Day at MoCCA Festival and j-CATION at Japan Society

Hot Dog Eating Champion Takeru Kobayashi @ Japan Society

Stood in line at the armory on Lexington to get into the MoCCA Festival. A girl came up to me and said, “…Jason Lam?” I thought she was a food blog fan so I told her it was nice to meet her. She said she’s met me several times and we were Facebook friends. Oops.

We walked around and saw some artist friends who had booths, Khary Randolph, Chris Beaumont and Emilio Lopez. Chris told me he just got a Penguin publishing deal for his Cubeecraft. That’s rad. Met up with Marcellus and met some of his artist friends. Then we stood in front of Tunde Adebimpe at his booth trying to figure out if he was the guy from TV on the Radio. It was sad to him and Bob Camp sitting by themselves drawing because no one wanted to talk to them.

We had lunch upstairs at Kalustyan’s. Marcellus had a Lentil and Okra vegetarian platter ($7) and I got a Falafel sandwich ($5). The were both huge. The falafel there is baked, not fried. It falls apart easily. I picked up a bag of Lebanese style Aphrodisiac Tea. I’m going to pick up so many lesbians with it.

Marcellus’ friend and son visited us at Kalustyan’s. Her son, Nile, was working on these cool video on his Nintendo DS. Something always blowing up or bloody. They’re really awesome.

Then we ran into Shonali and Jasper right around the corner at Curry in a Hurry. So we all went to Japan Society to check out the j-CATION Taste Japan event. Ran into Ramen & Friends in line, plus Kevin/Kate & Co who were apparently all waving at me for a really long time. I must’ve been zoned out thinking about Nile’s bloody videos. We watched the sit down conversation with International eating champion, Takeru Kobayashi. He was dressed really stylish and looked thin. I can’t believe they made him eat hot dogs. Even while he took his time, he ended up shoving the hot dogs down his hall like a goose. Kobayashi made it look easy.

Then during the Q&A, we saw our old Gainesville friend Chris Weingarten on the mic. So we caught up with him and apparently he just got a Penguin book deal for his Hipster Puppies. That’s two Chrises with Penguin book deals. Crazy. We had some drinks in the j-lounge –Japanese Orion beer and soda with the codd-neck bottles and marble. I got to taste the cream puffs from Choux Factory. They were delicious. Maybe even better than Beard Papa? Apparently, Chris ate pretty much everything including the octopus balls and cherry encased in jelly. He should’ve been the food blogger that day.

Shot back downtown for a few birthday drinks for our buddy, Adam. There was a girl there that came up really excited because she hadn’t seen me for so long. She kept telling me how good I looked and kept touching my hair for a long time. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t know who she was. Then Shonali asked how she knew me. She said I was the last person she wanted to shag before she got married. Then I remembered who she was.

Next, found ourselves at Jimmy the Hat’s wedding at the Mermaid Inn. That was a good time. Marcellus got into a conversation with this older gentlemen who works in television. He brought up some valuable points to things I’ve been thinking about lately …being genuine with your art, writing, music. Yes, I’m glad to hear it from this guy.

Ended up at another bar and pizza at Nino’s, where the pizza tasted like it was from a skating rink. Plenty of tourists walking around or falling on Ave A. I ran into Khary and Le Kecia on my way back home. I almost wanted to go with them to another bar, but I already felt like that guy passed out in front of Nino’s.