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Preparing for Landing

Some day 2, some day 3 – in the middle of tracking guitars right about now!

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In-flight

Tracking drums and bass. Rehearsing.

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Ready For Takeoff

Setting up at Gigantic.

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Northeast Kingdom – A Piece of Vermont in Bushwick

Back when I lived briefly in Bushwick, the one hipster getaway restaurant in our area was Northeast Kingdom. I’ve been meaning to come back here for a while but the train ride is a serious deterrent. Anyway, half a year later we were invited to a party in Bushwick and decided this would be the perfect time to hit up our old favorite spot. The restaurant, whose name references the northeast corner of Vermont, goes for a log cabin Vermont vibe. It’s super cozy!

Northeast Kingdom changes up their menu seasonally and changes are usually pretty drastic, leading to some sad faces but awesome new discoveries. The burger special has changed a few times but I know it’s a burger you can always count on. The rabbit bangers and mash are great in the winter and they also had a great crispy duck sandwich.

Tonight the menu had some new items and my eyes immediately focused on the Bushwick Bánh Mì.  This take on the classic Vietnamese sandwich featured crispy pig’s head, duck pate, pickled radish and carrot, dijon dressing and herbs.  While I’ve had a lot of pork products I don’t think I’d actually had pig’s head.  The sandwich came with two large pieces of pig’s head. The meat was really tender after you got through the initial crispiness and went great with the duck pate. I love bánh mì’s and Northeast Kingdom’s Bushwick take on the sandwich is awesome.

We lucked out in a wrong order getting put in and rather than wasting perfectly good clams, they were gifted to our spot at the bar. The clams were a special and came with bacon bits, crumbs, scallions and can’t-remember-what-else

We also got their Banana Cream Pie which was delicious. It was super light but really flavorful. Mmmmmm.

Northeast Kingdom is a great place to grab drinks and have some good food. If you’re in Bushwick, this is the place to hit up. Their burger special is always money!

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La Sirene is French Genius

My visit to La Sirene had been a long time coming. Last year, Gao Di intended to take me there for my birthday but we neglected to look up the address and decided to stop walking west any further. Big mistake! This year we did my birthday right by finally going to this amazing French restaurant. This is hands down one of the best meals I’ve had in NYC. Now to the food run-down.

We started our meal off with the Tartelette de Chevre Frais – a Goat Cheese Tart with Shallots ,Truffles, Grape and a Veil of 90 days Aged Swiss Cheese, a signature La Sirene dish. This was arguably my favorite part of the experience. This goat cheese tart is hard to comprehend. Topped with swiss cheese, this combination of cheese flavor and textures is one of the most delicious things I have ever had. So delicious that it deserved two photos. Yum!

La Sirene is also known for their mussels, they have four types to choose from! We went with the Moules Rochelaises Originated from La Rochelle - Steamed mussels with curry, diced apples, and light cream. This light creamy curry sauce gave the mussels a really rich flavor.

For an entree I got the Kassulet Toulousain de la Maison, a Cassoulet with Cannellini Beans, tomato, Garlic Duck Confit, Slab Bacon & Pork sausage all Braised with Noble Duck Fat. The menu’s note  reads, “Yummy but GREASY!! It was created for Warriors to defend the City! Don’t take it if you can’t bear it ”

Like the note says, this meal is insanely greasy but it is pretty awesome. The duck confit is super tender and the pork products all taste amazing from being submerged in duck fat. The cassoulet has a LOT of beans. I’m not sure if I would get this again, it was delicious and worth it – I like to think of myself as a warrior, but I just don’t know if I can handle that grease and all those beans again! Delicious, but there are other things on the menu I want to try.

Gao Di ordered the Tournedos Rossini, Seared Filet Mignon Over Bread Toasted With Foie Gras, Shallots, Port & Red Wine Truffles Sauce, and this was definitely my next favorite thing from the goat cheese tart. This filet mignon’s texture was pretty insane. The sauce and meat together was a beautiful combination of flavors. This meal came with a side of four pureed vegetables – mmm, perfect accompaniment to the filet mignon.

Although we were sufficiently stuffed, we decided dessert was necessary to make the birthday experience complete. We rounded out the meal with La Sirene’s Big Profiteroles au “Bittersweet” Chocolat. Profiteroles are usually small and filled with some kind of cream. La Sirene does their profiteroles to a grand scale – filled with ICE CREAM and covered in a Hot Callebaut Bittersweet Chocolate Sauce – this is an amazing dessert. They really don’t skimp you here, these large profiteroles are easily shareable.

Like I said, La Sirene really has to be one of my best restaurant experiences. I love its small unpretentious environment – the waitresses are super friendly and give great suggestions! While on the pricy side, La Sirene is also BYOB and they don’t charge you a cork fee and are happy to pop open your beers. This way you know you’re spending your money on amazing FOOD and not blowing it on a $10 Kronenberg. This restaurant is amazing and I will be back when I’m ready to splurge again. Do yourself a favor and treat yourself one weekend to an amazing meal at La Sirene.

La Sirene is located at 558 Broome St and Varick St

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Style Play 002 – Graniph ‘Crazy Pattern’ Shirt

So, as you may know I recently ordered a few things from Graniph. I’m wearing their Crazy Pattern Shirt.  Pretty self-explanatory, I love the mix of patterns - it’s standout but subtle at the same time. This shirt is fresh. Other items that make this outfit are a pair of the Jump Vanquish, a black Nooka Zub with a Zot face, and G-Star 3301 jeans.

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Zuriick – Alpha Beata & Albert Ocean

One of the things I love about Gilt is exposure to brands I hadn’t heard of before. Zuriick is a great example of one such brand. Zuriick is a small-time 3-year-old footwear company that doesn’t “overdo branding.” Their main bit of branding is that all of their soles are purple. Zuriick features a lot of cool, colorful shoes. I love this pair of Alpha Beatas. Love the blue accents on the lace-holes.

Zurrick currently runs their entire online business on Big Cartel. I checked out their online store and lo and behold, they had a sale that I had to get in on. I got their Albert Ocean, which are hip and comfortably puffy hi-tops. Love that signature purple sole! They don’t even have a size printed on the tongue.

Here is a mini-documentary with the guys from Zuriick discussing their mission and how they use Big Cartel to run their business.

Zuriick | BigCartel | Gilt

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Jump Paxton – Classy Shoe

I picked up this pair of Paxton kicks from Jump in Soho the other weekend. These shoes are somewhere between dressy and casual – a nice all purpose pair. The shoe is patent leather with a pony hair upper. Very nice. I believe these are a relatively old release from Jump, so they’re pretty cheap at the Soho store if they still have them in stock.  I love that Jump has such a wide variety of shoe styles, but manages to kill it on all fronts.

http://www.jumpcorp.com/

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ICFF Offsite: Sounds Like x DDC Lab

I went to the ICFF Offsite opening of Sounds Like at DDC Lab this past Friday. The exhibition is curated by Joey Roth who released his Ceramic Speakers earlier this year. The speakers were given to nine of his favorite artists and designers to “modify and reshame using their own visual languages.” The exhibition features designers Srull Recht, John Pomp, David Lynch, Stanley Ruiz, Toblas Wong, Sougwen Chung, Matthew Waldman, Savania Davies – Keiller and Roberto Crivello and music from Miho Hatori, Matmos, Ben Frost, Sepalcure (collab between Machinedrum x Praveen & Benoît!), and Gunung Sari.

It amazes me the power of social media. I got to meet one of my favorite designers, Matthew Waldman, founder of Nooka, at the event, and from our previous contact through twitter and facebook it felt like we already knew each other. He didn’t even realize we hadn’t met in person before. Matt was (and is) super friendly and nice enough to introduce me to a bunch of cool people like Miho Hatori, Shinya Nakamura, Sherwood Forlee and Mihoko Ouchi from The. and many more. I got caught up talking to amazing people and only later realized I should’ve taken more photos! Alas.

w/ Matthew Waldman of Nooka

w/ Sherwood and Miho of the.

Matt modeling his piece which featured music by Miho Hatori.

http://soundslike.org/

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ICFF Offsite – 400 Square Feet Later: Cite Goes America

Some photos from the ICFF opening of 400 Square Feet Later: Cite Goes America curated by Alissia Melka-Teichroew and Jan Habraken.

http://www.citegoesamerica.com/

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Matthew Waldman x Graniph – Special Edition Collab

This shirt is a badass special limited edition collaboration between Matthew Waldman (of Nooka) and Graniph. The shirt features the Nooka “creatures of the night” design found on the Nooka camo watches. Also loving the little ‘Matthew Waldman’ signature on the back. At 20% polyester and 80% cotton, this shirt is super comfortable. Knowing Japanese sizing tends to run small I’m glad I made the right choice of getting my Graniph gear in medium. They fit perfectly! Catch me rocking this piece soon.

Coming in at ￥2,500 (around $23.75 USD), this stylish shirt is quite cheap and with the order processed early Monday morning Japan time, I got my package in the morning on Thursday in New York. I had some strange issues navigating through the english Graniph site but their customer service was great and made sure that the order was all good. I will definitely be getting more Graniph gear in the future. Get the shirt here!

Matthew Waldman | Graniph | Nooka

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On the Other Side of the Michelada

I never had a Michelada until I was intrigued by somebody drinking one while I was at Caracas’ Williamsburg location. For those of you that don’t know, a michelada is a beer cocktail composed of (obviously) beer, lime juice and assorted spices, salts, peppers, sauces served in a salt-rimmed glass. A seemingly bizarre concoction but it sounded interesting so we decided to try it out. Caracas‘ variety of the michelada is made with pacifo beer, lemon, home-made spicy panela and salt. I don’t know who came up with this random ass idea, but micheladas are damn good!

The above photos were taken at Barrio Chino while playing around with the camera. In each photo you see the other’s drink! Barrio Chino’s Michelada is made with a beer of your choice, Worcestershire, lime juice, and a salt crusted rim. I went for a Negra Modelo and Gao Di shot for Sol. The Negra Modelo version was awesome- I wasn’t sure what to expect from a michelada with a dark beer but it was super tasty. Gao Di was a little less pleased with the Sol. Barrio Chino also has really good food that I’ll be posting about later on….

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Menkui Tei – My Love for Ramen

Like I said a long time ago in my post on alphabet city’s ramen joint, Minca, Menkui Tei on 3rd avenue between St. Marks and E. 7th street has a special place in my heart (it’s actually technically Cooper Square). I have been coming here with Thomas since freshman year of college. Located just a little ways from NYU’s jazz building, Menkui Tei offers some great ramen at a much better price than our good friend, the overpriced Ippudo.

So what’s to love here? Pretty much everything. The wait staff is ridiculously nice (they always remember me!) and I love the wooden environment + mix of 90’s hip-hop and pop music. My two favorite ramens that Menkui offers are the Kyushu Ramen and the Sutamina Ramen. The Kyushu Ramen, pictured above, is a “Special Menu” item that happens to always be on the menu – this is a good thing. The Kyushu features sprouts, bamboo, fried garlic, scallions, a half a soft-boiled ehh, and of course – two thick and tasty slices of pork, along with thin noodles in a delicious pork bone broth.

The Sutamina Ramen has a spicy miso-based broth with sliced pork, egg, garlic and scallions. Yum! I need to get a photo of this one because it’s quite wonderful.

Anyway, I love Menkui Tei and you should too! Among pricier places like Ramen Setagaya, Ippudo, and Minca, Menkui Tei is a delicious and affordable contender in the ramen market. They also have a really good mabo tofu and pitcher deals that come with hot wings!

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KAWS Coming to the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

This is pretty cool, KAWS has an upcoming exhibit slated for June at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, CT just a bit of a train ride away. You’d probably recognize KAWS iconic skull-and-crossbones in his work ranging from graffiti, paintings, toys, clothing, statues, accessories, footwear, etc. etc. I’m hoping there’ll be some KAWS merch here, because for anyone that knows anything about KAWS, the minute something is released on his website it is almost always instantly sold out. I hope I make it out to this when it happens!

via Highsnobiety via Arrested Motion with photo via DDJ

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Gourmet – L’ Nove on Grass

I couldn’t resist snapping a great photo of my Gourmet L’Nove kicks while I was at Prospect Park even as Gao Di and Alexa made fun of my ridiculous shoe obsession. Ah, so pretty.