The Girl Who Ate Everything

This post originally took place on October 19.

"You [mumble mumble] bowl of [low growly mumble]," said Greg.

"...Huh?" I leaned in to hear more clearly.

"You [juughfmumbl] bowl of [ssmmumblrMUMBLAH]!"

"...Whaaat."

"You just [mmmumbrlr] bowl of [SUUHGUHDDUHHH]!"

"...Huuuh what."

"You just had a bowl of SATAN'S DIARRHEAAAA!"

"Oh...kaaay...uh..."

So that's Greg, just being himself, invoking his most demonic voice (much like that of an angry wrestler) to inform me that our dish looked like the result of Satan dropping a deuce while blighted with unbalanced intestinal flora. His description wasn't far off.

...Okay, it's quite chunky.

The real name for Satan's Diarrhea is Dan Ho Bac Mul Jjim, sautéed seafood (squid, shrimp, clams, and maybe more) mixed with steamed sweet squash and slices of dduk, topped with a ring of mozzarella, sprinkled with chopped scallions, and smothered in a spicy gochujang-based sauce. Pray tell, where does such a delectable mélange of red chili-flavored sea life, cheese, and gourd come from? Korean restaurants that cater to a mostly inebriated crowd, in this case, Song 7.2 in the East Village.

A bunch of sandwiches that shall appear somewhere down this page.

Up until about 2005, I wouldn't have labeled myself as a lover of sandwiches. Looking back, I don't know what the hell was wrong with me.*

When my eyes were opened to the diversity of this great, simple culinary invention of bread filled with stuff, I realized, "WAIT, THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST FOODS EVER; WHY DIDN'T I EAT MORE OF YOU GROWING UP? AHHH CURSE MY FOOLISHNESS." So in belated honor of National Sandwich Day (which was three days ago on November 3, the birthday of sandwich inventor John Montagu), I'm going to write about a bunch of sandwiches I like. Because I won't have an excuse to do this again...for another year.

In randomly ordered, not well categorized fashion, here are some of my favorite sandwiches based on type, location, or cuisine. Most of the recommendations pertain to New York City.

* I should probably note that 2005 was when I started going to NYU and stopped a long streak of dieting. And thus the sandwiches came into my life.

French Sandwiches

Sandwich from Julien.

Eating good baguettes in Paris pretty much ruined all other bread for me. If you've bitten into a crackly, golden crust and chewy, hole-ridden innards, you know what I mean. I ate a lot of sandwiches during my semester in Paris—good bread is generally more important to me than good fillings, and when there's so much good bread (if you know where to look; I must thank Jeffrey Steingarten for his guidance), a good sandwich shouldn't be far behind. I ate most of my sandwiches from Julien since it was near my school (my favorite sandwich: Poulet St. Moret), but would make my own on occasion (shove some lettuce and cheese on butter-smeared bread—win!), assuming I didn't polish off the plain baguette first.

A rice bun burger from Lotteria.

For those who don't know, one of my major tasks at Serious Eats is editing A Hamburger Today, our hamburger-centric blog. I recently put up a post by Lee Anne about burgers in Taipei, which got good feedback. Overall, I'd like to increase coverage of burgers around the world, whether or not the burgers are appealing to an American palate, assuming they're popular with the locals. I'm interested in documenting how the idea of an American burger is translated around the world, like the rice bun burger I ate from Lotteria in Seoul or the burger I ate in Iceland.

And that's where you come in. Methinks I have a good number of readers outside of the US, and out of those, a bunch of burger lovers. If you find a great American-style burger in Vietnam, I'd like to hear about it. And if Vietnamese people have made their own version of a burger, I'd like to hear about that too. Stuff like that. Etc.

If you're interested in contributing, whether you're in the US or not, please email burger@seriouseats.com. Burger reviews don't have to be as long as the ones linked above; they could just be a photo with a short description. But if you want to be more complete, here are some guidelines.

Another note: I'm trying to round up "atypical fast food burgers in Asia" for a possible post (akin to my Top Ten Crazy Asian Pizza Crusts post). If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

I've eaten at Motorino twice in Brooklyn, once in the East Village, and once at work by way of my boss tucking a few pizza boxes under his arm and biking them back to our office in Chelsea. And for some reason, the tepid flaps of Margherita I ate in the office ended up being the most impressionable Motorino pizza-eating experience of the four. I didn't attempt to reheat the pizza to its formerly melty-cheese-on-top-of-a-crispy-crust glory; I was impatient, and if my stomach could talk, it would've yelled something like, "HOOO MAN, THERE'S PIZZA [gurgle] EAT IT NOW [gurgleflorp] MRAARAHARH [gurg]."

So I did. And what I mostly remember is the fat, poofy rim of charred dough with a tinge of smokiness and plenty of chew. Oh man—I love you, gluten.

Thank you, bright iPhone display, for granting us light.

I ate at Motorino in the East Village (where it has taken over the former Una Pizza Napoletana space) for the first time last Monday with Kathy and Ray. I thought it was better than the pizzas I've had from their Brooklyn location, although their crust was looking quite poofy on my last visit in May (a big improvement over my first visit last year). And that's what it's about—CRUST! And. Um. Toppings. Like the spicy sopressata (with chili, garlic, and oregano) pie above.

I know my friends are awesome because they'll say things like, "I've never been to Flushing before; can we go there and eat until we explode?" If you have no interest in going to Flushing, you can go sit in that corner over there marked "YOU ARE NOT MY FRIEND." Yes, the corner with the sad faces all around it.

I may not cover that much ground on my visits to Flushing—with friends in tow I tend to revisit more favorites than try new places—but I hope you find it useful that that I take photos of everything and dump them all in these really long posts, even if I've posted half the stuff before.

Trip 1: Dim Sum, Assi Plaza, Shaved Ice, Etc.

Table of awesome.

Trip one with Diana, Alice, Greg, Chichi, Gloria, Lee Anne, and my out-of-town visitors Karen and Rebecca, took place on October 17. First top: Ocean Jewels for dim sum. Details about the meal are sort of hazy since our lazy Susan went from empty to plate-covered in 5 minutes (thanks to the collaboration of pushy cart ladies and my Cantonese-speaking friends), but luckily, I took a photo of every dish and Chichi wrote about it on Serious Eats. Her overall impression: meh. My opinion is worthless; I haven't had enough dim sum to know what's good. I'd just listen to Chichi, and according to her, this shizz blows (not her exact words): too many room temperature dishes, not enough stand out deliciousness. If you've eaten the best dim sum in Southern California (and beyond) as Chichi has, all dim sum in New York City might be underwhelming.

I need some virtual balloons.

Actually, five years and seven days. But it's close enough.

I started this blog about five years ago on November 16, 2004 during my sophomore year of college at NYU, and my first year in their food studies program after transferring from Vassar College. I had blogged for years before during high school, touching upon the typical teenage topics of how much school sucks and whining a lot, but decided to go the food-centric route at NYU considering that, from then on, my life would become food-centric. In Vassar, I followed a raw food diet, which didn't make for the most compelling writing ("Today I ate 12 plums").

My first blog entry is embarrassingly bad—I chose to forgo an introduction and type whatever food-related thoughts came through my head, whether or not they flowed well or sounded intelligible—but I'll point it out for the purposes of showing how much things have changed since then. (For one thing, in my first post I wrote about macarons, a central foodstuff of my obsession, without even knowing its real name.) If it weren't for all of you readers, I might still be posting brain farts instead of stuff that's actually helpful. (A part of me enjoys the stuff I wrote a few years ago more than what I write these days, but I think that's a casualty of being out of school and working—life has changed. I'm getting old...er. Etc.)

Tortillas. Inside.

I don't eat Mexican food as much as I should. It doesn't help that New York City is known for having bad Mexican food—like, it exists here, but most of it blows. Or so I've been told. Growing up in suburban New Jersey meant little Mexican food made its way into my diet, and I never developed the palate to be able to tell what's really good or bad. The tastiest Mexican food I've eaten the city has come from food trucks, specifically those that offer tongue tacos, my favorite filling. But since I'm not much for eating outside (most likely in the cold) while standing up, I rarely visit taco trucks, and rarely eat Mexican food.

Neon!

So what drove me to visit Tortilleria Mexicana Los Hermanos in Bushwick? My friends Veronica and Tristan wanted to go. Also, Anthony Bourdain went there, and he has the knack for making everything he eats automatically be the thing I really want to eat. And, most importantly, it's a tortilla factory...with a small kitchen and seating area in the front. Fresh tortillas take a short journey from the neighboring assembly line, to the griddle, to your mouth.

Cong Ly, with Diana and Greg in the front.

"I think my hand smells like dog poop. Here, you sniff it."

It should only take you one guess to figure out who said this. His name rhymes with "schbleg."

At the sort of last minute on Wednesday night, I cobbled together a dinner at Cong Ly in Chinatown with Greg, Lee Anne, and Diana. My first, and only visit to Cong Ly was almost four years ago—I recall the child-sized 100-pound bag of sugar more so than the food, which tasted fine. Vietnamese food, like Mexican food, is another one of those cuisine I like but rarely eat, for the similar reason of there not being stand-out awesome Vietnamese food in the city. That's the impression I've gotten, at least. The idea to visit Cong Ly arose when, while hanging out with Greg et al., someone asked, "What's the best Vietnamese restaurant in the city?" We had no answers. (We'll take suggestions, though.)

Where does Cong Ly rate on the scale of Vietnamese Food Awesomeness? It's probably not the best, but I like it (which only mean anything if you trust my taste buds; I'm not sure you should), and it's cheap. Also, that good ol' Chinatown standard of harsh fluorescent lighting makes food photography a cinch. I love me some no-frills environment.

It's a turkey! I think. Drawn for Serious Eats.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! ...A day later. (I did start writing it on Thanksgiving, if that means anything. I write really, really slowly.) My Thanksgiving started with a tiny onslaught of text messages wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving. Which was lovely, except I was still sleeping. I mean, up until my phone went "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP" (it only takes half a beep to pull me out of dream-mode). Still, I appreciated the thought and the unintentional wake-up calls. :)

My alarm officially went off at 11 a.m. (hey, I went to bed at 4 a.m.) so that my mom and I could release our turkey out of its saline bath—otherwise I would've slept even more. It was our first time brining a turkey; we sort of followed the spatchcock method, meaning that it sort of worked. We probably overcooked the turkey, but it was still a bit more moist than usual. (Gravy and cranberry sauce helped, too.) I made pan roasted brussels sprouts and mashed potatoes for sides, and pumpkin pie brûlée for dessert.

For the first time during Thanksgiving, it only took one plate to knock me out. "Soooo guys, I'm gonna take a nap now." I hobbled a few feet to the couch and nursed a sloshy belly as I listened to my mom and brother continue dinner. HOW DID I BECOME SO WEAKSAUCE?

It's easy to say what I'm thankful for. I'm thankful/surprised that my digestive system still works. That I still have all my limbs. That I continue to evade diabetes and obesity. That my family is cool. That I have a job. That you guys read my blog. And that I have some of the most awesome friends in the world. Shall I talk about one of them? OKAY!!!