Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 98

Dan Sung Sa (Korean Bar Food in L.A.'s K-Town)

The biggest challenge was finding the place. The address was 3317 W. 6th Street and we were meeting our friends Kyle and Gary there at 7:30. We drove down 6th, using my phone as a guide, and didn't see 3317. We parked on the street and saw a sign for a hotel featuring Korean dramas on the TV, but no 3317. Then, entering a shopping center, we saw a valet parking attendant and asked him if he knew where we could find Dan Sung Sa. He pointed at the building right in front of him: there it was, in Korean, no English translation.

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Glenn Cous Cous Salad with Albert Knobs of Feta (PLUS: Other 2011 Oscar Dishes)

You may have thought Oscar's biggest upset last night was Meryl Streep stealing Viola Davis's Oscar, but then clearly you weren't at the Oscar party I attended. Our friends John and Michael invited us a week earlier and asked us to bring a dish that was a pun or play on words based on title or actor (last year, John made "Stanley Two-Cheese Dip") and I treated the whole thing light-heartedly, polling my followers on Twitter (some good suggestions: "My Week With Maryland Crabs," "Macarooney Mara") before settling on the dish you see above, Glenn Cous Cous Salad with Albert Knobs of Feta.

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Back To Our Favorite N.Y. Haunts (Joe, Joseph Leonard, Bar Centrale, City Bakery, Grand Sichuan & The Burger Joint)

I took a tumble outside of Joe on Waverly, the coffee shop that was a second home to me all those years that I lived in the big city. It was kind of embarrassing: rain was beating down, Craig ran inside the front door, and as I approached the first step, I totally slipped on the wet pavement and crashed down on my knee, slicing my jeans open and tearing the skin. I got myself up as quickly as I could but it was one of those disorienting experiences that made me feel like I was a stranger on my old turf: only a tourist slips on a wet New York City sidewalk.

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(Relatively) New In New York: Untitled, The John Dory & The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop

I'm not one of those "where must I eat when I go back to New York?" kind of people, though I did Tweet a week before our trip something along those lines. The responses were fascinating to me–apparently Acme, which I knew as a fairly mediocre sandwich and sweet potato French fry spot near NYU, has been transformed into a restaurant-of-the-moment. Also: Isa has all the food bloggers buzzing. But, I don't know, I wasn't in the mood to be fanatical about new restaurants. I decided that, when it came to food on this trip, we'd wing it.

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The "Welcome To New York" Tasting Menu at The 2nd Avenue Deli

When you arrive in New York, for your first time or after being away for a while, you want a taste of what makes the city unique. Sure, you could pop into one of those hip bastions of dining where everything's pickled or ensconced in some kind of obscure animal fat but, really, aren't they doing that in most food cities these days? What you crave is the sort of thing that doesn't push the envelope in any way; you want comfort food, New York City style, served gruffly yet with an inscrutable sort of love. What you crave is the 2nd Avenue Deli.

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Drink Champagne On Your Birthday

This is a post about drinking Champagne on your birthday. I think you should do it.

Before this year, it never really occurred to me to drink Champagne on my birthday. My focus would be on food: where would I eat for lunch? Where would I eat for dinner? Because it was my birthday, could I justify another meal–or at least a disgustingly decadent dessert–in between said lunch and dinner? As far as what I drank, sometimes I'd treat myself to a glass of wine with my lunch; a special occasion indulgence because normally, if I drink during the day, I'm too zonked out to get work done. But that glass of wine was always a modest glass of wine–a Riesling or a Sauvignon Blanc–never a glass of Champagne.

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Chickpea Curry

One of my favorite things to make on a weeknight, these days, is a kitchen cupboard chickpea curry. It goes like this: I open my kitchen cupboard, pull out a can of chickpeas, a bag of rice, a tube of tomato paste, a can of coconut milk, and as many spices as I feel like using. It also helps to have an onion, garlic, ginger, lemons (or limes) and cilantro, but only the onion is essential there–the other stuff just makes it that much better.

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How Do You Not Weigh 500 Pounds?

If there's one question I get asked all the time, whether in my blog comments or over Twitter, it's: "How do you not weigh 500 pounds?"

It's usually in response to a post about a very decadent meal or a recipe that involves several sticks of butter (like Craig's birthday cake). The question implies that food with lots of butter or meals with lots of heavy courses are somehow responsible for massive weight gain; it ignores one's own agency in the matter, assuming that when one bakes a cake with five sticks of butter that one is therefore going to consume several sticks of butter. If you visualize those five sticks of butter spread throughout a giant two layer cake, however, and then you cut an individual slice out of it, you come to realize that one piece of that cake represents just a few tablespoons of butter. And therein lies the answer.

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A Weekend in Palm Springs

Having a car is a game-changer. In New York, if we were itching to get away, there'd have to be a flight involved or something called ZipCar which involves showing up at a weird parking lot and getting into a strange car with a secret code beamed into your phone. Here in L.A., you pretty much need a car to survive, so that means that, since you have a car anyway, you can drive off into the sunset when the feeling strikes. And for Craig's birthday, we decided to make the drive to Palm Springs, which is just two hours away on the 10 East.

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Sponsored Post: Smorgie

Do you find yourself reading about a restaurant, making a mental note to eat at that restaurant, and then forgetting all about it? I do that all the time. Which is why Smorgie, a new website for people just like us, is such a good idea. You read about a restaurant, head over to Smorgie, add it to a list and not only will it be there for you to refer back to, it's there for your friends to see as well. Check out the list I just made of places I want to try in Los Angeles. Goodbye little pieces of paper crumpled up in my pocket, scribbled with restaurant recs from friends; and hello Smorgie.