Habeas Dessert- Golden Harvest

After my last post, I realized that I never posted this article from my law school newspaper. It's from August, 2011. 

If you ever find yourself in Lansing early in the morning, hungry and looking for breakfast (and have

some time to kill), I’ve got the spot for you. Golden Harvest is a Lansing institution, nestled in the Old Town area on the north side of the city. Sandwiched into a residential neighborhood, the place is tiny, with seating for 35 people. The regulars are willing to wait outside in line for an hour before they even sit down.

That’s when the fun begins.

The walls of Golden Harvest are covered with, for lack of a better word, stuff. From old license plates to signs proclaiming “North Lansing Against the World” to their signature skull and cross fork-and knife, the place looks like a flea market exploded, in the best, most pleasantly kitsch-y kind of way.

If you’re lucky, you get to sit at a table. If you’re really lucky, you get to sit at the counter and watch your food being prepared. On my latest visit, I couldn’t resist the waffle with strawberries and Nutella. One of my dining companions had one of the breakfast specials- a sandwich of cheddar, bacon, egg, and avocado on a croissant. We split our dishes with each other and could barely squeeze in a few bites of our oatmeal with blueberries, strawberries, pecans, and grilled banana.

Don’t judge me. I went for a run later that day.

My other companion decided on the Half a Hungry Man. You’d better be a starving man, and a full-grown one at that, if you’re going to eat this meal. It was monstrous. The meal came with two eggs, a choice of meat, potatoes, toast, and one pancake. The pancake was, approximately, the weight of a Constitutional Law textbook. The heavy blue one--the one Schindler and Munroe use.

We had coffee, which I noticed was Lansing-roasted Paramount Coffee. Our dining soundtrack included songs from James Brown, M.I.A, and Prodigy, and our fellow diners included everyone from local attorneys to factory workers. The food was fresh, hot, and cooked to order right in front of us. For the money, the atmosphere, and the delicious food, you can’t beat Golden Harvest.

You can find them at 1625 N. Turner Street in Lansing. Golden Harvest is open from Monday to

Friday, 7am to 2:30pm, and Saturday and Sunday, 8am to 2:30pm. Get there early, and bring your cash, because otherwise you’ll be washing dishes.

Habeas Dessert- Sushi Showdown

*The "Habeas Dessert" articles come from a series of columns that I write for my law school newspaper.

            There comes a time in life when you have to decide whether or not you are going to eat sushi. Not the wimpy rolls full of cream cheese, crab, and smoked salmon, but the ones covered in raw fish with slivers of eel and fish eggs. If you decide that you are indeed a sushi person, you’re going to love the Greater Lansing area. While the area isn’t really known for its worldly cuisine, there is a surprisingly large number of sushi restaurants to choose from. For this issue, we focused on two of the most popular restaurants- Sansu in East Lansing and Maru in Okemos.

            Sansu is extremely popular with the Michigan State crowd. They offer a 20% discount to students, including Cooley students, every Tuesday, and the place is a madhouse. Make a reservation. A recent Friday night dinner started with the avocado boats- halved avocado stuffed with crab and tuna, tempura battered. I could have eaten these for dinner. I could eat these for breakfast. They were fantastic. I always order edamame when having sushi and I knew that Sansu has a great garlic edamame that’s not on the menu. The garlic adds a little kick and it’s worth requesting from your server.

            We had the ubiquitous salad and miso soup, which was nothing special. Bigger chunks of tofu in the soup would be welcome. That was followed up with salmon and yellowtail tuna sashimi, which came in huge quantities. If there are only two diners, one order of sashimi will be more than enough. We soldiered on and made our way through a massive platter of rolls, including the Green Dragon roll, the Champagne roll, and the Calamari roll. The Champagne roll is a favorite of the Sansu faithful, with good reason. The roll had tuna, salmon, white tuna, avocado, and is tempura battered. After several visits to Sansu, I believe that this is the best roll on the menu.

            The Green Dragon roll had eel and cucumber, topped with avocado. I could take it or leave it. The Calamari roll included, of course, calamari, which was lightly battered and delicious. With our stomachs already stuffed, but willing to sacrifice ourselves in the name of research, my companion and I ordered the green tea ice cream. It was underwhelming. The owners of Sansu also own Chapelure, a bakery that is near the restaurant. If you can still entertain the thought of dessert, walk around the corner and have a piece of their cake instead.

            The two of us had about 15 pieces of sushi to take home. They made a great lunch the next day. Sansu is in the Hannah Plaza on

Hagadorn Road

. Without asking you to rely on this statement and opening myself up to an accusation of libel, I’ve heard that Sansu sometimes freezes their fish. If true, this is tantamount to a sin amongst sushi fans, but I’ve never had any complaints about the freshness of what I ordered.

            The next week I continued my sushi crawl and met two other friends for lunch at Maru in Okemos. Maru is one of the newest players in the Lansing sushi market and has been making a splash with their “Sushi Happy Hour,” where every day they offer select rolls at half price. Find them on Facebook or Twitter to get the happy hour updates.

            We started with the calamari, which came in big rings with a spicy aioli sauce. The sauce was delicious and we kept the bowl on the table to eat throughout the meal. The salmon sashimi was the freshest I have ever had and was complimented by the salad and miso soup, which included massive chunks of tofu. One companion, a sushi novice and unadventurous eater, had the lunch special of Philly and Cali rolls. I don’t care for cream cheese and declined to sample these rolls, but they looked like average, well-prepared sushi for the wimpy eater. He enjoyed them.

            My other companion had the Papa Crema roll. This too included cream cheese, but I couldn’t resist chopsticking a piece for myself. The roll was made of crab, smoked salmon, avocado, the above-mentioned cream cheese, and was tempura battered. It was topped with slices of sweet potato, which seemed an odd combination but was a welcome addition. It was delicious.

            I had the Cosmo roll- a shrimp tempura roll topped with tuna, avocado, scallions, masago, honey wasabi aioli and spicy mayo. It was good, but my favorite remains the Soy Joy- spicy tuna, albacore, and cucumber with tempura and soy paper. It is sprinkled with edamame and it is worth the drive to Okemos. Maru is across the street from the Meridian Mall at

5100 Marsh Road

. The service is fantastic and the green tea always tastes so much better than what I make at home. They have a full bar. The restaurant seats less than 100 people, so plan ahead or make a reservation. I would be happy to join you.