The Girl Who Ate Everything

[This entry originally took place on November 3rd. A month ago, practically. Dammit.]

"Number 72? Number 72?!" The young hostess at Joe's Shanghai given the task of rounding up the potential customers who were waiting outside the overcrowded restaurant had an impressively piercing voice common to the vocal cords of Chinese women. I should know—I've been around many of them. You could even label me a Chinese woman (in a very vague sense, in that my genes are all Chinese...oh) but I lack that sharply pitched tone of voice. My aunts on the other hand...well...

"Number 73?" A party responded to her call—the hostess had caught the attention of the hungry customers. We watched while leaning against the wall on the left side of the awning as the lucky people would be allowed admittance into the chamber of dumplings and—

"DON'T MOVE!"

Or not. The hostess called out many numbers in succession, then commanded each party to refrain from moving.

"My god, she sounds crazy," said Michelle. It was hard to disagree with that.

It wasn't much longer before Michelle, Jen, Kathy and I were allowed in, fo' realz, no longer held back by the forceful hostess with powerful lungs.

The human density of the restaurant looked like a fire hazard. We squeezed passed the kiddie pool-sized tables to the table in the back right corner by the drink refrigerator. About half a second after resting our butts on the seats, before we could crack open the menu, a waitress asked us how many orders of xiao long bao (soup dumplings) we wanted, xiao long bao being the thing that everyone nearly pees their pants over when they go to Joe's Shanghai.

You can tell that my camera was on the wrong setting...poop.

Many people have opinions about where to get the best soup dumplings in NYC. I have no problem admitting that I don't give half a crap. I've never had an "authentic" one (as in, I haven't searched China for the real deal) to compare the NYC version to, nor have I ever eaten one that disagreed with me. How can a thinly-walled dough pouch of meat sitting in a pool of its own porky juices taste bad?

[An introductory note: This week was ridiculously busy. Spent two late nights in NYC and due to various types of exhaustion was left with very little brain power. I do try to update twice a week, but lately this goal has been very hard to meet. :(

If you want advice about where to eat in NYC, you won't find it in today's post, which is more of a...personal thing. But next time, yes!]

Ballons!

"She's coming closer! ...No wait, she's going the wrong way. Should I open the door for her?"

Olia had just peered through the peephole looking out of her apartment to update us on Diana's whereabouts. The rest of us stood (or crouched) still, scattered down the apartment's narrow and currently unlit hallway, anticipating Diana's arrival. We decided that Diana would find the apartment without our help; we just had to be patient.

"She's coming this way!" alerted Olia. We shifted in our spots. You get one chance get the "surprise" part of a surprise birthday party right. Otherwise the reaction will be less of surprise and more, "Why are you hiding behind that couch?" My brain whirred through Diana's possible reactions and what her initial thought might be, aside from, "Why are all the lights off?"

The doorbell rang. Cue quiet time. After Olia and Diana exchanged greetings, we positioned ourselves into "surprise mode," which wasn't all that different from the way we were already positioned. I moved about an inch, perhaps. The lights flicked on.

I hate pushing a long, somewhat well though-out entry down the page, but I have a few time sensitive announcements to make. FOR YEW! I LUV YEW?

The folks at the Well Fed Network thought my blog was humorous enough to nominate it for a Best Food Blog (Humor) award. And I didn't even pay anyone off! While I am very flattered to have been nominated for an award, I'm not sure I deserve it. I've read my writing, you know, a number of times (okay, I read it every night before I go to bed, and when I wake up, and maybe 10 times in between), and lately it's only been fractionally amusing (like 1/8th or 1/6th). Check out the other nominees and vote for whoever strikes your fancy. I won't be offended if you choose someone other than me—I'll just ban your IP or something.

KIDDING, KIDDING, kind of.

By the way, Serious Eats (aka the best food website to work for, ever) was nominated for Best Food Blog (Group). Vote for them! No one else! That's an order!

Food Apparel

To help you out with your gift giving this holiday season, I wrote an Food Apparel Gift Guide for Serious Eats (also check out the full list of SE gift guides). Get your loved one some comfortable shoes! Or a t-shirt featuring a drawing of a sweaty steak! There's something for everyone!!! Did you hear the part where I said "sweaty steak?" Just checkin'.

Charles Chocolate

Chocs?

Chocolate also makes a lovely gift, as long as it's not being given to someone in the 0.34% of the population who don't like chocolate. Charles Chocolate gave me a 15% off promotional doo-dad for my readers; just enter the code GIRLATEEVERYTHING during check-out, usable until next Monday, the 17th. I don't usually (or ever) post promotional offers, but I think their chocolates are nice. Also, they were one of the more generous vendors at the Chocolate Show this past November (which I have yet to post about, unsurprisingly). I don't get anything out of this, by the way; I just thought it was a timely suggestion in case anyone needed to buy a last minute gift.

Hooray for consumerism!

Menu 4 Hope

Finally, check out A Menu 4 Hope, a charity raffle organized by food bloggers where you buy tickets for the chance to win awesome prizes with all proceeds going to the U.N. World Food Program. There are books, chocolate, baked goods, ALL KINDS OF TASTY SHIZZ. A bit of ass (or a lot of ass) was busted at Serious Eats to get this stuff together, so you should take a look.

My next entry will be a real one, I promise. It might even be funny. I haven't decided yet.

Hello nice readers in internet land,
Are you web savvy? Do you live in the NYC area? DO YOU LOVES THE EATINGS?! Then apply to be a Serious Eats slave intern! Please, we need them. For the love of god. In all that is holy. Here are the reqs:

• An interest in food and/or blogging (or better yet, blogging about food!)
• Available 2 to 5 days a week
• Ability to commute to Manhattan (Chelsea)
• General knowledge of the Internet and computers
• Knowledge of HTML, Photoshop, photography a plus
• Good grammar, writing skills, and a decent command of the English language is a plus

I interned here during my last semester of school and hey, they hired me! YOU TOO CAN BE A WINNER! But really, it'd be good if you knew HTML. Please? .__. Check out Serious Eats for more info.

Thank you for voting for my blog! I am all kinds of flattered. That you are still reading this.

This is kind of how I feel right now

Unfortunately, this is not what I would call a "real" entry. Physically, it exists, but it doesn't fulfill the purpose of this blog. Which is to bombard you with food porn and meager commentary.

The major reason is because I have the flu, along with some kind of bronchial infection that is causing all my phlegm to be painfully coughed out in shades of yellow and green. It's a rainbow of disease! Yeah. I sound much more chipper in this post than I do in real life, trust me. It's so easy to pretend on the Internet...that I am not a homicidal maniac.

I assume I'll be better on Monday. This is my third day at home, but I did go out this morning to get a doctor's opinion ("You have the flu!—now give me $110!") and pick up some recommended drugs.

Anyhoo, that's the update on Robyn's health. It's not so good. But I will get better. Unless these antibiotics don't work.

Fish and cheese. They go together like...seafood in coagulated milk-based product.

Tuna melt!

Oh, I love coagulated milk-based product. It's just that while I was eating my tuna melt from Tiny's Giant Sandwich Shop and savoring the magical blend of melted Swiss cheese blanketing mayonnaise-infused Dolphin-safe tuna mashings I thought about how most of my combination fish-and-cheese eating experiences have taken place in the form of sandwiches. And not tuna melts or lox and cream cheese bagels, but the Catholic-friendly Filet-O-Fish. Which means that most of my combination fish-and-cheese eating barely consisted of what nature would label as fish and cheese. More like "deep fried square slab of compressed white fish bits" and "day-glo orange sliver of processed cheese and emulsifiers." And thus the dark period of gorging myself at McDonald's comes back to haunt me.

I used to eat at McDonald's with embarrassingly high frequency during the first 3/4ths of my life. When I was little it was all about the Happy Meals and the 4-piece "it might be" chicken nuggets dripped in barbecue sauce (hell man, those were tasty). After I grew out of the "If It Comes With A Toy, It Must Be Good" phase, it was all about the fat and the salt and the various chemicals used to enhance the flavors of fat and the salt. Even though I stopped eating at McDonald's in high school, the idea of eating a Filet-O-Fish today (for nostalgic purposes) doesn't completely disgust me. I might even enjoy it.

But I won't do it. I think. I mean, unless you want me to. For nostalgic purposes.

A pupusa is a magical entity of foodliness. Mention it to someone who knows of the tasty corn-based delight it brings and you'll get an enthusiastic, wide-eyed—teetering on the edge of maniacal—response more appropriate for the ending of a college football game, like, "YEAAAH, PUPUSSAAAAS, THE OTHER TEAM CAN SUCK IT!"

Thar be pupusas

Kathy and I met up with Janet at Bahia, a Salvadoran restaurant in Williamsburg, to indulge in some PUPUSSAAAAS, thick corn tortilla-stuffed patties cooked to some degree of crispiness on a griddle. (Kathy already wrote about our meal a week ago. You should read it!)

As we waited outside the restaurant for Janet, Kathy said something comical about not wanting to indulge in anything too heavy (such as the "fried yucca with chunks of fried pork" that I had my eye on). Huh? She said...what? Her request was completely reasonable, but at the same time something I couldn't fulfill—experience has shown us that the combination of the Chan and Lee stomachs tends to result in gut-busting meals that most nutritionists would warn against eating, unless their patient were anorexic and needed to gain 20 pounds, stat. We have do this while we're still young and packed with healthy, vivacious organs. It's not like we're underaged binge drinkers or drug addicts, you know? (Somehow I always use that reasoning that I'm not doing anything illegal to make me feel less guilty about eating the way I do.)

Burgerrrr

Buuurrrrgggerrrrrr.

Is "burger" an emotion? I think it might be. Because when I was at Elephant and Castle with Olivia and I had my heart set on eating a burger, all I could think was "buuurrrggerrrr," in the tone of a low rumble, like a growl, or a malfunctioning washing machine. I didn't just think "burger"—I felt it too. Semi-raw meat juices seeping out of the crags of a chunk of ground beef, mixing with a layer of melted cheese, soaking into a semi-crisp, patchily carbonized toasted bun. You know? BURGER. Or cheeseburger, more like.

Hopefully this isn't what you see before you die

MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU GUYS! HOORAY FOR JESUS!

(I don't mean to be offensive, by the way. However, I'm not religious, so when I say things like "HOORAY FOR JESUS!" I'm not exactly being serious. So. Yeah. Um. Thanks for reading my site, even though I am riddled with sin.)

So where was I on Saturday night?

Fries. Zomg.

Oh my god. Could it be? Does McDonald's dare grace this blog? Am I brain dead? The answer to all these questions is a colossal, "YES."

Update (12/28): I managed to drive to Charlottesville in one piece! No crashing! No death! It's awesome! Just wanted to let you know! Yeah!

OH YES, and thank you so much for your recs! You guys are awesome. I don't know why I'm always baffled when people come out of the woodwork to recommend things to me. Of course you would, because you're awesome. I just keep forgetting people read this blog. Seriously.

Come on in!

I wanted to write a restaurant review post before I left for Charlottesville this weekend (Friday to Tuesday) to visit Tristan and his friends (and hopefully eating a lot in the process), but I totally failed. Hell, that I'm still awake even though I'm supposed to get up at 5:30 AM (or earlier) is already an indication of FAILURE.

I'm driving down. 6 1/2 hours. Alone. With my iPod. Fuxored. But it'll be fine. Unless I crash.

I'm sure a handful of you have suggestions for me. And I will fail. BECAUSE I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO EAT THEM ALL! So here's the list that Tristan came up with:

korean: the korean house
mexican/salvadoran: aqui es mexico
gelato/coffee: milano
dumplings: marco & luca
southeast asian: monsoon
sushi: miyako
vietnamese: saigon cafe
chinese take away: taiwan garden
vegetarian chinese: ming dynasty
pizza: christian's, some other fabled place my boss was telling me about
ethiopian: Mesob
mediterannean: basil, cafe europa
burgers: chap's (we've been there already)
24-hour sandwiches, pizza, vegetarian food for super cheap: little john's
tea/vegetarian food: twisted branch tea bazaar
bakery: albemarle baking company
indian: maruthi (never been here, but looks great)
italian: mona lisa (never been here)
himalayan fusion: himalayan fusion (really, that's its name)

I'm also adding Spudnuts to the list. If anyone remembers when I went to C-ville last year, here's a list of the recs you guys gave me. Woot woot!

Oh, if anyone reading this is actually in C-ville and doesn't have New Year's Eve plans, Tristan is having a party at his apartment. And...I suppose everyone is invited. The Internet is invited. Yes, please come. Just hit me up for more info.