Probably one of the most labor intensive soups I’ve made next to home-made pho. I had this notion in my mind of borscht as a cold beet soup and therefore the thought never occurred to me to make it or like it. But Aya basically held a gun to my head and made me make it for her, having probably
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Author Archives: tmonkey
December 13, 2008
Borscht Borscht Borscht
July 29, 2008
The Most Beautiful Cafe in the World (Kyoto)
If you know me, you won’t be put off by the title, because you will know I am prone to hyperbole and you will know that my hyperbole is usually in jest. In this case, however, I am utterly sincere.
What I didn’t know about Kyoto, a city renowned for its beautiful temples, was that cafe culture is incredibly alive there.
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July 23, 2008
Tsukiji: Wall Street + Fish Guts
We took supreme advantage of our jetlag and got up at 4:30am to go to the Tsukiji fish market.
Here you can see the fish buyers taking core samples of the frozen tuna and inspecting them (sometimes eating the pieces straight) for fat content.
July 20, 2008
UM Redux: DanRan II (Tokyo)
(For some Umamimart Rashoman, please see ayagwa’s perspective on this very same day.)
So the day I flew into Tokyo, I met Aya, dropped off my stuff in the Shinjuku Washington Hotel, took a shower and a nap, and we headed over to the Shinjuku station to meet up with Yoko, fellow Umamimarter (or is it,
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June 3, 2008
Tmonkey Does Hellish Kitchen: Nice & Spicey
I don’t know what the official name of this restaurant is. It’s between 36th and 37th on 9th Ave. The awning says “Cuisine of Pakistan” but somebody took the trouble of bending some neon to say “Nice and Spicey”.
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May 19, 2008
Tmonkey Does Hellish Kitchen: Introduction to the New Nabe
I moved into a new office on 39th and 8th Ave — beautiful view right across the street from the new Renzo Piano New York Times building (which btw will house another Muji store on the ground level), crummy area, many new and old denizens loitering around in front of Port Authority, and after a week of settling into the
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April 10, 2008
Umamimart Recession Survival Kit: <$10 wines
If Greenspan himself says we’re “in the throes”, well, dammit, I guess that means we’re in the throes. I don’t know about you, but staring down the barrel of a recession makes me want to drink more, not less.
I’m sure kanshefle will have much better tips but again, I must toot the horn of Chilean wines,
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October 18, 2007
Saucing Pasta
There seems to be a war brewing (and if there isn’t I’ll gladly be the instigator). In one corner, we have Mario Batali, holding down the traditional Italian line that Americans drown their pasta in too much sauce, and in the other, Mark Bittman, who asserts that, Poppycock! that’s an old way of thinking, coming from
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