Apartment hunting

Barring any unpleasant last minute surprises, I have landed an apartment in New York! The rental market here moves extremely fast; I saw the apartment on Sunday afternoon, and signed a lease on Tuesday. The landlord is currently painting and making some improvements, and I will be moving in next Monday.

The apartment is located on the border of the Sunset Park/Borough Park neighborhoods in Brooklyn, about four blocks away from the closest subway station. It is a richly diverse area, with a Mexican population to the west, Brooklyn's largest Chinatown to the south, and an Orthodox Jewish population to the east. In other words, there is lots and LOTS of food.

The apartment is roughly where the yellow star is

And if you're wondering what's to the north... well, it's one of the largest cemeteries in New York City. It's actually a beautiful space with lots of trees; I sometimes visit and take a long peaceful walk on a nice day.

Greenwood Cemetery during autumn last year

The apartment itself is fairly small, but has a unique layout that will work since my brother Jon will be joining me in New York in a few weeks. Finding the right space has been a challenge because I wanted to stay extremely economical (apartments here are expensive!), and yet not compromise on getting some private space for each one of us. There were definitely larger apartments for the price, but this one contains two separate rooms, each with a door. Immediately upon entering the apartment, the kitchen area is right in front. To the right will be my room, and to the left will be Jon's room.

Kitchen area. The landlord is hopefully installing new cabinets now

My future room, about 10x12 in size. If you look through my door, you
can see straight into Jon's room, past the kitchen.

Jon's 8x11 room. No closets, so we'll have to get creative on
storage options.

A very cozy bathroom. The sink is about half of
normal size.

I'm really looking forward to moving in, and then setting up the place. Can't wait until it's ready for some 'after' pictures!

Home Again

In the blink of an eye, my grand adventure has come and gone. When I was planning this trip, it seemed like I was going to be away for a very long time. But amazingly, it has flown by! In many ways, I don't think that I will feel the full impact of this trip until a few months from now... I've been so busy experiencing new things that I haven't had time to truly reflect on everything that I have seen and done. I look forward to it; in a few months when it is freezing in New York, I can slowly enjoy the memory of humidly hot days in Vietnam!

I guess it's wrong to say though, that my adventure has come to an end. I return to New York without an apartment, or a job... I think it's safe to say that the next few months will be just as big an adventure as the summer was! And after all, there are dozens of new food places in New York that I have to visit! So I think I will keep updating this blog for a while yet.

The first priority right now is to find a new apartment. Luckily, I am pretty sure of what I am looking for already, so the search should be relatively simple. My brother, Jon, will be coming up to New York too, so I'll need to find an apartment that is economical and can fit both of us. I think I saw an apartment yesterday that fits the bill, but since nothing's been approved yet, I'll hold off writing about it until things are set.

So... the adventure continues!!!

Waterfalls and babies

Today's destination: the gorgeous Multnomah Falls, located about a half hour away from central Portland.

;

Hana says 'hi!'

Portlandia

In the blink of an eye, I have already arrived at the last stop in my trip before I head home to New York. I am in Portland, Oregon to visit some friends who moved here last year. Portland has clean suburbs, lots of bustling local restaurants, and an affordable standard of living that makes this place very desirable for young families.

Since this is my last stop, I have been feeling quite lazy. It has been enough to hang out with my friends, eat some good food, play with babies, and take afternoon naps. Since I will be quite busy once I do reach New York, this will be a relaxing week for me. And of course, "relaxing" also means "eat lots and lots of foooooood".

Sunset view around Oregon farmlands

Delicious brunch dish; sausage ragu, mozzarella, and a fried egg on
top of polenta from Tasty n Sons.

I was hungry and started eating before I remembered to take a picture!
Half rack baby back ribs, mac and cheese, and candied yams from
Russell Street Bar-B-Que

Sampling very special local beer at the
Fresh Hops festival.

Am amazingly sweet corn chowder, made in the Glasby-Miyake home!

Food coma alert! Brunch at the very popular Screen Door (we were in line
for 40 minutes waiting for the place to open at 9am!!). This is fried chicken
in a biscuit, smothered with gravy, and roasted potatoes.

The rest of San Francisco

I have already reached the last city of my trip (Portland, Oregon), but I wanted to put up a few more pictures from my San Francisco visit. I was pretty lucky in that the week was mostly unseasonably warm, so it was comfortable to be outside.

I forgot if I put this picture up already. It's the pier where dozens and
dozens of sea lions have taken up residence. They sun themselves
and frolic on these docks all day long.

One of the many many colorful murals in the Mission District

I had to try some Mission District Mexican food!

Passing through Japantown

The Academy of Science was a really fun place to visit. It's a
planetarium, aquarium, and natural science museum all in one! This is
the rainforest dome, where you can see many types of vegetation, birds,
and butterflies that would live in this habitat.

The aquarium portion of the Academy had a huge coral reef tank that you
can also look at from above. The multiple views made it very interesting.

My favorite little critter from the Academy! It's a tiny cuttlefish. Adorable!

Piece of art from deYoung Museum. Called "The Spine
and Tooth of Santo Guerro", it is constructed out of
gun parts, bullets, and pellets as a statement about
religion and violence.

The San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge on a clear day.

There is magic in this world!

I took a quick trip out of town today to see the Muir Woods, a magnificent California redwood forest. I paid people to take me to see TREES??? Why yes, I did. These aren't just any old trees; they are massive (towering over 250 ft tall), and old (some over 800 years old). A thin 500 mile strip up the California and Oregon coastline is the only place left the in U.S. to see these redwoods (these differ from the giant sequoias, which are located further inland in California), so this was definitely worth visiting.

A quick (but treacherously windy!) 30 minute ride brought us to the Muir Woods valley. Upon entering the woods (which were clearly marked with trail paths), I felt as if I had stepped into a world where my fantasy books are set. The air was cool and damp, sunlight softly filtered through the leaves... and the giant trees. They were like old guardians of the forest... solid, handsome, and wise.

Now entering the magical forest

California redwoods. They stand tall and proud.

A picture with random people, to give context to
how big these trees are.

I feel like a tiny sprite standing underneath this tree!

It was delightful to walk through this forest. Indeed, if there were magic in this world, I could easily imagine it welling up from here.

How pretty is that beam of sunlight?! No CGI involved!

After a while, it was all too easy to imagine that the gnarled, bumpy trunks of the trees held hidden faces (for those familiar with LoTR... Ents!), or that they opened up to reveal hiding places for changeling babies.

Can you see the facial features of this tree?

There's enough space for me to crawl in for a nap!

A small creek ran in the middle of this forest, and in addition to providing yet more pretty picture opportunities, the light babbling sounds was the perfect background song to this journey.

Redwood Creek. It looks tiny now, but winter rains
turn it into a substantial river where salmon and trout
return to lay eggs.

I admit, my imagination got quite the workout today! But it was so much fun to walk around and pretend that I was a character within the books I read. After days of seeing San Francisco as a city, I'm glad I got the chance to experience the area's 'wilder' side.

San Francisco Eats: Commonwealth

Today's main star attraction didn't happen until dinnertime. I had booked a reservation for Commonwealth, an interesting-looking restaurant in the Mission District of San Francisco. They were offering a chef's tasting menu of 6 courses, but the a la carte menu looked more intriguing to me, and so I compiled a little multi-course dinner for myself.

As soon as I sat down at the table, a bowl of homemade chips were brought to the table instead of bread. They were dusted with seaweed powder, and a malt vinegar foam accompanied it as a dip.

Chips were crispy and not too greasy. They were much better eaten alone;
the malt vinegar foam was just odd; it didn't taste very good, and the foam
texture was actually unpleasant next to the crunchy chip.

Next, they brought out two small amuse bouches. The first was a tiny cube of panna cotta topped with some caviar, and served with an equally tiny sphere of cucumber. All this is pooled around a small spoonful of apple-flavored water. The second was a cold zucchini soup.

Panna cotta had a slight cheesy flavor. The cucumber and apple water
made the whole thing very refreshing and light.

Zucchini soup was surprisingly thick. This was topped
with mint oil, which quickly became the dominant
aroma as I sipped from the cup.

The first course was a sea urchin dish. The official menu item description: sea urchin, trout roe, potato, gem lettuce, lime cream, corn chip, pickled wasabi leaf. Quite a mouthful, no? This actually ended up being the most successful dish of the night. Most of the components came together quite nicely in harmony, with the lone outlier being the potato mash. A bite containing sea urchin, trout roe, lime cream, and lettuce was amazingly fresh and creamy, with a burst of citrus that complemented rather than overwhelmed. The trout roe and lettuce provided two completely different but interesting textural contrasts

Closeup of the dish

The next course: corn pudding, snap peas, crispy okra, basil seeds, brown butter, yuzu kosho aioli. Lots of components to these dishes! Unfortunately, this one didn't work out nearly as well as the first one had. Here's a picture of it.

The two white circles on either end is the yuzu aioli. The powdery
substance is actually the brown butter, and the long yellow streak in
the middle is the actual corn pudding.

See, the corn pudding part of the dish is quite small. It was deliciously and intensely corn-flavored... but was also really delicate. Added to anything else on the plate, it got lost and I couldn't taste it at all. So for all the folks who have watched 'Iron Chef', you'll know that when the star of the dish isn't the secret ingredient, then points get deducted!! I also didn't think that all the ingredients in the dish worked well together. Everything tasted good; but I never thought of this as one cohesive dish, but rather a plate of separate ingredients.

For my last savory course, I chose to have more seafood. The long description: smoked mackerel, avocado ice cream, fennel, seaweed brioche, sesame, berry kimchee.

Mackerel is on the left and right sides. The sesame ball has the avocado
ice cream inside, and the round flat is the brioche. The small red dots
is the berry kimchee sauce.

Once again, each component of this dish tasted good, but I didn't feel as if it all particularly blended well together. The avocado ice cream actually tasted more like lime, but added an interesting burst of cold and freshness to the fish. I liked the kimchee sauce a lot, but the brioche did nothing for me.

Overall, I thought all three of my savory dishes were on the light side. There were no heavy sauces or flavors, mostly everything was light and subtle. So when dessert came by, I passed on the more seasonal fig dessert to have something chocolately instead.

Peanut semifreddo covered with chocolate ganache. Caramel, and
frozen popcorn puree.

A classic flavor combination. I thought it was well balanced, and not too rich. I surprisingly did not like the popcorn component, which tasted like butter.

I had an interesting experience at Commonwealth; even if I didn't think a dish came together very well, each component was prepared well and tasted very fresh. I'm glad I got the chance to visit a local restaurant featuring rather experimental cuisine.