![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Support your local Chinatown.
May. 23rd, 2003 11:30 pmWent into New York today to show ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mountainspeak around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have to renew my membership at some point; I donated $7 and entered as a student today. I feel a bit guilty about that, but it was all the cash I had on hand. The nice thing about having visited the Met as often as I have is that you know the stuff you want to see, you have a good shot at knowing the stuff other people want to see, and you can blow past the stuff you know for sure they don't want to see. This cuts down on your time a LOT. I mean, we skipped the entire Hall of Constipated Europeans, which is to say most of the paintings from between about 1650 until the mid-1800s. Same thing goes for most of the sculpture from that time period, although that's more the Hall of Inexplicably Nekkid People Doing Very Uncomfortable Things. This left plenty of time to see the more esoteric stuff - the African exhibit is pretty impressive, as is their collection from the South Pacific civilizations. And, of course, the Asian art; it wouldn't be me if I didn't bring someone to that sector of the museum. mountainspeak agreed with me that Marpa the Great Teacher looks more like Lenny Lefkowitz the NYPD Lieutenant in robes than an enlightened messenger of the Dharma. If you ever go to the Met, go into the Asian art halls and walk through the India/Southeast Asia section. Keep an eye out on your right; eventually you'll see one of the typical extremely bendy large breasted goddesses carved in stone, and a staircase heading upwards. Take the staircase. It leads to some more Indian stuff, then to the Museum's collection of Himalayan art. That part is small, but you need to have a look at Marpa yourself to understand what I'm talking about.
We arrived around 11:30 AM. By the time we were done, it was 3:30 PM. We'd stopped in the gift shop and I'd gotten a small rubber Japanese archer - he's meant for horseback, but the horses are sold separately for $5.95 - but we hadn't gotten lunch. I mean, I'd had a dirty water hot dog from a very cheerful and friendly vendor located somewhere between 33rd and 41st street on the western side of Park Avenue, but that doesn't count for much. So I suggested we get lunch in one of my favourite areas - Chinatown. I had been thinking of a specific restaurant on Mott Street, but figured we could find food just about anywhere there, so we got on the 6 train and rode it to Canal Street.
Allow me to say that it is a little unnerving to find signs pasted to six out of ten shop doors saying 'please patronize local Chinatown businesses', issued by the City of New York. The NYC Chinatown has been in an economic bad place since September 11th, 2001 - it's within spitting distance of where the Towers used to be, and their destruction caused an unbelievable amount of economic disruption for most of lower Manhattan. Many businesses bounced back, some by moving operations to other, safer places. This meant trouble for merchants in the region who weren't capable of moving away, and the climb back to decent business was long and slow. This year just made it worse, because people heard about SARS. Their automatic assumption was that anybody in Chinatown might have just arrived from a visit to a SARS-endemic area, or might have had a visitor who'd just come from a SARS-endemic area, and, well... down goes the business again. Ouch.
mountainspeak and I, on the other hand, were there for food. CDC says there's a grand total of 39 cases of SARS in the entire state of New York - thirty suspected, nine probable. There are more than eight million people in the city of New York, and SARS is spread in the same manner as the common cold. Given the number of times I have bounced into and out of obscenely crowded areas of Manhattan where people were sick and yet not come out sick, I had no particular delusion that we would somehow magically encounter a lone plaguebunny in a population that size. mountainspeak felt the same way- no big deal - so we walked down Canal Street towards the Williamsburg Bridge and eventually turned right onto Mott. We stopped briefly in a martial arts supply store because they had a white tiger wall hanging that caught MP's attention, but didn't spot anything to buy just at that moment. As we went outside again MP mentioned she was hungry, so rather than trying to find the restaurant I originally had in mind, I stopped at the next place I saw and we checked their prices for stuff other than sauteed frog.
Allow me to state that the prices at the Singapore Cafe, 69 Mott Street, New York, NY is a really nice restaurant. It's on the small side, but it's clean and nicely decorated, and the staff is very helpful and friendly. The food is reasonably priced, I think. We split a tofu satay appetizer- $4.95 for good-sized fried tofu stuffed with shredded cucumber and bean sprouts. I got the beef rendang for $8.95 after explaining that I was aware it was supposed to be spicy, and MP got something involving shredded chicken and mango in a taro root nest. Really, really nice stuff, and the staff is happy to explain anything you're unsure of or recommend food if you're not familiar with the menu. They say they serve mostly Singaporean and Malaysian style food, but there's a number of mainland Chinese items on the menu, plus a few Sichuan dishes. If you're ever in the area and want to try something a little bit different, give 'em a call - (212) 964-0003. They, like the rest of the area, could use your business, and frankly the food was so good that I don't see any reason not to recommend 'em.
Oh, and if you've got more nerve than I do, order the frog and tell me what it tastes like?
mountainspeak around the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have to renew my membership at some point; I donated $7 and entered as a student today. I feel a bit guilty about that, but it was all the cash I had on hand. The nice thing about having visited the Met as often as I have is that you know the stuff you want to see, you have a good shot at knowing the stuff other people want to see, and you can blow past the stuff you know for sure they don't want to see. This cuts down on your time a LOT. I mean, we skipped the entire Hall of Constipated Europeans, which is to say most of the paintings from between about 1650 until the mid-1800s. Same thing goes for most of the sculpture from that time period, although that's more the Hall of Inexplicably Nekkid People Doing Very Uncomfortable Things. This left plenty of time to see the more esoteric stuff - the African exhibit is pretty impressive, as is their collection from the South Pacific civilizations. And, of course, the Asian art; it wouldn't be me if I didn't bring someone to that sector of the museum. mountainspeak agreed with me that Marpa the Great Teacher looks more like Lenny Lefkowitz the NYPD Lieutenant in robes than an enlightened messenger of the Dharma. If you ever go to the Met, go into the Asian art halls and walk through the India/Southeast Asia section. Keep an eye out on your right; eventually you'll see one of the typical extremely bendy large breasted goddesses carved in stone, and a staircase heading upwards. Take the staircase. It leads to some more Indian stuff, then to the Museum's collection of Himalayan art. That part is small, but you need to have a look at Marpa yourself to understand what I'm talking about.We arrived around 11:30 AM. By the time we were done, it was 3:30 PM. We'd stopped in the gift shop and I'd gotten a small rubber Japanese archer - he's meant for horseback, but the horses are sold separately for $5.95 - but we hadn't gotten lunch. I mean, I'd had a dirty water hot dog from a very cheerful and friendly vendor located somewhere between 33rd and 41st street on the western side of Park Avenue, but that doesn't count for much. So I suggested we get lunch in one of my favourite areas - Chinatown. I had been thinking of a specific restaurant on Mott Street, but figured we could find food just about anywhere there, so we got on the 6 train and rode it to Canal Street.
Allow me to say that it is a little unnerving to find signs pasted to six out of ten shop doors saying 'please patronize local Chinatown businesses', issued by the City of New York. The NYC Chinatown has been in an economic bad place since September 11th, 2001 - it's within spitting distance of where the Towers used to be, and their destruction caused an unbelievable amount of economic disruption for most of lower Manhattan. Many businesses bounced back, some by moving operations to other, safer places. This meant trouble for merchants in the region who weren't capable of moving away, and the climb back to decent business was long and slow. This year just made it worse, because people heard about SARS. Their automatic assumption was that anybody in Chinatown might have just arrived from a visit to a SARS-endemic area, or might have had a visitor who'd just come from a SARS-endemic area, and, well... down goes the business again. Ouch.
mountainspeak and I, on the other hand, were there for food. CDC says there's a grand total of 39 cases of SARS in the entire state of New York - thirty suspected, nine probable. There are more than eight million people in the city of New York, and SARS is spread in the same manner as the common cold. Given the number of times I have bounced into and out of obscenely crowded areas of Manhattan where people were sick and yet not come out sick, I had no particular delusion that we would somehow magically encounter a lone plaguebunny in a population that size. mountainspeak felt the same way- no big deal - so we walked down Canal Street towards the Williamsburg Bridge and eventually turned right onto Mott. We stopped briefly in a martial arts supply store because they had a white tiger wall hanging that caught MP's attention, but didn't spot anything to buy just at that moment. As we went outside again MP mentioned she was hungry, so rather than trying to find the restaurant I originally had in mind, I stopped at the next place I saw and we checked their prices for stuff other than sauteed frog.Allow me to state that the prices at the Singapore Cafe, 69 Mott Street, New York, NY is a really nice restaurant. It's on the small side, but it's clean and nicely decorated, and the staff is very helpful and friendly. The food is reasonably priced, I think. We split a tofu satay appetizer- $4.95 for good-sized fried tofu stuffed with shredded cucumber and bean sprouts. I got the beef rendang for $8.95 after explaining that I was aware it was supposed to be spicy, and MP got something involving shredded chicken and mango in a taro root nest. Really, really nice stuff, and the staff is happy to explain anything you're unsure of or recommend food if you're not familiar with the menu. They say they serve mostly Singaporean and Malaysian style food, but there's a number of mainland Chinese items on the menu, plus a few Sichuan dishes. If you're ever in the area and want to try something a little bit different, give 'em a call - (212) 964-0003. They, like the rest of the area, could use your business, and frankly the food was so good that I don't see any reason not to recommend 'em.
Oh, and if you've got more nerve than I do, order the frog and tell me what it tastes like?
