Month: July 2006

Went to the Teabag NYC Film Show yesterday with P to support one of my friends. He was showing the intro to a movie that they want to produce, “Pretty to Think So”, and promoting the DVD to their documentary on the Korean/Chinese party scene in New York, “Party“. Good stuff.

Afterwards, went to Jaya, a Malaysian restaurant. We had Roti Chanai, Ipoh Hor Fun, Yee Noodle in casserole with Black Mushroom, and a Chendor bing ice. Ok, not anywhere as good as Ipoh, but pretty good for New York, and we didn’t even break $20, so you can’t complain.

I think that the whole point of the New York Times is to give a New York view of the world, and a world view of New York. Otherwise, it might as well be USA Today with the Life magazine insert.

In this week’s New York Times Magazine, there is an article celebrating Gazpacho, when the late NYT food critic Craig Clairborne first popularized the Spanish cold soup in 1968. Gazpacho has to be one of my favorite delights, especially for a light late summer meal.

They then proceed to update it for the 21st century by providing a deconstructed version. Who do they go to for the task? Michael Tusk, who has an Italian fusion restaurant in San Francisco. I’m sure the guy is a fine chef, but you mean to tell me they couldn’t find anyone in New York that could do a deconstructed gazpacho? It wasn’t even like Tusk wanted to do it:

Earlier this summer, I gave the Málaga gazpacho recipe to Michael Tusk, the chef and an owner of Quince Restaurant in San Francisco, to see what it would inspire in him. Deceit, at first: Tusk said he had to sneak around the San Francisco farmer’s market in a hooded sweatshirt with a bag of local hot-house tomatoes, hoping that none of his watchdog chef friends would catch him with the contraband.

An Italian chef having a bag of tomatoes is going to pique the curiosity of other chefs? Come on. And they don’t read the NYT food columns, either. Right.

So, earlier this week, we had the heat wave that a NYC summer is never complete w/o; one day of near perfect summer day (ok heat, not too humid – excellent!); and then end the week with a few days of on-off rain; torrential rain and thunderstorms (severe pouring, as if you turned your faucet to the end) with sucky humidity. Argh.

And, in other news, Con Edison gets public ridicule because Queens hasn’t been getting the electricity sorely needed, due to outages (well, now it’s “blackout”), and even after the heat wave has been over (and meanwhile, the not-in-my-backyard people aren’t thrilled over letting Con Ed build transformers or power plants and such). The power problems got so bad that the MTA actually slowed the trains down to preserve power (so, MTA can’t handle heat, power outages, and floods. This week can’t possibly be a very good week for the guys who run the subways). And, City Hall approved of changing the way we get rid of garbage, but how is still debatable (as in, where would you like to put a recycling station that serves the five boros? “Not in my backyard…” some people cry. NIMBY is sooo popular.)

Bottomline: NYC needs to change its sanitation practices (like, let’s recycle more, you know?) and improve the electricity generation (umm, alternative forms of power; uh, say fix the 100-year old infrastructure – stuff like that). Oh, and my favorite rant target: the MTA (could you be a bit more efficient?). We may be a big city that never sleeps and have cool buildngs constructed and renovated every day, but we can’t hide the fact that we’re a 300+ year old city and we’re not cutting edge in some areas.

NJ is telling lawyers they can’t advertise themselves as “Super” or the “Best Lawyer” (even if the leading lawyer publication assess that these lawyers really are the “best” and/or are “super”).  Super Lawyer.  🙂  Sorry.  Sounds like a funny kind of comic book hero.  Although, so far as I know, the only superhero lawyer I know of is Marvel’s “Daredevil,” who’s a lawyer and a person with a disability.
For restaurant week this week, the gang and I went to City Hall – the Restaurant. I had the prix fixe special: roasted veggie salad (mmm, vinagrette); the poached salmon with couscous entry; and the red velvet cake dessert. Mmm. Yummy. Loved dessert. And, the bread – I could arguably live on bread and butter and water, if the bread is good bread. And, the ambiance – gorgeous. High ceilings, earthy woodiness, and pictures of the by-gone era (but we’re in a smoke-free environment, so old Boss Tweed and Tammany hall folks of the 19th century City Hall wouldn’t feel that comfortable, I’m sure). Oh, and the restrooms – honestly, fantastic. Clean and beautiful. Thumbs up on that alone.

Oh, and with the weather today, hard to see if the NY Mets will play – but they’re doing so great. Sports Illustrated did a cover article on them two weeks ago that I just loved, regarding the clubhouse’s chemistry and confidence. Like a nicer version of a frat, but more baseballier. Let’s just hope that the so-called Sports Illustrated cover curse won’t apply here (there was this odd trend where people on the cover find lack of victory thereafter; so very much don’t want that for the Mets). Go Mets!