Masa: Four Stars, A Thousand Bucks

Masa chef/owner Masayoshi Takayama nearly slays Frank Bruni, scoring a four star review in the New York Times. In doing so, Masa becomes the first Japanese restaurant since 1983 (Hatsuhana, crowned by Mimi Sheraton) to receive that honor. As Amanda Hesser's last review as interim critic, back in June, she gave Masa a glowing but cagey 4-question-mark (????) rating, leaving the final call to Bruni -- a fantastic food writer, by the way -- who opens the review by describing his friend's appreciation of Masa's sublime toro:

His eyes grew instantly bigger as his lips twitched into a coyly restrained grin. Then the full taste of the toro, which is the buttery belly of a bluefin tuna, took visible hold. Forget restraint: he was suddenly smiling as widely as a person with a mouthful of food and a modicum of manners can. His eyes even rolled slightly backward.

A prix fixe session at Masa (you don't get to call the shots) will put you back $350 per person before tax, tip, and sake; so basically, four figures for the best sushi two people are likely ever to eat. If I read the review correctly, a meal at Masa is both inexcusably expensive and obscenely luxurious, and if Masa has done little else, it has made me wish I were the Times' head restaurant critic, so that I might be able to have this kind of sushi for lunch at least once in my life.

With Per Se just down the hall at the Time Warner Center, this puts two four-star restaurants within feet of each other. Bruni's cleaning up over there! What's next, Jamba Juice?

food-ish , new york times-ish , review-ish by tangentialist at 05:17 AM on 29 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (1)

In The Wake: Do What You Can

Angel writes:
I urge everyone to donate any funds you've got to the Red Cross. I have some family in Phuket, Thailand and I know that they and the people of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the other nations hit by the devastating quake need your help. Thanks.
I'll second that, with the following added suggestions (it's not a bad idea to contribute a little to more organizations):

thailand-ish , tsunami-ish by tangentialist at 03:26 AM on 28 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)

New York Times' Year In Multimedia

The New York Times has posted their 2004 Year In Pictures, with Vincent LaForet, et al, killing it as usual. This is yet another classy interactive number for the Times, concluding a busy year of great multimedia pieces. I love that the paper and its reporters have been willing to invest money and time in the multimedia sidebars that have accompanied more articles in more sections this year than ever. While a few seem like mere afterthoughts to the article, many of them manage to bring a narrative light to the written pieces that really makes them compelling. It's nice to see the Times strive beyond its reputation as the Paper of Record and distinguish itself as a true observer of life in New York.

One of my favorite Times multimedia pieces this year was Invention for 900 Hands, a six-part series by James Barron that follows the construction and sale of a Steinway piano. Hearing the piano's voice develop from week to week made a cliffhanger out of a story that would otherwise have fallen through the cracks of the Metropolitan Desk.

Also, search the archives and watch any of the pieces on Africa, and catch Kristof on Darfur.

journalism-ish , new york times-ish by tangentialist at 03:36 AM on 27 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)

Dubai On Flickr: Where's The Vanity?


money
Originally uploaded by MISS ICEBERG.

One of the odd little subcultures that seems to have popped up on Flickr is the United Arab Emirates Photo Squad. I don't know where they all came from, but these flickrites (they appear to be young women, for the most part) seem to share both a keen appreciation of Starbucks coffee and conspicuously expensive tastes -- in those respects, they're not unlike their counterparts on the Upper East Side.

That said, the only thing I think is really strange about these photosets is the total absence of self-portraits. There are nice pictures of Dior, jewelry, the well-loved Baba Zayed, Mecca, and small children, but you'd never know what these people look like; none of the streams I've seen has featured any of the extended-arm self-portraiture of the average young-rich-kid-with-fancy-camera set. You rarely see their friends, either; the only faces in there belong to small children, old people, and manual laborers.

Where's the vanity? Where's the unbridled celebration of self? Dubai, you disappoint me.

The UAE group is a good place to get introduced to the young and powerful in Dubai, or at least to see their Pumas.

flickr-ish , middle east-ish by tangentialist at 01:35 AM on 27 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)

iPod Is All-City, Son


RIZE, IPOD!
Originally uploaded by tangentialism.

This was inevitable. Now there is some graf kid writing "IPOD", which is an honor that few other personal music players can claim. This is the kind of publicity that nerdy computer makers crap their pants over, but Apple's got that trendy insouciance that whispers "Whatever, son. We've been in the tunnels since before the Walkman."

Sorry, Sony -- MINIDISC has been toyed for life.

apple-ish , ipod-ish , street art-ish by tangentialist at 04:57 AM on 25 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)

There Are Cupcakes In The LES


Sugar Sweet Sunshine
Originally uploaded by tangentialism.

If you work, live, or frolic in the Lower East Side, you must immediately make your way to Sugar Sweet Sunshine, on Rivington between Essex and Norfolk. They're churning out a good eight varieties of tiny, overfrosted cakes, and it's rocking my world.

Oddly, for such a cheery dessert, cupcakes seem to have engendered no small amount of bitterness in the incestuous little bakery community spawned by the House of Magnolia. The Sugar Sweet people apparently split from Buttercup, Magnolia's own vindictive offspring, to form this happy little cupcake cooperative. How many more generations of cupcake one-upmanship can this city handle? I'll stay blissfully ignorant of the drama so long as Sugar Sweet Sunshine continues to ply me with their unholy chocolate almond frosting. These little pistachio numbers in the picture are no joke, either.

I, for one, don't see any reason to stand in a slow-moving line outside Magnolia when I can trot over the bridge and grab an intimidating bundle of cupcakes from their culinary grandchildren. Plus, there are fewer toddlers pawing at the red velvet cakes.

Lower East Side-ish , cupcakes-ish , food-ish by tangentialist at 02:10 AM on 24 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (1)

Ancho-Rubbed Rabbit Near Maya Angelou


Ken Is Blocking My View Of Maya Angelou
Originally uploaded by tangentialism.

It's good to have two foodie brothers living in New York, because there's three times as much pressure to eat at a "nice" restaurant when the parents come to town, as they have for Christmas this year. Instead of a pleasant dinner in Chinatown, Ken pushed for Mesa Grill, which I've always avoided, because Bobby Flay is my second-least-favorite person on the Food Network (just above Emeril).

I used to like Flay, but I got to feeling like he was a one-note tune with all the peppers. Plus, he started sporting those weird close-fitting shirts that everybody in TriBeca wears on Saturdays, and I began to wonder if this guy wasn't just NYC's own Jamie Oliver, a decent cook with just way too much coke at his disposal.

So Ken's picked Mesa Grill for tonight's dinner, and I'm thinking "chipotle, ancho, jalapeno, whatever". Okay, so I'm wrong. Flay is right about the peppers. The Cascabel sauce for the Pan Roasted Venison had a totally different timing and spike than the Ancho-and-cumin-rubbed rabbit, which was like a chile time bomb. Contrary to what I had feared, the seasoning didn't in any way obscure the flavor of the meat. Every dish on the table was well worth the expense -- not that I spent any money on the dinner, but that's what Christmas is for.

I'm still not sure about Bobby Flay, The Man, but I'll now give him the benefit of the doubt when I meet him. He's got a good thing going on.

Two other things: Dessert was great, and easily as enjoyable and well-executed as the dinner itself; and Maya Angelou is totally sitting behind Ken's right shoulder in this picture.

food-ish by tangentialist at 01:30 AM on 24 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)

Flickr's Day In The Life


Impossibly Vibrant Green Shawl
Originally uploaded by tangentialism.

A whole group of Flickrites, myself included, spent December 21st documenting a A Day In The Life of Flickr.

Mostly pictures of desks and coffee cups, but the occasional standout trip through a weird museum or day in sydney were pleasant.

I was too hung over to make the 7:42 AM capture of the Winter Solstice, but you gotta be kidding me.

flickr-ish by tangentialist at 03:37 AM on 23 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)

Starting Fresh

Bah, I wasn't writing there anyhow. I'll put up a link to the old wiki-based tangentialism soon, but I needed the change.

I'm obsessed with flickr these days, so I need a tangentialism that can talk to them. Old tangentialism, not the case -- new tangentialism, photos galore.

I've been checking my morning blogs with an RSS reader, but I can't check my own? Old tangentialism, very html -- new tangentialism, much RSS.

I like the old tangentialism, and I'm going to slowly make the new tangentialism do much of what the old one did, in terms of interlinking and creating spontaneous narrative, but I'm getting old, and all the kids are using fun toys that don't work with my spontaneous narrative. So we'll get back to what we were talking about in a little while, but I'd rather keep writing than keep programming at the moment.

So then. Let's get started.

meta-ish by tangentialist at 01:14 AM on 23 Dec 04 | Perm-a-link | TrackBack (0)