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Finally, Bare Burger in Manhattan!

After nearly two months of making almost weekly treks to the original Bare Burger in Astoria, they have finally opened their Village location. And the quality is just as good.

Even though I visited on their first day, just about everything was up and running smoothly. The space itself is large and airy, with a huge garage door that opens onto a deck of outdoor seating. According to the waiter, almost everything is built from recycled and locally sourced material. The lights, which they get from a local artist, are made of old spoons and glass milk jugs.

I got my old favorite, the grilled pineapple burger with bison, and it was great. The fries and onion rings combo is as delightful as it is greasy. And the shakes, well, are amazing. (I had peanut butter and jelly). Service was prompt and courteous. They made a small mistake with my burger (wrong bun), but they corrected it very quickly, so no big deal.

All in all, I would say Bare Burger is an excellent addition to the local scene. We have plenty of burger places around, but they don’t offer exotic meats like elk or bison and their burgers not organic, which really makes a difference at Bare. Can’t wait to introduce friends who were too lazy to make the trip to Astoria.

I went on an impromptu trip out to Montauk, Long Island last weekend with Catherine.  Photo essay and travel tips below.

STAY at The Panoramic View – simple luxury, right on the beach

EAT fish and chips at Gurney’s Inn, right next door to The Panoramic View

DRINK at Nick’s, a beach bar right in town with live music

WATCH the sunset at the Montauket

EAT lobsters at Duryea’s.  Rustic and delicious.  My lobster was pregnant! Yum.

ADOPT a sock monkey and shop for other kitsch Americana at a shop on the main street in town (don’t remember the name)

More photos on Flickr.

Next course was Ash-e joe, a thick soup with lentils, black eyed peas and mixed greens, topped with yogurt and fried onions.  Healthy, hearty, and delicious.  The soup could easily be a meal in itself and is perfect for a cold day rainy day like the day we visited.

Then I had some tongue sandwich.  I love tongue for its chewy, meaty texture, and go for it every time I get Japanese or Korean BBQ.  The tongue at Attari was different though.  It was almost falling-apart tender, like the best pot roast or pastrami.  The sandwich itself reminded me a bit of banh mi in the best possible way.

In summary, Attari has generous portions, reasonable prices and an authentic Persian experience in LA.  Definitely check it out.  I heard that they have brain sandwiches there too, try it if you are feeling adventurous.  My dining companions weren’t ready to deal with that when I went.

Attari on Yelp
Review of Attari in the NYTimes

I checked out Kogi, the much-hyped Los Angeles Korean BBQ Taco truck when I was in town visiting the family last week.  We followed them on Twitter and drove out to Encino to wait in line for the Korean/Mexican fusion food cart.  They have multiple trucks that park at different locations in LA on different days.  All I have to say about the experience is “Yes!”

Yes, the place has a lot of hype, but the food was great.

Yes, it’s fusion, but it’s fusion that just works.

Yes, the lines are long, so get there early.

Yes, the truck was late, stuck in traffic on the 405, but this is LA…

Yes, it’s cheap. Two bucks for a taco and five for a quesadilla.

I tried the tofu and spicy pork tacos and the kimchi quesadilla.  The tofu was flavorful with Korean marinade and seared to make it taste “meaty” rather than gelatinous.  Worth trying even if you are a total carnivore.  The spicy pork was great too: spicy, sweet, meaty, and fatty.  I have to admit this one was an easy sell for me.  When I go to Korean BBQ, I prefer the pork belly to the usual beef dishes like kalbi and bulkogi.  The quesadilla was amazing too.  The umami that comes out of the ménage à trois of kimchi, sesame, and melted cheese is divine.

Kogi Official Website
Kogi on Twitter
Kogi on Yelp

The cringe-worthy Cobb salad scene where Julie Powell has lunch with her friends made me strangely homesick for NY.  The depiction of Julie’s shamelessly ambitious, cell phone-tethered friends was pretty-right on.  They represent all that is terrible yet strangely charming about NYC (or maybe it’s just because I’ve been away for the too long).

Watching all that French food being made and eaten on the big screen piqued our appetite, so I busted out the iPhone and found Le Charm French Bistro in SoMa.  The restaurant is a charming, old-school French bistro, with a very reasonably-priced $30 three-course dinner prix fixe.  I had the French onion soup, a seafood bourride, and the strawberry tart for dessert.  Yum!

One more week to go for my ccLearn internship.  The rest of the ccLearn crew will be in Vancouver next week for the Open Education Conference, while I will be sticking around SF wrapping things up and documenting my work.  Then back to NYC next Friday.

Farley’s and Hazel’s Kitchen have become my usual San Francisco Sunday morning spot for a one-two punch of caffeine and breakfast burrito.  Farley’s is a coffee shop, and Hazel’s is a tiny deli/takeout joint.  They are located right next door to each other in in Potrero Hill.  You can order food to-go from Hazel’s and eat at Farley’s or when the weather is nice, they have tables outside on the street.  As a creature of habit, I always order the breakfast burrito with tofu at Hazel’s, so I can’t comment on the other food, but the other stuff looks good too.  Everything is fresh and homemade.  Farley’s is an shabby-chic anti-Starbucks, with hip and friendly baristas and an awesome selection of magazines for sale (including my favorite, Monocle).

Farley’s
1315 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
415.648.1545

Hazel’s Kitchen
1319 18th Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
415.647.7941

I had dinner at Yamo, a hole-in-the-wall Burmese place in the Mission tonight.  When I say hole-in-the-wall, I really mean it, it’s just 10 seats along a long, narrow counter looking on to the kitchen area with three Cantonese ladies engaging in a frantic ballet of taking orders, cooking, pouring water and collecting money.  I had the fish chowder noodles (above), which consist of rice noodles in a velvety turmeric-spiced broth with shredded fish, and topped with crunchy fried lentils.  The noodles, like most of Yamo’s entrees, were only $5.25.  CASH ONLY!

I also recommend the fried rice.  They don’t serve alcohol, but if you want more than water, I suggest the fresh young coconut, which is literally a whole coconut that they cut open with a cleaver in front of you.

As far as Burmese food goes, Yamo is not as good as Mandalay in the Richmond, but it’s much closer to home and the prices can’t be beat.

Yamo
3406 18th St
(between Mission St & San Carlos St)
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.553.8911

• Yamo on Yelp!
• Yamo on MenuPages
• Yamo on MenuPix

After work on Friday, I headed to the University Club of San Francisco in Nob Hill for a Young Ivy Alumni Mixer.  It was my first time in Nob Hill, and it was cool to check out the neighborhood’s historic ritzy grandeur.  I’m glad the University Club of SF doesn’t have a strict dress code like the University Club of NYC (one of the venues for last summer’s HRW Council Summit), so I could just show up as my normal casual self (after living out of a suitcase for an entire summer, I’m almost ready to burn my wardrobe and start all over agin).  I enjoyed talking to other young alumni in the University Club’s gorgeous 4th floor lounge with sweeping views of downtown SF, and got to practice my Creative Commons talking points when addressing the inevitable question of  “what do you do?”.

I spotted this piece of decoration/obsolete technology (photo below) at the University Club.  Anybody have any idea what it is?  It resembles a faucet and sink, but with a wooden box with upholstery inside instead of a sink.  Weird.

After the mixer, I walked down California to my bus stop on Polk St.  I was feeling a bit peckish after three Sierra Nevadas and a bit of cheese an crackers, so I stopped into Cordon Bleu (a Vietnamese restaurant with a French name and Cantonese-speaking chef-servers) for dinner.  Cordon Bleu is the sort of the Vietnamese equivalent of a greasy spoon.  It’s a tiny restaurant with a counter around the open kitchen where two Cantonese/Vietnamese ladies cook your meal.  I had the “number 1,” which consisted of a few pieces of grilled pork, a fried imperial roll, cole-slaw like “house salad,” and “meat sauce” on rice.  The meat sauce closely resembled my aunt’s Taiwanese “spaghetti sauce,” a slightly sweet, perhaps ketchup-based bastardized (in the best sense of the word) Bolognese with meat and onions.  Perfect guilty pleasure gut bomb to cap off my Friday night.

Live Sushi Bar
2001 17th St (at Kansas St in Potrero Hill)
San Francisco, CA 94103-5012
(415) 861-8610‎

On Sunday, After spending the whole day outside watching the San Francisco Pride parade and checking out the festival in front of City Hall, I went back to the tranquility of Potrero Hill and treated myself to a nice sushi dinner at Live Sushi Bar.  I ordered the Live Sushi Combo – 6 pieces of nigiri, 4 pieces of sashimi and 6 pieces of spicy tuna roll for $16.95 and the sake tasting sampler ($9.50).  They kind of have a weird name and a logo that looks like the Jesus fish, but they are close to my summer crash pad, so it’s become a good place for the occasional splurge.  Last time I had dinner here, I had the grilled shio saba (salted mackerel) and tempura, which were decent, but nothing mind blowing.  This time, my decision to actually order sushi paid off.  The sushi rice was perfectly prepared and the fish tasted very fresh and clean.  I’m not sure what is going on with the Pepto-Bismol-colored salad dressing, but it didn’t taste bad.

Above: Sakes in the intended sampling order from right to left (click on image to view enlarged version)

Masumi “Okuden Kantsukuri” – 真澄 奥伝寒造り (Junmai – 純米)

Dewazakura “Oka” – でわざくら 桜花 (Ginjo – 吟醸)

Hoyo “Kura no Hana” – 鳳陽 蔵の華 (Daiginjo – 大吟醸)

The Masumi tasted like a pretty standard junmai to me, a good starter sake.  The Dewazakura, with a seductive floral bouquet, was definitely my favorite.  My white wine taste tends towards Rieslings and Gewurztraminers, so it’s no surprise that I like the fruity floral sake.  The Hoyo had a strong star anise taste in it’s flavor profile, which I would expect from sake.  It went really well with the earthy spiciness of the spicy tuna rolls, and I bet it would

One of Adam’s friends suggested that I check out another sushi place called Umi, which is also in Potrero Hill.  I will definitely be there to check it out soon!

Pizzeria Bianco
623 E Adams St
Phoenix, AZ 85004
(602) 258-8300

Ok, this is my last restaurant review for the day.  I’ve finally caught up with my backlog of blog posts.

This place hardly needs another review, but let’s just say that it is one of the first places I go for dinner whenever I am back home in Arizona.

This place is the ultimate in slow food.  Every pizza is handmade by chef-owner Chris Bianco and baked in a wood-fired oven.  The restaurant is in an old “historic” building (ok 1920′s counts as historic in Phoenix).  But come prepared to wait.  They don’t take reservations for parties of less than 6, so show up an get in line at 3 or 4 pm for opening time at 5.

Start out with the antipasto plate ($12) or a Caprese salad (above – $9 -Americanized as “handmade mozzarella, local tomato and basil with extra virgin olive oil” on the menu).

For the main event, my two favorite pizzas are the Rosa (above – $11) and the Wiseguy (below – $14).  The Rosa has red onions, Parmigiano Reggiano, rosemary, and AZ pistachios, and is bursting with vegetarian umami goodness.  The Wiseguy is a meat-lover’s delight with wood roasted onion, house smoked mozzarella, and plenty of fennel sausage.

• Pizzeria Bianco on Yelp
• Pizzeria Bianco on Jaunted
• Interview with Chris Bianco in Food & Wine

Photo: Buddha of the Balada

Mandalay Restaurant
4348 California St., in the Inner Richmond
San Francisco, CA 94118
415-386-3895 OR 415-386-3896

The restaurant review marathon continues (I’m catching up after a week or two of eating).

Kris and I try to get out to Mandalay in the Richmond as much as possible, despite the slightly out-of-the-way location.  Burmese cuisine seems to synthesize some of the best elements of Chinese, Indian and South East Asian elements.  Mandalay may not have quite the buzz of “the other Burmese place,” Burma Superstar, but it’s had a solid history and continues to do a brisk business.  This is what we typically order:

Tea Leaf Salad (Lap Pat Dok)
Salad prepared with imported Burmese tea leaves, tossed with fried lentil, grounded shrimp, fried garlic, green pepper, sesame seeds, peanuts & dressing

Unlike many other places that serve tea leaf salad, Mandalay doesn’t dilute their salad with lettuce or cabbage, just tea leaves and crunchy nutty goodness.

Balada
Burmese crispy pancake with curry dipping sauce

The balada is Burma’s answer to the crisp pancake and curry combo known as “roti canai” in many other parts of SE Asia.  It’s rich stuff, a bit greasy, but really good.

Mandalay Special Noodle
Burmese fat noodle with mild coconut chicken or tofu, yellow peas, lime juice, lime leaves, onion, and fried thin noodle on the top

This stuff is amazing.  The curry and noodles are rich and fragrant, and the addition of lime leaves adds to the aroma.  This dish is similar to the Thai noodle dish khao soi, but the curry part is more of a sauce than a soup.  The menu has no indication of what it’s called in Burmese, but I haven’t found it served in any other Burmese place in the Bay Area or in New York.

For a drink pairing, I suggest the fresh young coconut juice served in a coconut.  For dessert, we sometimes order the mango sticky rice, which I guess is actually Thai, not Burmese.

While Burma may have excellent food, the political and human rights situation leaves a lot to be desired, so learn more and take action here.

Mifune Restaurant
Japan Center Kintetsu Building
1737 Post Street
San Francisco, CA 94115

Kris and I went to Mifune in Japantown for lunch last Saturday for some old-school Japanese food.  We had mixed tempura, fried oysters (kaki-fry), and zaru soba (cold buckwheat noodles with dipping sauce). We washed it down with some Koshihikari Echigo beer, which is made with rice, similar to other Japanese lagers; it tasted pretty similar to Sapporo.  Good solid traditional Japanese food.  From the photo above, it seems like the Guide Michelin agrees too.

Spices II: Szechuan Trenz on Yelp
291 6th Ave
between Cornwall St & Clement St in the Inner Richmond
San Francisco, CA 94118
(415) 752-8885

Spices II on MenuPages

Kris and I had a late afternoon snack at Spices II Szechuan Trenz last weekend.  Despite the crazy decor and over-the-top graphic design and typography, this place serves up some great Szechuan and Taiwanese food and is definitely worth the trip out to Richmond.  We had a light and crisp scallion pancake ($4.25) and the Spices! Cold Noodles ($7.25), which are more room temperature than cold and come in a beautifully fragrant spicy sauce.  Despite the two-star spice warning, the richness of peanut butter and sesame in the sauce balance out the spice for a complex sophisticated taste.

Photo from dosasf.com

Dosa
995 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 642-3672

Dosa on Yelp

After many aborted attempts to eat dinner at the much-hyped Dosa due to long wait times, we finally snagged a reservation last week.  We ordered:

Panipuri, a kind of chaat. $8 – Mondays and weekend brunch only

According to Wikipedia:

It comprises a round, hollow “puri”, fried crisp and filled with a watery mixture of tamarind, chili, chaat masala , potato, onion and chickpeas. Its size is small enough to fit in the mouth.

This is the first time I had tried this dish, but I was looking forward to it ever since my ITP classmate Sonaar was singing the praises of panipuri at Wo Hop after the ITP Post-Show Party.

I liked how the panipuri a Dosa were fun and DIY, but I don’t understand why they couldn’t have been assembled in the kitchen.  I’m sure these things only cost pennies from street vendors in India, but in a yuppie-friendly SF restaurant, they are 8 bucks an order.  Reasonably tasty, but the crispy shells tasted a bit stale.  Definitely like the idea though. 

Habanero-Mango Masala Dosa spread with spicy Habanero chutney (watch out!) $10

The waitress warned me that this was REALLY SPICY, but I felt safe seeing that most of the diners at Dosa were non-Indian.  I normally have a fairly high tolerance for spice, but this was a weapon of mass destruction.  It was all heat, with none of the fruitiness of fresh habaneros and I couldn’t taste the mango at all.  This dish might have been saved by the contrasting sweetness of mango, but alas, it was just overwhelmingly hot with no complexity.

Tomato & Onion Uttampam topped with onion, tomatoes and green chiles $10

This was pretty right on, similar to the uttampam I’ve had at other places.  A nice contrast to the atomic heat of the habanero-mango dosa.

In conclusion, Dosa was a little underwhelming despite all the hype.  The wait times are just not worth it and the food is a little pricy for this kind of Indian food.  For my next South Indian food fix, I’ll probably just wait until I’m back in New York and go to one of my usual places in Curry Hill: Tiffin Wallah, Saravanaa Bhavan, or Tamil Nadu Bhavan.

Pancho Villa Taqueria
3071 16th St
between Caledonia St & Julian Ave, in the Mission District
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 864-8840

Pancho Villa on Yelp

Kris and I went to Pancho Villa Taqueria for a late night dinner last week.  I love how this place is hopping even at 11 pm on a weeknight (compared to other places in the the neighborhood), and how it attracts a motley mix of clientele – from hipsters in skinny jeans to hip-hop kids in sweat pants to businessmen in suits.

We shared an order of the garlic prawns ($9.95 – pictured above) and washed it down with a medium horchata ($1.65).  The plate, which included rice, beans, avocado, fresh tortillas AND tortilla chips, was enormous and delicious. The salsa bar made things even better.  A real Mission District gem.

Como dice el “Governator,” “I’ll be back.”  Más Pancho Villa, por fa-please!

My dinner at Dos Piñas last night: Avocado, lettuce, beans, rice, and cheese burrito at Dos Piñas ($4.95), spiced up with some hot salsa and cooled down with horchata.

Dos Piñas is conveniently located right next to where the number 10 bus drops me off from work, at the foot of Potrero Hill where I am living.  I’d say that the burrito was well above average and the location is convenient, so I’ll be back.  They definitely get brownie points for melting the cheese in the burrito, which Chipotle does not.  Wow, I can’t believe I even compared it with Chipotle.  Ok, nevermind, I guess I was deprived of good cheap Mexican food in NYC (although La Esquina Taqueria in NoHo is definitely an exception).

Apparently they are known for their 2 dollar Coronas on Fridays and their fish tacos, so I’ll be back to try them out.

Dos Piñas official site
Dos Piñas on Yelp

251 Rhode Island St
(at 15th St)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 252-8220

Photo by Sheenie L., via Yelp

Little Saigon Deli
Vietnamese Sandwiches – Snacks – Desserts
131 Steuart Street, Suite 101
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 284-7375
Monday – Friday
8 AM – 4 PM

I attended a sake tasting and dinner organized by JETAANY on Monday night at Bao Noodles.   Chris Johnson, JET-alum, sommelier, and owner of Bao Noodles, presented a tasting of his restaurant’s Vietnamese specialties paired with Momokawa and Murai Family sake.  Chris is extremely knowledgeable about sake; he explained the different kinds of sake and how sake was made.

It was the first time I had sake with Vietnamese food, or sake with non-Japanese food for that matter.  It turned out to be a very educational experience.  It may sound strange, but it just works.  Sake is indeed a very versatile beverage.  My favorite pairing was the dessert: coconut and pandan panna cotta with nigori (unfiltered) sake.  The combination of the coconut, pandan and sake became an explosion of tropical aromas in my mouth.  Yum!

Needless to say, I wholeheartedly recommend Bao Noodles, so go check it out.

See also:

• Chopsticks NY: The Self Made Sake Ambassador
• Tasting Table: Tokyo Joe

Tonight for dinner, I went to try out the newly-opened Se Ja Meh (meaning 3 sisters in Korean, and alternately spelled “Seh Ja Meh” and “Se Ja Meh” in their site and menu – oops, oh well whatever!).  It’s located at 114 Greenwich St, just up the street from my apartment building.  Now that I no longer work by Koreatown, I have started to really miss my 3-4 day-a-week Korean food lunches.  Se Ja Meh definitely compares in price and quality to my Koreatown fav, Seoul Garden. Now that I have a Korean place on the block, I can probably spare myself the trip up to K-Town.

I ordered the yellow tail scallion roll (above) for a starter.  Ok, sushi is not Korean, but I wanted to check it out anyway.  The sushi was decent; fresh fish and slighty too mushy rice – a problem all too common at sushi places in New York, so I’m not going to be too much of a sushi snob and pick on them for this point.  If I have another sushi craving, I’ll just stick to my usual local fav, Takahachi Tribeca.

And here’s the panchan (side dishes) below that typically come included with your meal at Korean restaurants.  Everything is on par in the panchan department.

For my main, I ordered the kimchi soondooboo (kimchi tofu stew).  The stew was rich with plenty of soft creamy tofu.  The kimchi and chili infused broth was flavorful without being too salty and in the right proportion to the tofu and other ingredients, in other words, not too much broth, two problems that plague lesser Korean establishments.  WaWa Canteen, I’m talking to you!

The place is clean, tastefully minimalist in decor and the service super nice, so I’ll definitely be back.  Plus, the location can’t get more convenient.

Eggplant and cherry tomato salad with walnuts and marjoram

We shared this salad as our starter.  A perfect opening to our summer luncheon.  All the produce was perfectly fresh worked together in harmony.  The eggplant was melt-in-your mouth tender, with its spongelike texture soaking up the olive oil in the vinaigrette.

Side order of anchovies

I LOVE oily fish.  We ordered these to munch on and to go with our bread and butter while we waited for our main courses.  Unlike your everyday canned anchovies, these babies were meaty and fresh-tasting, not just oily and salty.

Our server, Andrew informed us that there was a delay with our main courses (below) due to unspecified “fish issues,” so we just leisurely noshed on anchovies and bread and sipped our cava (nothing quite like bubbly in the afternoon, or any other time for that matter).

California white sea bass with green beans, saffron, tomato and aïoli

I guess in unpretentious California, “haricots verts” are just plain green beans.  But I’m glad they said “aïoli” and not “garlic mayonaise,” which I guess is literally what it is, but just doesn’t sound as tasty.  The aïoli was fantastic, I wish I could have a vat of that stuff to schmear on bread or to dunk french fries (“pommes frites” if you want to continue in the Francophone theme) in.  I would probaby would have licked the creamy, garlicky aïoli off the plate if I had not been in a restaurant.  Seriously, that good.

Wood oven-roasted squid and pimientos with rosemary and garlic

Our other main dish was also in the South of France meets California theme.  The little roasted pimientos were adorable and the squid perfectly tender.  At this point I was in heaven.  You really can’t go wrong with the holy trinity of fresh seafood, garlic and wine.  I’m drooling just thinking about this meal as I blog about it.

Andrew offered to give us a free dessert, so we went ahead and ordered two:

Plum tart with cardamom ice cream

Bittersweet chocolate pavé with hazelnut cream

The chocolate pavé is like a flour-less brownie, but much better than a brownie.  Chocolatey goodness.  The plum tart was amazing too.  Some of the best buttery tart crust I have ever tasted.

And just when you thought the food-porn another surprise freebie:

Mulberries and Pluot

The fruit was at the peak of freshness.  It was my first time trying mulberries and a pluot.  The mulberries reminded me of blackberries.  The plot is a hybrid of 3/4 plum and 1/4 apricot.  A perfect finish to a sublime meal.

End of summer update: I got back this morning from a week-long holiday in Northern California. Tons of pictures on Flickr. I will blog more about it later.

Above: The famous Fisherman’s Wharf of San Francisco. Below: LS plays with eels at the Monterey Aquarium.

Sophia & Perilla

I hung out with Sophia today. We had dinner in the West Village at a place called Perilla, which is Top Chef Harold Dieterle’s restaurant. The ambience was casual and cosy, typical West Village. Our waiter was attentive and the menu looked good. I was a big fan of Harold’s when I watched Top Chef, so I had high hopes. But unfortunately, things got weird, but not in a good way. We were presented with exactly one slice of bread each. Mmm, gee thanks. Nobody asked if we wanted more. We shared an heirloom tomato salad and seared sea scallops for the appetizer course. The tomato salad was good, but a bit pedestrian. The pine nuts and the feta cheese in the salad overpowered the subtly of the tomatoes. The scallops themselves were executed to textbook perfection, but like the tomato salad, had some balance issues: their were bacon or pancetta bits that were a little overwhelming, and not advertised on the menu.

Entrees. This is where it gets bad. We had the Romesco Oil Poached Chatham Cod with black olive gnocchi, oyster mushrooms & summer zucchini sauce and the Grilled Pork T-Bone with lavender, lychee-black chick pea salad & green mustard sauce. Off the bat, the cod dish was way too salty, and had a weird “squeaky texture.” The “romesco” was a red sauce smeared on the cod with chunks of nuts in it, a departure from the smooth Catalan classic. I found the nuts too aggressive in texture compared to the tender cod. Much better after I scraped off most of the sauce. The summer zucchini sauce was more of a color element than a flavor contrast, so I can’t say it was all the memorable. The black olive gnocchi was too similar to the oyster mushrooms in color, but were surprising in taste and texture when I bit into them. The color and texture reminded me of Taiwanese pig’s blood black pudding, and not in a good way.

The pork t-bone was a big, thick peace of meat, but not at all juicy or particularly flavorful. It was covered by a giant mound of salad that obscured the meat on the plate, not all too flattering a presentation. I couldn’t really taste the lavender, and the lychees were just kind of random surprises that lacked a real context.

Dessert was redeeming. Sophia ordered the Vanilla Scented Doughnuts with peach compote filling & sour cream curd. Fried dough. Peaches. Cream. Yum. ‘Nuff said. I had the local blackberries Linzer Torte, which was very well executed as well. It did a nice job of clearing my palate of all excess salt from the entrees.

Sorry Perilla, I really wanted to like it. I really tried, but I left disappointed. Luckily, we were able to amuse ourselves with some great people watching, as we observed two very awkward dates at adjacent tables unfold before our eyes. Made up for the lackluster food. We noticed that the awkward date people were drinking a lot more than we were. Maybe they were on to something.

Interactive Telecommunications @ NYU Tisch

Orientation starts tomorrow morning for the masters program in Interactive Telecommunications that I am doing at NYU. Updates forthcoming.

Below: Lee-Sean and the giant sunflowers of Sonoma.

Izakaya Oni
141 1st Ave, New York, NY 10003, US

A mediocre Japanese gastropub (izakaya) in the East Village. Located behind Ramen Setagaya in the space formerly occupied by Pasta/Sushi Wafu and Oriental Spoon before that.

Kris and I went last night (4 June 2008) after the Forum on Participation and Politics Online at NYU Law School. We walked by the crowded izakayas on St. Mark’s Place, including the ever-popular Yakitori Taisho and Kenka. We were starving and didn’t want to wait, so we kept walking eastwards. We stumbled upon Oni and decided to give it a try despite the fact that it was nearly empty.

We had the daikon & kani (fake crab) salad, which was passable, but a little bit of a tacky guilty pleasure. We also had an order of hokke (grilled salted atka mackerel) and fried oysters. The oysters were gigantic, but not in a good way – a little too much breading and a bit burnt. The hokke was ok too, but really, it’s pretty hard to mess up, since the fish usually comes already salt cured and frozen in a vacuum pack. All you need to do is defrost and “grill” in the toaster oven. Luckily, we had $2.50 Kirin draft beers to wash everything down. We would have had 2 beers each, but settled with one, because the waitresses were so remarkably inattentive, walking right by us several times without checking on us, despite the fact that there were only 2 other people in the restaurant at the time.

Given the ghosts of 2 failed restaurants that haunt this hidden-away-behind Ramen Setagaya space, I am giving Izakaya Oni 3 or 4 months before it goes bust.

Above: Buddha Kitsch

Below: Lychees, Rambutans, and Dragon Fruits

Above: Pork and Crab Soup Dumplings from Joe’s Shanghai – not as good as Din Tai Fung, but the best I’ve had in New York.

Below: Shanghai Noodle Soup from Joe’s Shanghai

See the complete set on Flickr.

Above: Flower bouquet from Rachel and Elizabeth’s housewarming brunch in Brooklyn. More pictures on Flickr.

On Saturday, Kris and I headed out to Brooklyn for Rachel and Elizabeth’s housewarming brunch. It was nice to get out of the Manhattan and hang out on a perfect summer day with some cool cats on a tree-shaded deck while sipping mimosas and bloody marys and noshing on chocolate pancakes and assorted Turkish delicacies. See more pictures on Flickr.

Sunday, we returned to Brooklyn, this time on foot, via the Brooklyn Bridge, to go hang out in a bookstore/gallery in DUMBO. After exploring the neighborhood a bit, we returned to Manhattan by walking across to Manhattan Bridge.

That night, we had dinner at a Thai restaurant on St. Marks Place in the East Village called Klong. What does “Klong” mean in Thai anyway? Perhaps it is onomatopoeia for the factory-like industrial din of the restaurant’s Asian po-mo interior Luckily, we were able to escape the noise by moving to a table located on the small outdoor terrace. The dishes are reasonably priced and generously portioned. We had a some lightly battered fried calamari and some green papaya salad as starters, a bargain at 5 and 6 dollars respectively. Then for our main course, we shared an order of soft-shell crabs in garlic sauce, and the Klong pad thai, a “royal” Thai variation of the famous Bangkok street-stall noodle dish, which came with thinner rice noodles, mixed seafood, and wrapped in a thin egg omelette.

We had some unexpected dinner entertainment from the table next to us. Not that we were eavesdropping or anything, but the girl was just talking very very loud. It turned out that she was a plus-sized model having dinner with her protegée. Some of the quotes were priceless, but I guess you really had to have been there to understand the context. I can’t wait until the Samson H2 portable audio recorder comes out – I want to get one to carry around and record “on the street” podcasts in New York.

Anyway, back to the review of Klong: Our waitress was very nice and very attentive, and they certainly don’t skimp on spice. It’s certainly doesn’t measure up with the food in Thailand, but for New York, it’s good, reliable Thai – if you can stand the hubbub of the interior, or snag a coveted outdoor table in warm weather.