meats=yummy

YAY YAY more trashy tv! i totally can't wait for this show. there's even an asian version of the situation who's also been involved in nude pictorials and, allegedly, porn. ::crossing my fingers that it gets picked up:: i'll finally get to see how stupid, trashy, and hilarious we can be ::excited squeal::

phew. all trashiness depleted for the moment.

haven't embarked on a Restaurant Week in a while due to complete lack of funds, but finally did and can't think of a better way to kick it off. GI has migrated back to the East Coast after having moved out to Cali for the past few years. GI and i met when we were both studying abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland, and, as it so happened, both of us were dating people when our friendship developed. in turn, there was never a sexually tense moment between us and, somehow, it's managed to stay that way throughout these 7 years we've known each other. i guess the fact that he was in Chicago and i was in Northampton helped. and then the fact that he moved to Cali and i was in NJ/NY also helped. but i've been in similar situations and something still happened so i'd like to think it's more than that with GI.

GI and i hadn't been able to meet up since his move to the east, and he's been here for a few months already so it was great that we could finally coordinate something between the 2 of us. we ended up deciding to eat at Rayuela, which i've always been interested to eat at since i hear good things, and also because they were offering an interesting Restaurant Week menu.

of course, on the date of our dinner, the weather was sweltering. by the time i got to the restaurant i was drenched in sweat. it was not pretty (or you could say it was really pretty-pretty gross). i arrived early so i grabbed a seat at the bar and lamented the fact that, even with the front door closed, the restaurant was still warm. a tall glass of ice water remedied that situation.

GI and i got a prime seat near the front of the restaurant but at the corner booth, which was really nice. the only drawback was when our waitress came over with a small towel wrapped on a stick. why, you ask? because the sweltering heat was making the A/C work overtime, which resulted on it sweating down on diners who were sitting underneath it. i really appreciated that they were coming around to wipe the A/C sweat so it didn't rain down on me, but then, after that initial wipe, they never came back! it only rained on me once, and i just scooted to the right a little and avoided any more mishaps.

Rayuela is not a bad date option, but it also serves just as good for a friendly-dinner option. the ambience is chic but not pretentiously so (yes, the tree in the middle of the room that grows up towards the 2nd floor is very cool) and the lighting is just dim enough that it could be romantic, but not pitch black so it doesn't feel weird if you're not on a date-date. GI commented he was surprised to see such a fine-dining-esque restaurant in this location, but i'm not surprised at NYC anymore and i truly believe the sectioning off of neighborhoods and types is growing blurrier and blurrier every day.

just to prove that great minds think alike, GI and i ordered the exact same menu, except for the dessert (which we split) and our choice of wine-pairings, which is only an extra $15 so i highly recommend-although i could skip the dessert wine. blech too sweet.
the amuse of gazpacho was a nice start and more than a shot glass's worth, which is always appreciated. sometimes i'm a fan of gazpacho, other times i'm not. because it was so hot outside, the gazpach was very welcome and refreshing. We both ordered the Carpaccio de Corvina & Calamari Ceviche. i'm a total sucker for ceviches so i was really looking forward to this, but it ended up tasting a little bland, which threw me off since ceviche usually entails a strong acidic/citrusy flavor. and the corvine did not taste like carpaccio but instead had the taste and texture of cooked fish. however, the sweet potato croquette was piping hot, crunchy on the outside but soft and starchy on the inside=totes delish.

As entrees we had the Piramide de Carne which is beef, duck, AND pork in a single dish. i had been torn between ordering this or the lamb or the swordfish but this completely paid off. although the portion looked "eh", the density of all those meats and a side of rice=completely filling. the poached egg was perfectly poached (something i wish i could do myself) and i broke it over my rice and swooped up any extra yummy yolk with my 3 meats.
for dessert, GI and diverged so that we could get a taste of both offerings. the Pastel Rojo=red velvet cake with typical white frosting. i like red velvet cake, don't get me wrong. but is that really latin american fare? the Natilla de Chocolate had so much potential but it was starting to melt by the time it got to our table and within 4 bites was a soupy mess.

overall i thought the meal was great, sans dessert, but honestly, by that time i was pretty full anyway.

****update****

yesterday i got a call from the NYC Department of Health. apparently somebody reported getting sick after eating at Rayuela on the same night GI and i did. i'm not sure what they ate or what happened but i just want to reiterate: GI and i were perfectly healthy after our meal. the only thing we left Rayuela with was a case of food satisfaction.

i blame Chef Boyardee

i blame him for why i have to awake at 5:30 a.m. to go to the gym and have someone abuse me and my thighs, abs, calves, and arms.

no, i haven't been stocking up on cans of those shamefully delicious meals.

i recently joined the gym because i couldn't handle my big fat ass anymore. especially since i am around my skinny-minnie, smaller-than-a-barbie-doll little sister. what's worse is that she's secretly a Hungry Hungry Hippo! she just eats and eats and eats and eats and eats... well, you get my point. yet she's just barely hitting 100 lbs. curse you H-Cubed!

even tho i've joined a gym and do want to take this get-healthy (PC speak for get skinny) thing seriously, it doesn't mean i've just instantly stopped craving food. and what's worse is that i constantly crave bad food e.g. meals by Mr. Chef Boyardee (or is it just Mr. Boyardee since Chef is his title, like Doctor or Esquire?). since i was a latch-key kid (save your sympathy. i want it not) i ended up eating a lot of Kid Cuisines, Chef Boyardee, and instant ramen. in hindsight, not a great food diet, and i've really developed a pretty bad eating habit. it didn't really start taking a visible physical toll until college (college=bad food and laziness all rolled into one).

however, since i don't like to take any responsibility for what happens to me, i need a blame scapegoat. so, curse you Chef Boyardee! and stop tempting with the 10 cans for $10 deal at my supermarket! you bastard!

hmmm....

does anyone else find Eminem f. Rihanna's song a little ironic based on what happened between her and Chris Brown?



don't get me wrong, the song's great, but um... i can't help but think about Chris Brown here.

Expiration Dates Are Just Guidelines

...at least that's what i tell myself. it makes me feel better about certain things like the Peach Light & Fit yogurt i'm eating right now. the lid clearly shows an expiration date of April 25, 2010. here's my thought process:

"o crap, i'm late for work. i need to grab a quick breakfast. but i don't have time to make anything."

"oooo, there's a lot of yogurt left. i'll grab one of those."

(pause) "April 25th huh? what's today's date? i know it's definitely May at this point."

"ooo, JYP and 2AM are gonna be at Roseland Ballroom on the 18th. should i go? i don't really want to see JYP but i totes wanna see 2AM...wait, no time for random tangents."

"o crap, no time at all! i'll just grab this yogurt. after all, it's already milk gone bad. how much worse can it get with time?"

...and that's how i end up at this moment: typing this blog post after having just eaten an expired yogurt. it tasted fine. and i know i won't get sick because i already ate one yesterday and didn't get sick.

also, i can't believe they're making an Asian-American "Jersey Shore" set in K-town. i can't tell if this is gonna be the stupidest show ever or pure evil genius. it has the potential to have all my favorite reality show ingredients:

1. FIGHTS: cause korean guys and girls love to throw down. it's actually one of the reasons i'll actually go to K-town on weekend nights. the night starts out with everyone looking good in their going-out gear and as the night progresses you start seeing guys formerly in button-downs all of a sudden turn into brawlers in wife-beaters. seriously, they change into white/black tanktops the way Clark Kent changes into Superman. do korean guys have special button-downs to do that? they just tug a little at the collar of their button-down and it rips away to reveal the tanktop underneath? and the girls are just as good because they almost always are the ones who instigate the fights. and when korean girls fight each other, watch out. those girls look all hoochie but they can get super-gangsta when it comes time to fight. or else they'll get some guy to do it for them.

2. DRUNKEN SLOPPINESS: no explanation necessary hear. going out in K-town is always bottles and "buying rounds and shots for the boys". everyone's a baller in K-town (or at least they like to look like they are). and everyone's friends with the promoters and bartenders so there's always tons o' drinks.

3. PIMPS & HOES: based on the aforementioned #2, it shouldn't be surprising the hooking up that ensues. although, in this aspect, i don't think K-town's as bad as other places. it's pretty much on par or, actually, even less. why? because asian girls only run in 2 kinds: those that can hold their liquor and those that can't. there's not many in-betweens. so asian guys don't have much luck either way. asian girls that can hold their liquor won't sloppy it out in the middle of the club (at least not for long. if they like you, you might get some action, but not for more than a few mins in public-then it's all behind closed doors). asian girls that can't hold their liquor will sloppy it up for as long as the drunkeness holds, but then it always inevitably goes downhill. those girls almost always end up getting sick and then it's toilet hugging and falling down all over the place, but rarely hooking up at the same time.

o well, i'll just have to wait and see. how badly does it reflect on my that i'm more than a little intrigued by the concept?

there's something fishy...

i'm originally from North Jersey (or at least, i consider it North Jersey; Creeper, who's from AC has disputed me on this) and so i know predominantly North Jersey towns e.g. Montclair, Parsippany, Livingston, Hoboken, Fort Lee, etc. My current employment is in Bridgewater, NJ, which i consider Central Jersey, and is thus out of my "comfort zone" of known NJ.

something i've noticed about Central Jersey is the reedonkulous prices for everything! the gas prices are a hefty .20 more per gallon and food prices are equivalent to a NY lunch (around the $8 range, and that's the cheap side!). i thought it might just be the town i work in, but i attended a deposition today in Morristown and was forced to stop to get gas and it was the same price! although, a caveat for Morristown is that it's a very business and yuppie-oriented area so they might just jack up prices because the population can afford it.

who does Central Jersey think it is? NYC? i don't think so.

while pondering this, i received the daily newsletter from one of the partners which references notable published cases in NJ. it's usually a good idea to skim them regardless of the content or relevancy to what our firm does, but today, one case really stuck out: Levinson Axelrod v. Heyburn, 09-cv-5627.

after reading about the substance of the suit, i just had to check out the actual website. as the article stated, the original link has been enjoined but the alternate one still exists: Levinson Axelrod Really Sucks. the contents of the site are, as the title states, all about bashing Levinson Axelrod. bashing sites aren't new and sometimes they're not even that entertaining, and i have to admit, i haven't really perused all of it. but i gotta admit, this former associate, Heyburn, has some real balls to do what he did. the legal community isn't that big so you never want to burn any bridges or be known as an "asshole" or "difficult". hence, no one really says anything really disparaging against anyone else (aside from personal discussions within a firm-you never really discuss personal opinions with other counsel because you never know who they know).

but Heyburn: BALLS. GIANT BALLS.

i'm not sure who i think is ultimately right but the concept of the case is interesting. there's no doubt that each side has valid arguments regarding the impact of the site and i'm not sure about the relevant legal arguments since i'm not familiar with that aspect of the law. but, once again, blogs are getting ppl into trouble.

i have become completely boring.

as is obvious from my lack of update on this blog. sometimes i fail to update because i'm SUPER-LAZY but not from lack of "something" to report.

ummm.... not really the case right now.

i am just utterly and completely boring.

o well.

so, what is the point of this post then?

uuummm. just to say "hello" i guess? let any possible readers out there know i'm not dead? are there any readers out there? [insert reverberating echo here]. hmmph, i guess not. well, for the reader who happens to be reading this, i'll introduce this gadget i found useful.

since i've finally found steady employment (pending a disaster) and because i'm finally working as an Esq., i realized i should be careful what info gets put out there. enter this handy gadget which allows me to check what Facebook information is available for the public to see (i already did it and am glad to know aside from my name, there's not really much else).

um, yea, so that's it.

answer me why?

morning commutes into the City can be annoying, tiring, aggravating, angering, etc. For instance, yesterday i got onto the smelliest E train at 42nd Street. i mean, i've been in smelly cars before: sometimes it's pungent food or (usually) the noxious smell of pee. This time though, the smell was reedonkulous. it was a very smack-you-in-the-face body odor and it was unbearable. when riding on NYC subway cars, you can usually tell the NYers from the non because they have stoic faces in the face of the unusual. in the face of panhandlers, kids peddling candy, fights breaking out, NYers keep completely straight faces as if nothing happened. however, on this particular day, about 80% of the car had their noses buried into their jacket collars or scarves; and about 25% of the people were having physical reactions to the odor. it was so offensive that even when i stepped off the train and got to work i still had the feeling of being dirty, as if the smell had somehow attached itself to me like a thin layer on top of my skin. ::shiver:: even now, the memory haunts me...

Sometimes, on those rare occasions, the commute can also be entertaining. for instance, a few days ago i had missed my initial bus to work and was waiting for the next one. my bus stop is right outside of a 7-Eleven and is a high traffic area for kids on their way to the middle and high school. i also happened to be wearing jeans to work that day. as i waited, a yellow school bus stopped in front of me and opened it's doors. i was confused for a moment until i realized: the driver thought i was a student waiting for the school bus. not bad for a 27 year old i guess. or is it?

i've recently been reading the book Eating a Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman. i had NO IDEA what the book was about when i picked it up at the library. i just thought the cover was interesting and then i read the inside jacket and my interest was piqued enough to at least check the book out from the library. i figured if it sucked i'd just stop reading it.

the 1st chapter entitled "Something Instead of Nothing", asking the question "why do people feel the need to answer questions?" was mildly interesting. there was one part that i found particularly interesting:

"I'm not sure that we aren't seeing the emergence of

a society in which almost everyone who isn't famous

considers themselves cruelly and unfairly unheard.

As though being famous, and the subject of wide attention,

is considered to be a fulfilled human being's natural

state-and so, as a corollary, the cruelly unheard millions

are perpetually primed and fired up to answer any and

all questions in order to redress this awful imbalance"

-quote from Chris Heath in Eating the Dinosaur

this concept feels true. look at this blog for instance, and all the millions of other blogs out there. everyone's just spilling over to share their opinions, their ideas, their voice. hence the appeal of appearing on reality television.

i had no idea when i started to read it, that the book is a collection of essays. which was a pleasant surprise because i don't know if i could a read an entire book about interviewing and why people answer questions. i haven't finished the book yet (i'm currently on the chapter about ABBA) but i heartily recommend it. the topics are entertaining and completely relatable. they're relatable because they feel true. his topics have a very Murphy's-Law-feel to them and often they're concepts you've discussed yourself with friends or had fleetingly thought about at one time or another.

my favorite essay is "Tomorrow Rarely Knows" which discusses time travel. it touches upon every concept you've ever discussed or thought about time travel and then explores it a little more. but that's not why i like it. for me personally, was extremely relatable. at one point, Klosterman talks about having the fantasy of reliving his entire life while still possessing his present-day mind. and i have that fantasy ALL THE TIME. okay, all the time is exaggerating it a little. but i do think about it on more than one occassion. it's just such an appealing idea to me but i never delved into exactly why, aside from the obvious. but Klosterman provided a motivation that, while not a great revelation about me, still seems pretty spot on:

"I used to have a fantasy about reliving my entire

life with my present-day mind...I imagine the bizarre

things I would have said to teachers in junior high.

I think about women I would have pursued and stories I

could have written better and about how interesting it

would have been to be a genius four-year-old. At its

nucleus, this fantasy is about never having to

learn anything. The defining line from Frank Herbert's

Dune argues that the mystery of life 'is not a question

to be answered but a reality to be experienced.' My

fantasy offers the opposite. Nothing would be

experienced. Nothing would feel new or unknown or

jarring. It's a fantasy for people who want to solve

life's mysteries without having to do the work...

The desire to travel through time is electrifying and

rational, but it's a desire of weakness... People who

want to travel through time are both (a)unhappy

and (b) unwilling to compromise anything about who

they are. They would rather change every element of

society except themselves...

It takes a flexible mind to imagine how time travel

might work, but only an inflexible spirit would

actually want to do it. It's the desire of the depressed

and lazy."-excerpt from Eating the Dinosaur

...and cue the choir of angels and the light bulb suddenly lighting up above my head. while i've had the fantasy plenty of times, it's Klosterman that revealed why. hmm, i don't feel depressed, but lazy? spot on. i admit it, i have an i-wish-everything-would-just-fall-into-place attitude about life most of the time. kudos to you for revealing my inner psyche Chuck Klosterman!

hangovers need starch

there's always something daunting about going into a new place for the first time. there's something even more daunting about doing it during midtown lunch. the hustle-and-bustle of a midtown lunch spot can be intimidating when you're the newbie. if you don't understand the ordering methodology or dawdle too long about what to order from the menu, you inevitably feel the death glares from all the regulars standing behind you as well as from the person standing behind the counter taking your order.

::shiver:: NYC can be a harsh place when it comes to food. luckily for me, i tried El Papasito on the day the snow storm started, so no one was really venturing outside to get food.

i was slightly hungover from the previous night out at Go. i'd planned to meet Kiddo there for drinks and then head over to meet She and Egg for dinner at Klong. however, as always in the legal profession, work caused me to change my plans. i ended up being 30 mins late (not counting that at the last minute i rescheduled for another 30 mins, so in total it was an hour) but luckily for me Kiddo was also running late, not to mention Egg was over an hour late after that (but he works at a big-time law firm so he's forgiven because we expect that). needless to say, by the time i got to Go i was in dire need of a drink. Egg and i have decided we're going to give Go a shot as our new go-to spot (no pun intended, honestly). they have a great drink deal of sake and 16 oz. beer for only $6.50. the price has risen significantly tho since the 1st time i was there (which was probably a year ago). the drink deal used to be $5.00. if Go keeps raising it's price i'll have to stop going (again, no pun intended).

by the time Egg and She showed up, i was 2 orders into the drink deal. we decided to forego Klong (although i will go one day-i promise you that. who can resist delicious affordable Thai food and $16 bottles of wine?) and just eat at Go. being economically aware that i wanted to spend most of my money on drinks, i only ordered 2 items: a yellowtail and scallion roll ($5) and deep-fried tomato wrapped in bacon on mashed potatoes ($5). O-M-G. completely unhealthy but totally amazing. there's only 2 pieces per serving but it is so good. the outside's all crispy bacon and then the inside's the soft tomato, which is also hot. YUMMY. because it was so good i offered the other serving to Egg to try and in exchange he offered me 1 of his salmon skin rolls. so not an equal trade. the salmon skin roll was salty, which i guess is good when paired with beer, but definitely not the equivalent of my deep-fried-bacon-tomato-yumminess. it's the one that got away... ::forlorn::

afterwards we headed over to Spot Dessert Bar because i've been reading about this place for a while and it was conveniently located almost directly across the street. i kept going on about how the chef for Spot is very well-known for his desserts but i couldn't remember his name and just kept randomly spewing out famous chef names, and still getting them wrong. but now i know: Pichet Ong. rolling into Spot at around 11ish doesn't bode well for them having everything on the menu. by the time we got there they were sold out of a few things, but we made do. compared to the meal and drinks we had at Go, Spot doesn't seem as good a deal. things on the menu ranged from $4-8, but since they only serve dessert, it does seem a bit pricey.

She ended up ordering the Vanilla Almond Coconut cupcake with a side of Coconut Sorbet. together they had a coconut-y flavor, but i thought the cupcake just tasted like out-of-the-box vanilla cupcake. and it was smaller than i expected, but that may just be because NY creates this assumption of a ginormous cupcake so when you get one that's regular-sized you're always underwhelmed. Kiddo ordered a Ginger Oatmeal Raisin Cookie which was bigger than expected and pretty delicious with a strong ginger kick. i ordered something like a Chocolate Banana Mouse-Pudding thing (i can't remember exactly what is was and it's not on the menu on-line. i DO know i did not order anything that had poached honey pear. or at least i'm pretty sure it didn't. and i distinctly remember bananas being there. but then again, i was drunk). either way, i thought my dessert, whatever it was, was just ok. it also ended up being the most expensive out of everything we ordered, maxing out at $8.00. Egg ordered the Thai Coffee Float and specially requested they add boba to it, which, after checking, they were willing to do for an additional 75 cents. Egg referred to the concoction as "perfection".

the next day, i woke up and found myself trudging to work as the snow storm officially arrived in NY. not fun. on top of that, a sake+beer headache started to creep up on me as the day progressed so i decided i needed to eat a hearty lunch with lots of starch/carbs to counteract the way i was feeling. i was gonna hit the 53rd Street Halal Cart since it's right across the street from my office but my co-worker suggested El Papasito instead. i was enticed by the concept of a $6 lunch special and was convinced after i read about the place on Midtown Lunch's site. i ordered the Stewed Beef on Rice and Beans which is served with a side of bread. i could only eat half of it before i started feeling sleepy from such a heavy lunch. the beef was good, not super tender, but better than most. and the rice and beans were also yummy. it's a good deal for $6 but i wouldn't call it the best food ever. but that might just be because i was feeling all crappy from my hangover.