Triscribe

Month: August 2006

  • Weekend Roundup

    Hitting 4 out of New York’s 5 boroughs this weekend… I actually published this on Sunday, but I couldn’t get it out of some funky mode…

    Friday: Bought 40 pounds of kal bi (Korean short rib) from Assi Plaza. The stuff comes rock solid. People were doing double takes as we rolled out of the place with the stuff. Since we had an ice chest, we had enough time to go out for dinner.

    We went to Pine Garden Restaurant, 141-43 Northern Blvd., for Korean. It’s a very homey neighborhood place, not like those massive BBQ emporiums such as Kam Gum San. We ordered the Nokcha-yangnyum Galbi for the BBQ, which is black angus rib marinated with the house special green tea sauce. It had a unique sweet taste, and the meat was very lean. We also had Jop Chae and ManDu Goo Yi (pan fried dumplings). Excellent – recommended.

    When we went home, P made a big pot of chilli for the picnic the next day – that took about 3 hours before we went to sleep.

    Saturday: We went to Costco with a bunch of other people from Asian Alumni associations. We walked out of there with $1,000 worth of picnic stuff – 5 shopping carts. Kalbi, fish balls and the chilli were a big hit. We’ll have to cut out more hamburgers and get more drinks though. And NYU wins the tug-of-war for the first year.

    That night, I spent a couple of hours to get rid of the kim chee smell out of the back of the zip car. Wow, that stuff gets really ripe. Note to self: kim chee gets really dangerous when it gets warm – the active cultures puts off a lot of gas that causes the bottle to leak.

    Sunday: Tiger Beer sponsored a Singapore Chili Crab festival in Brooklyn DUMBO – I had two plates this year. The sauce was much milder and more coconut flavored this year, which I preferred. We then made a b-line to P’s sisters place near the GW bus station to walk the doggies. We got them a snow-cone (without flavor) which they really enjoyed.

    Later we went to Galapogos Art Center in Williamsburg to see the Sulu Series, a monthly menagerie of Asian American performing artists curated by Reggie Cabico from NYU APA. It featured a number of spoken word acts, guitarists, and a rapper that needed an audience to film his new music video.

    We went because of Wendy Ip, who was performing and was by far the best act. Wendy’s song “Our Little Room” is now my current favorite. I though she had great technique on keyboard and original lyrics – completely different than everybody else with the sterotypical lone guitar strapped around their necks. She’s something between Carole King and Carole Bayer Sager. I think it was in an interview between Burt Bacharach and Elvis Costello where Bacharach said “you don’t have to apologize for being harmonic”. No apologies – Wendy Ip is Recommended.

    Afterwards, we went to Fornino, Michael Aylub’s pizza laboratory down the street and around the corner. Brickoven pizza with organic ingredients works well. Herbs are grown in the back yard, so it is as fresh as it could be. It is slightly thicker than the only other pizza in Brooklyn in the same league, Grimaldi’s. Score: toppings better at Fornino, bread better at Grimaldi’s. Fornino has more room for seating, doesn’t have lines around the block and takes credit cards, which are some points in their favor. So overall, a slight edge to Fornino. However, Grimaldi’s is within walking distance from the house. Both recommended.

  • Weekend Rundown!

    So, what have we got?

    – BBQ – soo much meat. I don’t think I’ve eaten that much meat. Bee-yoo-ti-ful weather. A nice subway ride to the Bronx (passing by Yankee Stadium, I realized that I really do go to that many more Met games; I really so don’t make trips to the Bronx, so at least the annual picnic is an excuse to make a trek) – love how MTA makes it possible to have basically only one subway going out of my end of Brooklyn, and then only local all the way up. Eh. At least I got air conditioning and a seat and – seeing how the subway really does seem like the only place where I read books anymore, thus I am now more than halfway through In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote.

    Oh, and by the way – the kal bi – great marinade. Bit rare for my preference (I like my meat well-done), but still tasty. The hamburger, the chicken-turkey burger, the hot dog — okay, I had more than my fair share of protein. Thanks again for the ride back to Bklyn, FC and P – and you two really did a great job with the food!

    A great lyrical and enlightening summer read, which I finished this weekend – The Planets by Dava Sobel. If you’re into planets, as I have been, this is a highly recommended book.

    Finally watched “A Fish Called Wanda” off of my tapes – not nearly as laugh-out-loud-funny as I had long hoped, but very entertaining nonetheless, as the plot twists are absolutely head-spinning. George “leads” a band of theives; Ken (fantastically played by ex-Monty-Python Michael Palin) is the stutterer/animal lover thief; Wanda (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) is George’s girlfriend/thief; Otto (played by Kevin Kline) is ex-CIA (who’s too stupid to actually be ex-CIA, but eh…) and joins the band as “Wanda’s brother” (uh-huh, sure); and Archie Leach (great name! coincidentally – or not?! – Cary Grant’s real name; Leach the character is played by fellow-Monty-Python John Cleese) is George’s barrister, who also falls for Wanda – and ah, that Wanda – she manages to wrap all the men in her fingers…

    Personally, I really enjoyed Palin – never realized that he was this good a comedic actor (ok, basically I’ve only seen some of the Monty Python stuff and his trips around the world documentaries, so what do I really know?). Cleese is always consistent. The movie pretty much stands up to the test of time, and well, gee, there really is a difference in how British lawyers and American lawyers practice law… Well, whether this will be a keeper in the SSW collection remains to be seen…

  • Belated YC B-day

    Belated B-day to YC, whose birthday was on Saturday. Survive the trip! Thanks for all of what you do for Triscribe, and hope that you had plenty of good eats.

  • 4 Airline hop skip and jump

    CI, SQ, PK, MH, includes a 6 hour layover in KLIA. The final destination is Islamabad. Amazing how many flight permutations there are to get there. Some go through Dubai and double back (!!! :-o). Some via Beijing. There’s a direct from Tokyo via TK. No one goes back via how they came. Amazing stuff. It makes me think that I can nail Amazing Race if given the chance. Wonder how one can sign up for it…. There’s a prize right?

    Hope you folks had a good picnic and with more comfortable weather. Summer there hasn’t been so bad but then, I’m back in A/C environs with a typical corporate desk job.

    Last trip back from Malaysia was good. I stayed at the KL Hilton for the conference instead of the Le Meridien. Good but I like Meridien better, more comfortable all around. We tried out their steak place called Prime which served all the traditional style cuts etc. They even had Australian Wagyu Beef which appears to be more common in some of the high end steak places in Asia. Friday night at a friend’s farewell to Taiwan party, we went to Robin’s Grill which also had it but at extremely pricey pricey prices :-o. I’ll have to go back and do the Wagyu beef at some point in time with some Joseph Phelps “Le Mistral”, a fabulous fabulous fabulous red. I think even better than the Duckhorn that I’ve had in the past.
    Good food… that’s what’s important. Now just missing the good friends in Asia to join me in this passion!

  • When the heat breaks

    That smell — the earthy, muddy, pungent smell. 5 minutes later, a torrental downpour rages, breaking the scorching heat, steaming, sizzling on the sidewalk then turning into rivers clearing the gutters and the sky. An hour later, it stops, dropping the temperature 20 degrees. What a relief!

    Today, shopping for the picnic tomorrow. Lots and lots of stuff!

  • Heat Wave!… Continues!… Woe!

    When NYC landmarks are voluntarily cutting back on lights because of the latest heatwave, well, it’s a pretty big sign that this is pretty bad. Hmm. I’m really feeling like I ought to heed Al Gore and other environmentalists…

    Probably related to my having read C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters” (see my previous blog entry), I just finished reading Elaine Pagels’ “The Origins of Satan.” Very readable, fascinating book on the social history of the idea of Satan, a.k.a. the Prince of Darkness, a.k.a. Lucifer, a.k.a. the fallen angel, a.k.a. the one who opposes or makes obstacles. Judeo-Christian history keeps repeating, but with variations, in how how one group demonizes the other group, whether it’s trashtalking the subgroup (such as when early Christians broke away from Judaism, or when later early Christians opposed easrly so-called heretics and established as canon the accepted Gospels as we know them today; language of debate and opposition that became the vocabulary for further division during the Reformation and so forth), or making scapegoats or total enemies of the outsiders (Christians vs. Jews; Christians vs. the polytheistic pagans; etc.).  It makes wonder if society will finally learn its lessons, or again, repeat habits in variations.
    There’s this informercial out there that I get a real kick out of watching – no, not the Greg Brady “Get the 70’s Music Collection!” (which is also quite campy, I must say, just for having Greg Brady); it the informercial for the 80’s Gold music collection, with Rick Springfield (once also of “General Hospital,” I believe!) of the hit “Jessie’s Girl” in place of Greg Brady.  Rick doesn’t have Greg Brady’s campy pizzazz (Rick seems way too serious in saying “And I know music…”), but the music – good stuff.  Made me almost want to pick up the phone and call… (no, not going that way; but they actually have a webpage – good grief!).
    Have I ever said that I love the air conditioned subways? Really, I do. Forgive me for all my criticism, MTA, I’m at least grateful for the AC. (just not grateful for the oven conditions of the subway platforms).

  • Fantasia

    Blog postings have been a little sparse, mostly because my laptop is on the fritz. There’s something up with the trackpad – I have to keep my hand near the pad or the computer freezes until I put it back.

    Finished the book “What Would the Founders Do?”, which offers insights into what would the founders of the United States really do if faced with the issues of today. Does Scalia’s vision of “original intent” jive with what the written record reveals? Turns out that they had actually thought about things like weapons of mass destruction (items contaminated with measles), terrorism (Barbary States pirates), intelligent design (Franklin was against) and term limits (George Washington). Some critics on Amazon complain that the book could have been more detailed, but it would miss the mission of being a more lighter, general-reading book. Not bad.

    Cool Food TV shows: Road Tasted (Paula Dean’s sons drive around the country – New York Italian episode was pretty good). Bobby Flay Throwdown got the chili champ to give up some secrets – light brown sugar. Alton Brown Feasting on Asphalt – lots of eating stuff that is really bad for you. The trick with the pull-down map going up like a windowshade revealing the site in question is slick.

    Check out the delicious bar on the right – I’ll be adding links in the fly as a “micro blog” of what I am doing. News becoming discouraging – what part of “Thou shall not kill” did these people Going to keep it inside for heatwave #2. My home AC is just not cutting it during this 100 degree weather.