Food, Baseball, and Randomness

Food

These detailed restaurant posts are overwhelming me, so I will highlight a few I have visited for the first time that make me happy.

One thing I have realized since moving up here is that the level of spicy that the New York restaurant can handle is way below par when comparing it to Houston. When I ask for spicy in Houston, I’m ready to grab my water. When I order spicy here, in New York, I get the normal heat…BOO!

Shanghai Cafe is great place for soup dumplings. Sometimes there’s a wait, but take a number, go walk around Chinatown for a bit and come back. Be sure to order some stuff that looks interesting and something you never had before. If not, have a friend do it for you, they ordered the sticky rice and lo mein beef which turned out very different than what I expected – very delicious.

Virgil’s Real Barbeque isn’t too bad. Their train wreck fries are a great start and my two meat combo was pretty good, even to this Houston-born-and-raised boy. I must say though, this is decent bbq for New York.

Everyone from Houston, including myself have knocked on BBQ here. C’mon one place is called Dallas BBQ, what an oxymoron! If you have BBQ in Texas, you have to go to Austin or Houston! It’s like going to a Mexican restaurant and trying to order a really good caipirinha – FOOLS!

Gemma at the Bowery Hotel was definitely cozy place after walking in the cold and windy streets. Their assorted cheeses and meats was great start. My Salmone Alla Griglia (grilled organic Scottish salmon with sauteed escarole and cannellini) was completely satisfying.

Peking Duck House was kind of far and felt even more distant walking in the rain and cold. After a long day working on a Saturday, I was ready to fix myself up with food. We had the Peking duck made three ways – regular sliced roast, soup, and something else I can’t remember. If you like duck, you must go here, plus it was pretty inexpensive.

Cafe D’Alsace was a surprising find. They had a really decorated bloody mary, but after removing the lemon and lime slices, it was more manageable. It was a great day to sit outside and enjoy my hangar steak and poached eggs. I even got a side of bacon for myself. Indulgence is bliss.

Wonjo is a nice place for Korean BBQ, especially because they use wooden charcoal. They come out on two metal trays and the person bringing them out only use a pair of tongs to put them in place. I’m sure they’re pros, but it still freaks me out. They cook the meats for you and hate it when you try to flip them yourself. Drop in a few cloves of garlic and slices of jalapenos to enjoy them with an extra kick.

Shake Shack serves beer, too! Crazy huh? I got their Shack Stack – cheeseburger and a ‘shroom Burger topped with lettuce, tomato, and ShackSauce. I saw cheese fries, so you know I also had to have a side of that. I’m not a really big fan of really sweet stuff, so I didn’t get their shakes, but I’m told they’re really awesome.

Baseball

While Joseph and his cousins were in town, we went to a baseball game. Not just any game, Astros at the Mets! We were already ahead two games and ready to sweep, but as a true Houston team, we lost the game, 1-9. At first, we went to check out the upper deck view and it’s quite amazing. In just over one inning before we decided to get out of the freezing cold, get our food and find our actual seats. It didn’t help much – we still ended up in the cold and windy area.

After finishing Round 1, we headed down to walk around and just hopped in some section that seemed quite nice and warm. It took us a little while to realize that we were in a restricted area, but we were so cold, we decided to stay. That’s when we found the jackpot: spicy italian sausage! It was nice view of the game, but seeing the Astros get crushed made me sad.

I feasted on…

• Round 1
  • Decked out hotdog with onions, fresh jalapenos, ketchup, mustard, and even corn
  • roasted peanuts
  • beer
• Round 2
  • hot spicy italian sausage, also decked out with onions, fresh jalapenos, ketchup, mustard, and corn
  • beer

After the game, we made our way to a pizza place, John’s of Bleecker (they call them pies up here, I hate that). The pizza here is pretty good, but next time I’ll probably add more meats to it. After two slices for each of us, we were ready to go walk around a little more.

After some walking around, we all had a craving for some cookies, so we went to Insomnia Cookies. They have the best and freshest cookies ever! I obviously had to get some milk and enjoyed my double chocolate chunk and white chocolate macadamia nut.

Randomness

I saw a posting about this on Laughing Squid and went to go check it out after work. This thing is ginormous!

Along the way, a Borders was selling, literally everything for $1.99 or less, so you know I had to stop by! I bought three.

• Subject to Change: Creating Great Products & Services for an Uncertain World: Adaptive Path on Design
• How Toyota Became #1: Leadership Lessons from the World’s Greatest Car Company
• Violent Phenomena in the Universe

Funny enough, there were a few book racks that had Glenn Beck’s book, “Broke,” fully stocked. Almost every other shelf was empty or filled with books with no relationship or had an uninteresting title and cover. I think I spent a good hour and a half here just digging around.

As much as I love my Kindle, there will never* be sales like this. The world digital everything will definitely change the model of sales. Liquidating for bankruptcy can’t occur online, that’s an idea I can wrap my brain around just yet.

*never is a strong word, maybe this will change over time…