I love Sushi Asabu

I just can't get enough. I just can't get enough. Alaskan King Salmon sushi pictured below. Oh, you soft little pillow of perfection, you.

The Fat Radish

Andrew took me to The Fat Radish for brunch - a gastropub on the lower east side that takes its vegetables as seriously as its meats. We did not see a lot of the beautiful people as described by Amelia Lester in the New Yorker, but perhaps that was because we were there at 11:30am on a Sunday morning - too early for the fabulous peeps. Sunday brunch doesn't really start until 1pm in NYC anyway. We did dine with a lot of hipsters all dressed in the obligatory wool beanies (worn erect, just so there's a bit of room at the very top, and not slouchy which would be soooooooo 2009), Moscot glasses, and Steven Alan plaid shirts obligatory for the Winter 2010 Hipster Season. Or maybe those were the hipster-waiters. But I digress. Here is the place and its yum yum yum yummy food, nevermind the scene. From top to bottom: Deep fried egg with panko crumbs with candied bacon and squash spaghetti. Peekytoe crab with homemade linguine, waaaaaaarm banana bread with homemade blueberry jam and butter on the side (heavenly!). And we had a delicious sample of the beet and radish juice and another of the Kale/Celery/Apple/Ginger juice, which was deliciously satisfying despite what seemed like an odd combination of vegetables and fruits for a juice.
Addendum Feb 1, 2011: Sam Sifton reviewed The Fat Radish in The New York Times today!

Fat Matt's Rib Shack

Atlanta has stopped functioning because of a piddly 4 inches of snow. Apparently, the city only has 11 snow plows, and cannot cope with the "inclement weather." Hundreds of flights have been canceled. To my benefit, this meant that the second leg of my friend Dan's flight from Guatemala to NYC via Atlanta was waylaid, and I had a chance to catch up with an old friend. Since this was Dan's first time in Atlanta, we went to Fat Matt's Rib Shack to check out the famous Atlantan BBQ joint (between a dry rub BBQ and wet-sauce-dripping-everywhere-Texan style BBQ) and the local live blues scene. The succulent ribs were so deliciously tender that everything (and I mean EVERYTHING: meat, cartilage, etc.) all fell off the bone upon the first bite. Oh, and the live blues band kept ROCKIN' despite the snow storm!!

BTW, if you have time to read this blog, you should really be spending your time reading Dan's new book, instead: Outrageous Fortunes: Twelve New Trends That Will Reshape the Global Economy. Available now via Amazon (and in Kindle version too). And if you end up making shitloads of money after reading his book, please come back and take me out to lunch at Per Se.

Table 1280

Haute shrimp n' grits is available at Table 1280 next to the High Museum of Art at the Woodruff Arts Center. A perfect place to stop by for brunch and then wander over to the High Museum to check out the contemporary pieces on the top floor. And if you haven't seen it, go check out the Dali exhibit at the High - this weekend is the last weekend to see this show. I'm not usually into surrealism (too egocentric, literal and illustration-y for my tastes) but the later Dali pieces (i.e. sans boring dripping clockfaces) were interesting and kind of breathtaking- especially when he reinterprets religious imagery in a surrealist fashion. I never really thought that religion and surrealism would pair well together...they're odd fellows to be in bed together, and yet it kind of works, kinda like shrimp and grits.