Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Chillin' with Time Out NY

This was a fun experience that happened out of the blue yesterday. J & I decided to go to Joe's Dumplings, a touristy and hyped up dumpling house in Chinatown. We figured it was a Tuesday at 7pm and we would be early enough to avoid the annoyingly long line that usually snakes out of the restaurant. When we got there, we were seated right away at a ten person table as they often do in Chinatown.

We ordered our soup dumplings right away and then lo and behold three guys were ushered to our table, one of whom was snapping photographs right and left. Of the other two, one was a writer for Time Out New York and the other was a chef. They were doing a piece on restaurants that let your bring your own booze and had the lofty goal of going to four places in one night- and were starting said night at Joe's. This elite press corp got their soup dumplings in seconds while we stared in envy (after all we had got there a good ten minutes before them and yet waited ten more minutes for our dumplings!).

Here's the article in TONY: http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/restaurants-bars/73456/byowine-at-new-york-city-restaurants-feature-article/2.html

On a side note, the soup dumplings were larger and soup-ier than my favorite Chinatown place Green Bo, but other than that not that different and certainly not worth a long wait. Maybe it was our glutionous looks that prompted the writer/chef to pour us tastes of the red and white wines he brought and solicit our humble people-of-the street opinions. But my taste of fame was brief- soon another family joined our table with a blindingly cute and charming Shirley Temple-esque five year old who completely stole the show.

The photographer explained his dream of a job. He was a food photographer and often went to five plus restraunts on any given day doing food press and gobbling up all the deliciousness. On that note, J asked him for Japanese recommendations and the photog rattled off a list of downtown eateries that we have to try now. All in all, a fun reminder on a bland Tuesday that I live in NYC. Sometimes the city likes to remind you just where you are.

1 comment:

  1. Love the NYC culinary adventure, again. It's all about where you are.

    I hope Shirley Temple enjoys her 15 minutes of fame and that she makes the most out of that power. We should all have such power, and it should last past the time when our bodies begin to sweat and creak!

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