After dinner at Bond St. Sushi and another snack at Soho Park, all of us headed to Double Happiness, a lounge on the lower east side. One of Felicia’s friends was DJ-ing at the club and we stopped by to have a couple drinks. The place is very dark (it’s underground) and it’s almost like a maze trying to get to the bathroom. I like Double Happiness because it doesn’t get too crowded, the bartender’s aren’t pretentious, and they have interesting martini creations. I read a review saying you should try their green tea martini, but Joe ordered one and it was probably the grossest drink on the menu. I ordered the grapefruit martini and it was delicious (I’m usually not a fan of martini’s since it’s mostly alcohol). The music was great and we all had a great time dancing, drinking, and hanging out with friends. Pictures from the night:

Chris, me, and Joe in the little nook next to the DJ booth:

UIUC-ers in NYC! (Felicia, me, Joe, and Jason):

Definitely check out Double Happiness when you’re looking for a cool hangout where you show off your made up dance moves without feeling embarassed (or at least I didn’t feel embarrassed :))

On Friday night, my friend from college, Joe Xu, came from Chicago to visit New York. He stayed with Jason and we ended up going out around 1AM (his flight arrived around 11PM) but it was SO incredibly nice to see him since we haven’t seen each other since I visited Chicago (but I only saw him for 20 minutes because he was so busy working!). Pictures from PS 450:

Me, Joe, and Jason:

PS 450 is a nice lounge with a diverse group of people and there’s never a cover charge or a long line. Joe said there isn’t ANYTHING like it in Chicago, which I find hard to believe, but I like going to PS 450 for a late happy hour and then staying for more drinks (since it’s relatively close to my office). It can get a little stuffy in the front of the lounge, but I think it’s a pretty laid back place then you’re not looking for something too hectic. Check back later for another weekend update!

After the dentist’s visit, dinner in Chinatown, and running to Herald Square for some last minute window shopping, I headed out to 230 Fifth for some drinks with Jason, Leo, and their friends. It was kind of a cold night to be out since 230 Fifth is known more for their rooftop bar (or the stuffed cheetah by the entrance). I haven’t seen Jason since March (he’s SO busy with work!):

Leo and I didn’t stay that long because we were kind of hungry (again), BUT, while Leo was ordering drinks, he noticed that one of the bartender’s was a model from ANTM (America’s Next Top Model)! Leo has seen every season since it started in 2003 (impressive!) and recognized Xiomara Frans (I had no idea who she was). She was booted mid-season (the season Yoanna House won). Now, she works as a bartender at 230 Fifth (I’m not sure if she’s still a model) and she was SUPER rude to Leo. She wouldn’t take a picture with her because she said she was busy (understandable) and basically blew him off. Before we left, he asked again and she wanted Leo to take a picture of her and another bartender…um, okay. Instead, I took a picture of Leo and her in the background:

Recognize her? Yeah…I didn’t, either.

Afterwards, we headed to K-Town for some seolleongtang, which is the ox-tail soup that I love so much and some beef brisket, thinly sliced:

You eat the beef with the green onion in the center for more flavor (Steve mistook it for lettuce when he came to visit in January). I didn’t end up going home until 3AM, but the meal was so good. I could live off seolleongtang (especially now since I have a temporary crown in and I’m not supposed to use my left side to chew).

Last night, two coworkers from the San Jose office treated me and Vikkie to a meal at Morimoto, the restaurant opened by this guy:

Recognize him? He’s one of head honchos from the show Iron Chef, a show on food network. Needless to say, I was *very* excited! (an interesting side note - he used to be the executive chef at Nobu, the restaurant I’m going to tonight). Morimoto is located in Chelsea (next to the Chelsea Market) in an industrial-looking space. It was designed by Tadao Ando and has this awesome wall of 17,000 water bottles. Also, there are glass partitions that make the atmosphere semi-private (and it’s really great because even though the restaurant was packed, the noise level was kept to a minimum). The sushi bar looked very clean and simple:

We started off with the tuna pizza, the oyster foie gras, a spicy tuna roll, and an eel cucumber roll (and I snuck in two fatty tuna pieces). The tuna pizza is one of Morimoto’s “signature dishes” - it’s a cold appetizer with bluefin tuna, anchovy aioli, and jalepeno’s. There’s also a white sauce that’s drizzled on top of the tuna (maybe wasabi mixed with a japanese mayo?) - the tuna mixed with the crunchiness of the tortilla styled “pizza” is a great combination and our table definitely enjoyed it. The oyster foie gras was also pretty good (no, oyster’s don’t have livers…it was an oyster and on TOP of the oyster was a piece of foie gras). The foie gras literally melted in your mouth and it mixed well with the oyster/teriyaki sauce. I guess the only downside was that there were only THREE oysters, so Vikkie volunteered to be the odd man out (don’t worry - we gave her two extra pieces of tuna pizza to make up for it).

–Side comment: I took pictures of ALL the appetizers with my canon with a 2G memory card, but after taking about 5 pictures, it said that the memory card was FULL! Why would the camera do that? Was it the camera’s fault for reading the 2G card incorrectly? Or was it the SD card’s fault for LYING TO MY CAMERA? Either way, I formatted the card by accident and deleted all of the pictures. I was so sad I almost made everyone order the appetizers/sushi again so I could get pictures of the awesome presentation).

After the foie gras and tuna pizza came, we had the spicy tuna, fatty tuna, and eel/cucumber rolls. The spicy tuna rolls seemed REALLY fresh (the fatty tuna was awesome) and the eel was slightly warm and semi sweet (can it get any better?). The appetizers were definitely a great start to the meal (I was a little worried since Chris said he read about the place and he had it hyped up in his head…I didn’t want to disappoint!).

For my main course, I ordered the surf and turf (yozu butter poached lobster, seared kobe filet, seasoned spinach, and red wine jus):

I’m usually not a fan of butter with lobster (I think it ruins the sweetness of the lobster) but I was literally drenching the lobster in the butter sauce). The butter sauce was slightly creamy and complemented the lobster really well. The kobe filet was AWESOME. I don’t think I’ve ever had meat that tender and juicy (it also had an interesting green sauce that tasted like spinach puree). I liked the pairing with baby asparagus (well, at least that’s what I THINK it was), red wine jus, and mushrooms.

Vikkie ordered their signature dish, the duck duck duck, which is on a foie gras croissant, has a duck egg dipping sauce, a red miso sauce, and one other dipping sauce I didn’t catch the waitress say:

Look at the flakey crust:

She really enjoyed her dish and didn’t feel extremely full afterwards (you know, the way you feel when you eat a lot of red meat). I almost regret not trying it, but it’s incentive to go back!

Chris ordered the Japanese Bouillabaisse, which included a half shell lobster, king crab, mussels, clam diver scallops, all in a red miso sake broth:

He really liked the dish in general, but it looked like it needed a side of rice (or bread? It was too soupy to go without any kind of starch). It looked like a tasty dish and they definitely weren’t stingy with the copious amounts of seafood…I mean, LOOK AT IT.

Finally, Bo ordered the braised black cod - Japanese ratatouille in a ginger soy reduction (at least I think that’s what he ordered - correct me if I’m wrong!):

Bo enjoyed his dish and thought the fish was fresh and light. I think all of us were satisfied with our main courses and didn’t feel extremely full afterwards (which is always a good thing). We ordered dessert (you have to get the FULL picture of the restaurant, obviously). Morimoto’s known for their tofu cheesecake, kabosu creme brulee, and two types of tarts, but we decided to go with the chocolate pecan brownie and the coconut macaroon.

The chocolate pecan brownie:

I brownie was warm and gooey and I usually HATE nuts in brownies (sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t), but the pecans meshed well with the brownie. It was like they were meant for each other. There was also a sliver of ameretto cream espresso ice cream that added a kick to the brownie (Bo thought it was a too sweet in general but Vikkie and I agreed that it was more of a comfort food dish).

The coconut macaroon:

Layer one: coconut macaroon
Layer two: bananas
Layer three: possibly a banana mousse with a little bit of passion-fruit covered in chocolate
Layer four: rum raisin ice cream

I’ve never had a macaroon before, but I thought the coconut macaroon was a little too stiff (it reminded me of a rice cake). If you pushed away the first layer and carefully placed layers two - four on your spoon with a drizzle of the passion fruit sauce, you’d have a party in your mouth! The coconut macaroon was definitely a more summer oriented dessert because it was a lot lighter and the chocolate pecan brownie was a winter-like dessert because it was so rich and you definitely couldn’t pull that off in the heat.

Bo also ordered some tea and it came with this lovely platter of additions:

Vikkie was really excited because she thought they included marshmallows for Bo’s green tea (top left hand corner), but upon closer inspection, we saw that it was just cubes of sugar. The waiter heard Vikkie’s comment and said that she wasn’t the first person to think that they gave marshmallows with tea.

So, one of the most exciting things about Morimoto (besides the delicious food, great ambiance, and great company), was the bathroom. No joke, the bathroom. Vikkie and I went down there (sans camera) and walked into this toilet:

You’re probably wanting to ask me, what is the bar of buttons next to the toilet, Grace? Well, dear reader, it is THIS:

It was a heated toilet seat with a bidet - front AND rear cleansing! hahaha I just HAD to take a picture! You could hear people giggling in the bathroom stalls next to you…I wonder why.

After our wonderful dinner (and two White Lily cocktails), we walked to Magnolia for cupcakes (only Bo and Chris could fit them in after ALL the food we devoured):

I’m more partial to Buttercup because their frosting is less sugary and you can’t taste individual granules…but it looks like Bo and Chris are really enjoying their cupcakes (especially Chris).

Bo and Chris came in from Long Island (where their client is) and since their train wasn’t until 11/12ish, we decided to go for more drinks at the Gansevoort Hotel. Actually, we headed to Ono, the restaurant on the first floor of the hotel since it was a Tuesday night around 10. I’m walking to the restroom in the back of the restaurant…and I run into freaking FABIO!

Do you know him?! He’s probably most well known for his “I can’t believe it’s not Butter” commercials…or the time a bird ran into his nose on a roller coaster. He was with three other guys (his less glamorous entourage?) having dinner at the restaurant. I’ve actually seen him before - when I lived in Pittsburgh, I saw him at a mall doing a promotion for some random thing…maybe a cologne he associated his name with?

Anyway, I tried some of the drinks at Ono, including the lemongrass mojito (which was good, except the mint leaves were too small so I kept eating them - gross). The four of us at Ono:

Bo, me, Chris, and Vikkie.

Audrey, Kori, and Jon joined us after their group dinner at Gramercy Tavern and told us all the debauchery that happened there (I still haven’t been there but I’ve heard it’s pretty good). Chris also joined us after his dinner with a college buddy:

We’re headed to Nobu tonight - I’ll be back with pictures tomorrow!

It has been quite a while since I posted (sorry Brian and Darren, my two loyal readers). I’ve been meaning to update since major things have transpired since my last post, but better late than never!

1. College roommates visiting NYC

John, Angie, and Steve came to visit me in early January (actually, right after I got back from North Carolina). It was so great seeing them and being around familiar people again (not that I don’t enjoy being in NY, but the feeling you get when you’re with close friends is amazing). John had never visited NYC before but Angie has visited a bunch of times (including one time when I interned) and Steve has visited once or twice. To start off the night, we took the subway (John’s first time!) to The Burger Joint (in Le Parker Meridien). I captured John’s first subway ride for him:

(Steve is on the left, John’s on the right).

We met up with Jason Thai at The Burger Joint and had burgers, beer, and cupcakes (I bought one earlier in the day since we were semi-celebrating Angie’s birthday, too). A picture of Jason, John, and Angie:

After dinner, we walked back to my apartment so John could check out Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, and other touristy places:

We got back to my apartment and got ready to go to Plan B, a little bar in the east village, where we met up with Audrey and Charles, Leena, Jen, and a bunch of randoms. A picture of me, John, Angie, and Steve at Plan B:

Since Plan B was getting really packed, we decided to go to another bar, and on Jen’s insistence, we headed to a place called…The Web. The Web is located on 58th between Madison and Park and RIGHT next to Tao. On our cab right to The Web, John claims we had the coolest cab driver EVER. He blasted music for us and Angie and I had a dance party in the backseat (I just remember people in the cab next to us giving us the weirdest faces). The cab driver and John (I think John might’ve been teaching him some dance moves, too):

Since I didn’t know the name of the bar we were going to, I THOUGHT we were going to Tao (it’s actually next door to The Web), but we walked downstairs…and the last time I went to Tao, I didn’t remember going downstairs to get in. Anyway, The Web is a gay bar (which we did NOT know) and not only is it a gay bar, but it’s also a gay ASIAN bar. We were supposed to meet one of Jen’s friends there (and we didn’t even find him), but we did find this (all over the place):

That’s right, there were asian men dancing in their underwear in CAGES! We didn’t last too long in the bar and headed back to my apartment, where we crammed into my room and got ready to sleep for the night (actually, we got back around 4AM). John and Steve laughing about the awkwardness of The Web:

On Saturday, we planned to check out a lot of sites, but we ended up getting up around 2 (that’s what happens when you live in a room with no natural sunlight). We headed straight for Chinatown for dim sum with Angie’s friend from high school, Dion:

After dim sum/putzing around Chinatown, we walked through Soho (that weekend was possibly the best weekend to visit because it was literally 70 degrees outside!). After spending the late afternoon in Soho, we all went back to my apartment and got ready for dinner (we did all you can eat sushi at Yuka, a place on the UES). Leo, David, and Jason also joined us and we pigged out on sushi rolls (although, it wasn’t THAT fresh).

Since we finished dinner around 11, we decided that we would just take it easy that night and headed to BBar:

After BBar, we headed to Park:

(sidenote - notice how I don’t ALWAYS have to be in the center for all of my pictures!) I loved having John and Angie back

We got to sleep a little earlier on Saturday (around 3AM):

John met Milly (the rabbit) and Steve took advantage of Farnie. Actually, Steve got to sleep on the bed with me both nights while John and Angie had to “sleep” on the air bed both nights. Is that fair?! I mean, Steve was a total baby when it came to sleeping on the floor and basically refused to do it. Next time, Steve can get a hotel and Angie and John can stay in my bed with me (I upgraded to a full).

On Sunday, we headed to midtown to get C&R and to see Central Park/shop along 5th Ave:

After walking through some of Central Park, we had to head back to my apartment and pack everything up because their flight was in the late afternoon. It was so great seeing my college roommates and taking them around - next time, Brian will have to come, too.

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2. Work in NJ

After John, Angie, and Steve’s visit, work got really busy and I was working really late hours for a while. Since I worked late hours, I would have to pack my bag the night before (it saves at least 5 minutes in the morning). Anyway, one night, while packing, I guess I didn’t really pay attention to the shoes I was packing so when I went into my purse to put on my shoes, I came up with this:

Good thing I wore pants! Now I’m on a new project and hopefully mishaps like that won’t happen again.

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3. My New Apartment

On February 1st, I moved to a new place on the east side (I was originally on the west side). I live RIGHT by Barneys, Tods, Crate and Barrel, and lots of other shops! It’s a great location and it’s a lot better than the place I was staying before (I mean, I couldn’t even fit a full-sized bed in my last apartment!). My mom also came over the weekend to help me unpack and set up my apartment and now it’s starting to feel like home (finally).

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4. Weekend Adventures

Interestingly enough, my friend from college, Tim Lee, introduced me to a friend of his from high school that moved to New York in July. We’ve been hanging out a lot and so far, have done these things in NY:

a. Ice skating in Central Park:

b. The NY Aquarium (in Brooklyn):

We’ve also been to the Pearl Oyster Bar (for great lobster roll sandwiches), Tartine (a cute little byob French restaurant in the west village), and Pinkberry in K-town (great fro-yo!)

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In March, I’m headed to CA to visit my brother (and my mom will be there, too!). It’s going to be so great seeing them again AND hopefully David will have a wii by then.