With a new year comes new possibilities. There's a new Olympics this year, a new presidential election, and in the restaurant world, probably countless new openings and closings. As 2011 drew to a close we all parted ways with the outgoing New York Times restaurant critic and in 2012 we're all going to get used to reading what Pete Wells has to say. This is exciting, right? Sam Sifton gave ethnic food a good spin, and I hope Pete Wells does the same. It was cool when Sifton reviewed 456 Shanghai Cuisine because Manhattan's Chinatown doesn't get enough recognition.... [Continue reading]
Oyster Omelet is a dish that's very dear to my heart, since it's almost like a national dish of Taiwan. Although my taste buds do not actually know what a good version is supposed to be like since I haven't had one from the motherland in over two decades. That's one of the downsides to being an immigrant, you lose yourself in the new culture. This day in age, you could find shows and music from your motherland, but retail food is often something that's not in one's control. What's interesting is to see variations on food you grew up with in the adopted homeland. I'm not sure that I ever would have seen a fried oyster omelet in Taiwan, but here it is in New York City. En Japanese Brasserie has it on their brunch menu. What makes this different than most oyster omelets is that the oyster is breaded and deep fried, and then put inside of an omelet. This makes the oysters crunchy and even more enjoyable. What would give one pause is the price tag, which is $16 dollars. I suppose oysters are not cheap, but it's still a luxury good in my book. Proceed with care because while enjoyable, it's not rock your socks off kinda thing.... [Continue reading]
Usually by mid-December, I'm already knee deep in fantasy basketball. Usually it consumes my life the way that some people are consumed by things like work, family, or relationships. Seriously, can anyone think of a better way to spend time? I sure couldn't. But since the NBA decided to have a lockout, the fantasy basketball season is just getting underway. With fantasy basketball or any fantasy sports in general, the best way to win is the have no one on your team get injured. This is often difficult to control. The next thing is to hope that you get someone on your team that's underrated by everyone else. If you find good value, you'll do well. Essentially you want to pleasantly surprised by a gem, that way you come out on top. This idea works well in dining as well. Finding an underrated gem really makes you feel good. It's hard to call The Bar Room at The Modern as underrated because its main dining room has been ranked by the Michelin Guide and by The New York Times. But I feel like this place doesn't come up that often when people talk about nicer sit-down places in Midtown.... [Continue reading]
Did y'all catch the whole SAT cheating scandal recently? Apparently some kids got busted for taking tests for other students. What's the problem here? It's just kids taking advantage of what they got. The test taker was utilizing his skills and those who paid him were utilizing disposal income. It's a win-win situation, especially since the SATs is a completely poor indicator of student performance and human being life performance. Taking advantage of what's available is exactly what everyone should do. It's easy to take a hole-in-the-wall Chinese take-out restaurant in Times Square for granted. How many restaurants in the heart of Midtown is actually good? Obviously more than a few if you follow Midtown Lunch, but it's also a wasteland full of Olive Gardens and shitty pizza fit for Palin and Trump. Well, taking advantage of what's in front of me is exactly what I did this week. Pearl's is a completely random looking restaurant that looks like nothing much on the outside, but they sling a decent version of one of my favorite lunch take-out item: double cooked pork belly.... [Continue reading]
Making ramen at home is difficult. The difficulty level increases when I screw up the recipe in addition to being a complete newbie to this. Mostly I find this to be more along the lines of 'playing with food' rather than actual cooking. I got the recipe from Lucky Peach issue 1, which is not being sold anymore. You can find issue 2 on Amazon now. [Full disclosure: I add my affiliate code to amazon links.] The recipe is simple enough, and I'll talk about it in a minute, but it really isn't as easy as it seems. There's actually only three ingredients, which would lead one to believe it would be easy.. but it ain't easy unless you good at this shit, which I'm not. So let's get to it.... [Continue reading]
A new thing that I'm trying to do more of is to assume that things are going to work out for the better. Too often it's easy to get caught up on things... [more]
It's difficult to find something more affordable than doubles from the Trini Paki Cart. I actually had it maybe a month or two ago and I can't even... [more]
Recently I tortured Steph into watching Game of Thrones with me. There's dragon eggs in that show, and I've previously told many of my friends that... [more]
Thirty five point two nine percent. That's how much of my life has passed by based upon a life expectancy of getting to 85-years-old. It certain could... [more]
Did y'all catch the article last week by Eric Asimov about the state of being a critic? I think if there's one thing to note about the state of restaurant... [more]
