Jeremy Lin and Dorado Tacos
Let's get this out of the way... the food portion of this post is about Dorado Tacos. It's located near NYU and across the street from Num Pang, if that gives you a good geographical point of reference. They serve three dollar fried fish tacos. In my book that's a decent deal on fish tacos, even though I think the grilled fish taco is $3.25. Steph and I tried the fried fish, grilled fish, and chorizo taco. All three were bangin' and priced not-too-bad. A fatass like myself is never full after three tacos, but it's probably a good number for a reasonable person, which means you could be aight with a $10 dollar meal, provided you drink nothing. Which I have to say, I've done many times in my life in order to make meals affordable. That's right, fuck you on drinks, fuck you on desserts, and fuck you on appetizers. If this was a sitdown restaurant, the server would look at me like crazy, because how dare someone with such below-average looks put someone else in the friend-zone. Because that's really what happens when all you order is an entree at a sit-down place. Luckily, Dorado is not a formal restaurant, you order your food and find your own seating. It's in that weird marketing zone of they probably want to market to NYU students, but even when I was a NYU student, that shit be too expensive for me. Now as a fully grown adult who struggles to find a reasonably priced apartment to rent, I find Dorado tacos to be properly priced for the time being. For the rest of this post, I'm going to talk about Jeremy Lin. If you don't care about basketball, I'm putting you in the friend-zone.
The reason I don't like writing about food much anymore is because it doesn't provide me with any context in this life. And the real gems of the New York food world simply exists in either Queens or Brooklyn. Living in Harlem doesn't really lend itself to easy access to those two neighborhoods. I want to talk about Jeremy Lin because I love basketball and he's simply the biggest story in basketball in 2012 so far. The only way the story could get bigger is if the Knicks win the championship this year and he wins MVP. At that point I would impregnate my wife and force upon the child the first name of Linsanity Forever. I haven't actually spoken to Steph about this set of action, but she reads my blog so she's on board with it already. Trust me.
The genius about being a Taiwanese born American is that I can be Chinese/Taiwanese when it's convenient and then American when it's convenient. I can't but cheer for Jeremy Lin because he's having one of the most surprising hot streaks in the NBA for someone without impressive athletic pedigree. It's not like I walk around thinking, "Wow, I'm so proud to be Taiwanese or American." You've got to be a fucking asshole to do that. But it is very gratifying to see that someone of Taiwanese descent is doing well in the sport I love the most.
For a moment here I'm going to single out one famous national sports writer named Jason Whitlock. Most of you don't know who he is, but he used to be on ESPN a lil, and he's a very opinionated dude. I've also heard him on the radio talk about how awesome The Wire is, and I agree with him there. The story of Jason Whitlock and Jeremy Lin started last Friday when Linsanity went off against the Lakers. Sporting News has the writeup about Whitlock's tweet, which was a semi-offensive joke about the size of the Asian penis. The next day Whitlock issued an apology which I found acceptable because the word 'sorry' actually appears in there. I did call Whitlock a pussy on Twitter, because goddamn it, we don't get Asian American entertainers in unlikely situations see this much success. Let us fucking enjoy it for a minute. Win streaks in the NBA die so fast because they play at least three games a week and any team could win on any night. Plus, let me do some Chinese on Chinese hate first. Don't worry Whitlock, we make small penis jokes about ourselves anyway.
So I was really glad to see that Whitlock did a real piece on Jeremy Lin. For someone who talked about the cultural significance of a show like The Wire and the racial importance of the success of Tiger Woods, it would only be natural that he give us Chinks some breathing room for our own hero. It does perhaps shine a light that understanding the struggles of another culture may be a bit harder than anyone cares to realize, even if a person is acutely aware of the struggle of one's own.
Finally I just want to say that for diehard NBA fans who are Chinese-Americans, we paid attention to Jeremy Lin. His success did come out of no where, but we've been eyeing him all along, ever since he tried to make the team via summer league competitions in 2010. Below is from my gmail archive with my friends.
Patrick on Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 8:44 AM
subject: Re: nba
to me, Min, j
yeah looks like maggette got traded.
so that harvard asian kid jeremy lin is working out for the warriors.
you think someone would spend a 2nd round pick on him? or maybe an undrafted invitee?
====================================
Danny on Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 8:44 AM
subject: Re: nba
to Patrick, Min, j
it's hard to say... never actually seen the kid play. and we haven't
really seen that many ivy leaguers in the nba. i say at most he'll
have a coby karl career.
but if the warriors pick him up, who knows? maybe an injury here or
there and he's averaging 15 a game. haha
====================================
Danny on Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 11:35 AM
subject: Re: nba
to Patrick, Min, j
btw, jeremy lin is playing summer league for the mavs
====================================
Danny on Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 8:27 PM
subject: Re: nba
to j, Patrick, Min
jeremy lin got signed by warriors.
====================================
Jeremy on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 4:45 PM
subject: Re: FW: Fwd: movie coupon
to me, Patrick, Min
watched some jeremy lin highlights for about 15 minutes just now. i'm jumping on the bandwagon
====================================
Danny on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 4:50 PM
subject: Re: FW: Fwd: movie coupon
to j, Patrick, Min
yea he's pretty decent. 6'3 PG with slightly below avg hops, but plays
pretty smart.
====================================
Danny on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 9:52 AM
subject: Re: nba
to Patrick, j, Min
damn, this jeremy lin guy is a super christian dude.
and he shoots with his elbows out. sadness.
====================================
Patrick on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 9:56 AM
subject: Re: nba
to me, j, Min
haha yeah i saw that interview. goddamnit.
oh well, i'm not really excited about him or anything. he's not gonna
get much playing time behind curry and monta, so unless he changes his
name to jeleremy lin, i don't care that much
====================================
Danny on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 9:58 AM
subject: Re: nba
to Patrick, j, Min
he oughta do that
i watched the highlights from that mavs vs wizards summer league game.
he is pretty decent. doesn't get off the ground that much on his long
jumpers though.
====================================
j on Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 3:52 PM
subject: Re: nba
to me, Patrick, Min
damn these kids online keep the rosters crazy updated...just downloaded latest 2k10 roster and it has shaq on the celtics
also jeremy lin is a 74 -- i think some asian kid is doing the roster updates..
====================================
And then we have huge lull in Jlin7 news for over a year...
Danny on Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 10:32 AM
subject: Re: Places in Singapore
to Min, J, Patrick
man i love nba news. so knicks claimed that taiwanese kid, jeremy lin
off of waivers.
====================================
J on Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 10:50 AM
subject: Re: Places in Singapore
to me, Min, Patrick
time to buy knicks tickets and go to the garden, danny you got a giant taiwanese flag?
or these bandanas
====================================
Patrick on Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 11:02 AM
subject: Re: Places in Singapore
to j, me, Min
wow i didn't even notice the warriors waived him. i guess he wasn't good enough.
====================================
Danny on Tue, Dec 27, 2011 at 11:08 AM
subject: Re: Places in Singapore
to Patrick, j, Min
haha giant taiwanese flag, no i don't have one of those. should get
one though. apparently you can order them online.
as for jeremy lin, he never played last year anyway. i bet the knicks
just claimed him to sell tickets to chinks who wanna see him in
warmups do layup drills.
====================================
So I think Chinese people are perfectly capable of doubting our own kind, drinking haterade on the kid before he even had a shot. But like many people gravitated towards Tiger during his ascension, many Asians are clinging to the bandwagon that's more like a rocket taking off to space. The Linsanity phenomenon has been a long time coming for Asian Americans who love the NBA, and even though I deeply hope Jeremy Lin never espouses his social values, I'm still cheering for this guy who can't stop talking about his lord and savior in post-game interviews. It's just been a great story and I fucking love it.
Dorado
28 E 12th St.
New York, NY 10003
212-627-0900
(I invite you to follow me on Twitter so you can get more of my non-sense in another medium.)
Thanks for linking that Whitlock piece. Religion aside, Lin is no Tebow.
Ang
February 17, 2012 1:59 pm
Thanks for writing about us on your blog. We appreciate your kind words.
Your review of Per Se was terrific, especially the fabulous photos of the food.
Thanks again for the mention.
Michael Brau
March 20, 2012 3:07 pm