The Girl Who Ate Everything

This entry took place on November 29. Sorry for the lack of activity—it's been an oddly busy week. Maybe someday I'll even write about it! Heh heh! Yeah! Is that what I do? Yeah.

This is going to be one of those posts with lots of photos and some words that go with the photos. Which is generally how they all are. But this one is going to have EVEN FEWER (man, I almost said "less"...[wipes sweat from brow]) WORDS. You'll love it.*

*Not guaranteed.

People. Hangin.

Jason and I embarked on a multiple-hour-face-stuffing-session to make the most of his stopover in New York City from his family's home in South Jersey to his job in New Haven, starting at Epistrophy in Nolita for a late brunch.

Orecchiette.

Unfortunately, Jason's plate of orecchiette with potato and green beans in pesto was sandy. Or gritty. Or a characteristic that pesto shouldn't have.

This post originally took place on December 7. Also, I look a lot like the people in these Halls ads right now. Fail.

Lomzynianka...bloopbloop.

Innards. Of. Restaurant.

"Look, she's gonna take a photo."

I paused for a split second, but didn't look up. The commentary was coming from the table of three young men diagonally from us. These things rarely happens, but when they do, I generally feign deafness and continue with my excessive photo-taking. I turned the plate of fried pierogies around for a better angle, and then the commentary continued.

"Yup, she took a photo."

This time, I looked up. Just a smidge. "Um, I can hear you," I said.

"I know."

Monday night's dinner at Lomzynianka with Sarah marked the first time someone else in a restaurant noticed me taking photos and said it with the intention of me hearing, but seemingly not with the intention of engaging in conversation. Or maybe I was too taken off guard to do the "conversing" part. And I was. Because, in addition to lacking basic social skills, I'm not really sure how to react to a stranger who is stating the obvious. "Yup, this camera I'm holding...I'm taking photos with it...and you are looking at me doing it...and um...I'm going to eat these pierogies now." Later in the dinner, they did ask us how the blintzes were, but aside from that, I was mostly sort of befuddled.

So to address the oft-brought up question, "Do you ever feel weird when you take photos in restaurants?" my answer is, "Only in the rare case that other people point it out to me in an awkward way." I acknowledge that my photo taking might be distracting; I just stopped giving it much thought years ago. Hope y'all can live with that.

PICKLED THINGS!

Sooo back to food. The meal started with a complimentary plate of pickled salads/slaws, of the carroty, cabbagey, and lettucey sorts. A tiny buffet of shaven vegetables. STAMP OF APPROVAL, IT HAS.

FRIED CHICKEN MOUNTAIN.

As much as I enjoy the dishes forged by the hands of the Momofuku empire, I don't like them enough to make a reservation for any of their special offerings. (Except for the bo ssam, which I've...er, had a few times before the online reservation system was in place.) But I will happily ride on the coattails of someone else's effort.

To make the most of his trip to New York City, Lee Anne's Arizonian food-loving friend Jason made reservations for Momofuku's fried chicken at Noodle Bar two Saturdays ago. He nicely extended the invitation to Lee Anne's friends. Including me. HELL YEAH, I was in. I had tried it once before on the company dime, but it's worth having more than once. Like twice. You can reserve the fried chicken with a party of four to eight; I suggest aiming for six or more unless you don't mind having a lot of leftovers. You don't want this chicken to go to waste.

For $100, you get a big honkin' mountain of chicken fried two ways—Southern style in a buttermilk batter, and triple-fried Korean style coated in a sweet and spicy sauce—four dipping sauces (hoisin, ginger-scallion, jalapeño-garlic, and gochujang-based), another big honkin bowl filled with vegetable matter, and a stack of mu shu pancakes. $100 may sound like a lot, but for up to eight people, that's as low as $12.50. For the six of us, it was $16.67 a person. Non-New Yorkers could think, "Man, you're dumb for paying so much for fried chicken," but to me it's really not that bad when compared to the prices of other fancy pants fried chicken in the city and for the quality you get. I don't think any other place is going to give you two kinds of awesome fried chicken with such a unique variety of accompanying sauces and vegetables.

This post originally took place on December 4. So chronologically-out-of-order, I am.

Rays of fried yuca. Mm hm.

What's good: corn flour pancakes stuffed with cheese and meat, griddled to a slight crispiness. What's not good: that I failed to visit Bahia for nearly two years to obtain said cheesy meaty corn pockets. What makes it more inexcusable is that for six of those months, I lived fairly close to Bahia in South Williamsburg, yet never made it over there. Where are my priorities? Why am I wasting precious stomach acids on less worthy foods? My list of failures continues to grow.

The above photo is not of pupusas, but I'm starting with it since it was the most visually appealing: a mound of fried pork chunks emanating rays of fried yuca sticks, topped with pickled red onions and some lime wedges. The pork wasn't the most succulent, but it wasn't bad—hell, it's FRIED PORK. And if you don't know what fried yuca tastes like, I see it as a heartier version of french fries. Eat this by yourself for an Insta-Food-Coma. Luckily, I had Lee Anne and Scott to help me out.

This post originally took place on December 4.

Lots of stuff on injera. Mm.

After stuffing myself with injera and stews spanning a wide range of browns at Awash with Tristan and Veronica, I was the only one who wanted dessert. And it was a pretty specific craving.

'I'm looking for a vanilla ice cream bar covered in chocolate and almonds. Needs almonds! OKAY? We'll find this. Let's go to a bodega."

So I dragged them down Amsterdam Avenue while loudly vocalizing* my desire for the right ice cream bar, into the first bodega we came across. They had chocolate covered vanilla ice cream bars, sans almonds. No good. KEEP MOVIN'.

There it is! Upside-down.

The second bodega was better stocked with the frozen spawn of Häagen-Dazs. Sandwiched between some almond-less ice cream bars was my coveted vanilla and almond bar. I have no idea why I wanted one so badly; I couldn't tell you the last time I had eaten one. Bunch of years? Bunch of years x 2? But, unlike revisiting the Choco Taco—which unfortunately tasted much better the first time I ate on in high school than when I tried it again in May, resulting in me never wanting to eat it again—the vanilla and almond bar tasted exactly as I remembered. Which was, really good. A thick crisp chocolate shell studded with roasted almond bits, with smooth vanilla ice cream innards. What's not to like? So simple, yet, so full of win.

This post originally took place on December 14.

OH YEAH.

A few weeks ago James organized a food blogger dinner at SriPraPhai, surely New York City's most famous Thai restaurant (and I had only eaten there once before—I fail). Ye know what that means: SO MUCH FOOD, OH MAN.

Here's what we ate. By this point I unfortunately don't remember much besides that I ate too much, and while coddling my distended belly I thought, "I need to do that again." To help pare this down to the good stuff I added a * to my favorite dishes (aka "dishes I'd like to order again").

BBQ Beef

BBQ beef: with chili, mint, onion, and lime juice. Those four ingredients make everything taste good, as long as you are a fan of tart and spicy.

This post originally took place on December 18. And HAPPY END OF 2009, GUYS!

EMPTIES. Kind of like in my previous entry.

omg this is one of the most incredible meals of my life. and such amazing company!

Tristan tweeted that during our group dinner at Krolewskie Jadlo ("King's Feast") with Kim, Veronica, Scott, Lee Anne, Chris, and Colin. He followed that tweet 14 minutes later with another one:

BEST NIGHT EVER

I can't argue with that. While the food was good, the company was better. And while I consider myself a modest person, I ain't gonna lie: I have some of the coolest friends in the world (yeah, yeah, I have yet to meet billions of the other people who walk this earth, but I still stand by my statement) and I take pride in the moments when I mix friends together for optimal awesomeness. Admittedly, the trio of Tristan, Colin, and Greg (who couldn't make it; so his loss) makes it easy since their powers combined tend to result in "awesome super fun time" no matter the situation. We could be stranded in a pool of mud in the middle of nowhere with a broken-down car and it'd probably be fun. Until we died of starvation. I'm sure Greg would exchange hand puppet gestures with me until the very end.

The potent Tristan-Colin-Greg combination may not appeal to everyone, but whatever inexplicable level of randomness and weirdness they produce puts me at ease, along with many other friends I introduce them to. I wish I could regale you with the night's conversations, but I forgot most of them (I can still recall the cackling and guffawing, though). This is why I should take notes: to remember the conversation, less so to remember the food. I can take photos of a roasted pork hock, but no image could adequately capture Colin's babbling about eunuchs. Which might be for the best.

AND SO HERE ARE THE FOOD PHOTOS! With not much else, because my knowledge of Polish food is sort of nonexistent. I'll gladly listen to anyone willing to school me in Polish Food 101.