Resolved: Teany To-Go Seems Awfully Redundant
Moby's music is like a lot of memories I have of early rave culture, in that I remember it feeling really good, but that the buzz wore off quickly, and now I wonder why I ever consumed it at all. That having been said, he is by all accounts a nice guy, and he bears the unquestionable mark of the Old School Producer. I'm just a little sad that he's one of just a few producers from that time to achieve a lasting commercial success, if you accept "threatened by Eminem" as commercial success. (Not long after the debacle I passed Moby talking to an admirer who had expressed his concern; Moby responded, "I just don't understand why he was so angry".)
Fortunately, Moby also moonlights as a Wise Investor Of Record Loot. His Lower East Side teany storefront has done remarkably well for itself in its two and a half years of business. It's a pleasant, low-ceilinged sort of place, with very-good-if-overpriced tea and an assortment of cakes and scones, and is a good cafe in its own right. What makes teany remarkable, though, is the Moby Effect; this tea house, located off the well-beaten path of LES foot traffic, has outperformed and outlasted most other coffeeshops in the neighborhood, and not because of the slow service (Moby is a very attentive server, I should point out, when he works there). His name is nowhere on the storefront, or the menu, but seemingly by mere association, the place has raked it in.
All this is really just to explain my astonishment that partners Moby and Kelly have rented out the storefront next door as a teany to go, which will be devoted to the radical notion of tea in paper cups. It opens this Friday, a mere two blocks from Sugar Sweet Sunshine, who also sell a very fine cup of tea, if somewhat less mysterious, and not brewed by Eminem's erstwhile mortal enemy.
Your reward for reading this far shall be a picture I once took of Moby and DB that was published in the National Enquirer:
Lower East Side-ish , electronic music-ish , food-ish , moby-ish by tangentialist at 08:11 PM on 11 Jan 05 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)
There Are Cupcakes In The LES
Sugar Sweet Sunshine
Originally uploaded by tangentialism.
If you work, live, or frolic in the Lower East Side, you must immediately make your way to Sugar Sweet Sunshine, on Rivington between Essex and Norfolk. They're churning out a good eight varieties of tiny, overfrosted cakes, and it's rocking my world.
Oddly, for such a cheery dessert, cupcakes seem to have engendered no small amount of bitterness in the incestuous little bakery community spawned by the House of Magnolia. The Sugar Sweet people apparently split from Buttercup, Magnolia's own vindictive offspring, to form this happy little cupcake cooperative. How many more generations of cupcake one-upmanship can this city handle? I'll stay blissfully ignorant of the drama so long as Sugar Sweet Sunshine continues to ply me with their unholy chocolate almond frosting. These little pistachio numbers in the picture are no joke, either.
I, for one, don't see any reason to stand in a slow-moving line outside Magnolia when I can trot over the bridge and grab an intimidating bundle of cupcakes from their culinary grandchildren. Plus, there are fewer toddlers pawing at the red velvet cakes.
Lower East Side-ish , cupcakes-ish , food-ish by tangentialist at 02:10 AM on 24 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (1)