All Posts Filed in ‘Review’

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MIGHTY QUINN’S BBQQQ

May 24, 2014
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Jonatan and I went to Mighty Quinn’s BBQ (2nd Ave between 6th and 7th for all you filthy BBQ goers) and disaster ensued with the carnage of two Pulled Pork Sandwiches ‘n Slaw, a pound of Brisket, Sweet Potato Casserole with Maple & Pecans, Burnt End Baked Beans, Buttermilk Broccoli Salad with Bacon, and French Fries, because what barbecue feast is complete without more fat?

 But, I must say, it was no premiere Texas BBQ; however no meal is complete without relative certainty of possible explosion. Turns out this wasn’t our first taste of Mighty Quinn’s–we actually waited in line for an absurd amount of time at Smorgasburg (see post below) just the week (or so) before for their pulled pork sandwiches, which we initially appraised as being too bready and confirmed during our second visit. But apparently they are quite the hype with crowds foaming rabidly at the mouth filing in–after all, we did order the entire menu, didn’t we? I would say that their meats weren’t the most flavorful (but what do I know other than my sensible mouth hole), their Broccoli Salad a little watery, French Fries so-so, and their Sweet Potate Cass’role delish (if you rely on sugar for good health like I do).

So why so popular? TBD. I was listening to WNYC yesterday and they had a segment about Smorgasburg, and I believe they said that Mighty Quinn’s first got its start there (as a stand that later expanded into the restaurant that we all or at least a lot of us or at least maybe you know and love), but I could’ve misheard/been hallucinating, I get so food deprived at work sometimes. Anyway despite having only mediocre thoughts/feelings/emotions/loves/hopes/dreams for Mighty Quinn’s, I must say just by the sheer volume of food I shoved down, my god was it mighty.

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Ice Cream Social For Grown Ups

May 10, 2014
7 comments

Do you miss being hyper? Do you miss cotton candy? Do you miss sun? Do you miss what hot dogs meant to you before they meant ground up pig scraps? Do you miss having food smeared on your face cuz you didn’t know what a mouth was? Do you miss peeing your pants? Do you miss being so dumb that everything in the world was fun? I do too and it’s called being in 5th grade. And what was the best part of 5th grade?! ICE CREAM SOCIAL!!!! (Of course these are not exclusively held for 5th graders, I know that) but 5th grade is the general time of life that your ice-cream-social-going selves peak, beyond which you can expect a steady decline of enthusiasm, immunity to fat, and sexual vigor. But that’s why god made Smorgasburg: the closest you’ll ever come to heaven/your childhood ever again (just see “baby” below). The first time I discovered this place was on a sun-drenched Saturday stroll in Williamsburg, the pulse of spring reverberating through the streets as we approached an inviting mass of pedestrian traffic. In my subsequent stupor, I stood wide-eyed as plate after plate flashed in front of my face: ice cream sandwich pork belly buns chicken ‘n waffles milkshakes fries donuts bubble tea bbq baguettes macaroons salt water taffy (this could go on forever and I was literally just overcome by exhaustion) so to make a long story short, we ran in and stuffed as much food would fit down our throats despite having just eaten two bags of pastries…and then went back to Brooklyn Heights to do it again the following day. Here are some pictures:

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Need a Little Depressing in Your Day? READ ON!

February 25, 2014
12 comments

New York can be an impossible city. It can feel like wheels under your feet spun out of control, unwilling to wait while you regain your footing and catch a breath, even for just a second. If you don’t put up a fight, it’ll swallow you in it’s roaring streets and thick breasted sky scrapers that you look at with your head pulled straight back and mouth gaping open, and it’ll spit you out a carcass with hardly a beating pulse. Sometimes I feel like I’m the loneliest person on earth. Well, it’s a funny thing walking down a street with herds of people to your right, your left, cutting off your stride straight ahead and on your heels directly behind, yet feeling alone. Really alone. The suffocating feeling of knowing that you could slowly melt into the mass of numb bodies and become lost under their shuffle without a second thought. You could be hit by a subway car, and somewhere a few stops down the line there’ll be hundreds of people dismayed at the delays at the hands of another undisclosed “police investigation,” sighing in, sighing out, scoffing as they stare at the hands go round and round their ticking watches. There’s no time. No one’s got time. No time to drag your feet, no time to be indecisive, no time to explain, no time to take your time. And what I still can’t figure out is what is this hustle for? Where do I need to be that I can’t wait for the next train? No, I need to have that woman’s butt smashed on my thighs cuz I don’t have time to wait for that train. So I’ll get on this train, I’ll touch that woman’s butt, I’ll smell that guy’s breath, I’ll get hit in the face with that book, as long as it’s this train and not the next.  

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Mood Update

January 30, 2014
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I really feel like a pubescent butt sniffer again (it’s ok, I mean that in the colloquial sense). I have all the telltale signs: mood swings, fantasies of being strapped down against my will while having macaroni and cheese shoved down my throat, spontaneous and unpredicted bouts of sobbing (see: mood swings), obsessive finger curling of my hair, eating my own fingernails, being too lazy to consider doing laundry, and general distractedness (debatably early onset dementia).

All I’ve done the past three nights is sit in bed with kendrick cranked to 1 above mute so that my white yuppie roommates don’t get spooked to find that their well behaved Asian roommate blasts rap while eating 6 take-out containers of Chinese food alone in granny panties from 6th grade. And after that, you can find me choking down whatever candy and “oriental” snack mixes (thanks Lisa) I can find stuffed in unmarked plastic bags on the floor, making phone calls to friends and family to feel less embarrassing. But even if this all makes me feel like a cheap prostitute, I can’t get enough of it. I stretch out to lay on my newly dressed bed (thanks for the sheets, mama) and feel like a P.I.M.P. as I melt into my flannel sheets and picture gold chains and jewels falling weightlessly from the sky, Kendrick bumping in the background “I been hustlin all day this a way, that a way…,” the taste of chinese food stuck in my throat and a smile spreading across my face like a pair of tanned & oiled legs easing into splits. And I succumb to a complete state of relaxation that I never want to wake up from. Today it feels damn good to be 21 and hungry.

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Norwegian Wood: book review

April 7, 2012
2 comments

I feel obligated to write this. For your sake.

Murakami’s rumored but denied autobiographical novel on love, youth, angst, and “darkness,” leaves the reader underwhelmed, save the overdone nympho explicitness that is more a plea to keep the reader entertained than a willful or even conscious decision. The undeserved thick melancholy is distracting, and the merciless shock value used to get there is confusing and at times incoherent. The stifling melodrama, which is the only committed theme, materializes out of nothing– several times I had to stop to see if I had skipped over something. Disclaimer: I didn’t. Offering gratuitous sexual frustration and “resolve” (you should see some of the things these “young adults” do), unintelligible “deepness,” and an unforgiving amount of morbidity, Norwegian Wood is one giant, helpless cry for salvation, in which even Murakami himself grows desperate.