The Girl Who Ate Everything

This entry originally took place on March 17.

And when I say "ass," I mean "stomach." But the figurative kicking, not something that would result in internal bleeding.

Otto is my favorite Italian restaurant, which isn't saying much considering that I don't really eat Italian food anywhere else. (That has to do with price; it tends to be expensive.) My strategy for eating a meal at Otto is usually to get a pasta dish followed by a cup of gelato (three flavors, of course). I always eat everything without much trouble, sometimes with even more food than that, as their vegetable and seafood dishes are some of the best things they serve.

But when I ate at Otto with Cheryl a few weeks ago, something happened. Something...destroyed us. We both ate the same amount of food—a pasta dish and gelato—and both went into disorienting food comas unheard of in all my Otto experiences. It's not like we felt sick. Just very, very sleepy. And maybe a little woozy, but we may have been embellishing it by that point. I can't remember because I was woozy.

I like tube pasta.

I went with rigatoni con stracotto, heritage pork shoulder in a tomato basil sauce, upon Kathy's suggestion. Little chunks of tender pork, a few basil leaves, and a light coating of rich, creamy tomato sauce—everything tasted balanced, but it didn't blow me away. The pasta was less cooked than usual, maybe a bit too al dente. Then again, part of the reason I like Otto is because I know I'll never get a plate of overcooked pasta.

So many noodles. Just how many noodles? Perhaps...oodles.

I ate at so many hand pulled noodle shops during the past few months that I figured, "Heeey, I may as well eat at every hand pulled noodle shop in the city." And that's pretty much my only life goal at the moment. (Some people go to law school; I eat noodles. The bar is set so low, I just can't fail! Or something.)

But aside from wanting to try every hand pulled noodle-ry, my reasons for eating hand pulled noodles has to do with three of their main qualities: cheapness, deliciousness, and filling...ness. There seem to be just enough shops that my noodle quest will keep me busy, but not so many that I can't visit them all within a reasonable period of time without getting completely sick of hand pulled noodles.

Last month I visited three hand pulled noodle shops. Do I know how to rate hand pulled noodles? Not really. The trajectory of a hand pulled noodle meal generally goes like this: I general scarf the lot down and pat my belly afterward while going, "Uhh, yeah, that was pretty good," to whomever I'm eating with, followed by, "You wanna go to a bakery now?"

So these three little reviews may not be very helpful. But at least there's food porn.

Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles

This entry originally took place on March 2.

Tasty Hand Pulled Noodle

I ate at Tasty Hand-Pulled Noodles with Kathy and Shann on the night of a freak snowstorm after we had eaten a snack at Shake Shack. A customer-less and heater-less Shake Shack. If the holes in my gloves hadn't bothered me before, they did then. But at least it was a beautiful night.

This entry originally took place on March 23.

Ever since becoming obsessed with the Sidewalk, aka gai pad krapow, I've wanted to learn how to make it. Because it's stupidly overpriced at the Thai place near my office and you could probably make a bucket of it for the same amount of money.

And then in February Michele posted a recipe for gai pad krapow on Serious Eats! IT WAS A SIGN! A sign that said, "BOPPY, MAKE THIS!" Or, "BOPPY, GET SOME FRIENDS TO HELP YOU MAKE THIS!" The latter, more like.

Kathy took most of the responsibility for Moo Pad Krapow Night by buying the ingredients—"moo" instead of "gai" because she bought pork instead of chicken (pork is easier to find in Chinatown)—and donating the use of her kitchen. I mostly..stood there. And ate.

Chilis

Oh wait, I think I chopped these chilis! Maybe.

Just wanted to give y'all a heads up that I'm going to Iceland tonight, accompanied by Diana and Greg (I think we'll make a most awesome traveling team) and will be back next Friday. I might write a post before I go depending on how fast I work/pack/write emails (I am so behind, fail)/etc. Whether I'll blog when I'm in Iceland is yet to be determined.

YAY ICELAND YAAAAYyrrhg my god I'm so tired, it's 4 a.m.

If you wanna read more about Iceland, here are loads of suggestions a bunch of awesome people made to me.

This entry originally took place on April 3 and 4. Gonna speed things up a bit because I have to go to the airport soon..oh crap.

When Alex comes to down that means two things: elevated level of happiness and vegetarian food. Because Alex is a fuzzy ball of happiness, and he lives a meat-free life.

Saravanaas

Our first vegetarian stop was Saravanaas, a South Indian restaurant in Murray/Curry Hill with lots of dosas, savory lentil and rice-based crepes. But first, there was poori.

Round, like Alex's head! Or my head. Or your head.

Huge balloons of fried dough = excitement!

The part of Iceland with ice in it.

I'm back from Iceland! ...Which doesn't make a difference to most of you because I'm just someone who may or may not exist at the other end of the Internet tubes. But it matters to me because now my life goes back to being boring.

To kick off this series of posts about my trip (which was AWESOME, as you will soon see...if I can write fast enough), I'm going to start off with a list of somewhat simple things that would've been helpful to know before I went to Iceland (at least, Iceland during the third week of April; not all of this advice is applicable during other seasons). Admittedly, I didn't do much research; I "prepared" by organizing recommendations made by other people, checking to see what the weather would be like, and remembering the exchange rate. I also relied a lot on my travel buddies, Diana and Greg, for info. Greg's Lonely Planet guide helped a bit as well, especially when it came to getting a crash course in pronouncing Icelandic—not that you'd really need it because just about everyone speaks English.

In no particular order, here's my list of things I probably should've known beforehand and other tips I found along the way. Some of these things might be basic, but I'm kind of clueless. If I'm missing anything, let me know!

This entry originally took place on April 18 during my trip to Iceland from the 18 to 24. In case you're not up on Icelandic news, they're currently in mega economic pooptown (or, if you prefer the more official term, "financial crisis"). I'm only going to mention it in this intro because...well, we certainly wouldn't have been able to afford going on this trip if not for the unfortunately bank implosion, but it's not an issue that presented itself during our trip, nor am I in the position to give a lesson on Icelandic economy. Basically, if you thought Iceland was a prohibitively expensive place to visit before, it's not now. Someone better educated in global economics and banking could tell you more. For now, I'm making do with this article by Michael Lewis and these posts by Iris Erlingsdottir.

Get in the car.

After Greg unbuckled his seat belt and opened the door to stick our ticket into the airport parking lot's exit gate, the gate's yellow bar rose to let us through. He rolled the car forward a few feet before stopping to put his seat belt back on. And then the gate came back down. Which would've been dandy if we hadn't been on the wrong side of it.

"Uhhm," said Greg. "I thought it would stay up until I went through."

"I thought it was on a timer," said Diana.

"HAHAHAHA, GREG, you fail" I thought. And maybe vocalized. With guffaws.

He stepped out of the car, pressed some buttons to activate an intercom, and after explaining our plight to the woman on the other end of the line she let us through, probably while thinking, "Oh god, these dumb tourists." But I hope we made her day just a tad more interesting considering that a regular workday probably doesn't involve interacting with that many people leaving the parking lot.

Quick lesson in "Damn, Is Iceland Small or What?": The total population of the country is about 320,000. It's number 172 out of 221 in this list of countries by population, and number 230 out of 238 in this list of countries and dependencies by population density. According to this chart from the New York State Department of Health, the population is about that of Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights in Brooklyn. About 120,000 of these people live in Reykjavik city center.

This entry originally took place on April 18 during my trip to Iceland from the 18 to 24.

Bonus

After our first meal in Iceland, we went to our first supermarket in Iceland: Bónus, or the supermarket with the curiously drunk-looking piggy bank mascot. Maybe it just gets that smirk on its face and lolls its eyes in opposite directions when you shove coins into its back. And since Bónus sells things at such low prices, you're always feeding it money. And so it always looks a little insane, like that estranged relative that no one really talks to.

Yup, I love that pig.

Because I'm fascinated by supermarkets outside of the US, here's my little tour of Bónus.

This entry originally took place on April 18 during my trip to Iceland from the 18 to 24.

After a strenuous day day of...napping and going to the supermarket, we roamed the streets of Reykjavik unsure of where to eat dinner. Like so:

"Where do you wanna eat guys?"

"...Mrahdunno?" [shrug]

"That place?" [points]

"...Mrahdunno."

[continue walking]

[lather, rinse, repeat]

Since the long daylight hours threw off our sense of time, we didn't head out until about 9 p.m., a bit late for eating dinner in Reykjavik.

Uh..

The giant sign proclaiming "FISH BUFFET" was sort of appealing. Not really.

Forgive this shitty photo.

But then we spotted Tapas across the street and made a beeline towards its glowing sign because 1) it was open, and 2) I read a recommendation for it online.

Who chooses to eat their first dinner in Iceland at a Spanish restaurant? Er. Uh. It's okay; they had a set Icelandic menu! We ordered that along with a few other dishes (non-Icelandic menu dishes are noted).