Tag Archives: Ypsi

I’d Rather Eat In Ann Arbor: Tom Yum Soup

An awesome little episode of I’d Rather Eat In with a local guest chef making Thai Tom Yum Soup. I’d never even heard of this soup before. But now I’m drooling a little bit, I’ll be honest.

As I mentioned in the apple dumpling post, we (Josh, Paul and I) recently took a mini-foodie-field trip to Dexter Cider Mill to stock up for Falltopia. (I’ve decided to re-name autumn from the pessimistic “Pre-Winter” to the more halcyon-sounding “Falltopia” in hopes of learning to appreciate it more. Will it work? Probably, right up until it gets cold again.) We got donuts, apples, and plenty of cider for drinking, making hard cider (Josh’s thing) and lots of other goodies. This apple syrup here is the first of those “other goodies.”

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You look like the milkman…

I’m feeling pretty old-school these days. We bought a house that’s 150 years old. I don’t have a microwave anymore. My grandmother wants to give me a butter churn. And we have a milkman.

Yes, that’s right. We have a milkman. His name is Stan. Stan the milkman. I’ve never met Stan but I heart him oh so much. Not just because I enjoy saying that I have a milkman, not just because our weekly dairy delivery is always on time and neatly done, but also because thanks to Stan, I don’t worry nearly so much about running out of butter (a constant trouble previously, what with all the baking I do) and I spend less time battling crowds at the store. Yay!

How did I arrange this magnificent thing, you ask? Well actually, Josh arranged it. Through Calder Dairy.

If you don’t know about Calder Dairy, now is a great time to get educated, especially if you live in Michigan. Calder is a local, family-owned dairy farm and around here you can often find their glass-bottled (!!!!!!!) milk and delicious stacks of butter in various stores, like the Ypsi Co-op or Whole Foods or Busch’s. Their milk is delicious, as is their butter. But they also have home delivery, which means that if you live near a route, you can arrange to have milk, cream, buttermilk, eggnog, butter, yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, bread, even ice cream…and lots more….delivered straight to your house. Continue reading →

Friday Foodie Finds: the Ypsilanti edition

So normally on Fridays, I post links to interesting things I’ve found throughout the week. This Friday, though, I decided to post a slightly different set of links. Inspired by conversation in the comments section of an article by Nicole, of simmer down! fame, about a day spent hanging out and performing in Ann Arbor, I decided that this Friday I would post links to my Five Favorite Ypsi Establishments. If you’re in the area, you need to check these places out.

Beezy’s Cafe: Uh, I don’t know what to start with. The awesome laid back environment? The fun and fabulous staff? The ohmygodimightdiejustreadingthemenu special french toasts every Saturday? (We’re talking about special—like pb&J french toast or peaches and vanilla french toast–like ohmigod). The awesome soups that get exchanged out two or three times a day? The best breakfast bagel sandwich anywhere? The fact that I live within three blocks walking distance? There is nothing to not like about this place. (Downtown Ypsi)
Aubree’s Pizzeria and Tavern: I love this place. They have just really delicious pizza. Good other food too, nice relaxed bar atmosphere, great sidewalk seating in the summer but just…really fantastic pizza. Mm. Pizza. (Depot Town, other locations)
Cafe Luwak: When I was young, I used to go to Cafe Luwak with friends to get ice cream. Now that I’m old, I go to Cafe Luwak with friends to get ice cream. It’s a nice place to be. But wait, there’s more! They also have soups, sandwiches, weekend breakfast buffet, baked goods…and by the way, their chili offerings for this year’s Chili Cookoff were amazing.
Bill’s Hot Dog Stand: I won’t go on for too long about Bill’s because I have already waxed poetically about this place and how much I love it. We’ll just go with the basics: friendly fast service. Fantastic chili dogs. Best root beer ever tasted. No options and no competition.
Gabriel’s Hoagies: Ok, I’m just going to say right here and right now that if you live in Ypsi and have never been to Gabriel’s, get out now. Just get out. You don’t have to leave the city but you do have to get in your car, on your bike or on the nearest bus and get there right now. Like don’t even finish reading this post. Just go and get yourself one of the most delicious (possibly greasiest) concoctions ever known to man. When I was a kid, Gabriel’s was a frequent stop…and not just for my 6’3″, 230 pound dad. My nanny–a woman who weighed maybe 100 pounds wet and was all of 5’2″ tall–could and would scarf down one of these cheesesteak hoagies within minutes. It is that fantastic.

So there you go. The next time you’re in town, downtown, anywhere near town, stop in Ypsilanti and try out one of these places. Happy Friday!

Eat At Bill's

Thai Thai, Kerrytown and Cake Nouveau: Weekend Adventures in Local Food

This is a tale of three adventures. Capers, really. Even shenanigans. Foodie shenanigans. No, that makes it sound more cheeky than it really was. Capers. Definitely a caper. This is a tale of three gastronomical capers.

Caper 1
On Friday, group of friends and I traversed across the vast swaths of town to the far east, to a small place of our acquaintance, a mystical, ethereal place known only as Thai Thai. We were a world-weary band of travelers, three young ones and seven others who just act young. We descended on the tiny, tiny island of taste and took over about half the place. We were treated with kindness and brought several succulent dishes of varying heat. Josh and I partook of the spring rolls, being ravenous as we were, and considering that we had traveled to such lands before, consider ourselves connoisseurs of that delicacy. Then Josh sated his rumbly tumbly with a spicy dish called “Moo Pad Prig Khee Noo,” made of pork and fresh chili peppers and garlic. Continue reading →

Homegrown Festival!

We had a lovely time wandering the second annual Homegrown Festival…and apparently, so did a lot of people, because it was packed! We didn’t sample much, mostly because of long lines and..well, many many people, but we did try out Project Grow’s tomato tasting booth, and shared a delicious oreo cheesecake from my favorite local cheesecake place, Old World Bakery, which is located in downtown Ypsilanti. We spent most of our time wandering around, looking, reading and enjoying the fabulous weather. Excellent festival indeed. Click the link below for a few pics:

Homegrown Festival

ABC and Schako-lattes

For dinner tonight, Josh and I decided we would go where no man has gone befo–no, wait, scratch that, we decided to go to Arbor Brewing Company in downtown Ann Arbor, where many a man has been before. But not me. I’ve heard good things about it, but it’s not usually on my radar of places to go. I thought today would be a good time to check it out.

Having skipped lunch, we were having an early dinner (4:30ish) so we beat the Saturday evening crowd and since it was a lovely 81 degrees Fahrenheit, we decided to eat outside (“we” being “me” and “Josh grudgingly agreeing because he knows how much I love hot weather and how little of it I get in Michigan and besides, there was a breeze and thanks to the bevy of tall buildings on E Washington, we’d be in the shade anyway”). The weather was lovely, the sidewalk seating was great, the staff was excellent and the menu was modest but delicious, which works out well for me because sometimes too many choices is a terrible thing. Like the cereal aisle of a grocery store. How can I possibly make up my mind? More on that another time. Continue reading →

Eat at Bill's

So we didn’t really wake up until almost 10am this morning. By the time I finished taking our dog Winston on a 2 mile morning walk, breakfast was pretty much a no-go. So Josh and I each downed a bit of fruit and then pondered what to do for lunch. I was already of the opinion that we should have hot dogs, because hey, I’ve been in a hot doggy kind of mood lately. In lieu of trekking to the store, picking up what we’d need for do-it-yourself dogs (I mean, there’d have to be buns and peppers and Josh gets one kind of sausage and I get another and side dishes and eh), we decided on taking the dog for a nice jaunt over to Bill’s Hot Dog Stand in Ypsi.

Bill’s is…well, it’s a little yellow shack, really, on Michigan Ave in Ypsilanti (waaay far in Ypsi) around the corner from where I grew up. Bill’s has been there…forever, pretty much. My entire life anyway. It’s an old school car-hop kinda place and they mean serious business. They do hot dogs. And root beer. And that’s all they do. Seriously. You can only buy three things at Bill’s: hot dogs, homemade root beer and Ruffles chips. And I will be damned if it is not the best root beer in at least the state, if not the entire western hemisphere.