelicious and I had to have some. It totally hit the spot!

After lunch we stopped by another interesting store with a giant welcoming Buddha in their lobby. The store’s shelves were lined with religious figurines and other knick knack statues such as Bruce Lee. In the Back of the store, was another giant statue.

The store also sold stone penises... yes you heard me, penises made of stone. We tried to ask the clerk what they were for, if they were for fertility beliefs but all he could say was “stone”.

Also on one of the shelves, cute naked baby figurines, except......someone had posed them into OBSCENE poses!! (NOT US!)



Before heading to the train, I stopped and bought some rice cakes for the ride home, and the item that I came to Chinatown for : Bitter Melon!

Learn Spanish: Bitter- Amargo

Chinese Proverb: acido, dulce, amargo, acre todo debe probarse

(sour, sweet, bitter, pungent all must be tasted)