Interior: The dining room (left) and down the bar (right)
About a week ago, I had dinner with an old friend, Michael and meeting a new one, one of NY Times’ freelance photographers, Evan Sung at the Meatball Shop in the Lower East Side. A casual, fun, nostalgic meal that’s causing quite a media stir that specializes on their namesake – meatballs.
Entering the small, already bustling restaurant at 6:45 PM, one would see the aged-looking walls decorated in black and white portraits and vintage kitchen tools (like hand-cranked meat grinders) and a tinned ceiling. Two-top tables strewn against the one wall while the wooden communal table takes up most of the space with the bar on the right. Continue reading “Meet-Up Dinner (Sort of) at The Meatball Shop” »
My dear readers, probably if you read my blog long enough to know the essence of my eating habits most of my diet would compose of approximately 50% meat (preferably pork), 30% complex carbohydrates (as in noodles and rice), the remaining 20% miscellaneous (drinks, coffee, desserts, etc.). For the past month or so, all the buzz has been around Baohaus. Prodding around their site and reading Chef/Owner Eddie Huang’s own blog, I like his style (he said “PORK FAT IS FOREVER” and the meats are red cooked (meaning, braised in a flavorful, aromatic broth containing soy sauce, brown sugar, ginger, etc., cooked until fork tender) and persuaded a few dependable, pork-lovin’ friends to come along.
Once we arrived to Baohaus, we’re a bit perplexed by the large crowd of young Asians around my age waiting outside the door around 3 PM on a Saturday. I’ve asked them are they waiting on line or something else? One of them said they’ve ordered and we allowed ourselves in and walk up to the counter. After excusing ourselves through the almost claustrophobic space (it’s a narrow storefront with a large island/ bar seating area with another table tucked on the corner near the door done up in blue and white color scheme). I saw Eddie Huang toiling behind the stove trying to catch up to three orders, while his assistant is taking down orders and the dishes in the back.
As Eddie cranked out the baos and Royal Frushes, I’ve observed most of diners were young Asians taking out cameras of every kind shooting photos of his food (from iPhones and point-and-shoots to dSLRs similar to my 5D Mark II). Oversaturated food blog market in New York City? Perhaps or we’re becoming too predictable to play up on trends.
True that.
Whilst waiting for our order, my friends spotted this (pointing above) sticker. I totally wanted one since pork fat is awesome and it does rule my life. Besides butter. Continue reading “Baohaus” »
On weekends when I don’t have to necessarily rush to go anywhere, I like to take my sweet ol’ time going to brunch with a friend or a few (if it’s possible) but I managed to have Helen fairly last minute. I know I’m admitting something relatively shocking but I have never been to Shopsin’s before my visit two Saturdays ago. Yes! Mock me, why don’t you?! As a native New Yorker who’s never eaten here, I know it’s a relative shame despite reading about Shopsin for years. Back to the story… I arrived to Shopsin’s around 12 PM with a shorter line than what you see above. (I took this toward the end of my meal around 1.) It’s just two parties ahead of me. Continue reading “Brunch at Shopsin’s” »
On Friday, I managed to get myself out of bed and my house in this dreadfully cold, white, and snowy morning. When I heard that it’s going to snow for the past several days, I was thinking it’s just an inch or two, no biggie. Except when I stepped out of my door it looked like this…
LOTS OF SNOW!
As I trudged myself through the now slushy sidewalks of Manhattan to work, I almost felt inclined to cancel my dinner with Ariel at Merkato 55. Except I didn’t just because I don’t want to suffer another uneventful weekend at home, so I called him around lunchtime and confirmed our dinner and other activities that I will explain later. Continue reading “Merkato 55 and Boozy Outings” »
I wish everyone HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Jeebus, time flew so quickly… I’ll probably write a review of the past year soon, say, on the day of the new year? I’m not too sure on that. If not, I have a more personal post to write about anyways.
Going back to Friday night, I went to WD-50 with Ariel for dinner since he’s particularly intrigued with molecular gastronomy and Chef Wylie Dufrense since he’s the only person in New York who really does this particular style of cooking. And the fact that he likes food that has weird flavor combinations.
Over the weekend, I wanted to go brunching for some reason. Maybe because of feeling restless from sitting on my butt in front of my laptop writing papers ENDLESSLY or studying from law textbooks just makes me want to blind myself? Possibly… So, for a few days before Saturday, I’ve contacted my almost dependable fooding friend, Ariel to ask if he wants to have brunch? After exchanging e-mails infrequently that I known practically last minute where and when we’re meeting. Thanks to my iPod Touch’s WiFi capability, I got the message before leaving the city and abandon Ariel.
Anyways, we met on Saturday at 3 at Houston and Broadway and eventually walked over to the Lower East Side. Honestly, we don’t really know where we’re eating. We’re basically roaming around a few places that he had in mind that strikes his fancy. We stopped by some Latin bistro/tapas place somewhere in the LES, but I don’t remember where it was. All I can recall was that it was a pastel pink exterior and the name started with “A.” It didn’t appeal to me at all and eventually Ariel changed his mind and he wanted to go to Stanton Social.
We started to walk on Stanton going east since I don’t wander around the LES that often and depending on Ariel that he knows where he’s going since he said he passed by this place a few times. Once we were on Clinton & Stanton, we stopped and I was thinking out loud, “Wait a minute…This doesn’t seem right. We’re heading toward WD-50.” Ariel thought a minute and said, “We should be going the right way…I think?” Since we’re doubting ourselves, Ariel whipped out his cell phone and called his younger brother and hope that he would actually give him the address. But since his bro didn’t pick up, I just remembered about my iPod! I prayed mentally that I could pick up a WiFi signal. And yes, it worked! I managed to Google: Stanton Social and I got the address. It turned out, as expected, we were heading the wrong direction. We’re supposed to head out east, not west.
Note: This event was taken place last Saturday…I know it’s late but I was actually waiting for a few of Robyn’s photos (which I will credit and link to when it occurs) since I had relatively little photos of the party-goers since I was busy playing hostess of sorts toward the second leg of the party.
Edit (11/17/07) : I NO longer need people for my other upcoming party…but thanks for a few of you who have responded!
I threw myself a birthday party…a day later. Since I have to take care of family and school stuff that I can’t go out and party for a good portion of the day on the day of my actual birthday. Anyways, I’ve invited 8 friends (Adam, Ariel, Doug, Jessica, Julie, Kathy, Kim, and Robyn) for a large get-together and do what I (or we) do best, eating! We all met at the Highline since it’s been suggested by a few Chowhounders that their food is pretty good and it can accommodate large groups.
Since I was the first to arrive, I sat down in one of the large communal style tables toward the back of the restaurant on the ground floor. The decor isn’t what I was expecting after viewing their website. But at least it’s not terribly distracting and there’s no music blaring in this place that I won’t be suffering from laryngitis at the end of the lunch.
Anyways, as my guests slowly arrive, we greeted each other and eventually talk about food since it’s about 1:30 PM, and we’re starving.
As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, this is going to be about the Lower East Side bakery, How Sweet It Is.
I’ve read about this tiny, charming place from the NY Times’ Dining section from Wednesday’s paper. Since I love bakeries, I might as well check the place out on Thursday when my class schedule is more flexible.
For the past week, I had three midterms and a ten-page paper due, all crammed within four days. I was suffering with stress that I want to scream in vexation due to my aching head. Isn’t college life just awesome? At least I survived the roughest week and there’s a little sprinkling of tests for the next two weeks, which the last one would be two days before my birthday. At least my professors spared me of pain and torture on that day. Thankfully.
On Monday, I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast at home, so I head over to Bouchon for the sake of having something before I pass out in class due to low blood sugar levels and my need for caffeine since I stayed up ’til 1 AM; having 4 1/2 hours of sleep isn’t fun.
I know…I said I’ll stop going to Bouchon but then again, they’re kind of my savior for the week since my stressed mind doesn’t want to think where I could eat as well as where I haven’t been to.
Note: I’m going to write about Café Gray on a separate post. I know probably a few of you might have seen the photos but I’m not going to talk about them today…but sometime very soon.
On Monday, I went was around Union Square during my lunch break since I have about an hour and ten minutes after commuting down there via the subway. Since I’m tired of eating at City Bakery and I don’t want to eat sweets that day, surprisingly (probably due to the fact that I was semi-sick?), I went to Maoz Vegetarian.
