Cooking Like a Man, Eating Like a Girl

There are few things in life as #winning as cooking your own food. That’s right, we’re in the 21st century and if you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen! (translation: don’t rent an apartment with a stove if you don’t learn how to use it)

Step 1: Carbs
Because we’re Asian, our meals are based on some sort of carbs. But white rice is boring. Flied lice Fried rice is dirty. The best is noodles, but you have to dress it up or you can just go to CVS for cup ramen. So below we have used chicken breast to make the broth and added some veggies for additional flavor.

Step 2: Protein
If some protein is good, more protein is better. And because our Asian parents told us that fish made us smarter, we have to go with some minimalist fish filet here. Don’t go 5-star restaurant and get crazy with flavor – we actually like the taste of fresh, cooked, fish so don’t cook more than a few minutes and go easy on the seasoning. Do go creative though and find something other than salmon or tuna. Invest in a sharp knife and you can impress with some cleaning and fileting skills. From the everything-is-a-test-department: if you are squeamish over some blood & guts, how can you handle diapers & throw up?

Step 3: Veggies
No, salad doesn’t count. Grocery stores call it bok choy, but we call it qing cai and what better way to describe it – so fresh and…green. Anyways, this is your chance to utilize your versatility because the perfect Asian vegetable dish requires a bit of stir fry, a bit of water, and a bit of closed-lid steaming to achieve perfection…

Step 4: Dessert
Let’s be honest here: steps 1-3 was for the man inside of you, step 4 is how you nurture that food baby growing inside of you. The trick for great pie: fabulous crust. Then, be generous with the good stuff (fruit, whipped cream, cream cheese, calories) and there’s no way you can go wrong.

Step 5: The Afterparty
Assuming you “washed the dishes” correctly, why not continue the festivities out and about? Because a “nightcap” is only for 50-year-old divorcees in bad rom-coms. Remember there’s no shame in ordering a girly drink – no one wants to share your bitter-tasting manhattan….

Yippee Ki Yay Momofuku

You know what the difference between Chinese food and Western food is? Chinese people keep it simple. You can cook most dishes with either a pan or a pot – forget grill, fry, broil, steam….just stir-fry it or throw a bunch of deliciousness into boiling water. Forget 20 different types of sauces – a typical Chinese cabinet has soy sauce, hot sauce, salt, sugar and maybe some sesame oil and that’s it. Why do you think chopsticks were invented…Asians can eat every item on the menu with two sticks (yes, even soup).

So, naturally, it makes sense that Western restaurants invented this term “Asian Fusion” to over-complicate things and charge more money. But I’m sucker for anytime an Asian dude does something cool in “White America” (see Lin, Jeremy), so I had to go see what this lucky peach was all about…

Dessert – before. (That’s right, I’m leading off with the dessert first because it was the best)

Dessert – after.

Best part of dinner was the delivery service from Momofuku Milk Bar. Yes, the purveyor of awesome pies and cookies (with awesomer names) hand delivers straight to your table. In our case, we sampled the Crack Pie (to die for), Candy Bar Pie (Three words: Giant. Reese’s. PeanutButterCup.), and Compost Cookie.

Main course – pork belly, really torn on this. On one foot, it was absolutely delicious. On the other foot, my mom can make it all day err day and this whole thing was ~70 dollars for 3 people if I remember correctly.

Beverages – they have a good selection of sake, not overpriced by NYC restaurant standards and knowledgeable waitresses (since this is a classy restaurant). The glasses in this picture contain unfiltered sake – which is supposed to be cloudy and fruity/sweeter, except ours was clear like water and not particularly sweet. Hmmm.

Appetizer – I wanted an app that was going to be filling and has some meat in it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t have our proverbial cake and eat it too (for now) and so ended with this broccoli thing that was surprisingly good.

Address: 15 West 56th Street, New York, NY
Price: ~$40 / person
Wait / Reservations: Not too bad for normal sit down, but special advance notice is required for the large format (chicken is $175 for 4 to 8 guests, lamb is $325 for 6 to 10 guests) – potentially great btw but I don’t have the guts to try

Honesty, I could probably write several hundred more words about this, but I’ll leave it off by saying that if it weren’t for the great company and having ate a late lunch, I would’ve been severely disappointed (mostly because of the admittedly high expectations.) Sorry mother peach, the hype has rendered you more like J-Lin in Houston than Linsanity in NYC.