NYC Burger Tour! The Planning.

What kind of madman creates a walking tour of NYC based on hamburgers?

Whenever I read articles that talk about "The Best * in NYC" It's usually a list of someone's top 10 places or so that are worth looking in to. For most specific foods, this list gets its entries repeated several times over. For example, ramen will commonly list recent mainstays such as Setagaya and Minca, giving mention to Menkui-Tei, Menchako-Tei, Sapporo, and a few others. BBQ will commonly include Daisy Mae's and Dinosaur. Cupcakes always pulls up Magnolia and Buttercup. 

Burgers are no exception. Shake Shack and Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien tend to dominate lists. However, the burger is a much more ubiquitous beast as compared to foods like ramen or cupcakes. Every place that does meat does a burger of some sort. Every diner, steakhouse, pub will have a burger, to greater or lesser effect. Even within thta realm, the hamburger is a varied creature. Just as we can theoretically generate taxonomy for bread bag clips, we can do much the same for the hamburger. We have grilled burgers, pub burgers, diner burgers, fast food burgers, sliders, stuffed burgers--the hamburger is a varied creature whose diversity lends itself to divergences in opinion that we cannot commonly find among food.

In this vein, the burger also lends itself to a sort of extreme difficulty when it comes to sampling them. The bulk of restaurant burgers tend to be 8-10 ounces of anywhere between 10-30% non-meat (presumably beef fat) content. This is a mighty, mighty thing for people to eat en masse. At least with ramen, it's mostly carbs, and broth is a purely optional venture (as was the case with me in Menchako-Tei). Burgers are often served as a platter, and to condemn fries to reheating in an oven is something of a sin (especially if they're fresh-cut and fresh fried). It basically lends itself to a short trip downtown to 5 or so places before a sort of gastronomic wall erects itself and/or we're stuck with 2-5 bags of fries, dying their slow painful death of The Sogginess.

Now, 6 places isn't particularly minor in any real way, but in a landscape as varied as the hamburger, I feel it sells the tour short. My mad vision was to hit 10 places over about 7-8 hours and get a real sampling of several types of burger from several places in NYC. Unfortunately, I had mentioned this offhand to too many of my friends to be able to keep such and ambitious itinerary. As it is, the current party consists of 9 people:

Me, J, Ch, SDS +1, S, EGC, B, M., and F. 

It will be a 6 stop tour, starting at 39th, meandering around toward NYU, conveniently enough ina  pub, hopefully to end the evening well. 

City Burger (39th & B'way)

Shake Shack (23rd & Madison)

Blue 9 (13th and 3rd) 

Paul's (St Marks and 2nd)

Shopsin's (Essex St., Off Delancy)

Stoned Crow (Washington, near NYU)

Walking Path! 

The walking path is about 4.5 miles total. and it wanders around downtown a whole lot.

Anyway, wish me luck!

Edits: FU Blogger!

Vote Kiviak in '09

So, I put in an entry for Kiviak as the "Most disgusting delicacy" and it got picked as a finalist.

http://www.culinaryschools.org/blog/cat/disgusting-delicasies/

If it wins, I get 500 bucks, and for the first time ever, my esoteric knowledge of all things food-related suddenly pays for the rent.

My entry, Kiviak is probably one of the nastiest things that I could ever imagine someone having to use for sustenance. The reason behind its development is likely that in colder climates, people needed a way to preserve meat while keeping it raw. People found that eating little but cooked meat left them with a distinct nutritional deficiency (specifically Vitamin D). As such, the delicacy Kiviak came into being.

Kiviak, quite simply, is fermented auks. Because older cultures did not have the luxury of wooden barrels, they instead used disemboweled seal carcasses to store de-feathered auks. The seal carcass is rubbed with oil and sutured shut, then left to ferment underground for 2-7 months beneath a large, flat stone. The seal meat is not eaten, but instead the birds are split open and their fermented intestinal juice eaten directly or used as sauce.

It's quite hideous, I feel, but apparently, the same concept is used to create fish sauce. When it comes down to it, fermentation, be it alcohol, yogurt, cheese, or even bread, is simply controlled rotting. The primary difference is that eating a fermented food is often very healthful, while just chowing down on rotted anything will make you sick.

Anyway, being the enormous anime geek I am, I discovered this via Moyashimon, a food-science anime: 

 

Lovely.

Anyway, please vote for me if you can. My entry is listed as Kiviak. I'll get 500 dollars if I win.

http://www.culinaryschools.org/blog/cat/disgusting-delicasies/

BiLOLogy: The taxonomy and phylogeny of Occlupanids

The Holotypic Occlucanid Reseseach Group has undertaken an ambitious effort to classify and phylogenize a recently discovered set of organisms dubbed Occlupanids, more commonly known as "Bread Bag Clips."

http://www.horg.com/horg/intro.html

Their work is nothing short of impressive, and their initial publications show a remarkable amount of attention to detail with regard to the anatomy and methodology of classification. Truly fantastic.

IRL: Take home exam due thursday. Ramen tour writeup coming. Will do writeup during study breaks. (LolFailEdit)

Eating out was expensive, but delicious.

So, I've recently had the privilege of being able to spend a large portion of my christmas money on various and sundry meals about NYC. Apparently, I'm one of few doing such an imprudent thing.

There's been two places I've had really good food.

1) Daisy May's BBQ: Best BBQ in the city, three years in a row, so they and Zagat say. I'd have to agree. Their pork ribs are tender, but not squishy, and they have an excellent, excellent rub that they put on both types of their ribs. Smoky, meaty, spiced, and with a lot of meat to the rib, it was a good buy for a half rack, bourbon peaches, and mashed potatoes with red eye gravy. I went with a bunch of friends and we managed to get 2/3 of their sides between us. We missed out on cole slaw (Not something I'd get anyway), creamed spinach, and beans (which I really, really wanted to try).

Of the sides, I was really disapointed in the dirty rice and beans. I was expecting a proper dirty rice, something with bits of leftover ground pork or beef or chicken bits (meat and/or liver and other organs), but I ended up with a fairly unimpressive rice+beans+peppers. Kind of feh.

The cornbread fell a little short too. It was dry and didn't have any of the kick that I was expecting from a "spicy" corn bread. Then again, I'm a little desensitized to spice, so it might just be an oversight, especially considering the tastiness of the ribs and other sides

The peaches were great (sweet, a little buttery, with a very pleasant tang), as were the mashed potatoes, and the corn was definitely a unique set of flavors. Corn, cheesy, peppery. It was a nice side, and added a touch of creaminess to a smoky meal.

I have to applaud them on their sweet tea. Wwith fresh mint, it was a decidedly refreshing counterpoint to a meal rich with savory and smoky flavors. If I could get the mason jar of tea again, though, I'd take the mint out halfway down the jar. It makes the tea a little astringentand overminty once there's not a lot of tea left. 

2)Kyotofu: Excellent dessert, decent tapas, lots of tofu. The restaurant by looks not unlike a tapas bar. Dim, atmospheric, upscale, looking, the place does a really unique set of desserts. In a sense, it's not at all unlike Chikalicious, a second favorite, in that the desserts are high-end, slightly gimmicky, but extremely delicious. 

In my first try, I had their soymilk soft serve sundae, which was a fairly standard vanilla/chocolate swirl garnished with Mochi and served with a side of mixed berry compote and kuromitsu (japanese brown sugar) whipped cream. It was not unlike a regular sundae, but with a slightly heartier feel and slightly more complex palate than regular ice cream, with relaly really good toppings.

I went again last night and I had a chance to try some of their tapas. I didn't find them extraordinary, but they certianly were tasty and deifnitely uniquely presented. I had a 4 sampler of Lotus Root, Smoked Salmon Onigiri, Unagi in Phyllo, and a Curry Puff. I found all but the Unagi tasty. The unagi was suprisingly fishy, or at least the piece that I had was kind of much. I didn't really sense any major flavor differences once I bit into the bit of sansho pepper, Overall, the tapas were pretty good, but a little pricey (really, 4 dollars for a Beard Papa cream puff-sized curry puff?)

Their strawberry shortcake is probably the uniquely presented dessert I've eaten. In essence, it's presented like a Strawberry Shortcaketini,  Base layer of shansho-spiced shotycake, one layer of tofu cream, sorbet, strawberries, and some gelatin. In a sense, it's a lighter version of the classic strawberry shortcake. Less cream, more fruit, better presentation (though, that's not to say I  dislike the clean, This Is Cake look that a wedge of strawbery shortcake has.) It's nice, but the cake itself is kind of dense. It's got a nice peppery finish to it, with a good creaminess and strong strawberry flavor. It's good, but I'm not sure if it's worth the 12 dollar price tag.

Overall, Kyotofu has very well-executed desserts. I think some feel a little lacking, but their use of ingredients is typically above reproach. I have yet to try everything, truthfully, and I would like to get around to eating their soft tofu, since it's their signature dish. Still, it's a good place to try something more extraordinary than standard dessert fare.

What next? Dunno. I might try something vegetarian, or scout out a decent Indian restaurant that's not Indian alley, and not overpriced. Or, I might go on a crusade to find cheap Korean in Manhattan.

I still have htat burger tour of mine to design, and someday, I'll write about Ramen Tour NYC Version 0.1.

All the things I needed to know, I learned at the farmer's market.

I've always enjoyed farmers markets a whole lot. The very idea of taking local (or regional) produce, and selling it where it can't normally be accessed is a capital idea. Though, for me there's always been two problems with them.

Price. Location.

So, it's just my luck that on the first Wednesday at school I run into a small, but well-stocked farmer's market right in front of my school. That solves the location issue.

The two mainstays of this particular market (99th and Madison) are Mignorelli (Tivoli, NY) and Breezy Hill Orchard (Staatsburg, NY), both about 100 miles north of the city, in NY.

Mignorelli is most obviously a greens farm, providing a good abundance of chards, collards, and root vegetables, including radish, carrot, and numerous other bulbous turnip analogues. They even deal in lettuce and salad greens, putting them in large styrofoam containers. toward the front is a variety of fruit, plums, peaches, apricots in the summer.

Breezy Hill seems more like a bakery than an orchard/cider mill. Half the stall is assorted pies, pastries and cookies (and the requisite apple cider donuts), the other half is large wooden crates filled with a variety of fruit (seasonal orchard fruit).

It's a rather underwhelming market, but it's got a good selection. There's usually a third seller (whose name I didn't catch), and on occasion, I'd catch a fourth, though they vary depending on season (the last one was concord grapes from the Niagara region).

Really, the farmer's market was a nice alternative to the usual produce I get from the local Associated, and lacking the unreasonable price bumping for mediocre goods (instead getting the standard higher price for local-ish food). The price aspect is, in aprt solved by a special program Sinai has with the greenmarket. Every Wednesday, students and staff are eligible to get $2 off anything at the market. It's pretty sweet, considering the quality of the produce there. 

As per the things I ended picking up from each:

Mignorelli: Donuts, Collards, Carrots, Chard.

All of these were fresh and delicious. The donuts were actually pretty good, though not apple-y at all (surprise surprise). I was actually kind of surprised to find a little grren caterpillar in with my collards the first time I bought them. I was a little grossed out, but not surprised, since they grow their stuff without pesticides. I was kind of charming. I let the little fellow play around on one of th ecollard branches before I set it free in Central Park.

Breezy Hill: Apples, apples, apples, and oh, did I mention apples? Also, apple cider.

At this market, the gallon of cider for 5 bucks is the best deal. I regularly indulged every week, and cleared out my gallon of cider by the end of the weekend. I mulled it regularly using the mulling spice blend from Penzey's. Good stuff.

Apples: I picked up a few varieties, but I was msot impressed by the Camille apples that they had. I'm normally no fan of raw apples at all, but these were fantastic. Softer skin, very juicy, a little tart, a little sweet, it was the best kind of apple I've had so far. It's a meh cooking apple (due largely to the enormous water content), but it's great with a little honey, or straight off the core.

The Market's gone now, but at the very least I stocked up on enough cider to last me for... two weeks.

orz

Pocky and Dew don't count as a meal.

So, News. Lots.

Med school is a bust. I got interviews at NYCOM and UBuffalo Medical, but neither of them panned out (Waitlist with no result and Rejection, respectively.

Instead, I'm taking my hand at a Master's in Biomedical Sciences at Mt. Sinai. It's research. No, I don't really like LIKE research, but given how things have gone, I think that might be less about the pursuit of new knowledge and more the sum of a rather mediocre to bad set of experiences in the field.

So, I'm back in school, and I've been doing well. Well enough. 

What does this mean for the blog? Well...

I dunno. I think there's still a lot of food out there, and now that I'm in the heart of NYC, I can actually start getting some primo stuff. I can't cook with it, seeing as my time is limited and the lab is demanding and the course work is pivotal and money is tight. The dog is in the kennel, over. (GO! GO! GO!) 

Still, there's cooking to be done, and a new way to do it. I'll try to update, and when I do, it'll be about good food that's easy to make, or about good food that's easy to buy. Regardless, it'll still be about food.

Dinner tonight is the post title. I have a midterm on Monday. I'm having a wonderful pairing of regular Pocky with a lovely 2008 Rosée De La Montagne in the quiet and comfy Levy Library.

Cheers!

Edit: I'm still bad a proofreading. orz

Breaking a promise, but making a point.

I know I promised myself and others that I'd lay off of the relationship heavy stuff, since this is strictly a blog about food and procrastinating, but this has been something on the mind of a close friend who recently broke up with hers, (and hence, sort of on my mind) and is slightly relevant (I think) to my own life at the moment.

Plus, I did this instead of writing MOAR ESSAYS (Also small update. Hold status from Upstate, and only 7 more to go, DO AND MD.

This is a slightly modified version of my response to this article that she posted on her community site (i.e. Myspace, Facebook, etc.).

For the e-mail folk, I'm sorry for the multiple edits. I'm terrible at proofreading for clarity.
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I'm inclined to agree in part with the article, as it goes along the lines of a central idea of "In all things, moderation." It's something we see in all parts of life, and love and affection are hardly an exception.

A proper relationship of any kind requires that both people be able to respect each other's boundaries and needs. Friends often fall apart because someone's too nosy, or too brash, unkind, or too clingy. Relationships can self destruct because it feels more like a chore to be with someone than a fantastic thing in itself

In a romantic relationship, that's a lot harder because people are de facto closer together. They share more, they're more emotionally invested, they... do more with greater meaning because everything is so tied together. Being capable of autonomy in a relationship means being able to step back and NOT be so entrenched in someone else that any form of separation is painful.

It's about being realistic, and it's maintaining individuality and autonomy even when it feels like you can pour your all into someone else. Some of the scariest relationships I've seen are when people say that "X is my all," and instead of celebrating them, they submit to them. It's a functional relationship, but that doesn't make it fulfilling, or even morally correct.

As much as a relationship is a union, it is a union of two unique, though similar elements. As much as the yin and yang create a circle, the yin-yang is also representative of two disparate elements containing an element of the other within them (The dichotomous Animus and Anima, if we're to be Jungian). To push the analogy further, the yin-yang is a symbol of balance as much as it is one of unity. Neither takes up more than the other, and neither dominates the other, instead fitting neatly in equal proportions.

One of the most important things I learned coming off my relationship was that I held my then girlfriend too close, and read too much into everything. I overreacted a lot because she was too precious to me, and relied on her too much to see me through things I should have taken on my own. Relationships can make us stronger, but they also leave open the possibility of leaning on people when we shouldn't, and expecting of them things we should never ask them to shoulder.

In a relationship, it's important to be close, but as a protein's function is enabled by its shape, as a molecule is held together by its bonds, there is only so much space everything can take up, and only so much distance everything can share before it flies apart by its own forces.

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Most of me is posting this because I really like the analogy at the end. Part of me is posting this because it's got subtleties that I like, but only when juxtaposed with comments from others on the source entry. Part of me is posting this as a medal of my own growth and retro- and introspection. Just a little part of me is posting this in hopes that a specific someone I know will see it, and will perhaps clear up something I feel is important. Or, it could make things worse. It usually does. ^^