27 November 2010

Hot Crossed Buns

Listening to: The new Girl Talk album, All Day, is kind of fantastic and available for free as always. I think he put in a lot more pop friendly stuff this time around and that makes the album eminently danceable. Someone please throw a party and just throw this on. The album contains something like 375 samples, and I'd be curious how he avoids copyright issues. Some genius put together this samples breakdown of the whole album. It's kind of incredible, even if it ruins the mystery a little.

There's a billion and one restaurants in New York, who's got the energy to try them all? I certainly don't, not to mention that I've recently decided to eschew the entire food(ie) culture. If trying new foods is what people like to do, I guess I'll just be sticking with my usual boring fare. Mere months ago I was all about trying to find the best something or other, or have the "yes I've been there" statement.

In San Francisco, eating is a big part of the culture and my friends definitely like that experience. Food touristing is a big gamble though, and the payoff is generally disappointment. For example, after half a dozen failed attempts to find fried chicken that was reasonably priced and better than KFC, I officially wrote off twenty dollar fried chicken. Other things on that list include lines and exorbitant prices for pizza, fusion menus, ice cream, and comfort foods. Give me the basic food pyramid, plus overdoses of noodles, and I'm golden. I will pay premium prices for a cupcake or cream puff though.

During the past week I've been to Arirang twice. My friend told me Momofuku David Chang had called the handmade noodles there his favorite meal. This represents an ideal meal for me too. No waits, huge portions, an instant re-craving, and perfectly priced. "Arirang" means "You'll be back" in Korean, I believe.

While reading about David Chang, I got onto the story of Eddie Huang, who is the proprieter behind Baohaus, which kicks out Taiwanese pork buns. Huang is the bad boy of the culinary scene I guess, and maybe you already know this, but he's regularly all over the food blogs and websites. There's the fight with a SF food truck that stole his "Chairman Bao" name. There's the recent semi-negative reviews of his new eatery, and his responses back. The Four Loko all-you-can-drink deal that never happened, and the subsequent raid. And then there's his CNN featurette that included his mom, after she sent him a typical "you need to do better" Chinese mom email after his lackluster review.

Most of all, I like Eddie's blog, The Pop Chef, in which he details his restauranteur journey with heavy doses of hip hop posturing. One post is his take on the Fresh Prince theme song. I started with his first blog entries and pretty much read every post last weekend while lounging in bed. His attitude is pretty assholey but at the same time, you got to admire him. A young man fighting his way onto the scene and doing his dream. There's a ton of stuff on the Baohaus press page, and maybe I read most of those articles too. I have no idea how Huang's food tastes but I'm definitely going to find out soon.