Triscribe

Category: Manhattan

  • Food Accidents

    In the second of our Iron Chef themed restaurant outings, we went to Bobby Flay’s sous chef Patricia Yeoh’s restaurant SAPA. We were disappointed. Our waiter failed to give us a bread basket. The food was small, cold and didn’t even match what was on the menu. The environment was so pounding with sounds that we couldn’t hear each other talk. The only thing to say was that the Cosmo-jito was pretty good. Not recommended.

    So, we were still hungry and looking for something to rescue it, say a slice of pizza. Then we thought, where is the nearest Mario Batali restaurant? Otto Enateca at 1 Fifth Avenue was the answer. It’s designed to simulate an Italian train station – you’re given a ticket to an Italian city, and you wait in the waiting room-like bar until your city appears on the tote board. You then are led into another room which appears to look like any train station cafeteria you might see oversees, just nicer. Not much pretense – we ordered 2 pizzas, a salumi salad, and drinks. They came fast, hot and of high quality. And we didn’t break $50 between the 2 of us.

    Cityscape has a number of complaints, mostly about the B&T crowd, and not the restaurant itself. Perhaps because we came off hours, it wasn’t a factor. For me anyway, the ambiance is important, but not as important as the food. If the food is bad, the rest isn’t worth it.

    In other Food Accidents, Alton Brown crashes and burns in his series Feasting on Asphalt, where he and his merry men motor from one coast to the other in search of non-chain restaurant food. If you can imagine Monty Python and the Holy Grail as an informative Food Network show, this would be it. The crash scene happens in episode 4, where he wipes out on camera just outside of Las Vegas, and breaks his clavacle. Ouch!

    The neatest found object from Feasting on Asphalt is the 12V Travel Oven. It looks like a big lunch box, but actually inside are 2 metal trays where you can put food on. You then close the lid and plug it in your cigarette lighter outlet. Sometime later, you have hot food. Convenient for anyone who spends all of their time in the car.

    I’m going to Vegas for my friend’s bachelor party, and thinking of making it an entire West Coast week. Any suggestions welcome…

  • 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.

  • Gramercy Tavern

    The heat broke today for restaurant week, and P and I tried out Top Chef’s Tom Colicchio’s restaurant Gramercy Tavern. We were in the Main Room, where you have the choice of a regular, veggie, or premium prix fixe. On the regular prix fixe, which is not part of restaurant week, you have the choice of a dozen appertizers, and a choice of 6 fish dishes and 6 meat dishes. P had sea scallops and the lamb dish, while I had fried oysters in a fava soup and the sirloin with marrow and spätzle. We had fresh lemonade and limeade, accompanied with a small pitcher of simple syrup for sweetener. There were two free micro appertizers, a bean dip on crouton, and a cube of watermelon with micro feta cubes and aged balsamic vinegar. Afterwards, we had a free micro dose of berry sorbet on a custard, that was included. We ordered for dessert was a blueberry panecotta with a dose of lavender honey ice cream with chinese-style micro egg cakes, while P had a dark chocolate confection. The other novelty was the chance to try real English mead – which had a wheat ale flavor with high notes of honey. Everything seemed not so big, but the waves of dishes caught up with us. It was a very remarkable meal with immpeccable service.

  • Last Suppers and the Gospel According to Ghengis

    This weekend was a variety of free and cheap meals curtesy of work, events and Brooklyn Restaurant Week (which goes on until Tuesday, so catch up!). Atlantic ChipShop has a three course meal for 2 for 20.06. Blue Ribbon Sushi has a magnificient sushi/shashimi combo for the 20.06 (get the combo, not the sushi alone or the shashimi alone – they are all regular portions). Free work food at Tavern on the Green – can’t complain about the rare tuna, the shrimp cocktail or the desserts. Fine food and drink at Southwest NY at AS’s Baptism party for Ghengis, aka Mini-AS.

    The baptism was held at St. Joseph’s Chapel, which is also the Catholic 9/11 memorial. Haunting cast statues of the site’s patron saints take up most of the left side of the chapel. New life is represented by the gurguling baptismal font, whose moving water represents cleaning and renewal. AS’s cousin performed the ceremony, which was nice and furfilling.

  • Saturday!

    One of the rare instances in which I post from Manhattan – at Alma Mater Undergrad for Dean’s Day – great lectures, and the wonderful easy access to the Internet that only higher institutions offer. Aah.

    Watched Ang Lee’s “The Wedding Banquet” on DVD last night – his gay movie w/o the cowboys (I may not watch “Brokeback Mountain” more because it’s a Western than anything else; I’m not as conservative as my folks, and… well, I aim to be open-minded, that’s all good, right?). Anyway, an Asian American NYC story – with the World Trade Center skyline and lower Manhattan outlook (so pre-2001); Taiwanese culture; about family and love and friendship, even the pre-Brokeback era (the special features on the DVD has Ang Lee and co-writer/co-producer James Shamus talking so freely and relating to how the Ang Lee movies are really about universal stuff than anything else, if not also touching on Lee’s being inspired from his own life).

    Yesterday: reading the NY Times articles by Jim Dwyer or watching the news on the release of the audiotapes of the 911 calls on 9/11. The historian in me understands the importance of such materials and how we cannot forget the past (and we better learn something from it). But, the human being in me feels such heartbreak – recalling that horrible morning and remembering that fellow human beings – there for work or what – were there in the towers and fate or other came in. I felt no less pained for the emergency operators – the helplessness, and the sadness they must have felt in wondering and fearing what was going on the other end of that telephone line. I wonder if it feels worse because it was here in the hometown. I wonder how, after almost five years later, it suddenly didn’t feel that long ago.

  • King Solomon and the Academy; Touring Dairy Disneyland; Korean B-day

    P and I saw most of the nominated movies, except Capote and Walk the Line (who won Best Actor/Actress), in the past month on video or in the theater. The Jon Stewart line about how it’s the first time in a long while that the members of the Academy voted for winners was not just ironically true, but actually pointed out the horse-trading going on with the voting. I think that the 5,000 members of the Academy, faced with a group of nominees that all could have legitimately won on their own merits in lesser years, voted in a way that spread the awards across as many films as possible. This is why all of the technical awards went to King Kong, Geisha, and Narnia, all blockbusters, but not critical successes. Good Night and Good Luck got the shortest thrift, but they even managed to get George Clooney a statue by moving him into the Supporting Actor role in Syriana. As for the competition between Crash and Brokeback Mountain, the Academy split the difference, rewarding twice-denied Ang Lee with the director’s award, while giving Best Picture to Crash. I think that they got it just right.

    P won second place in the Oscar party contest we were at, winning a DVD of Wallace and Grommitt. Looking forward to seeing that.

    Before the Oscar party, P, her sister and I toured Stew Leonard’s
     in Yonkers, on the Major Deegan I-87 just south of the New York Thruway tollbooths. Perched on a hillside above a Costco and a Home Depot, this is a farmer’s market on steroids. The meats, produce, and seafood were incredibly fresh and as high quality as you would expect at a Fairway or gourmet market, but with prices that rival the big supermarket chains. The dairy products clenched it – we had a fabulous ice cream cone made from milk from their own cows.

    The place uses all of the old-time marketing – Barnum’s one-way only path through all of the products, “saving” money by offering a discount for buying in bulk, mascot cows and Disneyland moving figures. P & I spent about $100, P’s sister spent $200, but of course it was all better because you get a free coffee or ice cream for every $100 spent. But once again, the very high quality means no complaints from us.

    The thing that gets me is that I’ve never ever heard of this place, even though it is #58 on Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work and holds records with the Guinness Book of Records and Ripley’s Believe it or Not. P saw it on the Food Network, and asked her co-workers, who raved about it. P’s sister passed its silos all the time on the way to and from college, and it never occurred to her to actually go there until now. It won’t be the last time.

    P organized a birthday party for her sister on Saturday at tried and true Korean eatery Kum Gang San on E 32nd St. It was P’s mom’s first time for Korean food – she was kind of concerned because she can’t handle spicy food as well as she used to, and she is very picky about service at restaurants. However, she took very well to the Korean BBQ concept and enjoyed handling the kal bi and bu gul ke on the grill. She also liked the fact that there were a lot of fruits and veggies available. When she found out that the pan chan appertizers were free, she just went to town and had the servers running ragged – she was even tempted to taste some of the kimchi. It won’t be the last time for this place, either.

  • Something Blue, Something Lent, Something New

    For Carnival, P and I went to see Brokeback Mountain to prepare for the Sunday Oscar party that we’re attending. Don’t normally like Westerns, but of course it’s not really about that. Ang Lee strikes again with his patented twist/tragedy/unrequited love M.O. Recommended. On the other hand, Loews Cinema Village IV on Third Av. had a mouse run down the aisle. Not recommended.

    Had Japanese twice in a row. Tuesday night after the movie we went to Zen Sushi (113 St. Marks Place), which had really yummy half-price sushi and ramen. The mackerel was outstanding – after finishing the two that came with the tonkatsu ramen set menu, I ordered another in a pickled and pressed sushi style. On Ash Wednesday, had the charashi from Nanatori on Montegue St. to satisfy fish day.

    New: Short film Take it or Leave It by J.P. Chan (know him from NYU) on tour at the SF Film Festival.

    Amazing Race 9 gets its groove back – 60,000 miles in 29 days! Teams of two! Woo Hoo! I’m rooting for the hippie team BJ and Tyler – while their choice of Beatle outfits from the Yellow Submarine era is a little questionable, they are not Ugly Americans. Their years of travel experience show.

  • Flashdance, What a Feeling

    Saturday was an event-packed APA fest, and probably would have been a logistical nightmare if it were anywhere other than New York. Bright and early that morning I was helping out a moot court workshop for law students in midtown. P- was doing errands, and I met her at the Pathmark in Chinatown with the Zipcar.

    After a flurry of SMS’s, voicemails and phone exchanges, we met up with champion blogger MJ visiting from San Francisco. While on a personal hiatus, she’s been travelling across North America and hooking up with bloggers across the country. I told her she should really be writing a book about her trip.

    After navigating back from Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge up the FDR Drive really quickly, it took a silly amount of time to get across Houston because of construction. MJ was handed off to us from Uberchick and we navigated towards Flushing. After missing the Queensboro Bridge exit, we came back down from 96th street. Then we went along Northern Boulevard over the hills, through the curves, and into Flushing and the muni lot.

    Dinner was at Mimi’s Shabu-Shabu, which is a uniquely American way of having hot pot – instead of the entire group sharing the same pot of simmering broth, each diner gets their own mini-hotpot to operate as they want. Individuality triumphs! For the protein, MJ went all American beef, P- went for the lamb, and I went for the surf & turf shrimps and beef.
    Because of the late start and missing the exit to the bridge, we had to hussle through gale force winds to get to Flushing Town Hall for a performance of Slant, an Asian American performance group. They reprised their original production from 1995, which explored Asian men and masculinity/emasculinity. The group has had a long connection with NYU, so I’ve seen many of their productions, but never saw their first one, so I was happy to see this reprise. I also bumped into a guy, P, who I knew from law school, but I was just having a senior moment and couldn’t remember his name for about 15 minutes. He turned out to be the brother in law of one of the group’s members.

    After that, we ran through the cold back to the car, and zoomed back to CBGB’s, the famed club that’s due to close in the next year after arranging a temporary reprive from escalating rents. I probably hadn’t been there in like 15 years, back in my club promoting era.

    MJ’s frend’s band Dogs of Winter was performing at 11:30 PM. We got there a good 1 1/2 hours early, but spent the next 45 minutes trying to find parking. I finally found a spot in front of the Blue Man Group theater.

    We suffered through a really pathetic warmup act (you kind of take competent drumming and split jumps for granted, but when the guy can’t keep time, and the lead guitar had to do everything in his power to avoid crashing into the bass or the drum set when landing, you know they need help). We were much relieved when Dogs of Winter showed up. DoW’s set had a variety of unrequited alt-punk and a Roy Orbison cover. Frontman Brian is a tall lanky guy with big guns for arms and good chops with his axes. P- got his autograph after the performance.
    After leaving MJ to the whims of the Dogs of Winter (and we are having a dog of a winter this weekend), we went to Oh Taisho! on St. Mark’s Place for a quick midnight bite, which included ramen, some skewers, and roasted rice balls (yum!!). Afterwards, we found the car (cold and still in one piece) and rode off into Brooklyn, being the youngest and oldest we have been in a long time.

  • The sides of the Ninja, +1K

    P & I slept in during the morning on Saturday watching Food Network’s Mangia Mania week, which is all Italian food. We must have watched 3 separate pizza shows – we’re going to try out some apparently new ones in New York this week – counterbalancing my gym visit on Friday.

    The rest of the afternoon we visited Chelsea Market, which houses the world headquarters of the Food Network. Crazy looks through the Fat Witch (brownies), Jimmy’s Gelato (had an awesome green apple sorbet, as well as green tea gelato – yum!), Bowery Kitchen Supplies (can’t believe that there is a device called a Spätzle-Ass), and Buonitalia Imports (the place to get a 3 kg bottle of Nutella). The free weekend ballroom dancing was also happening.

    We got out and it was like 20 degrees and we had 15 minutes to get to Ninja Restaurant, our next stop, so we hopped into a taxi. That was definately a good move. We got there just in time to meet one of our dinner guests, and the host/ringleader was on her way. We waited in the lounge before she arrived, and then were lead through a secret passageway led and intercepted by ninjas before arriving at the ninja village.

    We didn’t have high hopes, since the New York Times gave such a poor review, but we actually had a great time. Maybe it was partly the good company, partially that we got a good ninja, partially that the restaurant took some of the critiques to heart, but we think that the reviews were completely wrong. The food was actually pretty good, the ambiance was believable, and nobody took themselves too seriously (the ninjas spoke Japanese, but quickly switched into witty English.)

    Things can be really expensive if you were to order a la carte, but the key is to pick from the set menus – they have the best value. Ask for the “secret menu” – it’s sort of like the other menu at Chinese restaurants that has the stuff that only those in the know want to eat. The secret menu arrived in a gold box and has 2 more economical set menus that didn’t look like they were going to be filling, but they were very nice. Then we had a choice of 5 desserts, which were shown to us by M- the Ninja on the secret side menu, which she presented to us on a 1 x 3″ slip of parchment.

    If ordered in a set menu, the items that we received were worth the price. The courses included: red miso soup with clams, grilled salmon with a rice sauce, cubed steak in a choice of wasabi or terayaki sauce, 5 piece nigiri sushi, and the fateful choice of dessert. The quality was quite good, and the sushi was served with real wasabi root grated at the table. One of our dinner guests also ordered the 5 flight sake tasting menu, which were full sized samples – it was deemed excellent. The funniest exchange concerning the white frog (actually a cheesecake) dessert – P: “I can’t eat it – it’s too cute” – Ninja M: “He was destined to die”.)

    If you think of it as just food, it’s a bit on the pricy side, especially if you stray off of the set menus, but if you think of it as dinner theater, it’s well worth it – much better value than Jekyll & Hyde or Mars 2112. And you’d be supporting NYC’s better struggling Asian actors and actresses (our dining host had actually been on a casting call for Ninja waitstaff). Recommended if you want to splurge a bit.

    Also, this is the 1,000th (or maybe 1,001 if SSW posts before me) post! Can’t believe we made it this far…. next post will be more of a long form reminiscence.

  • Eating Out Weekend

    BTW, Happy Birthday to SSW!

    P-‘s old neighbor who moved back to Japan was in town, so we went out to eat more often than usual this weekend.

    Dragon Palace Restaurant (202 Centre St. Manhattan): new dim sum place near Lafayette St. The place is well apportioned, and the siu mai – type dim sums were very tasty. The kitchen needs to work some kinks out, because a bowl of fish congee (“juk”) and a fried rice dish, while tasty and obviously made to order, each took 20 minutes to come out.

    Dumpling Man (100 St. Mark’s Place): not bad, but a little pricy. Best value is not order the combo, but order 10 packs. I liked the pork ones a lot, while P enjoyed the chicken, and they had a pumpkin dessert dumpling that was very tasty also. The red monster sauce was too slick and spicy for me – it made it hard to keep the dumpling in my mouth without slipping. The marco polo sauce is your basic Italian basil tomato sauce, but was a lot better than I was expecting. In future visits, though, I’d stick with the free sesame oil and soy sauce. Surprisingly, they do not offer hot tea.

    Blue Smoke (116 E 27th): the only thing better than good ‘cue is ‘cue you didn’t have to pay for – while I got the drinks, P’s sister picked up the tab. You have to know that the chef is from St. Louis, so you ought to go with KC wet style BBQ and ribs; Texas dry rub or Carolina vinegar will probably not live up to expectations. We ordered two sides of ribs – the Kansas City ones were meater and more tender than the St. Louis ones, so I say go with the former. Mac and cheese was exceptional, with al dente pasta, as well as the collards and the creamed spinach.