The Girl Who Ate Everything

Oh no.

"Oh god, did you just put the whole dumpling in your mouth?"

Colin didn't respond. His face was frozen. Probably because the soup in the dumpling was burning off the lining of his mouth.

"You're not supposed to do that! I thought you knew. ...Oh crap."

Pinkness crept into the outer rims of his eyes. Then tears welled up. He was still silent. If I were him I would've spat out the dumpling, but he decided to see how much pain his oral mucosa could endure. Either that, or he couldn't move. Tristan and I stared helplessly and maybe laughed a lil' bit until the very end.

This post originally took place on December 13, 2009.

Salad. Yum.

How to vastly improve a salad: add a fried egg.

Hell, many things would be improved by adding a fried egg. Piece of toast too boring? BOOYA—plop on a fried egg. That bowl of ramen looking lonely? KAPOW—fried egg to the rescue! Your plate looking empty? ...Because there's nothing on it? I know what would make that better—oh hell, IT'S A FRIED EGG.

The salad ($10) I ate during brunch with Greg, Kathryn, and Dan at Diner featured mustard greens mixed with pickled shallots, thinly sliced jerusalem artichoke, and bacon nubs tossed in a potent vinaigrette (perhaps a little too much of it, but I didn't mind) all topped with a bulbous fried egg, thankfully well salted and peppered.

Unfortunately, since I ate this about a month ago and they change most of their menu every day, the salad they're currently serving won't be exactly the same—but I'm sure it's awesome. I can still remember how good my salad during my first visit to Diner in 2008 was, and it was totally different from the one I ate last month aside from also having something pickled. Hell, it was awesome even sans fried egg. A memorable salad that's unique and well balanced is hard to come by. I don't know where else to get one. (Admittedly, I haven't been looking, nor have I tried to make one myself. I'd like to delve more into the subject of how a really good salad can fill me with joy of a higher quality than that derived from a really good slab-o-pork, but I need to eat more good salads. God knows I've eaten enough pork.)

This post originally took place on January 10.

Yup, there's food.

"Are we...um...getting food?" I asked.

Diana, Greg, Adelyn, Jessica, and I were at Nom Wah, officially Chinatown's first dim sum parlor (open since 1920) according to the sign on their window, unofficially Chinatown's least occupied restaurant according to the meager clientele last Sunday night. And that's counting the two tables of old men in the back of the restaurant who were playing mahjong.

Our friendly waiter/chef/one-man-band had greeted us when we entered the restaurant and brought us a massive metal pot filled to the brim with scalding hot tea, but disappeared into the kitchen for a long enough time to make us wonder, "Does this place actually serve food?" And yes, you would wonder too, considering Nom Wah doesn't bother with menus, and we were the only people there who had the intention of eating. They serve you dim sum based on the number of people in your party. After Adelyn went to the kitchen to investigate the situation, she returned with a positive report.

"He's making food! He's back there with a huge steamer."

This post originally took place on January 7.

Szechuan Gourmet.

I have no good reason for not having been to Szechuan Gourmet more often considering how close it is to my office on 27th Street and that I usually slobber at the thought of Sichuan food (I'm going to stick to "Sichuan" to refer to the cuisine even though the restaurant uses "Szechuan"). But 39th Street between 5th and 6th avenues feels like a zone of nothingness, furthermore, a zone in the opposite direction of my apartment. So I forget it's there and continue to point my merry band of eaters to Grand Sichuan or Famous Sichuan instead.

It took Tina's organizational skills to bring Liza, Ben, Colin, and I together for dinner at Szechuan Gourmet. In conclusion, I MUST GO BACK! Oh wait, I can't conclude yet; you should probably look at what I ate first.

Spicy cucumber salad.

Spicy cucumber salad ($5.95): Crispy cucumber chunks = very good delivery system for spicy sauce.

Belly. Get in it.

I recently recommended the burger at Veselka to a friend as a good burger in the East Village. Unfortunately, after eating it he didn't feel the same way.

My first reaction: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

My second reaction after allowing my blood pressure to normalize: I can't be giving people crappy burger recs. I'll have to try it again.

Left without dinner plans last Sunday night, I went to Veselka to give it a go. In conclusion: Still good. Really good.

But before I go on, I should note that I'm not sure if the burger had succeeded merely on gustatory merits or if the mélange of unrelated demoralizing happenings coupled with low expectations had something to do with it. Maybe it was the gloomy, wet weather; maybe it was the unexpected MTA WTF-ery (aka subway rerouting); maybe it was the attempt to find a dining companion and coming up empty handed; maybe it was the lunch comprised mostly of pretzels and clementines (although that didn't make me sad, just hungry).

Or maybe I just got lucky and ended up with just the right patty at just the right doneness in just the right bun. That's how it felt.

This post originally took place on December 23.

Stop & Shop doesn't need any stinkin' windows.

Last month when I visited my mom and brother in New Jersey for Christmas, we took a trip to a local Stop & Shop because there's only so much you can do late at night in Bergen County.

...And it was also for nostalgia's sake. While growing up in Franklin Lakes, the Stop & Shop in Wyckoff was the supermarket my family shopped at the most. It was also where I got my first "real" job in 2003 near the end of senior year when I figured I may as well attempt to make a few bucks before going to college. What role did I aim for? Bagger, aka "the easiest job you could possibly get at a supermarket." I wasn't aiming to make a lot of money, just something that wasn't from my parents. $6.50 an hour for methodically placing food in plastic and paper bags didn't seem all that bad. (I hated bagging large bottles of soda though; too goddamn bulky. Cereal boxes were quite nice.)

I'm probably one of the few employees in the history of Stop & Shop who found bagging a fascinating window into the eating habits of mostly white, upper-middle class America; it was pretty different from the diet imposed by my Chinese health conscious mom. That I was taking an anthropology class at the time and was on a raw food diet probably contributed to that fascination, though. (I remember taking tabs on the customers who bought fruits and vegetables and those who didn't. Because that's what you do when everything you eat is raw.) But baggies of luncheon meats and gallon jugs of milk can only captivate a 17-year-old with a short attention span for so long—a few months, in my case. I can't remember what I did in the period between end-of-work and beginning-of-school, but it probably involved sleeping excessively and eating loads of fruit. After I stopped working there, going back to buy groceries felt awkward.

FOOOOOD.

So...fast forward about six years. The Stop & Shop I used to work in is no more; the strip mall it once resided in got a full makeover. While the location is the same, the new building is larger—think "Walmart-esque"—and the design is friendlier and more welcoming. I rub my eyes and, through slack-jawed mouth, utter something profound, like, "Whoaaaaa." If you're accustomed to the tight aisles of New York City's supermarkets, you would too.

This supermarket probably isn't anything special to most people—hell, maybe most new Stop & Shops look like this. But all I could think is, "This place is fuggin' huge." I happily cruised the mostly empty aisles with my brother. Here are some things I thought were worth photographing.

CUPCAKES...that I didn't eat today.

This morning on the way to lunch, I unintentionally passed the Brooklyn Flea at One Hanson Place, a fortuitous encounter since I had been meaning to visit it for weeks. I paused in front of the building for about five seconds, thinking, "Do I continue to the subway or get a cupcake?"

When in doubt, choose "cupcake."

I headed straight towards Kumquat Cupcakery's table in the basement. First bite of the day: mini chocolate-caramel cupcake nubbin. Mmmm. I prefer mini cupcakes over regular sized cupcakes for two reasons: mini cupcakes provide just the right amount of cake and frosting to satisfy my sweet tooth, unlike regular cupcakes, which I usually tire of by the last bite; and bakers who specialize in mini cupcakes (such as Nine Cakes and Cake Lab, in addition to Kumquat) seem to have higher standards for their two-bite desserts than those who make regular-sized cupcakes because they have to pack more awesomeness in a smaller package.

Anyway. Good breakfast.