Chinatown

I’m always skeptical about restaurants with signed pictures of celebrities adorning the walls, particularly those in Chinatown. But what better thing to do during the storm of the century than hail a gypsy cab to a crossed off street below canal for dumplings and steamed pork buns....

The food at Joe’s Shanghai was unremarkable, but it did get me thinking about “ambiance” and I’m not just talking about it in the way suggested by “hip” spots with strange verbs and nouns for names like “Bed” or “Smash.” I’m talking about ambiance in the memorable sense that includes the look of the street, the company you dine with, the noise in the background, the way you are greeted. And all these reasons are why elements of the evening like falling in a snow drift and getting yelled at by the hostess in Chinese for having an odd number of people don’t discourage me, but rather laugh and consider the experience worth the while.

More dumplings for us...



All smiles on Mulberry Street



Poets, posers, and post-retirees…

You know you have found a good restaurant when at the lunch seating, the bar is full of all three. The old retired guy in his Loro Piana sweater, sipping a neat scotch, and ordering the same thing he did yesterday. The younger gentleman doing the same, with aspirations to look sophisticated more likely than to do anything great. The Pratt student sipping Borolo and dissecting her salad as though it were also a design project. There is something about both regulars and eccentrics, and most ideally a combination of the two, that seem to speak to greatness.

Great bar seating can be found at...

http://www.mercerhotel.com/kitchen.php

http://www.themermaidnyc.com/index.php

http://unionsquarecafe.com/

http://www.gramercytavern.com/

http://momofuku.com/new-york/noodle-bar/

something I ate for lunch once...somewhere I don't remember...

M: Does this mean...

...you are always going to take pictures of your food when we are out together?

Me: Yes, yes it does

Charred Beef Sirloin Carpaccio with Mushroom-Kale Salad, Crisp Artichokes, Parmigiano...

Scavengers and Samplers...

The children in my family are the type that will ask for a slice of stilton, some oil-cured olives, and a crusty French baguette by the age of four. For better or worse, an implication of this premature liberal and curious pallet is that we grow into adults best described as samplers and scavengers: We will try anything at least once. In a controlled environment such as a normal office, this is no problem, but my current workplace causes me to question if my sampling tendencies are actually toying with one of the seven deadly sins (gluttony if this wasn’t apparent). I wish that when I said that I had olive oil muffins from Mialino, mac and cheese from Blue Smoke, macadamia nut and apricot cookies from Gramercy Tavern and a cheese plate from Murray’s Cheese, I was referring to what I consumed in a week, but unfortunately that was just Friday. The kitchen of this office is a place of community building in the best sort of way - snacking. You will be challenged to find a moment where there is not something on the kitchen counter, asking to be sampled and washed down with either the ice coffee, sparkling water (and if after 5) beer – all on tap. As abundant as the food, however, are the smiles and laughter, which I personally think is really what makes everyone come back for more…

Something I found on the counter this morning...it was quite tasty

A self-admitted foodie

As go many retrospectively manipulated and nicely packaged and polished stories, I have come full circle and back to my roots. It’s a funny exercise, looking at where you stumbled upon today and trying to make the journey to this point make sense, or at least fit on a single page CV. You tend to leave out a lot, overemphasize certain experiences that at the time were irrelevant and stretch the impact had by various mentors and projects on your personal and professional development. With that being said, I’ll try to be as forthright as possible regarding my relationship with food, but it is a story, even if mostly true.

I like to think hospitality is in my blood. I grew up working in my families’ country in and at the age of 13 could prepare a full course country breakfast for a dozen guests with my hands tied behind my back. That being said, with similar ease I set my oven on fire last week making toast. I have been a barista in a sketchy coffee shop, worked behind the bar at a restaurant that could have been a case study on sexual harassment, and facilitated wine tastings at a French venue (which really just meant I had the privilege of holding the spit bucket during tastings). There is something in me loves the colorful characters I have met along the way, the good and questionable material in the kitchen, and the unparalleled passion, work ethic, honesty and creativity that I have learned to associate with this industry.

I’ve spent four years exploring the tastes of this city, celebrating its chefs, and spending most of my discretionary income on food and wine. I love to talk about food, learn about it and it was only recently that it clicked that there may be viable career opportunities related to this industry, I’m just not exactly sure what they are…So for now, I’m going to continue doing what I’m doing: one off consulting projects for places like Brooklyn Winery, interning with culinary role-models like Danny Meyer at Union Square Hospitality Group, (now) writing about my epicurean adventures and hoping at the end of the day, I end up where I am supposed to be. This will not just be a food blog, but something along those lines, so I encourage you to tune in if you happen to like eating, or reading, or laughing, or if you are simply curious or confused by my introduction to this nebulous project.

Playing Nice with the Boys

http://www.fortysixxxnotesfromeditor.blogspot.com/

Food is our common ground

http://fortysixxxfoodetc.blogspot.com/2010/04/food-is-our-common-ground-universal.html