The Girl Who Ate Everything

BECAUSE TIME IS PRECIOUS AND MY STOMACH CAPACITY IS VAST and the brain is sleepy...

...Also, I'm just very far behind. There are so many little (and big) things I eat that never make it to the blog because the task of writing a series of cohesive paragraphs about something I only vaguely remember is too daunting.

But I might be able to bang out a few sentences.

Pizza!

November 14: Brussels sprouts and speck pizza from Motorino in Williamsburg. Why do roasted brussels sprouts keeps making stuff taste delicious? Is it the crispy, crunchy, caramelized leaves? Perhaps. Sweet cruciferousness, thin slices of cured ham, and fresh mozzarella atop a thin, slightly chewy, sauce-less crust makes for a winning combination. I'd probably say the same about brussels sprouts + [anything].

Oh, hello

Can't forget about the upskirt. Read more about the meal at Kathy's blog.

I want one of these signs. In my window.

"In your review you can write, 'My whiny friend made me eat at this diner.'"

And that's how Ken and I ended up at Americana Diner in Bay Ridge during this past Saturday's chilly afternoon. We had been wandering for miles upon miles across scorched earth with only a vial of water to share between us about one and a half miles past countless restaurants in search of an adequate lunch with only Ken's stomach to guide us. What did it (repeatedly) say? "Tuna melt."

Actually, it was probably yelling, "HOLY SHIT, I AM SO FUCKING HUNGRY, OH GOD, GIVE ME A GODDAMN TUNA MELT BEFORE I START KILLING PEOPLE," but Ken toned it down to a PG-rating.

There she is. What a beaut.

When Americana Diner crossed our paths, my first thought was, "Am I still in New York City?" Barely. It looked like it came straight out of the suburban New Jersey of my youth and semi-present. I rarely went to diners as a teenager—didn't really have any friends in high school to eat with, you know, HA HA HA ha awkward (I'm not joking, but I should clarify that most of the hanging out I did was in New York City, not locked in my room)—so diners fail to hold any sort of special place in my heart. I just like knowing such places exist: thriving restaurants with impossibly large menus that are open 24/7 and don't look like they've updated their appearances in two or three decades.

I just wanted to give you guys an update on my housing situation since so many people have been quick to help me: I found a place! I win! For just one moment.

I'm moving to Bed-Stuy with my new roommate, Chris (whom I met through this blog, yay!). Before you send me a bulletproof vest for Christmas (as my friends have half-joked about doing), keep in mind that we'll be living a block away from the Nostrand Ave stop on the A/C. It's quite convenient, and as far as I'm concerned, non-threatening.

I'm signing my lease tomorrow. Hoorah! The horror of moving will be over soon.

It seems like most people have the impression that I have some kind of crazy awesome Thanksgiving because I love food. Alas, I love eating food; I'm not very good at cooking it. And while I usually consider Thanksgiving as the one time a year I'll break out my meager baking and cooking chops, this year I was all about sleeping in late and prostrating myself on the couch back at home in New Jersey.

Duckie, once a beautiful, graceful creature...oh well.

Since Thanksgiving dinner only had to serve my mom, my brother Hubert, and me, my mom roasted a small duck instead of the traditional "turkey that is so huge you end up eating leftovers for a week or two to fulfill your turkey intake quota for the year." The moist meat was covered by a layer of crispy, pillowy fat. Thumbs up. Although I like having an excuse to eat turkey once a year, duck probably tastes better.

WIN.

I hadn't eaten the cuban sandwich from El Castillo de Jagua in over a year when I tried it again about two weeks ago. Thankfully, it's still an awesome combination of a pile of pork topped with a slice of ham, gooey cheese, and tart pickles in a mayo-smeared roll, grilled and pressed to a crisp. The last time I had the sandwich the pork was more shred-like and threatened by dryness—the newer version featuring fat meat chunks oozing with sweet pork juices is better. Few sandwiches this satisfying and filling exist for under $5.

Sorry for the infrequent posting lately. Been busy and failing at task management, and, oh, I AM MOVING ON SATURDAY, OH CRAP, I've packed like 30% of my stuff so far. Wish me luck.

What horrors does this cup hold?

"Are you ready for round four?" asked Raphael.

"...Yeaah. While I can still put it on Serious Eats' tab."

PEOPLE, NOT FOOD!!

On Tuesday night, Serious Eats had its first holiday party at The Gutter, a bowling alley in Williamsburg with a Bring Your Own Grub policy. Erin wrote about the Fornino pizza, but I'm just here to talk about the booze. And the bowling. And maybe a bit about the food.

To bring you up to speed, I'm known for not drinking. It's not a moral issue; it's a taste issue. "But people never start off liking the taste," is what I'm frequently told. Ohhh no, no, no, if those people can get over the taste issue, they're definitely not tasting what I'm tasting. The day I take a liking to alcohol is the day my taste buds die. It's just bad—the sharp, eye-tearing sting of multifaceted bitterness piercing the inside of my mouth and burning the back of my throat. Why am I supposed to drink this liquid—an expensive liquid at that?

My room, a work in progress.

I moved. THE HELL IS OVER!!!

...That is, the hell of moving. As opposed to those other hells.

If anyone has advice for where to eat around the Nostrand Avenue stop on the A/C line, please reveal. I walked around the neighborhood with a friend yesterday in search of food and in the end I decided to take us to Taim in the West Village. I know there's food in this area; I just don't know where it is, exactly.

This is the best cup on the face of the earth, no doubt about it.

But I do know that the discount store a minute away on Fulton Avenue sells mugs with illustrations of MANATEES for only 99 CENTS EACH. I could hardly believe my luck. Those cups were just made for me. I bought two of them. Hell, I should buy a case of them and give them away as Christmas gifts.

Regular food blogging shall resume shortly. :)

(Many thanks to Ken, Mom, Tristan, Karen, and Chris for helping make my move a smooth one.)

I was going to write a glowing entry about Famous Sichuan, my new favorite restaurant in Chinatown, but instead, this happened:

Do you know how long it takes to find that perfect level of enthusiasm-bordering-on-insanity without actually crossing the "insanity" line? It's hard! And I don't even think I succeeded.

And all my new readers just closed the window.

I made the mistake of opening a bag of garlic-flavored plantain chips from Denise Snacks at around 12:30 a.m., despite that I was still burping the semi-digested fumes from the dinner I finished at Snacky a few hours prior. (Actually, the real mistake was impulsively buying the chips in the first place.) But my brain defied my stomach and said, "Yes, Robyn, go to the kitchen and open that bag of plantain chips you bought last night. Yes....that's a good girl. I'm fattening you up for the slaughter—I mean, I love you!" So I obeyed my innermost desires and grabbed the bag. I inhaled the garlicky fumes that will probably be seeping out of my pores until morning. And I hurled a handful of the little round chips into my black hole-of-a-mouth.

GODDAMN IT, THE CHIPS WERE DELICIOUS. I mindlessly hurled handful after handful into my mouth while violently crushing them between my molars. Plantain chips have the most pleasantly crunchy texture, more solid than a potato or corn chip—although not too thick to make it difficult to chew—and less likely to shatter and send greasy detritus all over your shirt, pants, and keyboard that you are probably eating in front of because you spend all your time on the Internet, or maybe that's just me, um, or something. I am not the only one who has fallen victim to the garlic-laden, carb-based Spears of Doom shot out by Denise Snack's plantain chips.

I bought these chips at the Fine Fare at 385 Broadway in Brooklyn (right off the Hewes Street J/M station) but you can probably get them at...a bunch of places. Maybe I'll keep my eyes open for them. Or not. Because I can never buy these chips again, lest I want to be up in the wee hours of the morning burping fried plantains, like I am right now. I'm not proud of myself, but I assume someone else reading this has been in the same position as me. Or is in the same position right now...

...Which would be eerie.

Ho ho ho.

I'm not a hardcore Christmas following, but I assume most of you are. So to all the awesome Christmas-celebrating readers out there...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I hope you find a cake at least half as awesome as the one above. Read more about it in this ancient entry from 2005. The cake comes from Fay Da Bakery in Chinatown—who else would put two Santa figurines on one Yule log, along with other mismatched pieces of holiday flora? (Actually, it's a Euro log, not a Yule log. Fay Da is breaking down all barriers of tradition!)

Today I'm eating a home cooked dinner with my mom and brother. Christmas is an excuse to hang out with my family, which is probably a good thing, even if I'm still on my computer half of the time. I was so unaware of the coming of Christmas and the whole "giving gifts" thing with my head wrapped up in work and moving that I'll probably end up surprising everyone with random gifts in February.

I'm obsessed with a certain foodstuff. And it's not wheat based. Or sugar based. Or fat based.

BUT ROBYN, WHAT ELSE COULD BE WORTHY OF YOUR OBSESSION?, you ask. In italics.

Sautéed string beans. Specifically, the ones from Famous Sichuan. Observe the time line of my madness.

NOM NOM

November 18: My first visit to Famous Sichuan and my introduction to their string beans—solid, slender pods blistered to a crisp with a hint of chewiness, and bursting with beany, garlicky, salty, sweet juices. The seed for addiction has been planted.

More!!

November 30: My third visit (the second being on the day before) and my second time ordering the string beans. They taste as good as they did the first time. The addiction grows.

Note: This entry originally took place on December 20, aka moving day hell.

I love burgers, but up until December 20 I had never eaten a patty melt. Considering how often I'm disappointed or underwhelmed by hamburger buns—from my experience, a bad bun has the ability to nullify the deliciousness of a juicy, flavorful beef patty and destroy all the happiness I possess at the moment I bite into that burger, so abhorrent a bad bun is—I like the idea of a patty melt since toast is, at least, reliably tasty. Or reliably un-shitty. (Having said that, the next time I eat a patty melt it will probably come on toast that is sliced too thinly, is covered in third-degree burns, and looks like it was just the victim of a vicious fork stabbing.)

Patty melt

The patty melt from the recently reopened Kellogg's Diner came open-faced—one side topped with a slice of American cheese and the beef patty, the other topped with another cheese single and a heap of sliced grilled onions, and the two sides bridged together by three strips of crispy bacon.

Twitter...I haz.

Haha, just kidding; I know you're not stalking me.

...

For the past one and a half-ish years that I've had a Twitter account, I kept my updates private. "The public world does not need to know my every bite, burp, and emotional fart." I rejected loads of people I didn't personally know and felt free to Twitter life-changing events such as, "sitting in my pjs, about to do some homework", "donuts. ...d...d..DONUTS OH DEAR GOD", and "my manatees do not pat nor flap, but PLAT."

I have just un-privatized my Twitter so that anyone out there in Internet land can follow me, see how boring I am, and then go back to unfollowing me. Since I'm opening the flood gates, I'll Twitter links to new blog posts as I make them, which isn't very often. But I'm not Twittering this one because that's pointless.

Since we've been doing year end navel-gazing posts on Serious Eats all week, I got the idea to do it for TGWAE as well. Here are the top ten posts of 2008 based on hit counts, according to my Google Analytics report. Unfortunately, this leaves out any post made after May, so I'm going to do a round up of my top ten favorite posts as well. Thanks for reading and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Fish ribbons!

1. Momofuku Ko: Yup, I Went There: I managed to shoot some Ko porn before David Chang banned photography in the restaurant. I guess I didn't help with that. Oops. David, I love your food; please forgive me.

Kathy, NOM NOM!

2. Brighton Beach, Part 1: Dumplings and Vodka: That was the day I drank all that vodka and feigned sobriety. I also learned what a Russian suitcase was. Man, all the good times happen at Brighton Beach.

Hello there.

3. The Spotted Pig: Burger Vs. Cubano, Plus Some Banoffee Pie: The burger is a looker, but the cubano is the winner in deliciousness. Porky deliciousness.