Lingbo Li
Momofuku Ssam Bar
Some dinners fill your stomach but leave your psyche barren.
I’ll blame part of it on not educating myself. For the prices charged, I wasn’t expecting the kind of setup I encountered. A bartender was extremely friendly and helpful in helping me and a dining companion in selecting four dishes. The famous roast pork buns, apple kim chi, fried pigs head, and fried brussel sprouts. Done.
“I tweeted the order,” I reported. A grimace was doled out in return.
Then, “They don’t allow photos here. It says so on the website.”
In true blogger fashion, I reacted with panic. “Really?” I flagged down a bartender to ask. It wasn’t true. Very funny.
Ssam Bar is, quite literally, bar food: the dishes come out all at once and you eat with people cleaning glasses in front of you. It made me feel like the place was closing and I should shovel everything done before it was taken away. I can’t fault them for this, but after my [admittedly pathetic] bank account shriveled by a third to foot the bill, I couldn’t help but wish they had paced out the dishes for maximum enjoyment.
image from gothamist. my camera cord be lost.
The pork buns were the highlight: encased in pillowy bread, dripping fat, and with the addition of hot sauce, they were delightful. I am hugely embarrassed to admit that I did not recognize the hot sauce in generic squeeze containers at first.
Dining companion thought the bartender was hot and struck up a conversation. Dead air became animated.
I asked her where they got the hot sauce.
“It’s sriracha,” she reported. “Make sure you get the kind with a green top.”
I almost died. How could I forget the notes of my favorite condiment? Wasn’t it sharper, more acidic, more vinegary? She brought over a bottle – indeed, exactly the same. Shame washed over me, dripping from my forehead to my fingertips, still sticky with pork fat.
The dishes were eaten perfunctorily. My feet ached, my pinky toe blistered from walking around in five inch heels all day. I balanced awkwardly on the stool and worked on a ginger pomegranate cocktail.
I looked behind me. There was a mirror, and I saw two figures, one in black and one in gray. My flushed shoulder was exposed where the cardigan had slipped. Diners came and went; the kitchen hummed in half-starts. I didn’t bother to right my sleeve. The meal ended, and I walked out.
The next morning, I had breakfast with a girlfriend at the top of the shopping complex in Columbus Circle. We wandered to the top, letting all the goods we could not afford buffet us along. I bought us breakfast. We had toast and oatmeal with brown sugar. I mixed it in and watched the crystals melt. It was strangely perfect, and wholly filling, and I was glad.
On the menu
The blog took a mini-vacation timed with my mini-vacation.
Just remember, if you’re ever dying for a Lingbo-update (whether it be gossipy iPhone snapshots or restaurant news), check out my Twitter account, which is updated on a daily basis.
Over the past week, I’ve spent a full day in the Kittle House’s kitchen with the executive chef, seen David Mamet’s Race, Fela!, eaten in a cheap Indian restaurant in the East Village, ordered vegetarian dim sum in Chinatown, and dined at Momofuku Ssam Bar. (A financial compromise from Momofuku Ko.) It all ended with a bowl of oatmeal at Landmarc in Columbus Circle and meandering through the city in very high heels. My pinky toe is blistered.
Tony Maws’ Fried Pigs’ Tails at Craigie on Main, Cambridge
Despite ordering very, very little at Craigie on Main (a cocktail and splitting an appetizer), my dining companion and I were treated like long lost family.
I probably have not been so coddled and swathed in love since I wore Mao-printed onesies as an infant. Despite explicitly only ordering drinks, we sat at a table, had a full bread basket brought to us, and finished off with two complimentary petite madeleines (which were unremarkable, but a nice touch).
Parked with one drink each and their famous fried pigs’ tails ($11), we camped out for three full hours.
If this were my restaurant, I probably would have kicked me out.
This is probably why I don’t run a restaurant.
Craigie, for the uninitiated, is a chef-owned restaurant that focuses on nose-to-tail cooking and local sourcing. The chef, Tony Maws, won Food & Wine’s Best New Chef last year. He worships at a porcine altar. I was told they now serve half a pig’s head. (Mark my words, I’ll be back to eat it.) When I ate there before, we were served a stuffed pig’s foot; a risotto dotted with cocks comb and blood sausage; and cured pork jowls. There’s obviously tamer stuff like a reputedly excellent burger, but for someone who is all about the quirky eats, the menu is my idea of Disneyland. I literally squeal and flap my hands – it can be quite embarrassing for my friends.
During our three hours, our waiter doted on us like the kindest and most selfless of grandfathers.
“Do you like your drink?” he asked, looking concerned. I had finished perhaps a quarter of it. It was very strong.
“Oh yeah, it’s fine,” I replied.
“I noticed you haven’t drank very much of it,” he remarked. “Just want to make sure…” Then he offered to make something else if this one didn’t tickle my pathetically-unable-to-imbibe fancy.
I said something about having the alcohol tolerance of a malnourished toddler.
Fried pigs' tails
Those famous fried pig tails? Each bite was unnerving. I hadn’t realized that a pig’s tail is mostly uh, fat. Think of it like a petite, very fatty version of a chicken drumstick or a spare rib – a small bone encased in a rich, lip-smacking casing of fat that leaves you feeling a bit stickier for the wear. Pile them up like ruby jewels, top them in a crown of delicately sliced onion rings, and sauce them in fine ethnic fashion (Vietnamese – garlicky, a bit of a chili kick), and you have what Food & Wine declared one of the best dishes under $12 in the country. I think the dish could have benefited from some extra dipping sauce on the side for the condiment-obsessed. It was the kind of thing where you would want to knaw endlessly on one tail, probably no more. I love fat as much as the next human being, but really, I wasn’t kidding when I said these babies just seem to dissolve into a fatty uber-substance upon mouth contact. I began slowing down around pig tail #4.
When we finally left – it was around midnight – I walked out in a kind of golden haze. Part of me wonders if my blogging ways might have accounted for the superlative treatment. (It turns out that an acquaintance actually works there.) I’ve done a proper meal of a tasting menu there when I just started blogging and had great service, but I’m curious to know what your experiences have been.
Which doesn’t take away from the fact It was a magical evening that utterly overdelivered on service. Which makes up for all those times elsewhere when I sulked into an improperly dressed salad, or tried to flag down an errant waiter.
Hospitality industry, you redeem thyself.
Oh, if I were an iPhone app…
If you ever wondered what your food blog would look like as a snazzy iPhone app, wait no longer, camera-wielder.
Thanks to the good folk at UrbanDaddy (my favorite e-newsletter, for the record – subscribe if you haven’t), I learned about this ridiculous new tool that is as useful for companies as it is sickeningly self-promotional for us lesser folk.
Use code “urbandaddy” for $100 off your $200 purchase if you actually do want to convert your… whatever… into a mobile shrine of joy.
Otherwise, I’m going to pretend that the sample LingboLi.com app is real. An Oprah-wannabe can dream, right?
The Foie Gras Diet, or, 7 Rules for Food Enthusiasts
One day, I hope to look this good.
Here’s one eater’s guidelines to making sure that you look as good as the food you are eating. Also, I don’t follow these all of the time. I mindlessly eat Cheetos like the best of them. Just, hopefully, less often.
If you have suggestions, feel free to add them in the comments. I tried to keep this list of insights lean. Har.
1) If someone hands you foie gras, eat it.
Never feel guilty about eating free foie gras. If someone treats you to an amazing meal, you have a duty to enjoy every last crumb – clear your mind, clean your plate, savor every calorie-rich mouthful. You will never live a full life you don’t occasionally eat some really fattening food.
2) Don’t eat bad bread.
Don’t eat cold, limp french fries. Don’t eat twenty Snickers bars. (Diminishing marginal returns on deliciousness.) If you’re eating what’s been deemed as Boston’s best donut ever, relish it. But the ill-catered leftovers from some forgettable event won’t edify you. Calories should be maximized for pleasure – sometimes, education. And if you go on a donut tour one day, eat salad the next.
3) Hot sauce can fix a lot of things.
A squirt of sriracha (or your favorite condiment that is not mayo) can act as a food bandaid for many healthful dishes. Like egg whites, with hot sauce. Stir fried veggies, with hot sauce. Soup, with hot sauce. You get the idea. Plus spicy stuff is rumored to give your metabolism a bit of a kick. And if you put in obscene amounts, it slows down how fast you can eat your food between anguished bites.
4) Fill up on water. (And try to keep booze to a minimum. Or something else.)
The first is self-explanatory. As for the second, see the next point.
I’ve never had a taste for alcohol. After drinking my first legal Tsing Tao beer (alcohol content: really low), my dad commented, “You look like a crab.” As in, bright red. Therefore, in the months leading up to Miss New York USA 2010, I pretty much cut out all alcohol consumption. And I really like soy milk, so dairy went out too. No big deal. Figure out what you’re willing to compromise on.
5) Shapewear is your friend.
My favorite item in my closet is a hyper-tight skirt with sleek, wide waistband that holds everything in and makes my skimpier dresses fit better. It also doubles as a really, really sexy skirt. But you don’t need to be overweight to benefit from the joys of shapewear, is all I’m saying. Bridget Jones had the right idea.
6) Your appearance [almost] entirely constructed.
This is a huge point, and really deserves a lengthy blog post/book. The reason why makeover shows work so well is because people don’t know how to style themselves.
What a lot of people don’t grasp is that appearance is a constructed thing – it’s a series of skill sets and resources. Celeb handlers know this. Beauty queens know this. That’s why I saw so many girls with clip on hair, bronzer, and padding. To some people, that means it’s “fake.” If you’re smart, you can use this to your advantage. (Or not – it’s a personal choice.) There’s no shame in being good at applying your makeup.
Dressing yourself comes down to one thing: knowing what looks good on you. Then knock ’em dead.
7) And yeah… exercise.
It’s a great way to catch up on your favorite reality TV.
Lana Lingbo Li
I'm a world traveler / enthusiastic eater who's now blogging and producing videos over at HelloLana.com. Visit me there!
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