Tokyo: Eating in the land of the rising sun… and deep fried pork!

Alright, so a couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to spend several days in Tokyo. Though it was a rather brief time and though I speak a sum total of six words of Japanese, I feel qualified to  offer a profound anthropological treatise on Japanese culture.  Actually, I think I’m just going to resort to stereotypes and generalities when I say this: Japanese folks seem to be good at everything.  I don’t know why. They just are – even with things that weren’t indigenous to their culture.  Think about it: rock gardens, bonsai trees, tea ceremoniessamurai, samurai movies, anime, electronics, cars, all things cute, tv game shows, really expensive jeans, crazy ass fashions, even reggae dance hall. So, think about this level of perfectionism and attention to detail as it pertains to food, something that Japanese folk – no, ALL Asian people are obsessed with (generally speaking, of course) – and you’ll understand my excitement at having the chance to eat Japanese food in Tokyo.  I was not dissappointed.  In fact, I was kind of blown away.  Click on the bento box below for the full story.

This give a whole new meaning to Iunch box. I almost didn't want to open this box up, but my stomach thankfully got the better of me.


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I never eat French Food!

It’s my own fault really. I’ve been in France since May and mostly I buy fresh veggies, and fruit and cheese and bread (finally found a good baguette place…now I’m officially French).

The week before last I ate African food at a music festival in Marseille and just last week, I went to Morocco with my friend Jessica. In actuality, going to Morocco is quite the French thing to do: most Moroccans speak French as an official language (although never if they can help it- Arabic is king), and with Ryan Air, tickets were only about $60 round trip from anywhere in France. I could spend hours talking about my experience there – my trip through the old town “medinas”, our 4 hour train ride (sans air conditioning), the nice people we met (one who even insisted we stay at his house with his grandma), and all the wondrous and miraculous ways we got cheated.

But, Clarence, I’ll just stick to the food… (read on…)

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Our man in Rio, Timothy High and his first review…

Hey folks,

This is your friendly not-so-neighborhood foreign food correspondent Tim,
giving you the what’s-whats from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Like my long-time
pal CTing (this emphasis on your last name is new – must be an internet
thing), I plan to give you periodic reviews of restaurants. Since you’ll
probably never actually go to one of these places, I’ll try to pepper it
with as much culture (no, not the fro-yo kind) as your literary palates can
take. Unlike CTing, I plan to avoid first-initial last-name self-references
in order to avoid ridicule, or at least disappointing Google hits for people
who were expecting something else when they typed in “THigh”.

My first subject, in spite of what I just told you, is a recounting of my
culinary experiences not in Rio, but in Porto de Galinhas, Pernambuco, just
south of Recife…(read on)

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Fro-yo addendum – Red Mango

Alright so last week during the massive heat wave here in NYC, me and Shef decided to get a little culture by checking out the David Byrne Musical building, we decided to reward ourselves and escape the heat with a some more culture of the yogurt variety and get some fro-yo. So in the interest of broadening our fro-yo palate we went to Red Mango, supposedly the inspiration for Pinkberry. Check the fro-yo reviews (at the bottom) for what we thought.

The (disputed) OG of Korean style fro-yo

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Jacksion Heights, Queens: the anti “Chavellas”

So what exactly am I talking about? Well, go ahead and take a look a the Chavellas post for a little background info. Perhaps now you’ll understand what I mean when I say that this neighborhood in Queens, the second most populated borough in NYC kicks Chavellas’s – the tiny Mexican restaurant in Prospect Heights – ass. Of course it’s not a fair fight, but it’s true. Whereas Chavellas is close, convenient and serves up mediocre somewhat gringofied Mexican food, J-Heights, Queens is far away, totally a hassle to get to (from our pad in P-Heights, Bklyn), but it is the home to awesome and authentic Mexican food -most notably the tacos. Don’t believe me? You’re wrong. Need convincing? Read on.

the last taco of the day

the last taco of the day

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