Blog

Last night, my colleagues and I continued our Brooklyn Restaurant week sampling, trying out the The Soul Spot, a Caribbean/soul food restaurant, on Atlantic Ave. and Smith St. Good food for a little place. Pricing moderate. Mmm.

Tomorrow, we’ll be doing Planet Thailand in Williamsburg. This restaurant week thing has been fun.

Oh, and yeah, Tax Day tomorrow. Cue the Beatles: “Yeah, I’m the Tax Man. Yea-ah…”

Reflections:

–> I picked Illinois to win the NCAA men’s basketball tournament; of course, that didn’t work out (U of North Carolina; oh well). Now, I’m trying to avoid making predictions about the Mets – if they can just break even after their losing streak, that’d be just great.

–> It took weeks, but I did it – I finished reading Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Quite epic. Left me thinking a lot.

Hmm. That was some “Alias” episode last night – see, last week, Jack entered a nuclear plant’s radioactive chamber to turn the thing off, so that he could save his daughter Sydney’s life. Sydney, though, doesn’t realize the risk he took, and Marshall (the lovable tech guy) desparately tries to tell Jack that he’s developing a mutation/potentially fatal cancer-like condition. Very bad. Meanwhile, Vaughn struggles to figure out if it’s worth it to go rogue on the CIA, while he’s blackmailed to believe that his CIA agent father is alive and a traitor. Meaty stuff. Liked the episode – it had the crazy “Alias” style of old.

TGIF tomorrow…

It’s Brooklyn Restaurant Week, 4/11/05 to 4/20/05! Three course meals for $19.55, at selected restaurants, in honor of the Dodgers. My colleagues and I checked out Dhaka, a new Indian restaurant on Atlantic Ave., and we enjoyed the selection/moderate pricing, such that we ended up getting outside the 19.55 special (well, that meant ordering soup, appetizer and main course, and I just wasn’t into soup tonight). But, anyway, the food was quite good and very filling. Highly recommended; the owners/maitre d’s were practically more than enthusiastic about asking us to recommend the place to our friends. (Yeah, can we have a retainer to do that? — 😉 — talk about networking) — no, really, very good food, and I’m not into Indian food.

Anyway, so my colleagues and I are plotting to try another restaurant. So fun. Here’s the detailed list on the selected restaurants, plus the NY Daily News’ comments on their favorite Brooklyn restaurants of the list.

Beautiful weather. It is spring indeed.

I got home Wednesday night, so this is a recap of the Wednesday that went on for 48 hours…. my jetlag is pretty much over already.

Wednesday morning part 1: Before checking out of the hotel, I bought a Japanese yukata, a night robe that was quite comfortable. We went to several 105 Yen stores (the equivilent to our 99 cent stores) in the Shinjuku area, including Don Quiote and US Mart. Then we went to the flagship store of Mitsukoshi at Nihonbashi. Nihonbashi is a bridge that is the Columbus Circle of Tokyo: all distances from Tokyo are measured from here.

Mitsukoshi is literally the Cathedral of Commerce. There is a circa 1930 Wurlitzer organ that they play daily at the opening and at other times including noon, when we attended. A 4 storey statute of the Goddess of Sincerity stands directly in front of the organ in the main atrium. Three floors of fabulous food sits below ground, while floors above include an operating 500 seat theatre where they give cultural performances, an art gallery that rivals any major modern art museum, and an outdoor rooftop square which contains three Shinto shrines.

We indecisively chose two items of the millions of Japanese foods in the food hall, and then made the mad dash back to the hotel and to the airport. We made a bad choice of connection between subways (just say that it was the equivilent of getting off at Grand Central and deciding to walk to Port Authority) and then had a hard time finding the right exit out of Shinjuku station (which is Grand Central, Penn Station and Port Authority all rolled into one). We had missed two trains to the airport in the lost time, and came close to a third waiting in the ticket office, but instead I managed to get the ticket dispensing machine to work and we got on board in time for the hour long train ride back to the airport. Going through security and customs was very efficient, and we made it with 20 minutes to spare.

I spent most of the time on the plane asleep, twisting and turning. The attendant was actually on our flight inbound, and she was like one of those theater matrons that are attentive in a zany manner. We made it back technically one hour before we left.

I’m missing blogging for two days, the last day in Kyoto, which I will be calling “the path to enlightenment”, and the day in Taiwan, which I haven’t figured out what to call yet. Mucho work these next few days….

Cookie Monster’s going healthy. I don’t think it’s entirely implausible; Cookie just eats too much cookies. Besides, I’m sure he’d love the Snackwell cookies and other healthy/ier stuff.

Dale Messick, the creator of the “Brenda Starr” comic strip, has passed away. Fascinating story about a woman cartoonist in an cartoonist age/industry predominantly male. Personally, I think Brenda Starr doesn’t have the edge she used to have with her adventures. These days, while she seems more credible as a journalist, she’s not as glamorous as she used to be. And, I liked the Brenda comics more when the angst was there – whenever Brenda’s torn between a man and the situation or love and work or whatever. A few years ago, she almost got her long missing daughter back (but then that storyline ended) – I thought it was interesting that Brenda’s aging (at least to an extent – she keeps moaning about her age and her daughter did become a snotty teenager). But, there’s too much odd satire (like this latest appearance of a talking head who seemed like Bill O’Reilly on FOX, or the appearance of the President). Plus, I think longtime Starr readers are just waiting for the return of the love of Brenda’s life, the mysterious Basil St. John (the incredibly handsome man with the eye patch). Oh well.

The current Doonesbury comic strip storyline is amusing yet curious. Mike Doonesbury’s daughter, Alex – a bright left-leaning teenager – is apparently thinking about joining the army. To clean up the President’s mess, get money for college, and travel. Hmm. Priceless moment – wherein Alex tell her pop and her stepmom that she’s thinking about joining the army; and Mike and Kim stare at her with their gaping mouths, and remain staring with their gaping mouths even though Alex has left the room. A Doonesbury moment indeed.

Friday, Friday, Friday…

Sadly – with Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw retired or no longer in the network nightly news business, it looks like Peter Jennings also has to take a leave. The Age of the Big Three News Anchors is truly ending. Best wishes to Peter in recovering from the lung cancer.

Prince Rainier of Monaco, widower of Grace Kelly, has passed away.

NY Daily News’ Frank Lombardi reports that Chinatown may be getting its own arch (much like Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Montreal (Montreal is one that I happen to know specifically – there are bunches of arches welcoming you to the – albeit small – multilingual Chinatown that is smack dab in the middle of downtown)). Anyway, Lombardi writes:

Boston’s Chinatown has one. And so do the Chinatown districts of Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.

They all have distinctive arches, or gates, that serve as symbolic welcome mats for Chinatown visitors.

But New York’s Chinatown district – the biggest in the Western hemisphere – has long suffered from arch envy.

That could finally end soon with the help of a $250,000 budget allocation announced yesterday by City Council officials towards building a $1.5 million gateway to Manhattan’s historic Chinatown.

Delighted community leaders hailed the first infusion of public funds to help build what they hope will be “a lucky gate” for Chinatown – whose economy was hard hit by the 9/11 terror attacks – and for the city at large….

“After 150 years of making New York City the great city that it is, it’s about time that Chinese-Americans, who have contributed so much to the Big Apple, get their gate,” added Councilman John Liu (D-Queens), the city’s first Asian elected official.

Efforts to build an arch in Chinatown have been stymied for more than two decades.

The specific site for the arch hasn’t been finalized, but its architect, Tieh-Chi Ho, said the preferred location is across Park Row at Chatham Square.

“Our arch will be the biggest,” according to Ho, who is providing his services pro bono.

It will be 45 feet high, with an 80-foot span, and would take from 18 months to two years to erect after all required funding and city approvals are obtained, he said.

“I’d like to have started yesterday,” he joked.

Personally, the design drawing that the Daily News provided, as designed by the architect, looks weird. Maybe because I just think the arch as designed is too wide (maybe it needs to be taller to look more narrow – and to have space for buses and trucks to go through it); maybe because I think it’s rather weird to smack an arch right there in the Chatham Sq. area. I don’t know; I mean, Montreal’s arches are nice looking stuff (for pedestrians to walk under and use as nifty background for the taking of pictures), without looking gaudy. Can NYC Chinatown’s arch avoid looking gaudy yet be practical? Hmm.

Plus, Brooklyn’s having its own Restaurant Week, from 4/11/05 to 4/20/05 – three course meals for $19.55 (I think it’s in honor of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the pinnacle year of 1955). Here’s the list – check it out! (so goes my plug for the home boro).

George Ross, Donald Trump’s General Counsel and “The Apprentice” sidekick, made an appearance at Brooklyn College, his undergraduate alma mater. (I heard he’s also supposed to make an appearance at the Alma Mater Law School…).

Apparently, there’s a new Chinese tea cuisine restaurant in town, according to Cynthia Kilian in “Temptress with a Teapot”:

As feng shui goes, meeting China’s brightest culinary star in a lavatory doesn’t bode well. Yet that’s where tea alchemist Jin R introduced her self last week at Yumcha, the hotly anticipated haute Chinois restaurant that opens Monday.

For the West Village restaurant, the woman Time magazine recently dubbed China’s first celebrity chef has developed an exquisite variety of tea creations that combine sensual presentation with exotic ingredients….

“A really nice cup of beautiful tea, you will feel touched,” Jin says. “You show the soul, the spirit of the culture there. It is like looking at a painting.”

Jin believes the new China embraces everything different — new architecture, new art, Hollywood. And it’s nothing like our Chinatown.

“Chinatown — I couldn’t believe it!” the 33-year-old super-cook says. “It’s like China 80 years ago. I went there a couple of days ago and thought, ‘I have never seen this place in China.’ ”

A classically trained musician and artist, Jin opened her trend-setting Green T. House in Beijing eight years ago. When her first chef quit, she began concocting her own recipes, using tea in salads and sauces, crafting dishes in which “image is more important than anything.”

Typical of the breathtaking creations that earned her reputation is a dessert that uses dry ice to re-create the smoke and incense of a Buddhist temple. The glittering confection is served on a golden plate, with gold paper, a Buddha statue, gold lotus root, green-tea ice cream and two chocolates….

The tea art at Yumcha — which is Cantonese for “drinking tea” with dim sum — includes preparations such as “purple in date, ginger in black,” a rich amber brew sweet ened by honey dripped from a foot-long cinnamon wand.

Yumcha owner Quentin Danté is such a fan of Jin’s that he literally went halfway around the globe to enlist her help with the restaurant.

“She’s the polar opposite of me,” Danté says. “Jin is exhale, I’m inhale. Her life is tranquility, mine has been nothing but turmoil.”

If Yumcha lives up to its growing buzz, Jin and Danté have plans to bring New York a Green T. House, which would be more than just a fashionable spot to sip seductive brews.

Jin believes it would serve as a cultural embassy for the cutting edge of Chinese style. “China has changed a lot, but Westerners don’t know the new Chinese culture,” she says.

“China now, it’s very open, it’s very creative, it’s very refreshing,” she adds. “It’s about energy and creativity and spiritual attitude, and that’s what I want to share with the New York culture.”

Hmm. Modern China coming to NYC, to make NYC’s Chinatown flashier. Hmm. I think this Jin woman needs to become more familiar with NYC’s Chinatown (it only looks old since it has plenty of old-fashioned buildings; it’s vibrant enough; but I’m not familiar enough with Chinatown, so I ought to talk; but I thought it was silly she mentioned she’d never seen Chinatown in China; of course not – Chinatown’s a Chinese American invention; why would you want to find it in China?)….

So it goes. Can’t week for this week to end already.

While I am not Catholic and may not have agreed with some of the positions Pope John Paul II took, I respected him. May he rest in peace.

Last night, my APA alumni group sponsored a group to see “China Doll,” presented by the Pan Asian Repertory Theatre. The play is described as a “reimagining” of the life of Anna May Wong, an Asian American pioneer in the Hollywood of the 1920’s to the 1950’s. Switching back and forth between the memories and the fantasies of Wong and replaying of Wong’s movies , with appearances by her contemporaries, like Douglas Fairbanks, Marlene Dietrich. Fascinating portrayal of ironies – Wong was considered too Asian to be doing serious leading roles, yet too American to be Asian. The play tended to be too wordy (a playwrite’s literary work), but I thought it was interesting to see how theater would try to be very cinematic, with the minimal prop/scenery. We were also treated to an illuminating Q&A with the director and cast.

Losing an hour, no thanks to Daylight Savings. More light, less time. Eh.