Bibimbop

There's a restaurant in the east village, 2nd avenue and 8th street to be exact. There is no immediately discernible name on the building, but it is unmistakably Asian, Japanese to be specific. Dark wood awnings and bright red lanterns stick out between Toy Tokyo and the random bar that neighbor it. Stepping through the door, onto the wide worn wooden floor that was green in a past life, I'm greeted almost immediately by heavily accented 'Hello!'s, coming from somewhere in the back of the long narrow room. The small tables are packed tightly, as most are in the city, and the walls are covered with generic Japanese prints and sheets of computer paper proclaiming the specials. I'm led directly to the sushi bar that takes up the back half of one wall, precisely the spot that I asked not to sit at. I take a menu, although I know exactly what it is that I came for. The menu is made up of the normal Japanese fare, sushi platters, miso soup, ginger-dressed iceberg lettuce salads. Things look up as you continue though, into Japanese entrees, tonkatsu, teriaki. But this is still not what I'm looking for. Japanese food is actually quite different than other oriental Asian cuisines. The flavors are simplified to the extreme and the highest emphasis is placed on presentation, not complexity of flavor. The true nature of this little eatery, however, is found on one page at the back, headed 'Korean'. This is what I'm looking for. The bibimbop. Rice, in an iron bowl so hot it's crisped and fried just by sitting there, topped with strips of beef, bean sprouts, carrots, and an egg broken over top. The heat of the bowl will cook it, although the creamy richness before it has completely coagulated adds a whole new dimension. A plate of condiments arrives, kimchee, pickled cucumbers, and raw bean sprouts, as well as a dish of bright red chili sauce. I begin to eat it just as I always do, mix a bit with my chopsticks, adding the chili sauce in small bits, cautiously, nibbling on the kimchee as I go, when I hear one of the sushi chefs talking in front of me. 'Spoon' he says. I insist that, no, I'm alright. I know how to use chopsticks fairly well, I don't need foreign implements. An elderly Asian woman appears at my side then, also insisting 'Spoon'. I could tell that she was not young, but, like so many Asians, she didn't seem old either. Merely older. She took the spoon she had brought, emptied my condiment plate, with the exception of the kimchee, into my hot rice bowl. Then she took a generous spoonful of the chili sauce and began stirring. All the while I sat and thanked her, in two languages, since she didn't appear to know too much English. I felt like a small child, in the best possible way, being introduced to a traditional dish, with great importance that I learn the correct way it is eaten. With my first bite of the newly mixed bibimbop I realized just how correct it can be. It was hot, countering the airconditioning on the 90 degree day, the spice had me reaching for my water glass after every bite, but I couldn't wish for less. The fiery sauce enlivened the rice and beef, giving them a life, awakening not only the food, but the eater as well.

many thanks to all

Thanks to everyone who called and left messages on my birthday. It was awesome to get out of work last night to a plethera of messages from well-wishers. I had a great birthday. Last weekend Steve took me to eat at Gramercy Tavern, which was really good food. Simple, straight-forward, and good. Yesterday, my actual birthday, Chef David Carmicheal (our pastry chef, television personality, and all-around greatest american ever or so I'm told) made me a cake in conjuction with a good luck cake for our maitre d' Raj, who is leaving us to work at Per Se. I also got to go into work late, which had nothing to do with my birthday,but it was nice anyway. So I talked to mom and dad and stopped in to see Steve real quick and he gave me the Historian (a new novel) to read. It's pretty good so far. The main abuse of birthday privilage allowed me first pick of beer as we cleaned up Saturday night. I got a very nice Brooklyn lager, so I was very happy. I took a cab up to Steve's place, where Brent was having a little bbq and Steve had saved me pretty much a little bit of everything, so I had a ton of food. Steak, hamburger, pork, potato and macaroni salad, etc. It was really nice to see Brent, Richie and Dana again, since the only one I've seen on a regular basis is Richie, who sometimes joins Steve and I for a movie.

Today I continued my exploration of NYC brunches with Emily and Nan as we went to Cowgirl in the West Village (Greenwich Village). It was pretty good, and afterwards we went boutique window shopping until I had to meet up with Steve to see an early showing of Batman, which totally rocked by the way. Super awesome, Christian Bale is amazing and I'm really pushing for Cilian Murphey (Scarecrow) to play Winston. And now I am going to read some of my new book. thanks again to everyone!

Beats fad diets anytime

I've been told several times in the last two weeks that I've lost weight, and generally quite a bit of it. I've been told by two Mexican (or Ecuadorian) runners (the guys who take food out), Richie, and Steve. Rachel (the extern who just left) and I were talking about it actually. She had just recently weighed herself and found that she had actually only lost one pound since she had last weighed herself just after Christmas. And since I don't have a scale and haven't had one for a couple of years, I have only a vague idea of what I actually weight. This would be a perfect example of not caring about numbers, I don't have a clue what they are. What I do know is that my pants are quite loose and people have commented. I guess that's what happens when you eat two meals a day if you're lucky and run up and down stairs constantly.

We're really starting to feel the summer kick in. We were just named the top seafood and top power lunch restaurant in the city by citysearch.com, which while not a sign of any sort of prestige at all, does bring business and is a sign of who our clientelle are. Our lunches are very busy, 100+ covers. Our dinners are dead, 80- covers. That may not seem like a large difference, but lunch is from noon to 2:30 and dinner is from 5:30-10:30. So it's super spread out and very slow and boring. Especially for me, since my dish takes about 2 minutes to plate and put out. Literally. I've timed it. This extra time has allowed me to hang out with MK (we had three Melissa's until last week when the pastry sous-chef left. Now we just have Melissa K and Melissa Rodriguez, or M-Rod) and M-Rod, who are our pm sauce and fish cooks. MK has been showing me all of her sauces, how they're made and garnished. It's really interesting, but there are so many that I can't hardly remember any of it. Also, it's so amazingly hot over in their corner that after 5 minutes we literally have sweat dripping off of us. And sweat dripping down one's back is an exteremely unpleasant feeling. My corner in the opposite side of the kitchen is substantially cooler, although we have yet to measure it. we're guessing that it's about 20 degrees cooler, around 80 maybe, while the sauce corner is at least 110 degrees. And very humid, since it's right next to the dish machine. So I'm pretty much a sweaty, stinky mess when I get out of work. Be glad you're not here with me. At least for that part of it.

Public Transportation

Well, the L train is down again. At least late nights and weekends, which is pretty much exactly half of the times that I need it. At least I can count on it to get me to work on time in the mornings (knock on wood!) I'm just going to be taking a taxi home for the next couple of nights and hopefully it will be back to normal next week. Don't even ask me how much that's costing me (Steve said he'd pay for it so I didn't have to deal with the hour long commute at midnight).

Work has been going so well, I can hardly believe it. We've been getting out early enough (11:30ish) and I've been keeping on top of everything so I don't have to go in until 10:30 or so. Tuesday, however, was another story. Because of the long weekend, all two days of it, we couldn't prep anything on Saturday for the next week, like we normally do. It just wouldn't keep well enough for two days. So tons of food got tossed and we were greeted early Tuesday morning with absolutely nothing. I essentially had to work a double since I had to get all of my soup and garnish ready for lunch service as well as dinner. It's run as a normal soup for lunch. And the warmer weather means that people actually want chilled soups, so I have to make a good amount of it.

I believe we have a party on Saturday for Henry Ford's 25th birthday. Another cook and I were trying to figure out if it was actually a decendent of Henry Ford's or just a cruel joke someone is playing on us. Since the contact name was Edsel Ford and the phone number had a Detroit area code, I am assuming that it actually is the Ford family. Whom-ever names their child after an early car model, however, should be shot.

I would like to take a moment and thank Kate and Julie for commenting. I love hearing from everyone and anyone! And Kate, your email totally made my day. I loved it!