Probably Awkward Goes to Queens on Spring Break

I think the preceding set of photographs from the second annual QBQ BBQ (quality before quantity BBQ) says it all: we came, we ate, we drank overpriced mixed drinks and then free beer, we met Gothamist, and then we left. What I don't think the photographs fully convey, however, is how spring break-like the whole thing was. Probably Awkward, individually or collectively, was never a part of the Cancun or Daytona Beach-going college crowd; I can't speak for MD, but every March, I spent my collegiate spring break catching up on reading and/or learning how to drink whiskey like a man. I was at least 1,000 miles away from any sort of bikini-clad-ness and the frosted highlights of entitlement.

And then there we were, at the Water Taxi Beach in Long Island City, surrounded by shirtless, cargo shorts-wearing boys and their scantily-clad female counterparts. And everyone was playing beach volleyball. On a strip of sand adjacent to, but not actually touching, the water. Despite the fact that they were all probably out of college (and, we surmised, all currently junior i-bankers), the non QBQ BBQ beachgoers all looked like they were reliving their happiest moments from Cancun 2004.

The burger event itself got off to a slow start, but despite the kinks everything seemed to go pretty smoothly. The burger line was long but surprisingly orderly, and a laid-back spirit of shared red-meat-love camaraderie got folks to share tables, hold each other's plahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifces in line, and oooh and aaah every time a new burger creation was unveiled. Of the three burgers voted into the event: pimento, butter, and onion, I have to admit that I was freakishly surprised by how good the pimento was, how terrible the butter turned out to be, and how inoffensive the onion was (I normally can't stand onions -- I know, I know). Despite the foodie squeals of delight as we watched the guy behind the counter use an ice cream scooper to get dollops of butter from a vat of Plugra, the butter burger was just waaaay too much.

[update: We were the first in line for the onion burgers, which again, were tasty but not as spectacular as advertised. After seeing Jason Perlow's pics of the QBQ, it occurs to me that as the line wore on, the grill guys found their rhythm and got the onions properly smushed into the patties (whereas the onions in our burgers were decidedly more separate from their patties). I think I would've swooned over those burgers. Alas! The perils of being first in line!]

Sadly, for an event taking place at the Water Taxi Beach, MD and I were unable to arrive by the Water Taxi itself, no thanks to a un-updated website which failed to inform us that there was no longer weekend service from the Williamsburg dock. But no matter. We got to experience our first Spring Break of sorts, while surviving food coma and witnessing the sunset from an entirely new, slightly surreal location. I slept quite soundly, I have to say. (And yup, that's a plastic, xmas-lighted palm tree in the foreground. Welcome to Queens!)

ps: We've moved - come to our new site at probablyawkward.typepad.com ...

That Which Does Not Kill Me: Deep Fried Mac n Cheese

Between recent forays into the pork-permeated Momofuku universe, a profoundly unhealthy interest in bone-dry southern Italian white wines, the lack of a gym membership, and the absence of any willpower when it comes to the mushroom pizza at Rosario's, there's a good chance I won't live to see 34. And when you get to that point in your life where you realize that you might as well just stop trying to be healthy, you also then come to the conclusion that there's no point in avoiding deep fried macaroni and cheese. Really. Just give into it. You'll feel a lot better. I mean, it's a thought I've had for a long time now: who in the carnivorous, lactose-tolerant (or, like me, lactose-intolerance-be-damned) universe wouldn't love to consume a ball of mac n cheese, breaded and then deep fried? Add to that a piece of smoked kielbasa in the center, and you've got yourself an updated version of the mac n cheese n franks one would often find in elementary school cafeterias. An updated version for the glutton in all of us. Made by yours truly. Sadly, yours truly has a kitchen the size of an armchair a folding chair, and I woefully lack a deep fryer. So KS proposed that until I was blessed with a dream kitchen and fryolator, we head out into the city to try other places' take on this concept. (Sadly, too, I am not the only one with this wondrous idea.) And so this past weekend, and for a wee bit of the other evening, we crafted almost entire meals around deep fried mac n cheese. And lived to tell the tale. First up: Supermac. A wee little place in the fashion district that specializes in macaroni and cheese (including a lobster thermidor version...!), Supermac was unfortunately out of their mac n cheese nuggets the day we visited. We consoled ourselves by ordering a couple versions of their regular mac n cheese: a traditional one with American and cheddar, and a 4-cheese one with cheddar, asiago, mozzarella, and parmesiano-reggiano. The four cheese one rocked -- nice texture, with really good tang from the cheese combination (it's the one further away in the photograph on the left). Up next: after downing a couple pint glasses of sangria, we headed over to Mo Pitkins, based on a tip from gridskipper, where there had been photographic evidence of a deep fried mac and cheese loaf. On the walk over there, I may have said something to the effect of "It seems to me that the loaf, qua loaf...." I actually don't remember how I finished that sentence because KS started cracking up. Qua. It's the only bit of latin I know how to use in a sentence. Anyhow: the loaf. Insane. I mean, look at the knife that accompanied it. And the crazy cheese sauce. It was spectacular. The sauce kept the whole thing from drying out, and the breading was crisp and light (as light as deep fried anything can be). The mac and cheese itself was pretty standard -- nothing very fancy, but in that sense quite good: nothing to distract you from the deep fried mac n cheese qua deep fried mac n cheese. Having hit the proverbial wall that evening, we waited a couple of days before trying out purveyor no.3: Bamn!, the automat place over on St. Marks near 2nd avenue. The whole automat thing was sort of fun, but I suspect I'd have to be considerably more intoxicated for the whole thing to be the kind of pleasure I think it's supposed to be. In any event, their mac n cheese krokets (their spelling) were a far cry from Mo Pitkins' cheese extravaganza, but seemed to work pretty well as an inbetween sort of thing. And not so bad, having emerged from the depths of an automat. The mac n cheese was bit more straightforwardly Kraft-esque, and there was something comforting about that. The outer coating could've use a little something extra -- pepper or a touch of cayenne, maybe? -- but again, for an automat, pretty solid fare. (I'd like to add, as an aside, that we followed this up with automat-generated chicken fingers, and then some Chicken Stroganoff at Cafe Anyway. One day my metabolism is going to catch up with my gluttony, and that's going to be a very sad day.) The verdict: good stuff, but not quite what I had envisioned. I sort of think that my version would blow these other guys out of the water. Now will someone please build me my dream kitchen so I can show this city what's what?

Questionable: Pizza Hut in Japan

Apparently it's called the Double Roll Pizza. I can't even begin to parse out my feelings about this ... thing. [thanks to Slice for the link.]

Why I Photograph Food: or, A Paean To Pork Belly

Readers of probably awkward might have noticed that we revel in food consumption. It doesn’t have to be Burger Night for MD and me to talk/IM/email about places we want to try out, places we need to go back to, or even just random links to bigger/better/weirder ways to consume pork products. I can’t speak for MD, but I’ll confess that I think about food constantly. Around 9am I think about where I might have lunch (if it’s a weekday, most likely somewhere terrible and chain-like; I work next to Port Authority); by 3pm on any given day I know what I’m doing for dinner. And it’s generally not about hunger. It’s about the pure pleasure of thinking about what sorts of food I’m going to put down my gullet. Accompanying this perhaps off-kilter obsession with food is an OCD-like need to photograph nearly everything I’m about to consume. To be sure, I don’t take pictures of my morning bagel, or my noontime sorry excuse for a salad, or anything I prepare in my tiny Manhattan kitchen (since it’s usually a bachelorette’s dinner of soy-protein-products, to balance out the ridiculous levels of meat and cholesterol I ingest when I’m dining out). But put a plate of hot food in front of me, and there’s a good chance I’ll whip out the Lumix and snap away. I’ve embarrassed dozens of friends and family members this way; since I never use flash, I figure that I’m not really interrupting any other table’s dining experience; I’ve never been asked to put my camera away. It’s become something along the lines of second nature to me at this point. Why do I do this? It’s partly out of a post-graduate-student nervous-tic sort of thing, to continue to document and archive my daily life. And it’s partly out of sheer technological ease: I probably wouldn’t do this with a regular film camera. But I do it mainly because I love food, and I want to remember all the good (and bad) things I’ve eaten. The visual component to food cannot be denied; plating and presentation at a reasonably decent restaurant are carefully-thought-out processes; at some places, it’s something of an art form. But even more fundamentally: food itself can be an art form. Even at places that just dole out the hot noodles with Taylorist efficiency, the interplay of textures and colors makes for something really quite lovely; the visual experience adds another dimension, another layer of depth and complexity, to an oftentimes already wonderful and sensual unfolding. And a photograph can capture that in a way that the other senses can only do ephemerally. Truth be told, my rather profound love of food – both eating and photographing it – is no doubt in part me overcompensating for what I (un)lovingly think of as the lost years: a combination of questionable dining hall fare in college, minimal meat consumption, and then, in my early grad school years, what I’ll euphemistically refer to as an aversion to ingesting fat. Or calories. The road back from my slightly antagonistic relationship to food took a while (and not made much easier by living in the middle of nowhere – sorry, Ithaca), but I’m pretty happy that I finally got to a place where I can’t stop thinking about when/where/how I’m going to eat pork belly again. In that regard, my taking pictures of food is something of a badge of honor – a daily reminder/reflection of finally being in a place, literally and mentally, where the pleasures of food can be experienced in so many – and such lasting – ways.

Tasty: Momofuku Ssäm Bar

There's absolutely nothing I could write about Momofuku Ssäm Bar that a bazillion foodies haven't already waxed rhapsodic about. Well, there's one unique thing I could tell you: I finally went there. (Thanks, RZS, for being such a gleeful dining companion.) And it was glorious. You gotta love a place that states very baldly on its menu that its food is not vegetarian friendly. RZS and I decided to go all out: absolutely awesome spicy squid and celery salad was followed by manila clams, grilled pickled baby corn, rice cakes, and chinese sausage and greens in a bacon dashi broth (yeah, you read that right: bacon dashi, my friends). Then a rapturous banh mi sandwich with a terrine of ham, veal headcheese, and chicken-liver paté. And finally, the restaurant's signature Ssäm: an Asian burrito of sorts with shredded Berkshire pork, kimchi, onions, and edamame. By that point I had hit the dreaded wall of food coma. But no matter: consuming pork fat in such innovative and myriad incarnations was totally worth it. I'd tell you that I'm going back for more, but I don't know how long I'll remain completely incapacitated. [Click on image above for exquisite detail. Oh: if there's any flaw to be noted, it's that the wines by the glass are a touch pricey. Stick with the beer options, methinks.]

Tasty: Super Taste

I had read in just about very credible major New York foodie site -- Sietsema, Ganda at eatdrinkonewoman, the Cheap Eats folks at New York Magazine , and the boys over at Twenty Bucks a Day -- that Eldredge Street noodle joint Super Taste was the place to be, even if one would look garish and pale under the fluorescent lights whilst trying the hand-pulled noodle bowls. It took me a year, however, to finally get someone to come with me to the Lanzhou/Silk Road-based hole in the wall. Probably for the best: my eventual dining companion, the inestimable IB, is almost always in the mood for weather-inappropriate fare. What's more, IB had been there numerous times already, and had nothing but raves and recommendations for the best bowls of slurpy goodness. So on a hot, steamy, very-hot-noodle-unfriendly night we traipsed over to get two bowls of their hot & spicy hand-pulled noodles with beef brisket. At $4.25 a pop. No, I'm not kidding. That cheap. And, as it turns out, that good. So good. The beef broth was potent -- earthy, beefy, and according to Ganda over at eatdrinkonewoman, laden with MSG (not a problem for me, but just a heads up if you're concerned), but not at all heavy. The noodles were heavenly -- doughy, but not too thick, and the brisket a wonderful mix of about 90% inexplicably tender meat and 10% fat, the latter adding to the depth of the broth. The noodles came out in plastic bowls, accompanied by disposable chopsticks and (this was new to me) plastic, disposable chinese soup spoons. Green-unfriendly-eating aside, I finished my bowl in 10 minutes flat -- and I never finish a bowl of noodles. (Seriously: when I'm home in Los Angeles, I give my pho/noodle leftovers to my kid brother, who will finish off just about anything with gusto and delight.) And for a couple of hours afterwards, I had a hankering for seconds. Instead of seconds, IB and I headed over to Clandestino, where I tried a Pimms Cups (one of their signature drinks) -- the best post-noodle concoction if I ever drank one. Cucumbery, Pimms-y, gingery ... the best way to beat a New York heatwave. But don't get me wrong: I'm going back to Super Taste the first chance I get (they've got an eel option!), weather appropriate or not. And, as always, you're always welcome to join me. At those prices, I'll even buy you dinner.

Early Sunday Morning Rhapsodic: Saturday at the Farm

On Saturday morning, RP and I went down with MH to his family's mostly-non-working farm situated some 30 minutes north of Princeton, NJ. Along the way, we stopped at a grocery store to get some seafood, and then purchased amazing Jersey sweetcorn from a pickup truck parked by the side of the road. At the farm, we lounged in inflatable floaty donut things inside the pool, played bocce and horseshoes (see above!), napped, chilled out with a lively 22-month-old wunderkind, grilled the seafood and corn, and just generally had a low-key, perfect Saturday afternoon, seemingly a gazillion miles away from the city. Somewhere in there I even very gamely tried my first egg salad sandwich (do not get me started on my long-standing fear of mayonnaise). Maybe it was because of the day in general, but man, that was tasty. The three of us had had something of a bender-y Friday, and so before we set off for Jersey, I steered us towards a nearby McDonalds. (I know, I know. I'm a terrible person.) There, McMuffin sandwiches were consumed with reckless abandon -- or at least as reckless and abandon-filled as three hungover people can muster at 10 on a Saturday morning in Chelsea. It gave us the necessary energy to start the trip, such that afterwards I felt compelled to proclaim, "I believe in hand-held sausage!" Oh yeah. Mild sunburn aside, I'm going to sleep very well tonight. Back to ironic, detached judgment tomorrow.

Better Than That Fancy Brunch You're About to Have

I cannot wax rhapsodic enough about the wonders of having one's first (and potentially only) meal of the day at the Red Hook ballfields. J.Slab over at Porkchop Express is much more thorough in his coverage (he's got individual reviews of each of the vendors, plus a handy map), so I'll just post a couple of photos from my sojourn yesterday with RZS -- click on any image to enlarge. We (along with his pals ECM and TF) skipped over the mammoth, coma-inducing huarache/quesadilla options, and stuck to smaller plates, sharing bites of each other's plates. A much better plan if one wants to 1. try a broader range of vendors' options, and 2. live to see the end of the day. We tried tacos from both the Martinez and Hernandez stands (bisteck and enchilada -- spiced pork -- tacos from each vendor), and finished them so quickly that I didn't get a chance to get a photo of the taco-sharing frenzy. (The Hernandez tacos won out in both bisteck and enchilada categories; their pork's got some nice texture and kick to it.) There was also a chicharones plate, which was something of a mistake -- fried pork rinds aren't exactly the best palate cleanser; that was followed by a lovely loroco flower & cheese pupusa, from the Lainez family stand (if you get that pupusa, ask nicely if they'll add jalapenos to it). The day's winner, however, was the Rojas Ecuadorian stand, which featured a spectacular mixed-seafood ceviche and a deeply satisfying meat empanada (and a fiery hot sauce -- you are forewarned!). The ceviche had a refreshing mix of lime, onion, and coconut milk, with loads of semi-raw seafood -- fish, calamari, octopus, and shrimp. An amazing way to start our Red Hook day. RZS decided to end the afternoon with one of their empanadas, which contained meat, hard boiled egg, and peppers -- so very, very good. What to do when you've had probably the best meal (and best two hours) of your day, and it's only 3 in the afternoon? Drinks at Brooklyn Inn and then hours of lazy Swedish lawn game-playing in Prospect Park, of course. Anyone who would like to partake in such a summer Saturday should contact me at their earliest convenience. I guarantee it'll be cheaper and more satisfying than those boring and overpriced eggs benedict you're about to consume.

A Hot, Humid Roundup: Photoshopped Edition

MD is away at a wedding in Washington State, and I am languishing in the heat. There are some good posts in the works, but in the very humid meanwhile, I offer you a quick roundup of links related to recent posts. Tasty. The Red Hook ballfield vendors have been granted an extension to their current permits, which allows them to serve food at the park until the end of soccer season, October 28 (the Parks Department had threatened to yank the permits on Sept 7). But don't dillydally -- get on down there ASAP! MD and I are headed to the middle of Maryland for a wedding at the end of July; we'll be renting a car once we get to Baltimore -- any suggestions for Baltimore-and-environs good eats? We're almost definitely hitting a Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries (yes, we know that there's one now open in the Bronx), and we might try to find a Sonic, so I can consume the potential likely travesty that is a Frito Pie Burrito. iPhone|Tech. Related to MD's musings on to-iPhone-or-not-to-iPhone, I recently stumbled upon two great pieces in the always wonderful Design Observer: What if Apple is Bad for Design?, and a link to a pre-iPhone-announcement blog posting about Treo-love. [update: and now, via Design Observer, this too: an 'interview' with Steve Jobs.] The quirk. Ever since I started this series of posts, friends have been emailing me about online goings-on that I should know about; one ex telephoned last Sunday, a bit out of the blue, to ask if I had read the Times' Styles section article on the craft fair (I had, and told him to read my mildly indignant post on having our trendspotting swiped by the Times). Most of the emailing has been related, however, to one Miranda July: had I read the NY Magazine piece from a few weeks ago (yes, and do not get me started and yes I also read this article too); did I see that Gawker has now joined the anti-July club (yes; thanks, RE); did I want to attend an after-party where she might be present (no; and I really don't think we'd magically get along, RZS). For someone who finds Ms. July emblematic of everything that is currently wrong with market forces, I find myself, via my posts, swept up in that very maelstrom of damaged+precious. The market needs my indignant thoughts in order for the quirk to get stronger (that which does not kill the quirk....), and so I'm wondering if I need to take a hiatus from public or private thoughts about how much I'd like to see this cultural phenomenon implode inside its own wide-eyed shell of flouncy tops and cute barrettes. Probably not. It's going to be a long, hot summer. I need something to motivate me, even if it requires looking at another picture of enough already Zooey Deschanel. Maybe I'll even cave in and hang out with Miranda. (ha!) Oh well; I guess The Market (aka Invisible Hand - man, that'd be a great wrestling name) wins this round.

That Which Does Not Kill Me: The Enormous Omelet Sandwich

I seriously don't know what came over me this morning. I woke up and the first thought that entered my head was I really ought to try that Burger King monstrosity. It's not like I've been depriving myself of quality proteins and fats. And it's not like I haven't been eating vast quantities of food, period. There's no reason for me to want to have 730 calories (410 of them from fat alone) in one sitting. And yet...it really seemed like not only a good idea, but more importantly, a necessity. And so, two hours later, that thought became a reality. I just ate The Enormous Omelet Sandwich. When Burger King announced this new item on their breakfast menu, there was a big kerfuffle about it: it was, after all, two eggs, a sausage patty, two slices of cheese, and three strips of bacon, all crammed into what Burger King refers to as a "specialty bun" -- essentially a long, sesame-seed bun used in BK's chicken sandwiches. Newscasters solemnly predicted that this sandwich would single-handedly bring down civilization. This sandwich exemplified The Problem With America. [A USA Today article about the sandwich interviewed a market analyst, who had quite possibly the best two-liner about it: "The critics will still label it food porn," says Sherri Daye Scott, editor at QSR, a fast-food industry trade magazine. "But the average male fast-food customer does not have a problem with this."] So the sandwich itself: weirdly...boring. I'm going to have to agree with the folks at mrbreakfast.com, who noted that despite having a gazillion forms of protein and fat crammed inbetween two pieces of bread, the sandwich didn't really taste like anything. The 1-2 salt punch of the cheese and bacon sort of overwhelmed the entire thing (I'm a big fan of discernible sausage in my breakfast sandwich experience), and it was just kind of ... smooshy. I think some hot sauce might have helped with the overall taste, which needed some added oomph. It just wasn't very interesting to eat. Just very big. I will confess that I did not finish the sandwich, not because of the taste but because of the general fear that I'm pretty sure any non-average, non-male fast-food customer has when faced with the daunting task of consuming 730 calories in one go. After six generous bites, I calmly rewrapped the sandwich and put it in the very fashionable all-black BK paper bag from whence it came. The bag still sits on my desk, taunting me. I suppose I could finish off the remaining 400 or so calories later this afternoon. But I guess if you're going to shell out $3.35 for a fast food breakfast sandwich, stick with the Egg McMuffin at McDonalds. It's got so much more texture, nuance, and taste (seriously). (And yes, I know I'm a terrible person.) You're all going to tell me to go to my local deli or bodega the next time I'm hankering for a fried egg sandwich, but where's the fun (or blog post) in that?

Adventures in New Capitalism: The Red Hook Vendors

As our readers may or may not know, I am a borderline libertarian/objectivist... While I think universal health care would be rad I question government interference in the fiscal sphere. I believe that a "pure free market" might briefly be a nightmare but could blossom into a beautiful thing. I believe many of our land's current issues revolve around the coercive powers of government being used against its citizens at the behest of corporate interest. I believe in the corporation but not in the unholy amalgamation of lobbyist, laws, and commerce. I also believe all of this only works in a place where people behave rationally, which g-d only knows is not the place we live in. Having made this lengthy preamble, I have to say this: I don't want to lose the Red Hook Soccer Field Taquerias. For those who have somehow missed this, there are these astonishingly clean and pristine sporting fields at the very end of Red Hook where the local latin-american population enjoys picnics, futbol matches and baseball games. They are also home to small vendors serving some of the best latin-american food in the hemisphere... And for cheap.The fields are far from train and bus, and until recently, this preserved them as one of the city's best kept secrets. In recent years thanks to food blogs and the collective hipster unconscious, the soccer fields have become very popular among the brooklyn intelligentsia and culturati. However, the area has also become very popular among developers, resulting in the gigantic and labyrinthine Fairway and soon a huge Ikea adjacent to the fields. This has struck me as a red flag that it might be time to move. The coming of Ikea means more than increased traffic, pollution and the illusionary opportunity for "local economic growth." It also means that the vendors who have been there for years will now be engaged in a permit bidding war to supply food to the furniture tourists who will soon be flooding the area. Corporate vendors who will charge ten dollars for an unappetizing hot dog will be able to force out the amazing artisans of $5 quesadillas and $2 pupusas in order to make the city the maximum profit. WAIT: When I began this post, I thought I would be forced to compromise my ideals and say that this cultural and culinary treasure should be an exception to the free market, but as I write I realize this is once again this is an example of coercion... Why should a permit be required to use public land that ostensibly "belongs to the people?" Why don't we allow whoever wakes up earliest in the morning to get their booth and let whoever sells the best food they can at the best value they can win the day? I can guarantee a minimum-wage slave from Subway will not be able to compete against this juggernaut of cultural integrity and tasty deliciousness. mmmm... blood sausage.

Tasty: Aromatic Beef

It is doubtful that New Yeah Shanghai Deluxe is the best Shanghainese restaurant in town. I'm sure there are pretty serious contenders out in Flushing, but as I am vehicle-less and generally without a hungry herd, it's not very practical to head that far out to try potentially heart-stopping delights. New Yeah is, however, my old standby whenever I'm in Chinatown, thanks to its wonderfully brothy soup dumplings, excellent scallion pancakes, consistently good meat dishes, and very funny interiors (sort of cave-like, sort of ... not). And, as RL and I noted tonight when we ducked in for our generally-monthly check-ins, New Yeah seems to be getting better. You can't do better on this stretch of Mott and Bayard, people. This time around RL and I decided to check out their aromatic beef appetizer, a dish that RL had tried before and had waxed rhapsodic about periodically in our email exchanges. Not knowing what I was in for (RL, in his rhapsodic waxing, had failed to actually describe aromatic beef qua aromatic beef), I was surprised when a smallish plate appeared at our table, with a fist-sized cut of beef sliced thinly across the bias. There was also a red-chili-and-vinegar-like dipping sauce with scallions nearby. I had no idea what was going on. And so...it's like this: have you ever had a nice beef brisket, or just a nice meat roast, and then couldn't finish it, and so you stuck it in the fridge and didn't think about it as you passed out from meat coma? And then maybe the next morning, as you're fishing around for the orange juice you see this tupperware container full of brisket and all you can do is dive right for it? And even before it's heated up, you take a generous swipe from the container of sliced meat and it's glorious and all you want for breakfast is brisket? New Yeah's aromatic beef is like that. Only better. It's like next-day brisket, straight from the fridge, full of that extra flavor, with none of the pesky crowds standing around the bbq pit (or the attendant hangovers), but with a spicy-tangy dipping sauce that kind of takes the beef to new places. And about that beef: the meat's got some nice marbling, with maybe some gingery/peppery component, and a wee bit of fat still attached for extra oomph. Seriously, as an appetizer to soup dumplings, you've kind of got a 1-2 punch made in food heaven. To boot: an entire meal for two (aromatic beef, two orders of soup dumplings, scallion pancakes, and crispy noodles with subgum) for barely $25. I expect to see our entire NYC-based readership there this summer.

Burger Night: Shake Shack (Double Vision Edition)

...Where your hosts, HT and MD, blog together! What craziness will ensue, dear reader?! HT: I was due for a visit to Shake Shack; I hadn't been there in 9 months, and I had heard that they had made some changes -- most notably, a new french fry supplier. And hell, it was high time we made a concerted effort to not only eat outside our burger comfort zone, but to eat outside, period. It's summertime, people. Make use of your al fresco dining establishments. Pronto. That said, Shake Shack requires a wee bit of patience. Even with the live Shackcam to let those of us leaving the office know how long the line is, there's really no telling how bad it's going to be until you actually get to Madison Square Park. When MD and I got there, the line looked like it might use up 30-40 minutes of our early evening. We braved it anyway. I was mildly dying for some red meat. Some 45 minutes later, our food arrived: A double hamburger for me, a single shackburger for MD, two orders of fries, a bird dog (chicken and apple sausage), and a lemonade. And ... huh. Something had changed. I mean, the burgers were still pretty good, but something was missing. The oomph. The joie de vivre. And the fries -- overdone! They used to be something close to manna, and now they were just ... serviceable. The bird dog, however, was a thing of beauty: the dog itself had such snap! Such life! Probably the best thing we had all night. As disappointed as I was with the meal, my body was clearly happy. So happy, in fact, that when I got home around 10:30 that evening, I promptly passed out. For 11 hours. No joke. I apparently went into some sort of red meat/protein shock (you try to eat two burger patties and half a hotdog the day after consuming the largest porkchop on the planet and see what your body does). I hadn't slept that well in years. MD: I had actually planned to write about Shake Shack awhile back to kick off my "Overrated" series of posts. I never got around to it and discovered how much HT loved Shake Shack and decided to back off. So when HT suggested a trip to the Shack, I was thrilled -- we could finally exploit the full potential of team blogging. We could be Point and Counterpoint! It would be like Crossfire but no one would be wearing a bow-tie and annoying sh*t-eating grin. We arrive and the line seems to stretch for miles. Luckily HT and I have steeled ourselves for this with a couple drinks and some amazing onion rings at a bar that shall have to remain nameless. (It is a chain. It is in Midtown. We are not proud. The drinks were free.) We wait about a half hour and get our food. I bemoan the fact that today is "Salty Caramel" custard day and not "Strawberry Rhubarb." We sit and start to eat. The food was ok. I have not so much to say, honestly. The dog was amazing and the french fries were a crime against G-d. However, one thing was amazing and horribly distracting. At the table nearest to us were two men in matching outfits -- dark shirts, khaki shorts, leather footwear. Both were late thirties/early forties. Well-manicured, beefy, presumably gay and the tension between them was palpable. But the tenor of the tension was unclear. The man on the left sat back, coolly, but jutted his legs forward, but together into the other man's space. They shared a beer and their hands almost touched as they traded it back and forth. The other man was clearly more eager. He held the beer with his arm extended into the other man's personal space. His legs fell open with another hand upon his inner thigh. At this point HT asked a question I won't repeat about who played which sex role... but it was unclear if they had ever had sex. They were talking about mutual acquaintances but were they friends? Coworkers? In the end we decided they had "loved" physically and guy-on-the-right wanted a repeat, while guy-on-the-left was probably playing it cool (although I have no doubts he was going to give in that night unless something better came along). While it was fascinating and intriguing, their inchoate relationship upset my stomach much more than the poorly done burger ever could.

This is How You Prep For A Red Meat Meltdown

Wednesday night, MD and I headed over to Madison Square Park to indulge in some Shake Shack lovin'. (That insanity will be posted shortly.) In order to gear up for this, I made what I believed would be appropriate dietary step-up measures: since I don't eat red meat very often (pretty much exclusively on Burger Nights), I needed to get my body adequately prepared for the bovine blitz to come. So on Tuesday, I went over to Sullivan Street Bakery, which is not on Sullivan Street in Soho, but in fact on 47th street, between 10th and 11th avenues. The bakery produces what I think is the best bread in the city; they also make these amazing Roman-style pizzas: thin-crusted, with simple, mostly-cheeseless toppings (plain tomato, mushroom, a spectacular one with yukon gold potatoes sliced chip-thin, and zucchini), served room temp. These pizzas pretty much singlehandedly restore my faith in humanity, which needs restoring about every 8 days or so. (MD adds: every 8 minutes, you mean?) Yesterday, though, I went to the bakery in the hopes that they would have my favorite sandwich -- and lo and behold, there it was: roasted beets, goat cheese, and arugula. Quality fillings inbetween glorious bread. The slight sweetness from the beets goes perfectly with the tang of the goat cheese and the spiciness of the arugula. It's like harmony of a higher order. And, very key: minimal, but adequate amounts of protein, via the goat cheese. Later in the evening, I was in Williamsburg following a much-needed haircut, and decided to try out Silent H, the Vietnamese spot that opened up not too long ago in the former Oznot's Dish location. They've done a nice job with the interiors (and they've got a wee back patio with 3 or 4 two-tops) -- very airy and minimal, and no weird billyburg-meets-oriental kitsch, which one tends to assume will happen when the 'burg and ethnic collide. I ordered the cha gio (spring rolls -- passable), and decided on the thit kho (porkchop), which I've always experienced as a manageable chunk of sauteed pork over a bit of rice, with maybe a couple pieces of pickled vegetables to boot. And it seemed like a good way to ramp up to the next night's burger-ing. Dear god. I mean, seriously. This is what came out. It was ginormous. And, to add to the insanity, they added a hard-boiled egg to the mix. (Because I could really use that heart attack now.) What would probably feed an entire family back in the home country was supposed to be my dinner. It was kind of nuts. And pretty good. Did I finish it? No. Did it propel me towards an inevitable food coma the following night? Oh yeah.

The Bell Curve Theory of Hors D'oeuvres

This Saturday AH and I were at Fairway shopping for groceries. My ambitious plan was that I would make a big pot of something which I would bring for lunch the rest of the week. (My "white chicken chili" lasted three days and I am now eating turkey, beets and cream of spinach in my work cafeteria.) I said to AH "I am going to that rich guys birthday tonight with JB and it starts really early. Do you think I should eat before or do you think there will be food there?" AH says "Rich people are funny. There's equal chances the spread will be awful or amazing. Money doesn't necessarily bring taste or attention to detail." "I think you might be on to something. Remember at RL and JG's party last week? It was like something out of Food and Wine, but they're just barely middle class." And thus was the bell curve/hors d'oeuvres theory born. The quality of food, drinks, and entertainment tends to increase proportionately to wealth until the point at which maximum cultural capital is attained. After this point enjoyment, interest and taste slowly decreases. This theory explains Long Island, tacky dotcom billionaires, and Paris Hilton. * The food at this party was middling -- I was without a camera to record the workmanlike crudite platter (complete with ranch dip), the supermarket-deli cheese and crackers, and the packaged brownie cupcakes. The art on the walls was little better, although the host (a high-placed economist for a very successful real estate firm) told me, "These artists are all mid-career which is why they look familiar to you. My curator is here -- he buys one or two pieces a year from artists who have work in at least one museum... Like MOMA." I blame some combination of the lack of food and the lack of culture for how ridiculously drunk I became after my third drink. My third drink served in a tiny dixie cup from the "hot" bartenders hired for the event. That or the host slipped me a roofie after overhearing me call his flat-screen tv "shockingly entry level for such a snob."

*There exists an exception to this rule, that I would like to call the "Old Patrician Policy (OPP)" which states "For those whose families have had money for long enough, all bets are off." The beautiful opulence or decay of the old rich is truly something to behold.

Another Reason to Love Philadelphia

Maybe it's because I haven't eaten yet today, and it's nearing lunchtime. Maybe it's because I miss Philly, which I sometimes regard as my second or third hometown (depending on how generous I'm feeling towards Ithaca), since it's where I spent my formative years not understanding Walter Benjamin. Or maybe it's simply because I can't resist these sorts of things. But today, via Cho-Tabetai, I learned of the Philly Taco. And suffice it to say, I really, really want one. I mean, how can you go wrong with a cheesesteak wrapped inside a slice of pizza? I'm sure it helps considerably to be inebriated, but still .... I live across the street from the unfortunately named Cheesesteak Factory, and near one of the best places in the city to get a late-night slice. I'll report back to you this weekend.

That Which Does Not Kill Me: The Chili Cheese Fries Burrito

I've had a long-standing fascination with edible products that come together, in Voltron-esque fashion, to become mega-foods. During my extended stay in Ithaca, I had occasion to eat every so often at a place called Viva Taqueria, which fancied itself a California-style burrito place. The one thing that stood out in the otherwise unremarkable Viva menu was something called the Chicken Taco Salad Burrito. Yes. Not quite four food items melding into a single unit, but close enough: a taco salad with chicken, wrapped up in a tortilla. I ordered it often, mostly because I enjoyed saying it out loud. Chicken Taco Salad Burrito. Throw in some commas and it would still make sense, though you might end up with a different end product. And, while it wasn't all that good, it didn't kill me. And so while I was home in Southern California this past week, I read in the paper about how Wienerschnitzel, a local hotdog chain (correction: apparently the world's largest hotdog chain!) that I hadn't been to since the late 70s, had a 99-cent menu that featured something called the Chili Cheese Fries Burrito. And well, that was that. I was gonna have to try it. My father, who recently admitted to being on something of a hotdog kick, offered to accompany me to the local Wienerschnitzel on a bright and warm Sunday morning. (That's him in the picture. Hi dad!) I don't think either of us realized the extent of the terror that awaited us. Neither of us had been to the 'schnitzel in a while, but we had these vague, pleasant memories of it. (Oh well.) Dad got a stadium dog -- an extra long, all-beef dog -- with the works, and I ordered the aforementioned chili cheese fries burrito. I would've taken a picture of dad's hot dog, but he managed to wolf it down in about 90 seconds flat, which was a bad idea. I was much more deliberate in the handling of my burrito, which essentially was a slop of chili cheese fries encased in a tortilla. I mean, it's weird -- you're eating fries wrapped in a tortilla. Besides the general carb overload that was awaiting me, there was the (un)certain hell of chili and cheese. And I was to board an airplane in a couple of hours. Long story long, the burrito was predictably disgusting. The chili -- I'm still not sure if it had meat in it. I think it did? The fries were mediocre. The combination of flour-y tortilla + chili & cheese + subpar fries just made for a strange, starchy, fried, beefy (?) taste that lingered way too long. But I suppose you can only get so far with a place whose new catch phrase is "Pushing the Boundaries of Taste," right? I mean, I took four meaningful bites of it. I tried. And then I had to walk away. Voltron this most certainly was not.

Tasty: Cocoa Bar

I have absolutely no sweet tooth, with the possible exception of once-yearly trips to a Mister Softee truck for soft serve that my mostly-lactose-intolerant body regrets later. I'm also not particularly big on chocolate, at least not in that weirdly gendered way in which women are supposed to really love chocolate and gorge on it when they're depressed or happy or just breathing. I can appreciate chocolate in the same way I can appreciate a good oyster: I'm rarely craving it, but I know when I'm eating quality goods. (And no, neither food product seems to be the aphrodisiac for me that everyone waxes so poetically about. And no, that's not some kind of open invitation to suggest new aphrodisiacs for me.) I was pretty skeptical, then, when after a late meal and drinks over in alphabet city, JK detoured me in the direction of the recently-opened Cocoa Bar on Clinton Street. For one thing, it was completely empty. And well, it was the l.e.s. outpost of the Cocoa Bar in Park Slope, which made me (and, I've discovered, many others) nervous on so many levels: Would it be earnest and try to get me to have hot chocolate on a warm, late-spring evening? Would it play the cringeworthy alternaclassics from the mid-90s? And, given that it was the little sister of the Brooklyn Cocoa Bar that I had once gone to and was completely underwhelmed by, would I be filled with memories of a neighborhood I'd been trying very hard to forget? The answers to those questions: mostly no -- which is mostly a good thing. I guess that its lower east side location compels this particular Cocoa Bar to emphasize its bar-ness. While the Brooklyn shop seems to revel in its wellworn-ness (and I don't use wellworn here in a very complimentary way), making little effort to appear, well, nice -- the new outpost seemed sort of ... polished. Adult. Not really for the stroller set. To be sure, it was 11 in the evening. I was a little buzzed; I may have been seeing things I wanted to see. But if I didn't know it was Cocoa Bar, I never would have guessed it. What's more, the chocolate selection seemed much more refined and focused than the haphazard, anything-goes, mostly non-dark-chocolate (dis)array that one finds in the Brooklyn locale. And weirdly inconspicuous, despite being displayed prominently in a case on one end of the bar. I mean, the place really did almost seem like a bar. I feel like there may have been britpop-esque sorts of stuff on the soundsystem. And so I have to admit ... I was pleasantly unnerved. The little sweets display is filled with truffle-sized pieces of dark chocolate filled with various things -- raspberry, peanut butter & jelly, and so on. I honestly have no recollection what JK picked -- I think it may have had some Mexican chile flavors. Or it may have been caramel. (Again, this had been a long night for me.) But the truffle looked -- and apparently tasted -- amazing.Me, I opted for one of the little disks of dark chocolate, lined up in the display according to their chocolate content. Feeling either drunk, or bold, or possibly just brash, I picked the 100% dark chocolate disk, which caused the bartender to raise his eyebrow. "Why don't I give you a 56% one, too? Just so you can taste the difference." And then, with our chocolates placed in fancy little plates, he poured us a wee glass of sherry. Just for the hell of it. Man, that was good. I mean, the 100% dark chocolate -- yeah, don't do it. Bitter, almost like baking chocolate. The 56% was spectacular. JK's truffle was superb. The sherry -- wow. I never knew that you could pair sherry and chocolate and make me that happy. The total bill? $3.48. I mean, if I'm going to seek out good chocolate in the city, I'll probably return time and again to Vosges down in Soho; I think that the folks there are all about the business of making chocolate. But if it's late(r), and I'm already back in my neighborhood, and I'm with sweet-teethed company ... I mean, I'd probably try to convince them to go to an actual bar. Cocoa Bar isn't the sort of place I'd linger at for a couple of rounds or anything -- but I'd consider stopping in there for a nibble of dark chocolate on my way over to one of my old standbys. update: ha!

Burger Night: or, On Burgers, Exes, and Burying the Lede.

There are few things I find more deeply satisfying here in the city than indulging, midweek, in a proper slab of red meat. The weeknight part of it is key – the potential for food coma on a school night somehow makes the experience that much more gratifying. Also crucial: good company. Consumption of the four-legged works much better if someone is there to watch you, and to partake in the sprawling mess of it all. This is probably how MD and I came to have at least once-a-month burger nights. Burger night does not vary much in its structure: it takes place either at Dumont Burger or at Schillers, almost always on a Tuesday night around 7 pm. I order my burger rare, plain, with fries; MD gets his medium rare, will occasionally experiment with cheese, and also indulges in the fries. If we’re at Schillers we also ask for a side of au poivre sauce, which the nice folks there will gladly dole out free of charge, and which makes the entire experience that much more glorious: dipping burgers into what is essentially a side of gravy is very very dirty. I love it. Burger night is a thing of beauty, partly because it’s a freestanding engagement that has its own rules and logic, and to which very few components can be added without potentially messing with the gods. Sometimes we’ll wander into a bar afterwards for a drink or two, the ‘wandering’ a crucial aspect, as we need to walk off the protein-carb blitz. But that’s about it. We don’t mess with burger night. It goes without saying, then, that the formula goes horribly awry when you try to combine burger night with “meeting up with your ex for the first time since he may or may not have broken your heart three months earlier” night. Based on the events that unfolded this past Tuesday night, it would appear that the following things will happen to you if you mess with the gods of burger night: 1. Upon leaving Schillers, with an hour to kill before the appointed meeting-up time, you will check your voicemail messages. While standing on the sidewalk, phone in hand, you will get clocked on the head by a flying can of PBR. A full, open can of PBR. It will hit you squarely on the forehead, and as it rolls off the sidewalk and into the street, you will crumple slightly to the ground, moaning “What the fuck?” on your way down. 2. Bystanders will start pointing at open windows in the apartment building above you, trying to figure out where the can came from. The nice hostesses at Schillers will sit you down and offer to call the police. You decline their offer. You’re still in shock from the realization that a can of PBR just connected with your head. You’re offered a pack of ice wrapped inside paper towels. You accept. Five minutes later, while crossing the street with MD, you will burst into post-shock tears. You will start feeling incredibly ridiculous. While all of this should have served to perhaps nudge you in the direction of postponing this meet-up, you, head throbbing, decide that it's still a really good idea. 3. An hour later, icepack still firmly attached to your head, you find yourself waiting to see the guy who may or may not have broken your heart three months earlier. Twenty minutes into your silence-filled reunion, you put the icepack down on the bar, excuse yourself, head to the ladies room, and promptly throw up the entire contents of burger night. 4. Made slightly crazy by the night’s events, you will then find yourself opening the door of discomfit that much further by telling the ex who may or may not have broken your heart that the one date you’ve been on in the three month interim was with one of his former co-workers. Because really, at this point, with no remnants of burger night actually in you, all bets are off.