Cheap Good Eats in Midtown East

By that I actually mean the good eats I recently discovered within walking distance from where I work (possible for lunch), but I hate long titles.

Menkui Tei Ramen

on 56th St, between 5th and 6th Ave

http://www.yelp.com/biz/menkui-tei-new-york-2

Tonkotsu TonkotsuRamen

Tonkotsu Ramen (hot in rich pork bone broth noodle soup with 2 pieces of roast pork among other things on top)

The soup, as you can see, tasted heavenly… (I know, you don’t exactly see heaven in there, but it’s okay, just go try the soup ;-)

The noodles and meat and everything else was all good, but I have to say the only thing I just cannot forget from this dish is the flavorful soup, and that alone is worth the trip.

My advice though: If you’re going to order one of the hot noodle soup entrees, try avoid going on the hottest summer days; or at least, don’t sit right next to the kitchen (if you have party of two and above you will get a table, which is farther from the kitchen stoves). They do have AC but I don’t think it’s set to the usual level you expect from an American restaurant at all. The place is small and authentic, with lots of Japanese people frequenting.

Before you go you also want to take a look at the photos section of the Yelp page to see what the entrance looks like. There’s no sign at the front carrying the name Menkui Tei.

JarJarStired

Jar Jar Ramen (cold soupless with ground pork soybean sauce, sliced cucumber, bean sprout etc), My favorite!

IMG_0087

Hiyashi Ramen (cold with sesame seed sauce, roast pork, imitation crab, pickled ginger etc)

Halal Food Cart at 53rd and 6th

http://www.yelp.com/biz/53rd-and-6th-halal-cart-new-york

Here’s how I found this one:

One day while looking for some good new lunch place I turned to Yelp, narrowed down my search criteria to a couple neighborhoods nearby (did you know that on Yelp you can not only search within “New York” or “Manhattan, New York”, you can also pick from a list of neighborhoods within each borough, such as Theatre District, SoHo, Greenwich Village or East Village?), while leaving the name field blank, added a filter to show only those with one $ sign as they’re most likely lunch places, and viola, this thing came up on top. Then I noticed for the first time that there is actually a “Halal” in the list of cuisines at the top. I was like wow Yelp even has a section just for Halal food carts. I haven’t eaten at any street food vendors for many years now, but out of curiosity I clicked into the “Halal” link and scanned through the results. This 53rd and 6th Halal Cart was again listed at the top and had like 540+ reviews, while the second Halal result had only 9! My interest (or should I say animal instinct?) immediately spiked. After a few more minutes of digging around and reading Yelpers’ reviews, here are some facts I found:

  1. There is a dedicated Wikipedia entry for this particular Halal food cart. Yes, out of the perhaps thousands Halal food carts on NY streets, this one has its own Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/53rd_and_6th
  2. There is a web site called 53rdand6th.com, created by the FANS of this particular food cart. And there is a Chat Room section on the web site.
  3. They have their own sweatshirts and bags.
  4. They are a finalist in 2005 Vendy Awards (The Oscars of NYC Street Vendors).
  5. They only open from 7:30pm to 5am everyday.
  6. The typical wait time in the line during those hours is between 45 minutes and 1 hour.
  7. In 2006 a fight started in the line with someone stabbed someone else for cutting in line. Later the owners hired bouncers.

(photo source: wikipedia)

So needless to say the next weekend when I came into the city for a movie I made time for this place. The line was indeed ridiculous and we waited for 45 minutes before getting to order (and took the picture below up close, in the center on the grill was piles of piles of chopped chicken meat).

pilesChicken

Within minutes we were handed the famous platter (Lamb/Chicken on yellow rice with sliced pita bread) and, following everyone else before us, walked to the side to help ourselves with the even more famous The White Sauce, as much as we like. The red sauce was indeed like the Yelpers said, super hot, but the white sauce, it’s that white sauce mixed up with all the meat and rice that truly defined what it was. A big hearty meaty tasty meal after a long day for a hungry soul.

(photo source: Yelp.com)

The portion was really generous for $6 and I, unfortunately, on that day was not particularly hungry, so I didn’t finish it despite thoroughly enjoying whatever I had. However I have to say, being not really a Halal expert, I didn’t quite share those fanatics’ “this is the most magical thing ever created by God” feeling. I mean it is really delicious and I would gladly have it again, but, maybe I learned a bit too much about it before I went (the wikipedia entry has it that a famous chef confessed he once waited TWO AND HALF HOURS on a cold Christmas Eve for it!)… It is good, but I don’t know if it’s THAT good.

Guess you’d have to find out yourself.

Note: If you ever go there, look for the yellow uniform they wear (below), and remember they only open at 7:30pm. The cart there during daytime is an impostor and completely unaffiliated.

uniform2

Hallo Berlin Food Stand at 54th & 5th Ave

http://www.yelp.com/biz/hallo-berlin-german-food-stand-new-york

With my newfound Yelping skill (combined with my years of professional experience in quickly extracting information from oceans of web resources, which comes with the job ;-), I went on to discover a few more gems in my vicinity and this one is a true winner.

Remember the famed (some even call it a cult) Halal 53rd & 6th being a finalist in 2005 Vendy Awards? They lost, to this German sausage place, a Wurst Place that became the Winner of the prestigious Vendy Award. Don’t you just love New York City?

menu

Fun Facts:

  • Because of all the difficult names (bratwurst, bauernwurst, alpenwurst) for the types of sausages they have (chicken, veal, beef, pork etc), their menu name them after cars. Mercedes is pork bratwurst, BMW is veal, Porsche is beef and Audi is beef & pork).
  • As result the picture above has an item that reads: Triple Soul Food Mix – Comes with a BMW, Mercedes and Porsche – $11.

dictatorsVSdemocracy2

This picture is hung right next to the menu in the previous picture. If you look closely you will see this is also a menu… The Dictators Special (top) and The Democracy Special (bottom).

So the owner has a sense of humor.

inAction

And the food, the food was absolutely sensational. The sauerkraut and German fries (pan fried chopped potatoes) blended so perfectly with the sausage meat (which was the most tender and juicy “wurst” I’ve ever had), all companied by the tasty mustard sauces. That on top of a warm crispy bun, grab yourself a cold soda the lunch cannot possibly be any better!

chkSausage2 chkSausage3(Soul Food Mix – Trabant)

sausage2 sausage3(Soul Food Mix – Mercedes)

My Advice:

If you go there for the first time, I recommend order the Soul Food Mix with Mercedes. The Pork Bratwurst is simply the best. I agree with a yelper who said when it comes to sausages, “pork always stand out among them all”. Although next time I go I want to try the BMW.

I mean Veal, of course.

Related Articles:

What Should Be Your Major?

For the quiz junkies out there, here’s another one. I found it while lurking on Jessica’s blog :-p:

What’s Your Perfect Major?

(I know, it’s kinda LATE to ask this question, but that’s not the point)

Before I took this quiz I didn’t expect it to surprise me, because, well for people like us I think by this time we all have a pretty good idea what subjects we excel at and what we don’t. Still, taking mindless quizzes has always been a good stress reliever for me and this one turned out to be moderately interesting in that it helped me see some things about myself ever so clearly, such as, the word “molecule” does not fascinate me, at all. ;-)

Here’s my result. If you’ll take the quiz, share with me your result… (I just shared with you mine, right?)

You Scored as Journalism
You are an aspiring journalist, and you should major in journalism! Like me, you are passionate about writing and expressing yourself, and you want the world to understand your beliefs through writing.

Journalism
100%

Dance
100%
Theater
92%
English
92%
Mathematics
92%
Philosophy
83%
Linguistics
83%
Engineering
75%
Psychology
75%
Sociology
75%
Art
75%
Anthropology
58%
Biology
17%
Chemistry
17%

Related Articles:

Sunday, in Chronological Order

Is that even good English? I’m too tired to care. Since I took the time to shoot the pictures, thought I might as well share them.

CRW_5689

Snails in black bean sauce, Dim Sum at Guang Zhou Restaurant, Flushing

CoconutPinkberry

If you like Pinkberry but have not tried the new coconut flavor, you should.

thebug

First thing I saw at the High Line Street Fair… a pink bug.

leggyBug

Then the angle changed and the bug turned around… it was a real leggy, pink bug.

On high heels.

morebugs

Obviously there were more bugs at the street fair.

tallpeople

Bugs, and some real tall people…

IMG_0417 flowers flowers2

The plants and flowers were quite exotic for a public park (though wikipedia calls it a “greenway”).

watchers

A very interesting stair-like seating area… there’s glasses at the front and you can see the cars driving from underneath you, through the glasses…

Leaving High Line we headed to Soba-Ya, one of the main reasons we came in the city. Some think it’s the best soba house in NYC. I know there’s another called Soba-Koh and would like to go some day to compare…

ChawanMushi

Chawan Mushi, a Japanese egg custard dish. It’s basically cooked the same way as the Chinese 蛋羹 (steam eggs), however the presentation by the chef at Soba-Ya made it into something much more wonderful than what it actually is.

sake ColdDishes spoonHolder

The sake, the cold dishes (Chizimi Konnyaku, Fried eggplant in broth, Lotus Root in sour plum paste), and the cutest spoon holder ever seen in a restaurant

SalmonRoe Uni

Cold soba with salmon roe (left/top) and cold soba with uni (right/bottom).

Someone said on yelp that if you go to a Japanese restaurant that specializes in soba noodles, you should order the cold version over the hot ones (at least the first time) because you can get a better feel of the complexity of the noodle’s texture when it’s cold. After a long hot summer day that advice was very easy to follow for us.

MilkTofu

Milk Tofu.

Perfection.

card

I think I will remember this place for a long time.

Afterword

We found on the back of the business card that there are like 8 other Japanese specialized food places operated by the same group that runs this restaurant: a Ramen/homemade Gyoza place, a Sake bar, a Japanese Teahouse, a Shabushabu/BBQ place, a small take out place for Takoyaki/Okonomiyaki (章鱼小丸子), to name a few, all within 3 blocks. I am definitely coming back to East Village again.

Related Articles:

New RSS Feed Url

Should have done this long time ago. Feedburner.com was bought by Google and as a result my RSS feed urls have changed to:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/walkingbetween

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/walkingbetween/comments

Please update your RSS reader. Thank you for subscribing.

(The original WordPress feed URL http://walkingbetween.com/feed will always work.)

If you don’t know what RSS is or don’t use RSS, I strongly recommend you check it out. My favorite desktop RSS reader is SharpReader from http://sharpreader.net. It has an Outlook like UI and, when a new item comes in it slowly raises a light blue box, with summary line inside, in the right bottom corner of your screen, stays still for a few seconds (during which you can peek and decide whether to click on it for more), then slowly descends and disappears. You can customize the frequency each feed checks for new items, among other properties per feed.

If you can’t use desktop client Google Reader is probably the most popular web-based RSS reader out there. Just click the “Reader” tab at the top of your Google/Gmail account.

If you have many blogs you follow regularly, a desktop RSS client with notifications on new posts is, IMO, a must.

A Conversation After the Flickr Award

Maomao Stretching

Background info:

A picture of my cat I uploaded to Flickr was invited into a Best of Cat (BOC) group pool and garnered five “Best of BOC” comments (i.e. votes), the number needed to earn a special Best of Best of Cats Award (you can see it by clicking on the picture and scroll down the comments). The day prior to the win I’d already told the hubby that I was only one vote short of getting the needed 5. The next day I got the 5th vote and here’s the conversation when I emailed him about it:

The Email Exchanges:

Me: See http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmxx/1344591712/. Yay!!!!!

Hubby: congratulations.

 

Me: that sounds so dry.

Hubby: congratulations!!!

 

Me: that’s what you should’ve done in the 1st place

Hubby: I was jumping up and down in total elation.

 

Me: Right. Like in that Cingular commercial… all I got was total silence.

Resuscitation, 2008, and moving forward

About a month ago on Facebook my friend Jun used the word “resuscitate” to describe the action I needed to bring this blog back. She also volunteered to teach me CPR… ;-)

Although I did not take up her kind offer, I have been thinking about how best to “resuscitate” ever since. Lots of things have happened since my last post on August 4, 2008; it doesn’t feel right to just skip the past 6 months and suddenly start posting the latest things I want to write right now. I need a “bridge” post, I’ve decided, if only just for the one or two readers who were not with me on Facebook the past 6 months.

So here’s a really quick look back to the last few months of 2008, up till now:

  • The Beijing Olympics. During those 3 weeks I subscribed to almost all the Olympics blogs by major media sports writers and journalists in my RSS reader, and read just about everything that’s been written every day in the western media, NYT, ESPN, FoxSports, Guardian Sports, BBC Sports, Yahoo! Sports, CNN, ABCNews… On top of those I also read tons of message board posts and did my share of postings. It was pretty crazy. So many things happened. There were times I felt powerless. sad. And there were the times of pride. awe. and inspiration. They could go on a separate post of its own, but somehow I have lost the drive to write it.
    (or perhaps it’s the courage to write them that I’ve lost, like a climber facing an insurmountable mountain…)
  • The U.S. Open. The first time we went to see live tennis. We went on the Labor Day weekend and later for the men’s finals. Notable players/games that we watched include: Zheng Jie/Yan Zi women’s double, Djokovic vs a pretty good young guy, Li Na vs Dementieva (the freshly crowned Olympics Gold Medalist), and of course, Federer vs Andy Murray. I was hoping for a Nadal/Fed final but didn’t get it.
    Live tennis games are fun. I highly recommend you try it once, if you watch tennis on TV. Don’t buy the worst seats though, you need a reasonably good view to get yourself into it.
  • Yellowstone Trip. We were lucky enough to have caught the perfect weather, beautiful foliage, and plenty wildlife sightings that include: a black bear (next to a dead elk body), a grizzly bear (walking in the woods at roadside), a wolf and an antelope wandering in the same valley (and missing each other!), a fox-like wolf in the vicinity of a bison (of course neither was interested in the other), three different types of deer, a coyote, a group of sheep, and the best of all, an army of bisons walking right in front of our car (and right next to it within an elbow’s length). The geysers and hot springs were also amazing as advertised. They look even better on photos :c).
    One lesson learned from the trip: you need a binocular, a video cam, AND the best camera/lens you can afford to go to Yellowstone. All three are necessities.
  • The Financial Crisis. The best thing that came out of the whole thing is, it prompted me to start paying real good attention to my 401k… ; ), which then resulted in me delving into a reading fever on some of the best, and academically sound if you will, investment advices that I truly wish I had learned 10 years ago.
  • New Year Eve. Another first: First time we spent the countdown watching a ball drop with a crowd outside. It was freezing like hell, but I really wanted to go, to send off this crazy year of 2008. When it counted to 0 and all the fireworks erupted, I was cheering with everyone else from the bottom of my heart.
  • Movies. 2008 was a great year for movies. I’ve been putting in short, one paragraph reviews on Facebook (via Flixster) for movies I watched lately. Maybe I’ll make a compilation of them into a post later. I think I’ve watched 3 of the 5 best picture nominees as well as some very good ones like The Wrestler and Revolutionary Road in the last couple months alone.
  • New Food. Nepali is now added to my list of Cuisines I’ve Tried At Least Once, as #25. ;-)

Lastly, to whoever that noticed, the kitties pictures on the right is replaced with the latest Flickr photo feed. There seem to be something wrong with Flickr’s RSS feed on a set that caused the kitty set photos all broken. Until I figure out the problem this is the only feed that works here.

SYTYCD 4, Week 8 Elimination

For the first time of the entire season my predictions for who goes home went all wrong. I was sad to see Mark and Chelsie eliminated, especially Chelsie. When was the last time a latin dancer advanced to the final on this show? I don’t think it ever happened. What a bummer. If someone as good as Chelsie couldn’t do it, I don’t know if it’s ever gonna happen.

Just read here that two of the 4 finalists collapsed during the Saturday rehearsal and were rushed to the hospital. They were released soon after and had Sunday off. It seems every season something like this happen at least once to someone on the show. Maybe they (the producers) should do something about it, if they can.

Related Articles:

SYTYCD 4, Top 6 Perform

Best night of the whole season! I almost cried watching Katee/Joshua’s contemporary piece to Celine Dion’s “All By Myself”. It was no doubt Tyce Diorio’s best work of the season, if not all seasons. Equally powerful, but in a totally different way, was Mark/Courtney’s Jazz choreographed by Sonya. Watching it just left you in awe.

The voting this week is going to be crazy, crazy close. I have absolutely no idea which of the guys are going home. Personally I feel Mark’s strong performances last night, especially the Sonya number, probably will push him slightly over Twitch and into the final. On the girls side it won’t be so close though. Courtney is probably the one to go. I’m happy that the two girls I liked from the very beginning, Chelsie and Katee, are likely the two favored going into the final.

Related Articles:

SYTYCD 4, Top 12 Perform and Week 5 Elimination

The Bollywood dance was really exciting. I’m glad it was Katee and Joshua that got to do it. The costumes fit them perfectly and they nailed the dance from beginning to the end. It was very refreshing, and crowd pleasing.

I don’t know about others but I found what Mia Michaels said to Will about him carrying Jessica all the time to be cruel and totally unnecessary.

As soon as the bottom 3 was announced I picked Comfort and Thayne to be gone, but I was somewhat surprised when Nigel implied that they would have eliminiated two girls, meaning obviously Comfort and Jessica, rather than Comfort and Thayne. So the judges have no love for Jessica and they aren’t even trying to hide it.

Note: News came today that Jessica just dropped out of the show due to an injury and Comfort is now back in Top 10 to replace her.

Related Articles:

SYTYCD 4, Top 14 Perform and Week 4 Elimination

Once again the best numbers came from my two favorite couples: Chelsie/Mark’s Jazz by Mandy Moore and Katee/Joshua’s Contemporary by Mia Michaels. Chelsie is doing extremely well for a ballroom girl. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her in the final 4. Katee shined in Mia’s routine. I couldn’t get that “aided run” out of my head. Twitch/Kherington might be popular among viewers but I really didn’t like their Paso Doble.

When the bottom three couples were announced there wasn’t really any surprise. After Gev gave the best solo of the night I was thinking Thayne’s time was  over, but to my surprise Kourtni and Matt were sent home instead.

Related Articles:

SYTYCD 4, Week 3 Elimination

All the bottom 3 couples have been there more than once. None of them was a surprise. Kherington/Twitch escaped the “curse of the first” and were safe, I feel they are a popular couple. Once again I loved Matt’s solo, very well choreographed. I thought Chris and Comfort would be eliminated but it turned out to be Chris and Chelsea. So this was the first time they broke up a couple in 3 weeks.

Related Articles:

SYTYCD 4, Top 16 Perform

Performance wise this was the best week so far. I absolutely loved Chelsie/Mark’s Hip-pop routine choreographed by Napolean/Tabitha. Both were outstanding and the choreography was fantastic. They are a very strong couple and Adam said they were “the couple to beat”. My second favorite of the night was the Samba by Katee/Joshua. For a popper dancing Samba for the first time in his life, Joshua was surprisingly good. This is the first time I truly see why Mia said he would go to final 4, he is extremely versatile. Katee’s costume I personally felt was a bit too long for Samba. Had it been shorter it would have enhanced her hip action more. Luckily the vibrant choreography covered up a lot of ground for them.

Related Articles:

SYTYCD 4, Week 2 Elimination

The right couple went home. Susie for being the weakest female and Marquis, whose solo demonstrated his technique but more importantly I felt it also showed his lack of ability to interpret and express the music. He piled up turns after turns without choreographing to the music. Nigel took the words out of my mouth when he said it was all “tricks” and was not what this show is about. His solo is like the polar opposite of Will’s solo, the latter was all about interpreting the music.

Of all the solos last night I liked Comfort’s the most. I also noticed something interesting, but not surprising: it’s been two weeks in a row that the first couple that danced on Wednesday landed in bottom three the next night. Let’s see if the trend continues.

Related Articles:

SYTYCD 4, Top 18 Perform

Overall I feel it’s a better night than last Wednesday. Here are some of my chaotic thoughts:

  • Wearing the oddest costume I’ve ever seen on SYTYCD, Chelsea and Thayne’s Jazz routine didn’t impress. By the end of the night I almost totally forgot about the performance.
  • “Beauty and quirkiness”, two things in life Mia Michaels claimed she loved the most, and she used them to sum up Chelsie and Mark.
  • The judges all seemed to love Will. I thought Jessica did pretty good in the hip-pop number, but only Nigel agreed with me.
  • Mia found the perfect word to describe Matt when he dances. Elegant. Just every move he makes looks so elegant. Very pleasing to watch.
  • Courtney/Gev’s Mandy Moore contemporary was so beautifully choreographed it reminded me of another piece by Mandy Moore from last season, danced by Sabra and Dominic to The Pretenders’ “Stand By You”, one of my favorites. In both numbers she used small movements of dancers’ feet and hands to connect them in a way that they appear sometimes attached to each other. Very expressive.
  • Katee/Joshua got the best reaction from the judges after their Broadway routine. Mia was spot on when she noted the “connection” between the two. It was so good.
  • I was not that shocked after seeing Susie’s mediocre Salsa, partly because from the very beginning I was never impressed by her “street salsa” style audition performance. Nigel said her turns and twists looked “labored”. I think she should be in the bottom three tonight.
  • Loved the Celine Dion song used by Kherington/Twitch’s VW. A great song goes a long way to enhance the performance. Their all white outfit was also perfect for this beautiful piece.
  • I laughed when Nigel said his granny was more gangster than Chris in the Krump number, not only because it was funny but because I had the same feeling. Whatever Chris was doing it didn’t look much like Krumping to me.
  • On a side note I found the the quality of the judges’ comments a lot better than last Wednesday’s, especially Nigel and Mia who were almost always right on point. Mary Murphy however I don’t know why Fox decided to make her a permanent judge last year. She’s not particularly eloquent and when it comes to styles other than ballroom she sometimes struggles to make any sense. Perhaps the producers want the screaming and yelling to make things more colorful. I for one would rather have someone who can always contribute something insightful.

Related Articles:

Authentic Happiness

authentichappiness

It’s Martin Seligman again. I didn’t read every paragraph of the book, kind of picked and chose what I read. There are some interesting facts mentioned, such as a ranking of countries by how happy their citizens are (the happiest ones are not necessarily the most developed ones). China ranked fairly high. I bet that surprises lots of Americans.

A few points I’ve taken away from the book:

  • Social life is strongly correlated with happiness. All happy people have a rich and fulfilling social life.
  • Married people statistically are happier.
  • Higher percentage of religious people are happier than those religionless.
  • Money has little to do with a person’s happiness.
  • Use your signature strengths (there is a test for you to find out what they are), you will be happier because of that.

Related Articles: