Digest

Saturday, December 11, 2021

Clue 53 Down - Card games are played in it

Monday, December 13, 2021

Happy Birthday to my brother.  He has reached a formidable milestone.  Even several days later, you may still shower him with praise or at least comfort him with apples.  We celebrated yesterday at Madison Square Garden or we celebrated until the Rangers lost to the Nashville Predators 1-0.  But, first we ate.

We went to bb.q Chicken Ktown NYC, 25 West 32nd Street, part of a very successful Korean chain.  It's self service, the shelves being constantly restocked with boxes of chicken, wings or boneless chunks in 8 flavors - Golden Original, Secret Spicy, Hot Spicy, honey garlic, soy garlic, Gangjeong (soy, cinnamon, chilis), Spicy Galbi, maple butter garlic.  

The prices narrowly range from $12.99 to $13.89 and the portions are enormous.  I had honey garlic boneless and only made it 3/4 through.  I also had and could not finish a large bowl of kimchi fried rice ($8.99).  One chicken and one rice would be ample for any two normal human beings.

The place was packed; the 20 or so tables all occupied.  In fact, all the several Korean restaurants along West 32nd Street seemed to be full, both inside and curbside.  

. . .

I have long maintained that a corned beef or pastrami sandwich should only be ordered at a Kosher delicatessen, not merely at some Jewish-style or New York-style place, with the exception of Katz's, 205 East Houston Street, and Langer's, 704 South Alvarado Street, Los Angeles.  I am not manifesting a religious or ethnic bias; Kosher delicatessens, an endangered species, rely on their corned beef and pastrami as the backbone of their business.  Attention is paid.

Since I am always open to be proven wrong, with little fear of it happening, I went to Sarge's Delicatessen & Diner, 548 Third Avenue, for lunch.  Sarge's has been around since 1964, founded by a retired NYPD sergeant.  It promotes itself as "one of New York's most famous quintessential Jewish Style Deli's."  It displays pictures of thick sandwiches and that's what I aimed for.

Corned beef is $20.95, pastrami, $21.95.  I covered my bases by ordering a corned beef/pastrami combo sandwich ($24.95).  French fries are $7.95, which I skipped this time as a matter of capacity control.

There were complimentary pickles and coleslaw, de rigeur in the deli world.  The sour pickles were notable, the coleslaw forgettable.  The sandwich was very large, almost too big to hold.  The rye bread was good, moderately crusty.  The meats were machine-sliced, much too thin.  The corned beef A-, the pastrami B, underspiced.  In all, no need to avoid.

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Baruc S.'s work takes him back and forth to South America, so I was lucky to catch him for lunch today.  We went to Dagon, 2454 Broadway, a Mediterranean restaurant.  It has about 20 outdoor tables, two-tops and four-tops, in addition to the several dozen indoors.

We went indoors and enjoyed a very good meal.  Sharing, we started with three mezze - Whipped Eggplant with tahina and preserved lemon compote; 

Sasso Chicken Liver Mousse with mustard seeds, date syrup, crispy shallots and baharat (Arabic mixed spices); Muhamarra, spicy roasted pepper & almond dip.  We had schnitzel as a main course, breaded chicken cutlet, with mashed potatoes, tahina and Israeli salad.  

Everything was first rate, including the small loaves of bread brought to the table directly from the oven.  However, the chicken liver mousse portion was in inverse proportion to its deliciousness.  I skipped the prices since I was being treated.  

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Jerry P. joined Terrific Tom and me for lunch at AweSum DimSum, 612 Eighth Avenue.  It's a brand new joint, open exactly one month, with an assortment of almost 40 dim sum items and a handful of noodle dishes.  Its sister restaurant has been open about a year at 160 East 23rd Street. 

The premises are narrow and deep; the surfaces are either painted bright white or pale blonde wood.  There are no carts scurrying around; everything is cooked to order.  You order at a counter at the back and are given a buzzer that signals when ready to pick up.  

Since we are growing boys, we had a lot to eat: 

Scallion pancake ($4.75)

Spring rolls ($4.50 2 pieces)

Steamed avocado rice rolls ($6.50 4 pieces)

Vegetarian dumplings ($5.75 4 pieces)

Har gow (shrimp dumplings) ($6.75 4 pieces)

Special chicken siu mai ($6.75 4 pieces)

Baked BBQ pork buns ($5.50 2 pieces)

BBQ pork puffs ($5.50 3 pieces)

It was uniformly excellent.  AweSum is a fitting companion/competitor to Tim Ho Wan, a few blocks away at 610 Ninth Avenue, for a casual meal in the theater district. 

Thursday, December 16, 2021

Stephen Colbert put it aptly: "We have a two-party system.  The Democratic Party and the anti-democratic party."

Friday, December 17, 2021

Public health here, there, everywhere remains in a crisis.  However, even America's Favorite Epidemiologist has grown restless with the confining circumstances of the past 20 months.  So, we have been slowly returning to the outside world.  In the last few weeks, we saw the Twyla Tharp dance company and Edie Falco in "Midnight Sun."

Last night, we attended "Flying Over Sunset," a fictionalized account of the LSD trips taken by Aldous Huxley, Cary Grant and Clare Boothe Luce, with singing and dancing, no less.  Most of the time is spent in the characters' hallucinatory experiences.  Too bad the creative team couldn't have hallucinated something entertaining. 

. . .

Answer = MLB