Cold rain today. Great, just great…until I went to Falchi’s. There were no lines at all! My favorite Thai spot, Khao Man Gai, was practically empty. Huzzah! (Yay rain!)

And, I had another stroke of good luck: their delicious chicken slurpable-soup, the Gai Too, was the special today! How awesome is that?

The Gai Too ($9) contains slow, simmered chicken meat in their great broth, Chinese celery, bean shoots, scallions, slim rice noodles, anise-scented fish broth (you can smell the anise the instant you open the package :)), basil leaves, mint leaves, torn anise leaves(?), and flecks of chili pepper flakes.

It is heaven for a cold, rainy day. For an extra buck, some freshly brewed Thai tea without milk adds a sweet counterpoint. (With milk, it’s an extra two bucks.)

After chatting with Khao Man Gai’s co-owner Reina for a bit (they don’t take cash, only credit cards), I disappeared to the Doughnut Plant; they didn’t have anyone in line either.

There is one more honored Tokyo flavor at the Plant: the Black Sesame. You can get it three ways, mini dough pod (with extra sesame filling), cake (also with extra filling), and the yeast (just the black sesame glaze).

“It can be pretty intense if you aren’t used to sesame…” the cute lady cashier warned me warmly.

Okay. Since the soup is already flavored at maximum rate (to the MAX!), I opted for the tame, yeast version. Besides, if the worst-case scenario did happen, if the black sesame glaze did indeed suck, therefore creating a catophony of good tastes becoming bad in my mouth, that I would have to rinse down over and over again?

(It didn’t suck, far from it…the sugar glaze did crystallize the sesame, so each doughy, yeast bite resulted into shards of stickiness. Sweet and slightly nutty. Still, I am pretty ambilivant about black sesame seeds in general, so I chose right.)

Wonderful tastes from two great Asian countries! (God, will it ever stop raining?)

Enjoy!