The Girl Who Ate Everything

Hand pulled noodle shops have fast become one of my favorite places to go to. Not any one particular hand pulled noodle shop—although Lam Zhou is my most frequented spot—but all of them. Or at least, the dive-iest ones. Because they're magical places where mounds of dough are transformed into bowls of noodles and pork dumplings are plentiful and you can have it all for questionably low prices that make you wonder how these shops make any money.

Sheng Wang

Two Saturdays ago after attending ROFLcon with Diana, we met up with Kathy, Greg, and Jessica at Sheng Wang to expand our hand pulled noodle repertoires. Aside from hand pulled wheat noodles they also offer bean thread noodles and rice noodles for the gluten intolerant crowd or anyone else who doesn't want the stuff being freshly stretched just feet away from them.

Closerrr.

There's a little window that looks into the semi-enclosed kitchen so you can watch the birth of your noodles from the chef's skilled hands. I annoyingly oohed and aahed as Greg shot a video, thus ruining his audio (sorry, Greg) with random, incomprehensible noises—because my oohs and aahs sound less like that, and more like eeuhha and mweuhhehe. I make cartoon-like sound effects without even trying. And that's probably not a good thing

This entry originally took place in January 3rd. Yeah, I'm swamped—if I go to bed before 2 a.m I give myself a half-assed high five and sluggishly mutter, "Halleujah." I have four more posts in the works.

Huh?

I don't know what this menu from the Chengdu Heaven stall in Golden Shopping Mall says, but I'm pretty sure I want to eat all of it. I will eat almost anything (or try anything at least once) categorized as Sichuan. Bring on the lip-numbing peppercorns.

Dan dan noodles

Dan dan noodles may not look like much. Flat wheat noodles on top of spicy, chili oil-laden sauce and bok choy topped with ground pork. But mix it up...

What do Ovaltine, Horlicks, and Milo have in common? They were born in the West (Switzerland, US, and Australia respectively, if Wikipedia hasn't failed me, although today Ovaltine and Horlicks are owned by British companies), are very popular in the East (in addition to their birth countries...and...elsewhere), and less so in the US. They're all powder-based malted milk drinks, although Ovaltine and Milo are chocolate flavored and Horlicks isn't.

I can recall at least one instance where a Chinese friend was surprised when I told her that I didn't grow up drinking these beverages. "AREN'T YOU CHINESE?" she asked. (And yes, she asked in caps.) Does that go to show how imbibed these drinks are in Chinese culture? Even when I lived in Taiwan where I recall seeing a lot of Milo, I was never interested in trying it. It was only when I started living in New York City and frequented Chinatown's bakeries that I noticed these malted milk drinks on the menu alongside bubble teas.

OVALTINE!

A few weeks ago after eating at Sheng Wang, my friends and I went to Hon Cafe for desserts and drinks. I usually go for nai cha (sweet milk tea), but since Greg and Kathy were both getting that and I didn't want to order the same thing, I looked for another cheap, hot drink.

I'm the one on the left with the gray hoodie. Photograph taken by Kathryn Yu

Kathryn informed me that I was on tonight's episode of No Reservations shot back in September when Tony ate at Momofuku Ssam Bar as Olivia, Kåre, and I oogled from afar. Sweet. I didn't get to watch it but I figure the Internet will solve that problem for me soon.

Giant cake!

And there was my view. The cake was a total "WTF is that?" kind of moment because Milk Bar hadn't opened yet. Oh man, their cakes are good.

I'll have a Momofuku love fest post coming up soon. Har har.

Related;

Kåre Week, Day 2 (Part 1): Freakin' Sweet Lunch at Momofuku Ssam Bar, and Riding the Staten Island Ferry
I Momofuku Ssam Bar-ed, And All Was Good With the World
Birthday Pork-Fest at Momofuku
Death by Momofuku

Phoenix-based friend Lee Anne visited me from January 28 to February 8 in case you're thinking, "Hey, I remember her...wait, she doesn't live here." I'm going out of chronological order with these posts because that's how my brain feels like doing it right now. I'm pretty sure you can follow. This post took place on February 2.

Things you do not want to see when walking up to Co.: darkness, chairs flipped up on tables, lack of humans, lack of pizzas.

Last Monday I spent my whole day thinking of thin crust pizzas covered in plops of buffalo mozzarella and other delicious things in anticipation for eating dinner at Co. (or, as Greg likes to refer to, Kump, as to not confuse it with Ko) with Greg, Lee Anne, and Nick. What's the big deal about Co.? It's run by Jim Lahey, the bread making genius behind Sulivan Street Bakery, home of one of my favorite slabs of dough in the world: pizza bianca.

A Co. pizza. Which I'll hopefully tell you about soon.

I've already been to Co. once—I loved it—but wanted to take another trip and increase my library of pizza memories before blogging about it. Alas, it is closed on Mondays (and Sundays). Now I know. And now you know: Do not go to Co. on a Monday night and misguide three pizza-ravenous friends in the process. :(

"We could try Una Pizza Napoletana," suggested Greg—but we found out that it is also closed on Mondays. We came to the conclusion that somewhere in the city all the upper-tier pizzaiolos of Manhattan were having a Pizza Makers Bowling Night, and this was why we couldn't get our desired pie on a Monday.

Seats

The only other place I could think of going to in the area that could fulfill our pizza craving and didn't suck was Pizza Suprema. Located on 8th Avenue a block below the architectural atrocity of Madison Square Garden/Penn Station, it's not an area where you would expect to find a good pizzeria—or good "anything." The area is drab and has no enticing characteristics, unless you want colon hydrotherapy or fancy a drink at a bikini bar. I'm probably lucky that I've become numb to the scenery having made the walk between Penn Station and the Serious Eats office at 27th Street countless times.

I didn't even take a photo. The sandwich had no chance.

Since I didn't have an appetite this morning, I didn't eat anything until 4 p.m., at which point I wolfed down a pressed mozzarella, eggplant, tomato, and basil panini from Ronnybrook Milk Bar in maybe five minutes, only taking a short break for the requisite intake of oxygen and to finish a blog post. Now I'm left with the lingering taste of sweet cheesy gobs with creamy eggplant goo with fresh basil with...tomato...I'll admit that the tomato has a purpose even if I don't really like raw tomatoes.

A sandwich...from the past

The fresh mozzarella + tomato + basil combination is my favorite. Eggplant isn't necessary, but adds another layer of deliciousness. IT IS THE BEST THING EVER. (If you disagree with me, I shall smite you. From afar. So you probably won't feel anything.) And I really need to bring the proper sandwich ingredients to work so I can make it in the office instead of paying $9+ for a good, but not "go out of your way for it" good, sandwich.

Ah well. I'm not eating anything special tonight, so that was the culinary highlight of my day.

Ignore the Roflcondoms...thanks.

I popped the can open with a satisfying [klnkshzzz]. (I bet there's a better onomatopoeic word for that, but I'm too lazy to look it up.) The power of the carbonation propelled a split-second mist of liquid that moved too fast for me to see, but I saw its remains in the form of bright, nearly phosphorescent yellow-green beads around the top of the can. Sweet. Jesus. Was I going to drink this stuff?

Yes. I was thirsty. And I'll try anything at least once, even if it's based off a fictional beverage from a movie called Idiocracy. I've seen the movie, which isn't necessarily something to be proud of. (But it's kind of an awesome movie from a design point of view.)

What is this beverage? It's Brawndo, THE THIRST MUTILATOR. The can explains more:

Brawndo's got electrolytes. And that's what plants crave. They crave electrolytes. Which is what Brawndo has. And that's why plants crave Brawndo. Not water, like from the toilet.

If you haven't seen the movie, you're probably thinking, "What the frig?" Basically, in the bleak future when the average IQ is -34, anything that water would be used for (except for what's in the toilet) has been replaced by Brawndo. Meaning that they also use it to "water" their plants. Which is why the food supply is going to shit. Because, despite what the can says, plants can't live on Brawndo.

I just thought I'd set that all up for ya.

This entry originally took place on January 31. Will I ever catch up to present day activities? PROBABLY NOT. Heeehhhhh [curls into a little ball of failure]

One glorious evening while watching episodes of Ren & Stimpy (come on, guys, one of the best shows ever...don't back away from the computer now) with Ezra and Chris and sharing a few "What in the...jesus..huh?"-laced laughs, I realized it would be even more fun to revel in the brilliance of the show's exceptionally gross and WTF-inducing humor with a couch full of my friends. And thus REN & STIMPY MARATHON 2009 was born.

While the responses were mostly positive, there were a few non-believers. To better accommodate the Ren & Stimpy haterz, I turned the get-together into REN & STIMPY MARATHON AND DUMPLING-MAKING PARTY 2009 which, over the course of the night, ended up turning into DUMPLING-MAKING PARTY WITH REN & STIMPY PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND 2009. It was probably for the best that no one got to see me guffaw like a psychotic 5-year old in response to Ren and Stimpy's attempts to sell rubber nipples.

Dumpling babies

Greg mixes the filling.

I used Michele's recipe for pork and cabbage dumplings and edamame, kale, and cilantro dumplings with good results, if you ignore my incompetence in the kitchen. Michele went to culinary school; if you could see me as I wrestled with two pounds of monstrous, hearty kale leaves, you would know right away that I obviously did not.

Preparing the kale was a pain in the ass—I hadn't really planned how I would manage the massive pile of green ribbons I would inevitably end up with. Some part of me thought it would be less daunting after cooking down a bit, but...no, not really, as they're quite good at retaining intense fibrosity. Of course, doubling the recipe for the benefit of my vegetarian/vegan friends was what made the green matter doubly unmanageable. I ultimately ended up with at least 50 dumplings too many. (The meat and vegetable dumplings combined numbered around 150.)

This entry originally took place on February 6.

I don't choose who I hang out with based on gender, but when it turns out that everyone in your group has the potential to turn egg and sperm into a bundle of functioning organs that may or may not live up to your unfulfilled dreams, you might end up with something called "Girls' Night." While it doesn't have to be different from "Gender-Neutral Night," I'm not sure a mixed group would be as likely to try on a bunch of women's hats and take photos of themselves wearing said hats and lounging about in a living room while talking about ex-boyfriends. Or maybe they would; I don't know.

Eat it.

Eating pizza is certainly gender-neutral. After seeing Fuerza Bruta (more on that later), Kathy, Diana, Lee Anne, and I hung out at Kathy's East Village apartment where we ravenously wolfed down a whole Sicilian pie from Artichoke. It initially looked easy to plow through—we were pretty damn hungry after waiting until 10:30 p.m. to eat dinner—but we had underestimated the pizza's heft.

This entry originally took place on February 3. Milk Bar outings took place on February 3, 14, and 16. And a bit of January 4. Um.

I know the Momofuku Empire is overhyped. I know you're sick of hearing it. I know David Chang isn't God. But it's still one of my favorite group of eateries to go for a light splurge, and ever since eating at Ssam Bar with Kåre, it's been a "must eat" for anyone who visits me from out of town.

And then Lee Anne came to visit. DING-A-LINGLE!!! (that's the sound of my wallet deflating)—there went my next Ssam Bar card.

And here is your food porn with insubstantial commentary.

Brussels sprouts.

Satur Farm's fried brussels sprouts: A must-order. If you don't like brussels sprouts, you haven't eaten this dish yet. Then again, if you don't like mint, scallions, fish sauce, or puffed rice, you probably won't find a newfound love for brussels sprouts here. Because the brussels sprouts are kind of soaked in all of that. It's sweet, it's salty, it's fishy, it's crunchy, and if your taste buds are at least halfway functional you'll want to eat a bucket of it.

Bedouin Tent doesn't appear until the second half of this post, but I needed a photo to stick up here. SO HERE IT IS.

The goal on February 4 was not food-driven, but to go to Rocketship in Cobble Hill with Lee Anne to reconnect with old friend Arthur and to get my mitts on the latest volume of the Scott Pilgrim series—embarrassingly, a series I only started reading a few months ago despite hearing about it for years.

But in a way, it was nice to get to read the first four books in one go (one go = about a week) without waiting in anticipation for the next and then, when getting to the next book, forgetting everything that had happened in the last one. They provided me with many feelings of sunshiny happy "I CAN TAKE OVER THE WORLD, MAYBE," feelings at a time when I felt kind of the opposite. (This was around Christmas. The moving mixed with other crappies kind of...sucked.) Something about seeing a dimwitted guy like Scott Pilgrim destory evil ex-boyfriends to win the heart of a girl he instantly falls in love despite barely knowing her warms the darkest pits of my heart. (There's more to it than that—I just wanted to sum it up in one sentence.) It's HEEELARIOUS, I swear. Both the words and illustrations.

So we get to the store. We wait in the line that starts at the door, snakes around the interior—small, but well stocked—and ends with artist Brian Lee O'Malley sitting at a desk signing book. "Ohh I'll pick up the new book and everything will be dandy and weeeeoo!"

WAI?

Although I'm not into alcoholic beverages, I will drink just about anything that doesn't contain alcohol at least once. If it doesn't sound too gross nor cost much nor pose an immediate threat to my health, at least.

While shopping at a bodega a block away from my apartment in search of Horlicks (they had it), I spotted a dusty can of Jamaican Irish Moss Peanut Drink. Never before had I consumed a beverage containing peanut butter and a seaweed-based gelling agent. Potentially tasty? Maybe. But it would only take a small investment to find out.

They give off an angelic glow. Or maybe that was Photoshop.

Twice in the past two weeks days I've detoured to Manhattan's Chinatown on the way back home purely driven by a craving for one thing: snow pea shoots (also known as leaves and tips). Not a pastry. Not a pig-derived product. A vegetable. After being briefly exposed to heat, these young plantling bits melt down and retain crunchiness in their hollow stalks while their leaves become soft, and release an addictively sweet, mellow flavor. When raw, they give off a hint of that fresh pea scent that makes me feel like I've shoved my face into a bucket of vibrant pea-enhanced sunshine.