Posts tagged midtown

Sakagura – The Hidden Japanese Restaurant & Secret Menu

Had a late dinner with Marcellus, who is making these great illustrated letters to his nieces & nephew. It’s weird how I often seek Marcellus’ knowledge on Asian culture in New York, even though I’m the one who’s Asian. So here we are at this hidden Japanese restaurant downstairs in the basement of a Midtown office building. They have a lot of small dishes on the menu, similar to tapas.

The young waiter stopped me when I was taking a photo of the menu. We were confused. He said it was customary at most places that you can’t take a photo of the menu, because it’s private. From what we got is that they don’t want people stealing their menu. I confirmed this social faux pas with Yoshie, who said it was common in Japan with menus and food. Weird, since I always assumed the food photo-taking culture came from teenage girls from Asia. Perhaps it’s mainly the older expensive restaurants. The waiter didn’t seem to have a problem when I was taking twenty photos of each dish though, just the menu.

Marcellus and I shared a few small dishes. My favorite by far was the Gindara Yuan Yak (grilled cod). One of the two pieces was cooked perfectly. Just fell apart so nice. Everything else wasn’t as memorable. I should have tried a couple more, but they were relatively expensive for the size.

In their restroom, there was a bidet seat on the toilet. I’ve never used one and was really tempted. I didn’t have to go, but did press the buttons to see what it would do. Nothing happened, but maybe you have to sit on it first. And maybe that was good, because it would have just squirted my face.

BTW, you can check out their secret menu on Menupages and even on their own website.

Sakagura – 211 E 43rd St #B1 (btwn 2nd & 3rd Ave) New York 10017

Here’s Marcellus’ latest Letters From Uncle Marce –full series here

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Schnipper’s & Swagapalooza

I got an invite to this new event Swagapalooza, where they get a bunch of bloggers/twitterers together and give them free swag while people pitch their products …hoping for some PR out of it. The lady serving the wine was hooking me up. Where’s the food though? Why am I here? I see some cupcakes from Sweet Revenge, but with all this drinking during dinner time, it will not suffice. Maybe that’s the point …get us drunk and take advantage of us.

I’ve never seen so many people stuck to their phones in an audience. Twittering in full force. There was a guy pitching a bruise cream/patch and mentioned how his wife uses it for her eyes (…later explaining it works on the bags under the eyes). I couldn’t tell if it was a joke, but someone from the audience called him out for wife beating on the Twitter display behind him.

The most interesting idea (but poor pitch) was from Surprise Industries. You tell them a day and they send you to some location where something surprising will happen (someone’s marriage proposal, some crazy food experiment, etc). They hosted the after-party where they gave out the Miracle Fruit pills with lemons. More on that later.

I headed out of Swagapalooza with a big bag of swag, starving and looking for food. I kept walking into restaurants and walking out, drunk and indecisive. Chicken Bar, the place that houses Nathan’s, Church’s, Subway, Arthur Treacher’s, etc …Now that’s a mindfuck when you can’t make a decision already. I was pleading in my mind for Zach/Midtownlunch to help me out. Please Zach, help a drunk guy carrying a big bag of crap. Show me a sign! Then I saw this huge ass empty restaurant with big signs –Schnipper’s. I asked for the most popular item on the menu, the burger. The cashier asked me how I wanted it cooked. Medium Rare. Then I proceeded to the restroom where there was a wasted rich looking uptown lady maybe in her late 50’s. She walked into one restroom, saw the clogged up toilet and ran back out. Then someone came out of the next restroom and she let me cut. That was pretty nice, but I was thinking she was planning on doing her own damage and didn’t want me to suffer or at least know it was her.

I came back out for my burger and noticed the quality to be similar to fast food. It reminded me of machine pressed frozen patties. Not sure if it was, but it tasted of that quality. I didn’t feel good at all ordering it medium rare. Imagine going to Burger King and asking that your Whopper have a little pink on the inside. Schnipper’s takes “having it your way” a little too far.

After the fill me up and walking 14 or so blocks carrying a bag of swag, I ended up at the after-party, which was a bunch of booths with more vendors trying to sell their ware. But this group was mostly of the new age market. A lady with a bowl of blue balls and a sign that said “Protection from Psychic Vampires.” I was about to eat one before she stopped me and told me it was to put in water. It absorbs my stress or something and then I throw out the water. I preferred trying to eat it.

Surprise Industries was there giving out those Miracle Fruit pills. It was neat. You let it dissolve on your tongue and somehow it does something with your receptors and taste buds that make sour things taste sweet. It made the lemon taste like an orange …for the first few bites. I wished it lasted longer. I wonder what that blue psychic vampire propeller would taste like after the Miracle Fruit.

Schnipper’s Quality Kitchen – 620 8th Ave (btw 40th St & 41st St) New York, NY 10018

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Biryani Cart’s Kati Rolls

Jeff suggested this book he just read, “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles” – about Chinese Food culture across the world. Sounds interesting to me, since I grew up in my family’s Chinese restaurants from sit-down to fast food. Lately I’ve been having questions relating to what I remember as a kid, such as why Chow Mein is different on the East coast (bean sprouts with thick white sauce; aka Chop Suey) than on the West Coast (stir fried noodles; aka Lo Mein). Well took me hours on Chowhound to figure it out and I was still confused hours after, but basically Cantonese style Chow Mein is like the Chop Suey. Chow Mein (non-Canton style) is like Lo Mein, which makes more sense since Chow Mein translates to “Fried Noodles” and the Canton style I grew up on isn’t noodle based, but does have those crispy fried noodle snacks to top it off.

Now I don’t know if this book tackles issues like my Chow Mein conundrum, but it sounds like a good read. So I went online to apply for a NY Library card and tried to have the book sent to the closest branch, which was the Library for the Blind. Well, the site told me I was an error and to speak to a librarian. Instead I just went to the library in midtown that carried the book. Good reason to finally try the famous Vendy Award winner Biryani cart for their kati rolls. They were delicious. It was wrapped in a roti pancake similar to Kung Fu Bing, but with Halal style chicken or lamb in them. Two for $6.

So back to getting the book. I went into the library and it was an interesting scene. As I was standing in one of the three lines to get a card, it was funny seeing people checking out the hugest stack of DVDs and books and people unknowingly cutting in line and people trying to not let them cut. I don’t remember the last time I was in a library. Must’ve been at least 9 years. I almost forgot you can borrow books, music & movies. Amazon usually first comes to mind.

Got the card and stood in a long line to check out the book. Then one of the library employees came straight to me and asked if I had a library card. He didn’t ask anyone else. I felt like I was singled out. Do I really look like I didn’t belong there? Did I look like I didn’t know how to read? Then a few minutes later a different employee came up to me and asked me the same thing. Literacy Profiling?

Biryani Cart – 46th St and 6th Ave New York, NY 10036
01 Kati Rolls from Biryani Cart NY

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Midtownlunch’s Street Meat Palooza 2

Check out this round up Midtown’s Street Meat Lamb & Chicken over Rice combo platters. I gladly got to participate as a judge. I never thought I’d eat so much street meat in one sitting. It was awesome. I did end up liking the one with the rubber cardboard piece a lot. I wonder if it’s because I knew it was in there? I don’t know how much rubber cardboard adds to the flavor. Thanks Zach!

Midtownlunch Street Meat Palooza 2

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Hallo Berlin Cart

I ran into the elevator with friends from work going out to lunch. None of us knew where we were going. I suggested Astoria Queens, but Keith did one better and suggested a couple of stops to the Hallo Berlin sausage cart in Midtown. There was an old lady that yelled at Adrian for “swaying back and forth like a drunk sailor” in front of the menu she was trying to read 12 feet away. I got the Barack Obama Democracy special (any way to food blog my new Obama wallet) – pick two sausages with cabbage, german fries, and bonus meatball. I chose the Porsche (Berliner-Currywurst) and BMW (Bavarian-lite Weisswurst). The line was worth the wait. It was so good. Surpasses any other Vendy Award winner I’ve tried.

Hallo Berlin German Food Stand – 54th St. & 5th Ave. NYC 11:30am until 3:30pm M-F

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Kashmir Restaurant Buffet

Holly and I were planning on meeting up with Midtownlunch Zach for a lunch adventure, but unfortunately it fell through. So we took a cue from his latest post and went to Kashmir Buffet. Upstairs $5.99/lb take out. Downstairs in the cave, all you can eat $7.99. Plenty of selections including kabab, chicken tikka, lamb and my favorite, saag spinach. The dessert goop is tasty. I came in thinking this place would be really sketchy, but I found it pretty fancy. I’m sure that’s just my taste. I grew up at Disney World and the fake cave rock walls are second nature to me. They had two big TVs. One playing a Bollywood movie and the other playing All My Children. I enjoyed it. The dining room was empty which I like, but I understand when Zach says that’s something to wonder about.

Kashmir Restaurant – 601 8th Ave (btw 39th & 40th St) New York, NY 10018

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