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 criticism, I think it's very safe to say that big publishers have won out. Most of us that visit sites like Yelp just look at the star rating to make sure it's not below three stars and to see the address. Sure there's sites that carry the latest news and openings and other sites that let you order online or check the menu, but those do not take away from major reviews. Then with Google buying Zagat, all that's going to do is dilute the usefulness of a site like Yelp because all most users want is contact info about the restaurant anyway. As for bloggers? Most bloggers I know are blogging less and less, and the ones that make a living out of this do recipe blogs and cookbooks. We could say that a blog like immaculate infatuation has made it, but they're just one blog out of an infinite number of blogs that have tried restaurant review blogs. So what's a little guy in the game supposed to do? We just do what most of us did in high school, which is go to places that the cool kids are going to. Midtown Lunch and Serious Eats - New York went to Cafe China recently and I knew what I had to do. Follow the cool kids to Cafe China and hope to get some traction when people search for this new-ish Sichuan restaurant in Midtown. See what I did there? Keywords baby. Still can't beat the big guys.... [Continue reading]
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]
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]
Excellent Pork Chop House has fallen on many lists of best places to get pork chop over rice in New York. The NKOTB is Hua Ji, which I respect and enjoy. They're not as centrally located in Chinatown as the EPCH. Even in the face of new competition, Excellent Pork Chop House is still really awesome. They're still got one of the best bowls going on because the proportion of pork chop to meat sauce to pickled mustard greens is still pretty wicked.... [Continue reading]
Nom Wah Tea Parlor in Chinatown is the restaurant version of the retro basketball jersey. If you're not familiar with retro jerseys, they're basically wearable antique road shows for sports fanatics. Essentially it's out-of-style basketball fashion that's back in style because being old is chic again. I used to walk by Nom Wah Tea Parlor for one reason and one reason only, to go visit Excellent Pork Chop House. There would be older folks playing mahjong in there and stuff. I never ever even felt an inkling to visit the place because it looked dingy back then, and I had never really seen anyone eat there when I used to live in Chinatown. But then the NYTimes showed up and said they got revamped and there's new food in there. This old place had become cool again! Steph and I decided to go check it out.... [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]
