Confluence of Epicures

It started with my friend and I planning to grab dinner to catch up. I wanted to check out restaurants participating in Boston's restaurant week and she suggested an obscure little social club where "[eritrean] food is only served to members and their friends" and members toil around watching TV, chatting and playing foosball, pool or cards. Without much hesitation, I obliged.

Then there was the roommate who was attending a lecture on String Theory at Harvard and really wanted to come when she found out about our plans. And with her, the scientist friend who develops pharmaceuticals with medical effects similar to those of Cannabis. Per chance, walking down the street, my friend from undergrad who is now a String Theorist at Harvard. And finally, one of our character's boyfriend, an entrepreneur-negotiator-capoeira fighter.

After some shenanigans to get to our destination, and a cast of very hungry characters, we arrived and sat ourselves on some chairs and sofas around a table normally found in living rooms. No menu, you just need to say what you'll drink and how many people in the party. The boyfriend suggested honey wine and was that a delight! A very crisp, light and sweet beverage that anybody could mistake for an innocuous infantile beverage. Be careful, this one can get you drunk fast.

Our lovely hosts cooked everything from scratch. It took an hour to prepare the meal for all of us. And, let me tell you, it was a feast! We had a meal similar to an Ethiopian meal; a variety of richly stewed meats and vegetables, eaten by picking up pieces with your fingers and Injera (the foamy, yeasty, pancake-like bread). Wow.

Search of noodles

A couple friends and I needed a noodle fix Saturday night, but the wait at Ippudo was 2.5 hours! We audibled to hunt for hand-pulled noodles in Chinatown. At 9pm, Food Sing 88 was closed, New York Noodletown was closed (more on that in a it), but my friend Taylor found Tasty Hand Pulled Noodles open. Their menu was pretty simple: Soups, dumplings, rice cakes and stir fried noodles. You pick your style, pick a meat, pick a noodle and then eat. I got the mixed beef (tripe, tendon and sliced) and we all shared the dumplings. The broth was meh, but the nice part is always watching the guys make the noodles. I mean, what a cool skill: keep stretching dough till you make nice little strands...then thwack thwack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1kw2k9iS8A&NR=1

So Great NY Noodletown on Bowery and Bayard seems to be closed. Might be a health inspection thing, but man do I miss that place. I hope the rats leave those nice older chinese chefs and the surly cashier woman alone.

Mexican Standoff

I've been searching for a taqueria for a while near my hometown of Lansdale. The town and surrounding towns have a good amount of immigrants who have been opening up nice markets and produce stalls, but not too many restaurants. Specifically, there are a good amount of Mexicans in the area, but not any reputable taquerias. My thought was that 1) The Mexicans are keeping the food to themselves or 2) I am not aware. My experience with Mexicans is that they are very generous people on the whole so I was pretty sure it was my ignorance that kept me from finding out about the goods. That plus I am rarely in Lansdale.

So this past Saturday, my dad suggested we get Mexican food and we drove to Souderton where there was a promising restaurant named Xinantecatl. In my experience, mexican restaurants in the US that are named in mesoamerican languages tend to be good. This one was a small mexican grocery store with a room/open kitchen in the back and 4 tables. One of the tables was occupied with a Mexican woman chatting up the chef in spanish and her Indian date. The chef, Juan, was a pretty cool guy and apparently worked with a lot of Indians, who he labeled hard workers (bonus points in his book). He also seemed to like the indian food his co-workers brought to lunch.

Juan hooked us up with a couple great tortas, tacos and a shrimp and potato soup that has the house special. The tortas were excellent and I'll go back for those. I've recently been transitioning away from tacos to the torta as my go-to carb accompaniment to the meat...and this place re-inforced that.

Juan was the man and mentioned that the owner and his son (Juan's brother and father in law) are renowned for his whole goat barbacoa...hopefully they start cooking that up in the summer.

We talked a bit about the similarities among the Mexican and Indian people. I think Juan might be part Indian.


http://www.soudertonmexicanrestaurant.com

Belly Shack (Chicago)

Are these foods awesome or what?

Belly Shack is... an eatery? a restaurant? a sandwich shop? all of the above! It's under the blue line tracks (literally) at the Western stop in Bucktown. Belly Shack's incredibly creative menu stems from the genius couple Bill Kim and Yvone Cadiz-Kim. Consider for example the Boricua sammich which packs Asian black beans, grilled marinated tofu and rice in between two large slabs of fried plantain. Or the Korean BBQ Kogi, a do-it-yourself pita sandwich with Korean BBQ beef. You can't go wrong with anything on the menu; it's that simple.

The locale is well kept and pleasant; simplicity and functionality are the design paradigms here. One of my favorites in Chicago!

The Brothers Bloom

A very entertaining movie!

"The Brothers Bloom" is a the story of two mischievous siblings and their odd companion Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi) who who are expert at conning people around the world. Bloom (Adrien Brody) is frustrated that his life has been written for him by his older brother Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and decides he wants to quit to live his own life. Stephen convinces Bloom to join one last swindle on the eccentric millionaire Penelope (Rachel Weisz). What ensues is a comical, romantic, around-the-world adventure where I was constantly engaged trying to figure out what was scripted and what was 'real'.

Good acting, outstanding script, subtle themes and a quirky but memorable musical score render this movie one of my personal favorites!