This is what we had:

Yam Samun Phrai ($9.00)

Special Northern Thai herbal salad with ginger, carrot, parsnip, betel leaf, basil, lime leaf, sawtooth, fried shallots, cashews, peanuts, sesame seeds, dry shrimp, ground pork and Thai chilies in a coconut milk dressing.

I’ve never had anything like this before, but it kind of reminded me of a Japanese kinpira on acid. A definite party going on in my mouth. A taste revelation.

Coconut Rice ($2.50)
Definitely necessary to counteract the atomic Thai chilies masquerading as scallions in the salad

Sii Khrong Muu Yaang ($11 – not pictured)

Carlton Farms baby back ribs marinated in whisky, soy, honey, ginger and Thai spices. slow grilled over charcoal and served with 2 spicy dipping sauces.

I’m not usually a ribs person, but these were very well executed. They kind of reminded me of jerky or Cantonese char siu, in a good way.

Khao Soi Kai ($11.50)

Northern Thai mild curry noodle soup made with our secret curry paste recipe, natural chicken on the bone and house-pressed fresh coconut milk. Served with pickled mustard greens, shallots, crispy yellow noodles and roasted chili paste. Chiang Mai specialty, with Burmese origins.

My favorite Thai noodle soup! It’s not on many Thai restaurant menus in the US, but it should be. Pok Pok’s khao soi is rustic, with big chunks of chicken on the bone, falling apart tender, and a perfectly balanced coconut broth. I wish there were a little bit more broth though, ’cause I downed every drop.

Sankhaya Fak Thong ($6.50)

Steamed Kabocha pumpkin, filled with coconut-palm sugar custard scented with pandanus leaf.

The kind of expected this to be warm, or at least room temperature, but it came cold. Still really good though. I think maybe just a dash of salt would have offset some of the sweetness and made the flavor of the kabocha really pop, but that would be gilding the lily. BTW, the desert portion was more than enough for 2 people to share.

Pok Pok
3226 se division, pdx : 503 232 1387

The Awesome Foundation NY has made our first selection! It was tough NY – you completely blew us away with amazing incredibly brilliant ideas.

But – this month, for our inaugural grant, we’ve picked a LASER TWEEZER that makes amoebas eat bacteria.

Awesomeness to the MAX.

No – really, its a laser tractor beam that prods amoebas. We’ve awarded January’s $1000 grant to Ben Dubin-Thaler’s Cell Motion BioBus.

We’ll be celebrating with Ben at the First AF-NY Award Ceremony on Monday February 8 at 8 pm, at the Apple Bar, Waverly at Greene. Come and join us for a beer, meet the NY Micro Trustees – and we’re working on getting the BioBus there too. Beyond Awesome.

Read more

Lee-Sean Huang: “Mumbo Jumbo Maracas” from Nisma Z on Vimeo.

“Mumbo Jumbo Maracas” at Southpaw in Brooklyn, NY on December 15, 2009. This was for the NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) class, taught by Greg Shakar and Hans-Christoph Steiner at NYU’s ITP. Video by Nisma Zaman and Minette Mangahas.

Last night the Trustees of the Awesome Foundation New York met in person for the first time to get the ball rolling.

Photo (clockwise from top left): Jesse Chan-Norris, Lee-Sean Huang, Sam Lessin, Steve Rosenbaum, Douglas Repetto, Dawn Barber, Clay Shirky, Colin Nedercoorn, Brandon Kessler, Catherine White, and Chris Dixon

Reminder: Grant applications are due at midnight tonight! Tell us why your project is awesome and deserving of a $1000 dollar grant. Submit proposals here.

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

More NYE photos on Flickr.

Above: a light sculpture by Matthew Richard.
Below: Thomas the Barrel by Meredith Hasson.

Below: Life Dress by Elizabeth Fuller. Featured in Gizmodo.

More pics on Flickr.

Here’s a haiku I tweeted last week while I was on vacation in Arizona, now with a photo to illustrate.

Rented SUV
A tourist in my hometown
Concrete Blonde CD

The Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences is kicking off 2010 by announcing the official launch of the New York City chapter.  I will be serving as the NYC chapter’s Dean of Awesome.  More details on The Awesome Foundation Blog.

The current micro-trustees of The Awesome Foundation NYC chapter include:

• Catherine White
• Caterina Fake
• Chris Dixon
• Sam Lessin
• Clay Shirky
• Colin Nederkoorn
• Jesse Chan Norris
• Douglas Repetto

With 2 more to be announced!

Here is a portrait of me drawn by artist and illustrator Gideon Kendall.  I bartered it in exchange for customizing the theme on his Wordpress blog.

Here’s a new HEPNOVA track I finished tonight with Tsar Nicholas. It’s a menacing electro instrumental track called Rasputin.

An eerily impressionistic and grainy photo of my Mumbo Jumbo Maracas performance at ITP NIME 2009 by Derek Chung.

Above: Group photo!  Below: Me and my “nerd prom” date, Catherine.

More photos and video on the official ITP30 documentation site.  And here are the photos that I took on Flickr.

Mumbo Jumbo Maracas vs. T.I.

Mumbo Jumbo Maracas vs. Art Kleiner

Mumbo Jumbo Maracas vs. The Plastic Ono Band

Thanks to Yasser Ansari, Paul Paradiso, and Jorge Just for these brilliant mashups!

Mumbo Jumbo Maracas (excerpt) @ ITP NIME 2009, Southpaw, Brooklyn, NY from lee-sean on Vimeo.

Here is an excerpt of my Mumbo Jumbo Maracas piece for the ITP NIME concert at Southpaw in Brooklyn last night.
Featuring Eric Mika on maracas and Arturo Vidich on keytar
Thanks to Meredith Hasson and Tianwei Liu for the video

More video coming soon. Photos on Flickr.

Ubiqui.tv is a prototype online video travel guide for the Boxee platform.  Ubiqui.tv was created by Joel Leimer, Oskar Von Hauske, Timothy Haynes, and myself as our group project for the ITP class Designing The Future of Television with Richard Ting.

TXTTONE is my final project for Live Web.  It’s a web browser and SMS-based collaborative musical instrument that is meant to be performed in a room full of people with laptops and cellphones.  I wanted to create an interactive and collaborative musical experienced based on the ubiquitous technologies that we normally have with us at all times.  I was also interested in the play between the synchronous and asynchronous and explore the phase effects that result from TXTTONE being played on multiple computers simultaneously.  TXTTONE is programmed in AJAX/PHP, with SMS support by TextMarks.   I did the sound design in Logic Pro; I was going for “wind chimes meets dial tone.”

Check it out here.

Elizabeth and I went to The Wine Trials 2010 book release party at Seppi’s on Wednesday night.  I was one of the blind tasters for the first edition of the book. The Wine Trials 2010 is a completely rewritten new edition that “recommends 150 wines under $15 that outscored $50-$150 wines in brown-bag blind tastings of the latest vintages.”

While we were waiting for everyone to arrive, we were served some Brut Cuvée from Domaine Ste. Michelle, a $12 Washington state sparkling wine that was preferred by over two-thirds of The Wine Trials blind tasters over a $150 bottle of Dom Pérignon Champagne.  As a passed appetizer, we had some Alsatian tarte flambée, which looked and tasted like some really good thin crust pizza.  I can’t think of a better pairing to showcase the values of The Wine Trials than pizza with bubbly.

After sitting down for dinner, we were served roasted red beets and frisée salad with goat cheese over apple paired with a Grüner Veltliner, Federspiel Terrassen, Domäne Wachau from Austria.  The thinly sliced beets reminded me a little of beef carpaccio in appearance, which I think disturbed our vegetarian table mate.  I still had some of the sparkling wine left over when the salad was served, and I actually preferred it over the Grüner with the salad.  Although I am usually a Grüner fan, I thought that the herbaceous subtlety of the wine couldn’t really stand up to the vinaigrette in the salad.

Next up was a lobster bisque with crab cake on sugar cake matched with a  White Rioja from Marqués de Cáceres (Spain).  I’m not sure what “sugar cake” on the menu referred to, but it turned out to be a pleasant surprise of sugar cane, which formed the “stick” on crab cake “lollipop”.  I appreciated the whimsical tropical allusion in the hearty cold-weather bisque.  I have fond memories munching on sugar cane when I was a kid in Taiwan.  The white Rioja had a vegetal lightness to counterbalance the creamy hearty soup.

The main course was a duo of monkfish “osso bucco” over saffron risotto and miniature rack of lamb over sautéed spinach.  I’m not sure where the osso bucco reference came from, but the dish tasted great.  Both the monkfish and the lamb were perfectly cooked.  I didn’t really taste the saffron in the risotto, but otherwise it was wonderfully executed.  The wine pairing was Rioja Crianza from Bodegas LAN in Spain.   I’m not sure what LAN stands for in this case, but Elizabeth and I noted that it is a geek-friendly name, and could play well with 8-bit wine.  LAN party anyone?

The next course was a cheese plate with blue cheese and Gruyère paired with an Altano Douro, Symington Family Estates from Portugal.  I am a frequent vinho verde drinker, but I had never tried a red from Portugal before.  It was a real revelation.  Elizabeth and I both agreed that it was a unique wine and our favorite of the evening.  I don’t have the words to describe it, just try it, it’s less than 10 bucks a bottle.

Finally, for dessert, we had a flyer chocolate cake paired with a dessert wine from Greece, Mavrodaphne of Patras, Kourtaki, which had a caramelly taste, and a nice lighter-bodied alternative to the usual pairing of Port with chocolate.

More photos on Flickr

The Wine Trials 2010 Official Website

The Wine Trials 2010 on Amazon

Here are a couple “brotastic” pics from birthday party last night at XR Bar.  Photos courtesy of Catherine White, who co-hosted the party, and whose real birthday is in January.

In other news, the SokoSquare team has made it on to the Semi-Finals of the 2009-2010 NYU Stern Business Plan Competition.  A wonderful birthday present indeed.

Come out to Brooklyn next Tuesday night for the ITP NIME Show! I will be performing my Mumbo Jumbo Maracas piece with Arturo Vidich and Eric Mika.

NIME: New Interfaces for Musical Expression
Creating new performance tools for digital music.

In the eighth annual NIME concert, performers will play a series of newly designed electronic instruments that aim to keep the “live” in the live performance of digital music.

Electronic music is usually played with a keyboard and mouse. Laptop musicians often sit at a desk and give performances that feel like watching someone work in their cubicle. The idea behind NIME is to go beyond the mouse and keyboard and beyond even piano keys and drum pads. It seeks to present performance systems that make the most out of the new opportunities for musical expression that digital technology offers.

This year’s NIME concert will feature such innovations as a musically enhanced sewing machine, sonified floor tiles, performative knitting needles, turntablism for live instrumentalists, electronically controlled cartoon antics, novel realizations of the rock guitar, and a host of other exciting approaches to the creation of music.

NIME is an end-of-semester performance by 16 graduate student artists from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at NYU.

Entry is $7 (Free for NYU ID holders)
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Doors open at 7, Show starts at 8

Southpaw
125 Fifth Avenue (at Sterling Pl)
Brooklyn, NY 11217
718.230.0236