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There's something a little inappropriate about Pho Sure/Baoguette, Michael Huynh's new Vietnamese noodle-slash-sandwich joint in the West Village.
There are the kneeling Vietnamese maidens in barely-there tops plastered all over the wallpaper in a comely repeat pattern. And then, there's the bull's penis, practically waving at you from the menu.
Yes, that would be the sliced up genitals of a bull served either with pho or a simmering hot bowl of soup.
Feel uncomfortable yet?
In every relationship, there inevitably is that one early thing that you disagree on.
Ours was pancakes.
Mike, he'll eat them any and every day of the week for breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. Me, I love me my sweets but even at brunch, give me noodles or a hunk of red meat and eggs over pretty pancakes anytime.
You learn to compromise, of course. And so over the last eight years, Marion Cunningham and I have become well-acquainted.
It always comes to this, a mad race to the finish.
I knew I was in trouble when I found myself slurping up the remnants of a big bowl of beef ball noodles last week while plotting, mid-bite, to have a second dinner at Swee Kee, a Hainanese chicken rice joint that's been drawing crowds for decades.
There's never enough time when it comes to eating in Singapore. And my last days there before heading back to New York are always filled with crazed eating marathons as I frantically squeeze in that one last bowl of prawn noodles, that one last dish of Hainanese curried squid, all to tide me over until my next trip back.
Inevitably, when I return to New York, there has to be a break.
The palate must be cleansed; the body needs a rest.
This time, I'd come back eager to rev up my stove again after weeks of squatting in my aunties' kitchens. But, what to make?
The thing about returning to New York from a long trip halfway across the world is, your body does strange things. Like, popping awake all sparkly and chirpy the first moment the sun nudges it.
At 7 a.m., I call the Sis. "Let me guess--Mike's still asleep and you're jetlagged and bored." She is, as we two say, corright.
I'm not quite sure what to do with myself that early on a Saturday. So I slip out to look for sausages.
There is a deep belief in these parts that the dead may be dead -- but that little detail shouldn't get in the way of serving them a good meal.
And so in Singaporean wet markets, alongside stalls selling vegetables and plump pigs' trotters, you'll find little places that hawk food of a different kind. Shelves will be filled with boxes of paper dumplings, chicken feet and other dimsum treats -- the idea is to burn them as offerings so your deceased loved ones will get them on the Other Side.
I hadn't seen one of these in a while, mostly because when I'm in these markets I tend to race over to stalls that sell food that I can actually eat.
Like, now. Not when I'm in the Big Upstairs shamelessly flirting with River Phoenix.
File this under the "all food porn and no substance" category:
It's a gorgeous, sun-drenched afternoon in Singapore. The sky is impossibly blue, there's a light tropical breeze rolling through, humidity feels non-existent.
All this called for an impromptu backyard picnic of home-made kaya (Singaporean coconut jam) on walnut bread.
A good life, indeed.
I have new-found respect for bak-zhang hawkers.
I'd never given the pyramid-shaped, glutinous-rice dumplings much thought -- until I learned how to make them.
And boy, let me tell you, if you're not naturally gifted in the ways of origami, you're really in for it. (Unless you enjoy hearing the pitter-patter of rice beads skittering across the floor as clumps of braised pork pelt your toes.)
I've been thinking recently about the notion of "authentic" food.
There's an interesting story in Singapore's Straits Times today about foreign eateries trying to bring authentic takes on their native cuisines to Singapore. French boulangerie Le Grenier à Pain, for example, apparently stuck to its crusty baguettes even though Singaporeans typically favor softer versions that local bakeries serve up. Ditto for Quiznos and its authenticity. (Yes, this article actually cites the American food-court sandwich chain in its roundup.)
Nonetheless, there are some Singaporeans who disagree with this business strategy -- one is quoted as saying that restaurants should take local preferences into account since "the customer picks what he likes most, whether or not it's true to the original taste."
The story made me think of the tale a friend recently told me of taking his Beijing girlfriend to Italy. There, she sniffed at the way Italians do Italian pasta dishes, finding them lacking when compared with the versions she's had in China.
Sure, cuisines get altered all the time when they migrate from country to country -- ingredients are added, steps are subtracted. But what happens when the tweaked, polyglot product ends up being what people believe to be authentic?
Anyone tailing me over the past few days might come to this conclusion: That Cheryl, she's just a big whore.
It's these red-light districts. I just can't stay away from them.
Not that I'm dissing the world's oldest profession, but it's actually other afternoon delights that have been the draw for me in these neighborhoods.
In yesterday's case, it was Kok Sen Coffee Shop's crispy harjeong gai, a Singaporean dish of chicken marinated in prawn paste and then deep fried. (A particularly apropos lure considering "gai," or chicken, is local slang for "prostitute." As is "fishball girl" in some corners, for that matter. I'm not even going to speculate why.)
I have been on a fried chicken bender.
It began with the ladies-of-the-night Thai chicken wings and continued the next day with bright-red Indian fried chicken for lunch and then a dinner of Indonesian nasi ayam penyet, a dish of rice and gloriously crunchy cumin/coriander/lemongrass-seasoned fried chicken that I'm still hoping will make its way across the ocean to New York City.
By the time I sat down to my next meal and saw the Malay fried chicken wings on the table, I knew it was time to admit: I have a problem.
Everyone has a comfort food and mine, somehow, is fried chicken.
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