Lake Louise.

Much has happened since Golden's post but I figure writing about everything in one long and boring blog post would be lame so here is a brief look at Lake Louise instead.

Last Saturday (22/12) Michael and I ditched the drainers who were either working or being lazy and went up to Lake Louise for a full day of skiing. I decided to take my camera up as well, and it turned out to be a good move because the sun was shining, ever so brightly.

The photos don't really do the place justice but here they are nonetheless.

Lake Louise from the front.

Golden and myself in the gondola.

View from the top.

View from the hills. The second shot is especially nice, if I do say so myself!

These next few were taken from the chairlift;

Golden looking out into the sun, I don't know why, because it would've hurt his eyes, but I guess it's okay since he's a big poser anyway.

Who is this handsome looking man I wonder?

and here is one more for the Golden family.

Beautiful.

So that was a little something about Lake Louise, hopefully I can take some good photos throughout the season, of the mountain as well as of the guys.

We are stuck at the crappy YWCA until the 2nd of Jan, so it might be hard to blog again for a few days but it should be all smooth sails from then.

Happy new year to everyone,






Jin.

Soba Totto

December 28

Hungry for a little something after work last night, I popped my head into a new place that the very enterprising people at Urban Daddy alerted me to, Soba Totto (211 East 43rd Street, between Second and Third avenues, 212-557-8200. For more descriptions of the place, please take a look at this entry and this one. Thank you).
Not surprisingly, the restaurant’s specialty is Japanese buckwheat noodles, called soba. Also not surprisingly, sitting with the owner and some guy from Chicago, was Grub Street’s Josh Ozersky.
Josh seemed, oh, I don’t know, maybe just a tiny bit troubled that I, too, had heard of Soba Totto, which had just opened a couple of days earlier. Maybe he doesn’t subscribe to Urban Daddy, or maybe it’s his week off and he hasn’t been reading his e-newsletters. People do need a week off from time to time, you know.
Josh is probably best known for his job as editor of New York magazine’s food blog, but what he really is is a meat expert — hence his nickname, Mr. Cutlets — and he was gracious enough to send me a galley of his soon-to-be-published book, The Hamburger: A History, for an article I’m working on. It’s a terrific read, clever and witty, informative and sometimes strident in that way that Josh can be with regard to subjects pertaining to meat (I think we amused casual listeners with our conversation about deckle at the reopening-party of Picholine).
To wit (from his book):
"To admit ground beef on toast as a hamburger is to make the idea of a ‘hamburger’ so loose, so abstract, so semiotically promiscuous as to have no meaning."
Because hamburgers come on a bun, you see.
He's right, of course.
Anyway, I ate at Soba Totto’s bar, which is sleek and decked out in earth and wood tones. Behind it are young, hip-looking Japanese chefs, heads covered with urbane-Japanese-looking versions of do-rags, grilling things with a sort of casual earnestness.
Soba Totto is owned by the same people as Yakitori Totto, and so grilled meats are another restaurant specialty.
I had two draft beers (Kirin, I believe) assorted Japanese pickles, a skewer of chicken oysters (the “oyster” is the bit of meat on the chicken’s lower back, just above the thigh, that is highly prized by certain meat aficionados, maybe including Josh, although I can’t say for sure) and a bowl of hot soba with "poached egg” although really it was more of a swirled egg in the style of egg drop soup.

A 16-ounce Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee is 16 ounces

December 27

If I’m doing the math right, only about 11 percent of you come here unbidden, just clicking on your bookmark and landing here. A fair amount, but fewer than half on most days, are referred here by one of the nice web sites that link to this blog. The rest come because of keyword searches — because some combination of words I used match the ones that you typed into a search window.
Sometimes I think that my blog delivers what you’re looking for. If you’re interested in finding out more about the bull named Prime in Kentucky, I’ve written about that. If the keyword search prime the bull ky had another meaning that I choose not to speculate about, well, then I’m sorry. If you have been wondering about James Bond’s taste in Martinis I’ve written about that, too. Curious to find others who prefer their tomatoes cooked? You’ve found one here.
But I don’t know when popcorn was invented or what Jimi Hendrix liked to eat. I don’t know about the sexual orientation of Mario Batali (not that it’s any of your business), but I do know that he has thanked his wife (“without whom I would be nothing,” he said) at award ceremonies.
Incidentally, "Mario Batali" and "gay" apparently are referred to in close proximity fairly often. One person who used those key words made it to this blog, even though it was the 40th entry in a Google search.
As for Pedro Yanowitz, I heard that he recently married (a woman).
A disconcertingly common keyword search that brings people here is dog fuke woman. I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for with that search, but I hope you spelled it right.
Let me take a brief moment to answer some other questions implied by the searches.
I think I’d like a creamy gorgonzola with Poire William.
Jeans can count as smart casual, depending on how you wear them.
Anything will help you lose weight if you just eat less of it, but I'm not sure how to loose weight.
I’m not sure how you comb a fauxhawk (pronounced fo-hock), but I believe it requires a lot of gel.
Tony Esnault is a man.
As for the other keyword searches listed below, well, I just don’t know what to say (I apologize for the first one, but it did lead some troubled soul to this blog entry):

after dinner seduction mother
are laura cunningham and thomas keller back together
bad booths at the national restaurant show
bathroom plants
candied sturgeon
cheese to pair with poire william
cork braised octopus
do jeans count as smart casual
does chrysanthemums,walnut, rose, green raisin help loosing weight
dog fuke woman
estrogen food
forehead sweating standing in line
fuke woman
give me a speech on tomato ceviche apptezier
hate raw tomato
how does james bond order his martini, shaken, not stirred
how to arrange bongos for wow
how to comb faux hawk
how to eat eggplant?
how to seem smarter than you are
i grew a goatee
interesting words about chrysanthemums
is pedro yanowitz gay?
james bond martini vespa
jean-georges chef what is his wifes name and is she black
jimi hendrix favorite foods
mario batali gay
metallic body paint
molecular gastronomy dragonfruit
people who have met bobby flay
prime the bull ky
recipe for human testicles
rocco dispirito implosion
rocco dispirito list of girlfriends 2007
sex seared testicles
tony esnault sex
truffled popcorn
uses for ranch dressing
what happened to rocco dispirito
what size is a 16 ounce dunkin donuts iced coffee
what was jimi hendrix's' favorite food
when was popcorn invented

Aneliz Tang

These were my last customers before I left for my Australia vacation last October. I was very excited because the next day after the dinner will be my 8 hour trip going to Sydney. My luggage was almost packed but I still had some stuff to bring that I wasn't able to put in my hand carry bag. Despite that I was still up to whip the night for this extra ordinary couple Aneliz and Charles. Aneliz was the one who reserved their date months in advance that's why I knew that she's really looking forward to their dinner. I don't want to fail every customers I have so I really prepare the food to guarantee their satisfaction. So when Aneliz and Charles arrived that night I was bubbly, happy and excited to welcome them in my little pad. I assumed that I will surprise the couple but it turned out that I was the one being surprised. Wanna know their surprise? Find out as you read this post...

Enjoying their Creme Brulee

Aneliz and Charles were very thankful that night for the dinner I prepared. They told me that I made them so full with the food I served and commented that Mango & Sausage Medley was truly a good salad appetizer.

Chinkee Sweet Smile!

I was also surprised seeing Aneliz wearing a nice shorts, quite cool...

Janjajaran...!!! Aneliz and Charles handed me this box of cake from ESTRELS as their surprise for me at that night.

I know that Aneliz doesn't really know that it was my favorite cake, but now I guess she'll know that she gave me my MOST favorite cake which is the CARAMEL cake from ESTRELS!

I'm very thankful meeting couples who appreciate my cooking and my idea of intimate dining. To those couples who are very sweet and thoughtful giving me token like this as part of their gratitude, I should be the one giving thank you. :-)

Hmmmm... very, very, very delicious cake! Burp! I look forward to the day that Aneliz and Charles would dine again. Thanks to both of you!

A thinking man’s chef

December 21

Sometimes when I interview a chef, I diligently write down everything he (or she, but usually he) says, and then look at my notes and throw them away because everything he said was a load of gibbering nonsense. Those chefs wax philosophical about their food or life or some pseudo-intellectual topic, get lost in their own train of thought and never come back to Earth.
It happens more often than you might think.
Others just aren’t very articulate. They know how to cook, but are neither capable nor interested in describing what they do. That's great for their guests, but bad for food writers. I remember interviewing a really talented chef in Texas who made a delicious galangal panna cotta. I tried to get him to wax philosophical about galangal, which is a rhizome related to ginger but with a distinct taste that’s spicier and I think a bit less aromatic, used in various Southeast Asian cuisines.
All he could say was that it was like ginger, but a little different. That’s true, but it makes for really dull copy.
Then there’s Michael Psilakis, who thinks a lot about his food, reflects on it, can talk your head off about it, but at the end of the day it makes sense.
Michael got started in the restaurant business as a manager of TGI Friday’s on Long Island, but he made a splash on the New York City food scene a few years back with Onera, a Greek-inspired restaurant on the Upper West Side. Then he opened the more Mediterranean-inspired Dona in Midtown East to wild acclaim, only to close it because of construction on and around the restaurant property. But soon after that he opened Anthos, in Central Midtown, which was Greek-inspired but fancier than Onera. To further distinguish Onera from Anthos, he rechristened the Upper West Side place as Kefi and made it traditional Greek food.
Now, as Grub Street reported, Michael is going to open a new version of Dona, with a slightly different name, a more casual environment, and, he told me, a menu that’s more distinctly Italian-influenced, rather than Italian-Greek, Mediterranean or whatever. He says it’s on track to open sometime in the second half of January.
There will be some Greek and Spanish stuff in there, but he wants the new restaurant to be more approachable than the old Dona. That’s very much in line with current food trends. So is a fine-dining chef opening a more casual restaurant, but Michael has already done that with Kefi, anyway.
His reasoning behind the Italian orientation of Dona, however, is that New Yorkers are well acquainted with Italian food, which means if he does a riff on a tried-and-true Italian dish, his guests will get the joke. Something Greek or Spanish might go over their heads.
So although some of the new Dona’s food will not be traditional Italian dishes — he might bring influences from different Italian regions into a single dish, for example — he expects that his guests will have the eating background “to understand what the food is on a cerebral level.”
Michael talks that way, but it makes sense.
He also likes to talk like this: “I’m hoping it’s just a fun place that you can come and eat.”

This picture of Michael, provided by his publicists, was taken by Battman.

Vegetarian Grape leaves (Wara2 Enab Bzeit) - ورق عنب بالزيت

In this recipe, you need to eyeball the amount of grape leaves, depending on the size of the leaves too. So I'm just gonna assume that we're using 100gr of leaves and here's a useful tip: if you roll them all and still have some filling left, very simple: stuff a potato, tomato or a bellpepper!

Filling Ingredients:
1 big tomato or 2 medium ones diced.
1 medium onion diced
3/4 cup of rice (any kind, I prefer white)
1 bunch of fresh parsley chopped
Juice of 1 big lemon or 2 small
1/2 tablespoon of allspice (or 7 spices)
1/2 tablespoon of salt
1/2 cup of olive oil (or a bit more)

Preparing the Pan:
Take few leaves and line them up in the bottom of the pan (why? cause grape leaves stick quickly to any pan! and then add on top of those the sliced potato.

If you are using fresh grape leaves, soak them in hot water and some salt for half an hour, or until completely soft then drain. If you are using the ones that you buy in the jar, soak them in warm water for few minutes then let them drain.

- Mix all the ingredients together and get ready to roll.
Rolling grape leaves:
Cut the stems if there's any and start adding the filling in the middle of the leaf, then fold the sides and roll while pressing a bit to let the juice out and also to make it a bit tight so it doesn't fall apart. (just like spring rolls). Then line them up in the pan on top of the potato layer. After you finish, get a plate that can fit inside the pan, flip it upside down and place it on top of the grape leaves to press them so when they start cooking they don't fall apart. Now add water just to cover them and let them cook on medium for about 12 minutes, if they boil too much reduce the heat. It's optional to add more lemon juice while they cook. Tasting one is always better to check if they're done :)

Lebanese Meat Loaf with Potatoes (Kafta w Batata) - كفتة بالصينية

Ingredients: (4 persons)
Half a kilo of lean minced meat (or1/3pound)
1 cup of chopped parsley
1 medium onion chopped
1 tablespoon of all spice
1 egg
1 teaspoon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 big potatoes, peeled and cut in medium rounded slices
1 big onion sliced in medium rings
1 big tomato sliced in medium rings
1-2 cups of tomato sauce
Vegetable oil for frying the potatoes
1 teaspoon of flour

Mix meat, parsley, chopped onion, spices, mustard, salt and the egg all together, let it sit for at least an hour in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, half-frie the potato slices, and let drain on paper towel. Get the meat from the fridge and make patties then in a non stick hot pan let the patties slightly cook then remove into a seperate dish. Now get an oven serving dish deep enough to hold the tomato sauce, rub it with some butter and start layering: the meat first, then the potatoes, then sliced onion, then sliced tomato and finally add the sauce mixed with 1 teaspoon of flour. bake into a 375 degrees oven for half an hour or until the sauce cooks with the rest of the ingredients.

The non-open opening

December 19

You must keep your eyes peeled as you walk down West 77th Street, west of Columbus Avenue, on the north side of the street, to spot Dovetail, the new restaurant of chef John Fraser (age: 31; favorite color: green). The entrance is easy to miss.
That might change once the restaurant is actually open. That was slated to happen last weekend, but you know how that goes. They’re still working on some gas issues — John says that at the moment they don’t have enough gas to both run the kitchen and heat the dining room, but they’re getting there.
The sherry cave isn’t set up yet, either.
But the opening party happened as scheduled, so there I was last night, sampling hors d'oeuvres of fish roe and cubed vodka gelée on spoons, of skewered duck, of little cucumber sandwiches to be served during afternoon tea service, of tiny puff pastry filled with truffled scrambled eggs.
There was plenty of heat, so I guess the kitchen wasn’t operating at full power.
John is a big fan of both sherry and tea, and so they have prominent roles in the restaurant.
I brought my friend Yishane Lee with me to the party. It was her first night out without a baby strapped to her body in five-and-a-half weeks, since her daughter Tashi Ming Lee-Garcia was born. Click here to learn a lot about Tashi and her family and their friends, and to see many pictures.
Yishane found it extremely amusing and interesting that Dovetail’s tea supplier is owned by a former boyfriend of hers. It’s not that interesting — he supplies many fine dining restaurants — but I suppose it is kind of interesting. And it’s very good tea.
It was a good party, too. Yishane and I were among the first to arrive, and John gave us a tour of the basement, where the kitchen and sherry cave are. Then I caught up with Chris and Catherine Matthews, a handsome, charming couple — he writes about wine and spirits, she about food. Thrillist’s David Blend was there, chatting with Jesse Gerstein, a publicist who worked with John when he was the chef at Snack Taverna some years ago. He also worked with John’s current publicist, Aurora Kessler, when she was at Baltz & Co., where Jesse still works to this day.
Penny and Peter Glazier, owners of Monkey Bar, Michael Jordan’s The Steakhouse, the country's various Strip House restaurants and other things, also were there. Penny says she doesn’t often go to restaurant openings, because she wants to give the restaurateurs space to spend time with the press. That’s nice of her.
The Glaziers gave me good information for some stories I’m working on. Pity that I didn’t have a pen, but I’ll give them a call.
Erica Duecy, formerly of Nation’s Restaurant News and now of Fodor’s, was there, too, and, because I asked, she updated us on her husband and his brothers, the Pandolfi boys. Husband Jono is working for a design company. Banjo playing brother Chris is doing well, too. His band, The Infamous Stringdusters, won all sorts of awards this year.
Littlest brother Nick has had his internship at Food & Wine extended, which is great news. That magazine’s Nick Fauchald was at the party, too, although I didn’t catch up with him until we were leaving. He expressed fondness for young Nick Pandolfi, which is always nice.

Oh happy day

December 18



It looks like Grant Achatz is better.

Grant, the chef-owner of Alinea in Chicago, was diagnosed with advanced squamous cell carcinoma in his mouth earlier this year. That’s bad news for anyone, but for a chef — and the chef of one of the most avant-garde restaurants in the country — the implications of anything going wrong with your mouth are horrible.

But here’s a note he just sent out:

It is with a tremendous sense of gratitude and relief that I have successfully completed my course of therapy at the University of Chicago. It was incredibly important to me to remain as engaged as possible at Alinea while receiving treatment, and during that time I only missed 14 services. I continue to stand committed to innovating fine dining long into the future.

At this time I want to thank everyone at Alinea -- the staff, investors, and patrons of the restaurant have offered their unwavering commitment and support in ways large and small. The community of restaurants, chefs, and industry professionals who reached out to us was exceptionally gratifying.

Most of all, I must make special mention of doctors Vokes, Blair, and Haraf at the University of Chicago Medical Center, as well as the countless number of medical professionals and support staff there who cared for me. Where other doctors at prominent institutions saw little hope of a normal life, let alone a cure, these doctors saw an opportunity to think differently, preserve my tongue and taste, and maintain a long term high quality of life. Through the use of a new and rigorous Chemotherapy and Radiation protocol, they were able achieve a full remission while ensuring that the use of invasive surgery on my tongue was not needed.

Onward.

Grant’s a former protégé of Thomas Keller and he seemed to learn more during his stay at El Bulli — the crucible of much of the most experimental cuisine in the world — than most chefs who have spent time there. I’m sure I’m one of many, many people who are delighted by his good health and looking forward to what he’s planning next.

Playing with The Sun

December 18

Last Thursday I had dinner at Sanctuary T with its publicist and then walked the brief mile to QDT, a narrow corridor of a bar where the arts section of The New York Sun was having a holiday gathering.
I was there because my very kind bosses at Nation’s Restaurant News let me have a steady freelance gig at the Sun, where I write the weekly Kitchen Dish column about restaurants in New York that are opening or closing or changing their chefs or offering special deals or festive menus or otherwise behaving in ways that might be of interest to Sun readers.
QDT is a long corridor of a bar and more than one impromptu holiday party was being held there. It was packed, and I was being jostled, elbowed and knocked around by purses more than I’m accustomed to.
I brought this up with some of the Sun revelers and I fear I might possibly have been rude to the paper's new book review editor, David Wallace-Wells. He observed that this was typical New Yorker behavior, and I remarked rather obtusely that that seemed like an outsider’s view of New Yorkers, who I have found are better at managing crowds than most other Americans.
“But David’s a native New Yorker,” someone observed.
Oops.
David didn’t seem to mind, but I wouldn't stop being annoying for some reason and asked him for book recommendations (he suggested Tree of Smoke). Asking a book review editor for book recommendations is very much like asking a food writer for restaurant recommendations. It’s a tedious question. But at least I didn’t ask him what his favorite book was. The only question more tiresome to a food writer than “what restaurants do you recommend?” is “What’s your favorite restaurant?” How could I have a single favorite restaurant? Why would I want one?
But he was curious to get recommendations for restaurants near The Sun's offices, so I gave him some.
He seemed like a nice chap, tolerant of loud-mouth smart asses like me. Quite coincidentally, he went to high school with Eater’s Ben Leventhal.
Small world.

What I ate at Sactuary T:
amuse-bouche fo grilled gulf shrimp with fired shallots, truffle honey and cantaloupe
bread with lapsang-souchong-smoked oil for dipping
bruschetta with heirloom tomatoes
lamb with blue foot mushrooms, hazelnuts and banana-vanilla bean paste
slow-cooked black cod with lychee tea, asparagus, feta and saffron sauce
gnocchi ccoked in brown butter with Hudson Valley black tea, grilled pumpkin and cranberries
fingerling potatoes cooked in Belgian beer with apple-smoked bacon and shallots
salmon poached in Red Moon tea with caramelized Brussels sprouts, cucumber and kaffir lime sauce
free range chicken ballotine with chanterelles, prosciutto, smoked paprika and goat cheese paste

meringue cloud with tiramisu rooibos in condensed milk
doughnuts (doughnut holes, really) with chocolate and strawberry dipping sauces
cheesecake infused with jasmine tea and topped with Moroccan mint whipped cream

A Look At The Crew

Welcome everyone, to Golden's first blog. Sorry it has taken so long. So my original plan was to have my first post about Vancouver, but when I tried to sit down and write about it nothing really interesting came to mind. So instead I'll sum it up in 5 words...it was cold and wet. The end. The most exciting thing for me was watching the seaplanes land in the harbour (and Stanley Park was pretty sweet too). Anyway, hopefully on our way back through at the end of our trip it will not be as rainy.

My idea for this blog came to me when I was pondering the dynamics of our very peculiar group. So below is a brief overview of some of the intricacies of each person.

Alex

Heathy has a profound ability to quickly memorize things. In particular he can remember the location of certain shops/places almost perfectly having only been there once before. He is our own Mr.Reliable. For instance, whenever someone has a question like "where is the nearest bus stop" or "how do we get to the liquor store from here" they will always - almost automatically - ask Heathy before anyone else, because he will almost certainly know the answer. This has lead to us giving him the nickname 'G-Plex', a mixture of GPS (Global Positioning System) and his name.

Alex is also regarded as one of the more handsome members of the group. It appears that he too, agrees with this. One night in Vancouver, Jin - looking into the mirror at himself - says "Hello handsome", to which Alex immediately looks up from his book and responds "Yeah?".

Josh

Apart from being the exceptionally tall member of the group, Josh can be defined in his very 'thrifty' nature. He has close to perfected the art of money-saving. For example, upon locating a pizza shop in Vancouver which sells large pizza's for $7.99, he immediately bought one for himself, and ate half that night for dinner, with the intention of saving the rest overnight to have for breakfast and lunch the next day. I've gotta say it is funny watching a tall dorky bloke wonder around Vancouver carrying a pizza box wherever he goes (see picture). He certainly blended in well with the local 'bums'. Moreover, upon our arrival in Banff, Josh insisted that he not go in on the communal 'food money pot', and instead buy all his own food, because he believed we could not live up to his thrifty standards.

Josh also has an uncanny ability to misplace things. I think his pockets are some kind of black hole. He just shoves all kinds of random shit in there, and it is just pure luck as to whether it will come out again.

Campbell

Oh camby...where should I start? Well I suppose I could start with his exceptional sleeping ability, which has lead to us coining him 'the Koala'. Indeed, I think if Campbell had his way he would sleep 20hrs a day, and spend his 4hrs awake chomping on eucalyptus leaves.

He has also developed a reputation as being a 'Fun Sponge' - a term I think I picked up from someone at college - used to describe people who 'soak up' all the fun in a social situation. For example, when walking down to main street Banff from the hostel, Jin and I often start imitation Liam Gallagher (who has a ridiculous walking style) or just start goofing around in general, to which Camby will always say "I hope you slip on your ass and die". Another time we were standing in a circle kicking around a block of ice, and it gets to Campbell, who immediately kicks it away. I think his fun-sapping ways may even be related to his Koala-ness, since he will often look far too tired and drained to have any kind of fun.

Campbell also loves spreading his knowledge of random pointless information. Here are some examples (they may not be perfectly phrased, but you get the jist)

-"the black squirrel is actually rarer than the common North American brown squirrel, and they are also smaller in size"

-"did you know King Arthur was seduced by his step-sister"

-"two thirds of the world's eggplants are grown in New Jersey"*

*I may have made up this one

Jin

And finally, there is Jin, who for some reason I found the most difficult to write about. Well, apart from being the token Asian guy, he has developed into the group photographer (like the play on words there?). And, as you can see from the previous posts, his work leaves a lot to be desired. He is certainly not close to the standard of his big bro and photographic mentor Mr. Sam. Don't worry Jinna, I'm sure you'll get there eventually (unfortunately by then the trip will be over and all Kodak moments gone with it).

One thing we have also noticed about Jin is the incredible time and care he takes when eating his food. By the time Campbell has finished his meal, Jin will usually be about half way through his first potato gem. In fact, as you read this he is still finishing off his first meal.

For all of you hanging out to see videos, keep your hats on and keep waiting...

Golden

Playing with Rickshaw

December 13

“Kenny, how long has it been since I’ve seen you? Have you gotten taller? Have you grown a beard? How are you?”
It’s possible that I haven’t seen Kenny Lao in eight months, which is a crime. He’s smart, entertaining, and worth spending time with. However he’s also the managing partner of Rickshaw Dumpling Bar and has spent a good chunk of the past eight months getting his second unit open. The original restaurant is on 23rd Street in Chelsea. The new one, near NYU, is on 8th.
I received invitations yesterday to check out several restaurants. One seemed particularly uninteresting but I thought it might amuse Kenny, and so I sent the e-mail that started with the words in quotes above, followed by an invitation to dinner.
Kenny ignored the dinner invitation, but wrote:
”Haven't seen you in so long!
“You should come to rickshaw holiday party tonight at 8th street store. Double the employees double the fun.”
So I went.
I think it was my third Rickshaw holiday party. Kenny had not gotten taller nor grown a beard. He claims he'd lost weight with the restaurant opening, which would be bad since he doesn’t have any body fat to speak of. He paused between serving his staff to gobble down a plate of chicken and rice from Chipotle, which catered the party. Or maybe he had grilled steak and rice. Those were the choices. He said he’d had La Esquina cater the party, but he was joking.
One of Chipotle’s 20 or so New York units is next to the 8th Street Rickshaw, and Kenny met Chipotle’s president, Steve Ells, one day when Steve was cleaning the front of his not-yet-open restaurant. They apparently hit it off.
Anyway, the party was fun. I met a member of the family that owns the Chinese restaurant Pig Heaven who insisted I check it out, so I will someday, and I enjoyed the staff puppet show, which depicted a typical dumpling-ordering experience at the new restaurant.
Apparently, NYU students who patronize Rickshaw are significantly more self-obsessed and ignorant than the Chelsea customers at the Rickshaw there. They also don’t all eat lunch at the same time, so there’s less of a lunch rush, but steadier business and also more evening business. No surprises there.

Playing with Curbed

December 11

Josh Stein is quite good at riding mechanical bulls.
At least from the perspective of a bunch of New Yorkers affiliated with curbed.com. Curbed (which also owns eater.com) had its holiday party last night at a Lower East Side place called Mason Dixon, which serves fried chicken and pulled pork and grits and mac & cheese, and plays country & western music and has a mechanical bull.
Josh Stein, who for a little while longer yet covers restaurants and nightlife at Gawker (he is leaving soon to follow his destiny to London), must have good balance and strong thighs, because he stayed on that bull for much longer than most of the other white collar New Yorkers who gave it a try.
Ever since I was a young kid in Denver and witnessed from a distance the cowboy-boot craze that swept New York in, I believe, the 1970s, I have been fascinated by the desire of the denizens of Gotham to partake — without, it seems to me, understanding the social implications — in working-class cultures from other parts of the country. I talked about this a little bit with Amy Smith, who works at the Oxygen network and is originally from a remote part of northeastern Oklahoma. She was wearing a skirt, but otherwise, she said, she’d be riding the mechanical bull. Fair enough; she says she’s related to Merle Haggard and has no reason to lie to me.
As a Denver Jew, I grew up too far from red-neck culture to be part of it, but close enough to know that I don’t want to be part of it. I don’t want to ride a mechanical bull.
Eater’s Ben Leventhal did, though — twice. He’s no Josh Stein, but he’s not bad at all.

Ben’s the guy in the picture. It didn’t occur to me to take out my camera until Josh was done (he was good, but you can only stay on a mechanical bull for so long).
It was a good party. I met Peter Meehan from The New York Times, which I hadn’t done before, so that was cool. We talked about insane mutual acquaintances, which is always fun. I munched on Buffalo wings with Kate Krader from Food & Wine, Jennifer Leuzzi and Robin Insley.
I had a good chat with Eater's Lockhart Steele. We talked about Chicago dining and observed that we both had the names of porn stars or romance novel characters.

Here’s a picture of what happened when partygoers got frisky with the menu board. Perhaps they were thinking of different meanings of the word “pork.”

ANNOUNCEMENT!

Hello everyone!

I've been receiving a number of texts, calls, emails everyday from different people who want to reserve a slot in The Artist Chef. I've been declining a lot lately because my schedule now is fully booked 'til January. I just want people to know that my service is during sundays only. I require you to book very early if you want a specific date. As in months in advance. Take for example last September. A lot of people called me to reserve for October and November and then they found out that it was fully booked already. They will say to call back again next time. So came November and December, I'm still fully booked and now 'til February. So I really advise to book really early because of the limited slots.

The cost of intimate dinner is P1,800 whole year round.
For the month of December and February P2,500 because of the special dinner and take home goodies for the couple.

Different menus to choose from will be sent via email once you get your final reservation. Until no payment is made, reservation will be invalid. I do not post my menus because I change it from time to time.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Banff.

Cool place, well a cold place actually, but a beautiful town surrounded by snowy mountains.

I'm blogging from bed at the moment, on a laptop borrowed from a cool Korean guy by the name of Jae-eun (his English name is Jey). He is our temporary roommate.

Anyway, I haven't taken too many photos since I've arrived in Banff - partly because I'm busy running around applying for jobs, partly because I don't carry around my camera with me in case I slip and fall (the roads are pretty slippery around here), but mainly because it's too cold for me to take my hands out of my pockets most of the time. But I'll definitely start taking more photos once I get used to everything.

Here's what I have so far:

Michael and Josh on our first day in Banff I believe.

View of the surroundings of our hostel.

A deer couple that Josh and I ran into while walking to town. I wanted to battle it but they were a little too timid and ran away.

Banff Town.

Banff Town #2.

Hostel's Storage hut.

We all bought our Big-3 Season passes today and we're finally getting some skiing action tomorrow!

Looking forward to hitting the slopes,

Jin.

p.s Since Golden is having some trouble uploading his videos, and with life in general, I've taken the liberty to take some videos myself, and here's one of Josh blowing some snow.

Frances Soriano

The call centers appeared like mushrooms in our country. So it's no surprise to have call center agents sitting before my little dining table from time to time. Frances is an addition to the roster of call center people who already dined at my place. Frances is sweet and demure while his boyfriend is a bit kalog. I enjoyed talking to the couple because every now and then a pinch of humor was inserted into every topic we had. I already forgot the details but I will always cherish the laughter.

They both love the Paella Negra I served.

This is Pandan Rice Roll with Peanut Butter is part of the Thai set meal. They mixed their set meal that's why they had this as their dessert.

What I also enjoyed was the photo session because they really love to pose. I'm glad they participated well.