Triscribe

Author: F C

  • Cincinnati recap

    Cincinnati has a unique set of culinary touchstones that seem to have some connections with New York.

    Montgomery Inn at the Boathouse: The place seemed to be designed for the casual business dining crowd. We tried the BBQ wrap and a side of their ribs. The ribs were tasty, somewhat like Kansas City ribs. They were tender, and sauced with a distinctive BBQ sauce, which not much of a smoked taste. The most curious dish was the “Cantonese Shrimp”, which are lightly battered butterflied shrimp which are then served with a dipping sauce composed of a mixture of plum sauce and hot mustard. The dishes were served with Saratoga Chips (which are essentially kitchen-made potato chips) , onion threads (thin shredded onions floured and fried) and a nice salad. For desert, we had Greater’s French Copper Pot style ice cream. – vanilla bean and the black raspberry chocolate chunk . BBQ: good; Ice cream: recommended; shrimp – acquired taste.

    Skyline Chili: The thing that you have to understand about Cincinnati Chili is that while it may have some visual resemblance to what is commonly recognized as chili, that illusion is quickly dispelled once you dig in. It is probably better described as slightly overcooked spaghetti with Grecian sweet spiced (we’re talking sweet like sweet sausage, not sweet tea) meat sauce topped with thinly shredded cheddar cheese (the “3 Way”), and possibly diced onions and red kidney beans ( the 4 and 5 Way, neither of which are cooked in the sauced). Oyster crackers (the ones commonly used for New England clam chowder) accompany the dish – they are used to sop up the thin sauce at the bottom of the bowl. To mix the metaphor even more, they also serve chili dogs called “Coneys” (the name derived from Coney Island in Brooklyn), which are 5 inch German style wieners topped with the Cincinnati Chili and the shredded cheddar cheese . It is one of those foods like White Castle on the East Coast which are suitable for after –drinking munchies. If you are looking for traditional chili, you will be very disappointed. If you are looking for something to satisfy a craving you didn’t know that you had, and want to spend less then $5, fill up on Skyline Chili.

    Renaissance Fair Good stuff: mead – a local company in the area made the heavenly brew from local honey. Fantastic – I had two glasses, and each had a distinctive taste based on the honey it was made with. The best bargain was the smoked turkey drumsticks – the dark meat tasted like tender ham on the bone. Very tasty. The fair itself was a bit kitschy – something between Medieval Times and Great Adventure. Glad to have checked it out.

    Kroger’s: the things that we noticed: 1. lots of sausage and pickles – they had almost a aisle just for pickles 2. a lot of recalled item signs, including for cans of regular chili and even margarita salt. We bought grilling stuff, because it was inexpensive – grill gloves and apple wood chips.

    Jewish favorites: during the bris, we had excellent lox and various cream cheeses, chopped egg salad, hummus, and excellent bagel, bialy and hallah bread A wonderful spread.

  • Labor Day Weekend!! We’re going to hop on a plane to exotic…

    …Cincinnati ?!

    We’re off to see the bris for P’s godson’s brother in America’s Heartland. It will be good to see one of P’s good friends, who happens to be going to law school right now. Now this is not exactly what I was expecting to do on Labor Day weekend – we as a rule try to avoid any sort of travel, not even to New Jersey. It’s supposed to be full of BBQ and the close of summer activities. It seems that the most exciting thing that’s going on is a full-fledged renaissance fair -I’ve always heard of them back in my D & D days, but never really went to any. The other thing to look forward to is the Cincinnati food – according to Food Network, the things to check out are the local style chili and Graeter’s French Style ice cream . We’re going to check out the Montgomery Inn at the Boathouse as soon as we touch down.

  • Roots



    You’re Roots!
    by Alex Haley
    While almost everyone agrees that you’re brilliant, no one knows quite
    how to categorize you. Some say that you’re a person with an amazing family tree. Some
    say that you’re just a darn good storyteller. Others say that you’re both and don’t much
    care where to draw the line. What is known is that your people have been through a great
    number of trials and that you are where you are because of hard work. You have nothing to
    lose but your chains.

    Take the Book Quiz
    at the Blue Pyramid.

  • Synchronicity I

    We’re at Giants Stadium waiting for The Police reunion tour. We took the bus from Port Authority, which was pretty good at only $10 round trip. Sting’s son was on with his band Fiction Plane, which was pretty generic except for the liberal use of the F word. A surprise opening appearance by the Fratelis (best known for the iPod Flathead “ba da ba ba da ba da” commercial) was really good. More soon.

  • Enter the Dragon

    Shout-out to YC – Happy Birthday!

    On the way right now to the dragon boat races in Flushing. Its a beautiful hot day for it

    Last week’s roundup::

    Restaurant Week: Cafe des Artistes. Well executed French bistro food. Three courses inclide a fancy salad, a choice of three entres, and a vanilla bourbon cake that really blew us away. Only can really afford the pre fixe menu, which is available for the rest of the summer. Recommended (as long as you don’t object to classic French nude female portraits).

    On the other end of the spectrum, P’s friends picked the new three story Olive Garden for dinner. The included salad and breadsticks were ok, the stuffed chicken marsala was fine, but I thought that the pasta was overdone. The craziness was going on outside, where the jumbotrons of Times Square were literally outside the window. So this is what it is to be a NY tourist! You can have just as good food from your neighborhood Italian place, but at least the service is prompt and bubbly. Thumbs down on the mandatory 15% tip, but it’s their loss as we would usually round up towards 20%. We actually came out with exact change.

  • Explosive

    This week’s recap:

    Narrowly avoided Wednesday’s Grand Central Explosion. Was supposed to be at a meeting at 45 and Lex at 6:30; instead was stuck on a 4 train at Bowling Green. Later met up. with P at Times Square.

    Food this week:
    Sunday: Bastille Day on Smith street with Costa Rican food. Loved the ceviche.

    Wed: Go!G!o! Curry on W. 38 St.  Definitely the best Japanese curry to be had in NY. Everything is themed with NY Yankee player H.  Matsui – from his number 55 to the sizes of the meals, which range from “walk” (normal sized) to “Grand Slam” which is everything – 5 lbs. of food! We had pork katsu curry with pickled shallots and natto. They also sell the curry sauce separately in economy sizes. Recommended.

    Restaurant Week:
    Thalassa on Franklin Street – gourmet Greek cuisine. The prix fixe had fine selections of seafood and lamb dishes. The day”s seafood is laid out on a icetable in the dining room – the ultimate proof of freshness – no smell and in perfect condition. Service wqas impeccible. The open kitchen is quiet and efficient – a hurly tattoed grillmaster is in charge. Recommended (but the fish is about $20-30 per lb. on the regular menu, so be forewarned.)

  • Screener this weekend

    Sorry, been busy catching up with things at work. Will have to make a make-up entry. This Saturday we’re doing an advanced screening of a number of the film festival contest entries in Chinatown -you’re invited.

    Come by the FIVE POINTS Film Workshop (formerly Teabag)
    for a special screening of our 72 Hour Shootout Entry, “The Encounter”, for friends on Saturday, July 14th, 2007, 6:30-8:30pm

    the FIVE POINTS Film Workshop (formerly Teabag)
    Silk Road Place – 30 Mott Street, Chinatown NYC
    Cover: $5 (includes a free drink ticket for
    beer, wine, bubble tea, etc.)

    Other films will be screened as well.  Will include
    Q&A with film makers, directors, producers, actors,
    actresses, production crew, etc.

    For more FIVE POINTS info:
    http://www.nycfivepoints.com/filmworkshop.shtml

  • The Encounter

    OK, here it is – the video that we made last weekend for the 72 Hour Film Shootout – we only had 72 hours from start to finish to do everything, from writing the script, shooting the scenes, editing the film, and geting it onto miniDV tapes to submit it for judging (the funny thing is that getting the edits onto miniDV was actually the hardest part of the whole thing). Hope you like it.

  • Shootout at the Waterfront

    This past weekend I finally was able to check off another of those “No Opportunity Wasted” items, and joined in with a group of P’s friends to compete in the Asian American 72 Hour Film Shootout. I’ve always thought about doing it, but never got it together. This year, the critical mass finally came together.

    The required theme for this year’s competition was “Elizabeth Ong is missing…”. We ended up with a 3 minute cannonball run thriller that had us dashing through the streets of Long Island City and driving through the back roads around the FDR Drive. I was technical director, which involved being the go-to guy when we ran into a problem, and making sure nobody hurt themselves.  We all gained practical experience in movie making. The best part of it was that we all made new hard and fast friends — that was the best takeaway from this experience. There’s 63 other teams out there, so let’s see how far we can go at the AAIFF film festival.

  • Cut to Black

    Just tagging on to SSW’s Sopranos talk. Lots to squeeze, especially since I haven’t been really watching it until season 7 (I didn’t have access to HBO until I started dating P). For those that need a catch-up, here are some appropriate YouTube clips:

    Sopranos Seven Season Synopsis in Seven Minutes (someone had way too much time on their hands)

    Every death scene in chronological order (brutal)

    Aaaay – Ohhhh – funny

    Tour the real places in Jersey with Vito

    The last four minutes

    Some good commentary

    My opinion: I was going for the existential “Tony – that’s what it is like to be wacked” explanation until I saw the last video commentary – it changed my mind. There were claims of four potential assassins at the diner – the 2 black guys walking in (which were claimed to have been in season 1), a trucker (claimed to be from season 3), and some Italian guy at the bar that was ID’s as the NY boss’s nephew. Others debunked these theories – identifying that they were all knocked off or didn’t exist. The last video gave a perfectly good explanation. Recreating Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” paranoia of having to look over your shoulder every moment – the way David Chase was able to make the entire audience feel – is sheer brilliance in execution (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun).