Tag Archives: it’s fun to be fat

Restaurant Review: Shake Shack

Posted by plumpdumpling on June 9, 2008 – 1:23 pm
Filed under it's fun to be fat, living in new york is neat, narcissism, restaurant ramblings
Tagged as , , ,

After a long afternoon of doing everything we could to not so much as look outside, Boyfriend Kamran and I decided that it’d be a real waste of his astronomical Manhattan rent if we didn’t take the short jaunt down to Madison Square Park and enjoy the 6th annual Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, even if it meant melting on the sidewalk two feet outside the door.

Unfortunately, we decided this at 5:30 p.m., and the thing ended at 6, so by the time we reached Madison Ave., the crowds were leaving with heaping takeout containers of pork. We passed some tents on Madison but went on into the park in hopes that the best BBQ would have prime locations there, but we were soon lost amidst beer and dessert tents and lots of laughing, pig-filled sweaty people. When we finally wove our way out, police officers were waving everyone away from the BBQ tents, saying that everything was closed, but some helpful workers directed us around the corner to a lone stand that was still serving. We tipped over strollers and old ladies to join the expanding line, but alas, there was no food left.

Not willing to admit defeat, though, we found a puddle of yelloworange BBQ sauce spread on the street and figured that if we could just get our hands on some half-chewed pork butt, we could work something out:

No? Okay, fine. Instead, we took it as an opportunity to have dinner at Shake Shack, which is a burger institution around these parts. I’d only ever ordered the black and white shake–vanilla ice cream with a hint of hot fudge–in my few visits to the Shack, so I was excited to get my hands on those renowned burgers for the first time.

And they were good, no doubt, in the way that your mom’s burger is good; very freshly-made and very grilled-in-the-backyard with no added spices or marinades. Kamran had the Shackburger, which was lightly smoothed with a layer of sauce that tasted like a very spicy mayonnaise, and I had a plain ol’ cheeseburger with yellow mustard. It was yummy beef to be sure, but it was no ginormous, perfectly-seasoned slab like the one at Cozy Soup ‘n’ Burger, which I’m going to argue is the best burger in New York City until I die.

Our desserts were similarly good. Kamran had a caramel shake that clearly used quality ice cream, and I had the Shack Attack, which was a squat container filled with thick chocolate custard, chocolate-covered cookie dough, chocolate chunks, and chocolate sprinkles. (It supposedly had hot fudge in it, too, but it was either swirled in or nonexistent.) I had a bit of a chocolate overload by the time I was finished and kind of wished that the custard had been vanilla and that the hot fudge had been poured on top of that, but you know, complaining about too much chocolate is ridiculous.

I don’t want to be the lone naysayer when it comes to the place, but I want to give it to you straight–I think Shake Shack gets most of its accolades because it’s cool to like it. Much like Magnolia Bakery, there’s always a massive line outside the Shack, but Magnolia cupcakes really are better than any other cupcake in the city. (Well, at least the icing is.) With Shake Shack, it’s more that it’s in the middle of the the park and affords you the opportunity to eat a decent meal outside without cars whizzing the entire time like they do on the patio of a regular restaurant. Plus, New Yorkers love to talk about how “worth it” long lines are, because waiting around strangely makes things taste better.

I certainly like Shake Shack, and oddly, I think I romanticize the place more than anyone I know. I’m always asking Kamran if we can go there, because even if the food is just good, dessert in the park is great.

Comment Here

Restaurant Review: Savarona

Posted by plumpdumpling on June 2, 2008 – 5:40 pm
Filed under it's fun to be fat, living in new york is neat, restaurant ramblings
Tagged as , ,

The one review of the new Turkish restaurant Savarona that my boyfriend and I read before making our reservation complained that it’s “farther east than anyone should have to go in Midtown”, but we’re well-versed on 1st Ave. and rolled our eyes at that person’s lacking sense of adventure. And then we found ourselves lost on eerily industrial 59th Street, practically walking into the East River under the Queensboro Bridge.

We spotted Savarona’s empty private room first and thought uh-oh, but then the rest of the place came into view, and it was lovely: entirely glass front with two sets of wide open doors, gold lattices on the walls, and a polished black bar. The beautiful hostesses greeted us genuinely and enthusiastically, which is one of those small but important details for me, and the one who led us to our table asked if we had any problems finding the place, which I naturally lied about. I hated that we were seated in the back away from the windows despite the place being only half-full, but I suppose they were trying to spread everyone out. Our waiter met with us immediately and was very friendly, and aside from feeling like he was forcing drinks on us in the beginning–”I don’t really like wine”, I finally had to say–he continued to be attentive and informative throughout the meal.


This is entirely faux-serious.

We went with the $70 chef’s tasting menu against my wishes, because there were two courses where the only choices were seafood-based, and I’m a total fish-phobe. My boyfriend, Kamran, guilted me into it, though, saying that he didn’t feel comfortable ordering it without me. Since each of the six courses had two offerings, we decided to share one of everything and got a few surprises along the way. The first was a plate of what looked like falafel and hummus but turned out to be a meat croquette and babaghanoush.

The croquette (a word that I’ve never in my life used before this moment, by the way) had a super-crunchy skin and this chili sauce that I want to eat on every meal from now on. I didn’t see it elsewhere on the menu, so if you don’t go for the tasting menu, find a way to finagle it from your waiter.

Our first course included a plate of jumbo langoustine with a little pile of mushrooms on one side and more babaghanoush on the other. I was wholly frightened by the word langoustine, let alone the actual sight of the big pinkorange shell, but after wrestling a hunk of it out with my fork and knife, I learned that it was actually very mild. And the ball of crab resting on top of it, covered in a tenticle-like crust that gave it the appearance of a tiny sea urchin, was even better.

The other plate, a modern mezze platter consisting of five small dishes, was much more up my alley: a cube of chicken salad with pine nuts, a very savory yogurt with mint garnish, grilled vegetables, a chilled red pepper salad with walnuts, and grilled cold eggplant. It was all delicious, but the chicken salad and the yogurt were real stand-outs. Kamran and I were using our bread to scoop out as much of the yogurt as we could, and I’m surprised we didn’t use our tongues to lap it off the sides of the bowl.

Our second course was a smoked salmon roll filled with sliced avocado and topped with feta, chives, and red caviar. Although I’ve found recently that I actually sort of enjoy raw salmon, smoked salmon was a little too fishy for me to eat without masking the flavor with a lot of avocado, and you know I plopped that caviar on the side of the plate and made Kamran eat it.

The second plate was a stuffed mackerel roll with a bready skin, a topping that Kamran referred to as “micro salad”, and fried pine nuts. The mackerel was much less fishy than the salmon–although my anti-fish brain made me scrape off the bits of silver that clung to its edges–and was flavoured with something slightly sweet that Kamran first thought was cinnamon but may have been from the currants mixed in. The red pepper emulsion was what really made the dish, though, just as the spicy mustard made the salmon plate. Even as a fish-hater, I was impressed with how well the sauces complimented the seafood flavor.

Our third course was the one I really dreaded, because one plate was a fish called umbrina that I’d never heard of before, and the other plate was a KING PRAWN. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to put the word king in front of anything having to do with the ocean? The waiter put the umbrina down in front of Kamran, and I thought I was going to have to throw a fit, but then I saw that prawn on my plate was really just a big shrimp and not at all the bug-eyed crayfish-like creature that I’d expected. I played it cool while Kamran dug around in the parchment paper bowl that the umbrina was cooked in

and took a tiny bite of the sole on my plate, which was covered in some sort of yellow sauce so bland that I can’t muster a guess as to what was in it. The sole was flaky and incredibly moist, just as Kamran said his umbrina was. But not really caring for the texture of it, I kind of pushed it aside and took a bite of the risotto under the prawn, which turned out to be wonderful. Al dente, mixed with chopped basil, with fresh basil leaves on the side. To really go for the gold, I chopped off the very tip of the prawn just to say that I tried it, and to my surprise, it was . . . delicious. It had a meatier, less chewy texture than a small shrimp, with a grilled flavor that I didn’t expect at all.

I kept saying to Kamran, “You can’t even imagine how good this is!”, and he kept saying, “The rest of the world has had good shrimp before, Katie.” It was so good, though, that it actually caused me to use the word tasty, a word that I despise almost as much as the word panties. I eventually had to cut off the tail and make Kamran hide it behind his bowl, though, because the moment I thought about it as seafood, I wanted to spit it back out.

The fourth course, which was clearly designed especially for my palate as a reward for making it through the previous two courses, was a plate of two different cuts of lamb and a plate of wild duck confit. I started with the lamb chop and loin, which were cooked just the right amount for me, and even if the chop hadn’t been as flavorful as it was, I still would’ve loved it just for its shape. The loin was little tough for me, but the dollup of young zucchini puree topped with fried potato straws beside it was delightful; so much so that I kept eating it long after I passed the plate to Kamran.

The duck confit was supposed to be caramelized, but Kamran and I didn’t notice it, maybe because we were too busy dipping it in the rich honey and black grape sauce smeared on the side. It almost overwhelmed the duck, but I don’t mean that as a complaint. There was a pile of mushrooms hidden inside a criss-crossed shell of potato fondant that Kamran said tasted like nothing and I thought tasted slightly like pound cake. We decided it was just there for looks.

Another little off-the-menu surprise arrived in the form of a saffron-flavoured jelly that our waiter referred to as a “sorbet”. The texture was somewhere between pudding and Jell-o, the taste was clean and refreshing, and the collection of nuts and currants on top was a nice addition, especially the pistachios. The presentation–a juice glass in what looked like a heavy brass measuring cup–was also very impressive, if you exclude all of the stains I made on the table cloth.

Kamran’s dessert was a cherry bread with an almost-savory vanilla cream, black grapes, mint leaves, and a wild sugar concoction on top that resembled the hair of a treasure troll. The bread was extremely moist, and the grapes were so delicious that I wished I’d eaten them one at a time instead of packing them in together, but overall, the dish was barely sweet at all if you discount the strands of sugar. It was perfect for someone like Kamran who gets easily overwhelmed by sweet, rich foods, but it would have been a let-down for me.

My dessert, on the other hand, was probably the most impressive one I’ve had in New York thus far. The bottom layer was a thick-cut slice of baked pineapple. Then there was a layer of THE most delicious vanilla cream I’ve ever had. Then a thin slice of dried pineapple. Then a scoop of peach sorbet stuck with a sprig of mint. Then that crazy sugar nest again.

It was such a positive experience overall that the things that let me down weren’t such a big deal, but for a well-rounded review, I should mention the following:

1) As someone who can give or take mushrooms, I was disappointed to see them in almost every dish. They were always done well and always looked nice, but I never felt like they added much to the plate.

2) The menu didn’t always deliver what it promised. There was supposed to be some interesting foams on a couple of dishes, for instance, and either they weren’t there, or we couldn’t distinguish them from what was happening on the rest of the plate. And there was supposed to be Turkish Delight served with our very delicious coffee and tea, and while the surprise saffron cup was welcome, we were really interested to see if the Turkish Delight was any different than the kind we buy in cardboard boxes at the candy store. All of this would have been fine, of course, if we hadn’t expected it after seeing the menu.

3) In a couple of cases, we felt like the chef had focused more on technique than taste. The potato fondant shell is the best example of this; it looked cool and probably took some skill, but it didn’t taste like a whole lot to Kamran, and I didn’t care for the stale cracker consistency.

The bill was outrageous by my standards–nearly $200, and I didn’t even have any alcohol–but I was delighted by something in every course, the portions were very large, and the dessert couldn’t have been better, so it was well worth the money for me. Especially since I wasn’t paying. (Thanks, Kamran!) I would definitely go back again for the atmosphere, for the service, for the risotto and prawn, and for that wonderful pineapple dessert.

Comment Here

Google is Keeping Tabs on My Weight

Posted by plumpdumpling on May 26, 2008 – 9:11 pm
Filed under it's fun to be fat, my uber-confrontational personality
Tagged as ,

In an attempt to make millions off my website on the suggestion of my very supportive, non-blog-hatin’ friend Elise, I added a couple of Google AdSense ads tonight. I was feeling not-so-sellouty about the Japanese restaurant links that kept popping up on my sidebar, because I am, after all, trying to mold myself into the most-Asian white girl you know. But after editing an old post and reloading the page, I saw that one of the ads had become a photo of an attractive fat girl. I quickly scrolled down to my footer, and the big banner across the bottom had switched over to a spread for a BBW dating site. I’m convinced that Google saw a couple of pictures of me here and is trying to tell me something.

YOU CANNOT DISSUADE ME, GOOGLE. I WILL ONLY POST MORE PHOTOS OF MYSELF EATING TO SPITE YOU.

Comment Here

Restaurant Review: Grand Central Oyster Bar

Posted by plumpdumpling on May 21, 2008 – 11:48 am
Filed under creepy boyfriend obsession, it's fun to be fat, living in new york is neat, narcissism, restaurant ramblings
Tagged as , , , ,

I don’t like seafood. I don’t like that it’s been swimming around in a cesspool of its own feces, and I don’t like that it tastes like it. But when your boyfriend wants to gulp an entire plate of raw ocean animalia, you don’t argue; you make him take you to the Grand Central Oyster Bar.

The restaurant is underground, cavernous, monstrous, with huge arced ceilings tiled and lined with lights. It feels more like you’re at an expensive wedding reception than on a private date. It’s not really dim enough to be romantic, the tablecloths are a very small-town-diner red-checker, you can hear the slurps of the couple dining right next to you, and the clatter of silverware echoes off the walls. But for some reason, you feel really great being there. Really 1920s flapper-girl-in-a-string-of-pearls. You expect fat cats in suits and top hats to walk through the door any moment. But the unpretentious, jolly kind of fat cats.

The menu is amazing. If you like seafood. In a different life, I would’ve dove right into that caviar sandwich (because what isn’t good on bread?), and a jumbo lump crabmeat cocktail sounds like an alcoholic’s delight. Kamran was intent on our trying the bloody mary oyster shooter and splitting the bivalve platter, but since I can barely stomach the word “bivalve”, we settled on some New England clam chowder. Which was totally delicious, even before I added three bags of oyster crackers to it. It wasn’t fishy at all, and the clam didn’t have the rubbery consistency I expected.

I had planned to play it legit and order the half chicken, but Kamran convinced me that if anyone was going to do fish right, it was “America’s most historic and celebrated seafood restaurant”. So I ordered one of the specials, a sturgeon splashed with rum sauce and golden raisins, hoping that the rum would get me drunk enough that I’d forget I was eating the ocean. It came with some nice buttery vegetables to help clear my palate between bites to keep me from freaking out and this REALLY AWESOME RICE. I don’t have any idea what was in it, but it was a cheesy little ball of hearty warm nothing-else-I’ve-ever-tasted. And hey, the fish wasn’t bad, either. When I asked the waiter if he thought sturgeon was okay for a seafood-hater, he told me that it’s so mild there’s a dish called sturgeon cordon bleu. And he was right for the most part; the ends of the hunk were much thinner and were a little bit browned, and they were actually what I might call “delicious”. The middle was thick and moist, and although it didn’t really taste any different from the ends, the fact that I could see all of the meaty layers freaked me out, so I had to leave a bit of it behind. Still, I was obviously proud of myself:

When I finished, Kamran said that

a) it’s good I have no idea what a sturgeon looks like, or I would’ve been too scared to eat it, and

b) he, a seafood fanatic, wasn’t sure he would’ve had the guts to try it. YES!

And speaking of guts, Kamran ordered the medley of shellfish and ended up being a little overwhelmed by the huge plate of oysters and clams arranged from smallest to largest, mussels, and giant shrimp.

He had been really excited about eating clams after having stealing a really good one from his sister’s plate the last time we were at Balthazar, but the clams on this plate weren’t cooked, and his stomach wasn’t quite prepared for that after a childhood incident involving bad clams that made him sick. The oysters were a suckin’

slurplin’

swishin’ good time, though, and he liked everything else on the plate so much that he had a hard time deciding what to save for last. Although he did spend the rest of the night feeling like slimy things were swimming around in his stomach, so I felt vindicated.

Overall, I’d say the food must be pretty great if the anti-seafood-est person alive was able to handle it with a smile, and the atmosphere was neat if not dark and romantic, and it was the sort of experience that you feel like you can only get in New York. And that’s what it’s all about.

Comment Here