Category: Manhattan

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.