Category: Gnews

This feature has been sort of languishing in my server, waiting to be fleshed out. I realized, however, that what it needs is your help. So without further adieu, allow me to introduce you to Eat Me!, the Eat Drink One Woman guide to dining out in any situation. Help me flesh this thing out by submitting your dining/boozing needs. I'm here to help. And/or ridicule.

Welcome to my newly reconditioned and refurbished home! Some new things for you to check out:

• My new look, created with help from Jenny Feddersen. Don't I look good in pink?
  
• The Eat Map -- All my reviews in a convenient, chic interactive map.
  
• My ink and paper articles from real glossy magazines.
  
• Special guest Ruth Reichl (!!) is what she eats.
  

Special thanks to Vanessa Von Hessert for designing the cherries in the banner! Back to the business of eating and complaining, mi amor. A piece of advice from my friend Lynn's dad: Don't forget to buy a fifth on the third for the 4th!

xoxo,
Ganda

Eat drink one woman version 10.5.1 (or whatever) will launch this Friday! All of these features that previously only existed in my head have actually formed molecules and cells. I'm very excited to share them with you. Funny to launch on a Friday, I know, but that's because I have a VIP You Are What You Eat lined up. I can't tell you more without spoiling your dinner.

Apologies to you recent commenters. I just figured out where the comments live on this thing and finally got them published. Switching from Typepad to Movable Type has been like moving to Japan. At first I was totally frustrated because I barely knew the words for bathroom and water. But over the last few weeks, I've gotten over the culture shock and I'm making real strides in my conversational skills. I even had a normal transaction at the ramen place yesterday. It's a fascinating and beautiful place. I can't yet discuss the nuances of Noh drama, but I'm on the right trajectory.

I guess I'll take this time to point out some NEW and IMPROVED features on eat drink one woman:

1. Updated About page! Because there's no such thing as Too Much Information.

2. New e-mail address -- send all correspondence to ganda {at} eatdrinkonewoman {dot} com. Isn't that so professional sounding?

3. Category drop down menu, Monthly archives drop down menu, and Restaurant reviews in (mostly) alpha order! (You have no idea how long that took this techtard to figure out.)

4. A search box! Dig, poke and prod away, my friends.

5. Google Ads -- okay, not that exciting for you, but at least they're relevant, unlike the Kanoodle porn ad strip. Every click helps.

Construction will continue at its slow but steady pace, and I'll post whenever I'm not turning Japanese. I'm open for business all this month. On June 30, expect the launch of eat drink one woman's EXTREME MAKEOVER, with a whole new look, a few special features that have been percolating, and a You Are What You Eat interview with a Very Special Surprise Guest. Stay tuned!

I finished the chapter on Masa in Michael Ruhlman's The Reach of a Chef yesterday*, and now I can't stop dreaming and creaming over the day I'll have $420 ($350 + instant 20% gratuity) to fork over to sit at the hinoki wood bar with the Taisho.

But then I saw what may be the most disgusting review I've ever read in my life. I pray to God it's a joke, but you just never know in this town. I hope you didn't just eat a big lunch:

From Menupages:
Posted by Blair** on 05/20/2006
A great halfway point

My fiancé, myself, and a couple of our friends were doing this thing that we do every once in a while where we try to make it from Friday to Wednesday drunk. The rules are that none of us can cook or stay in our own apartments during the “binge,” as we call it, so we spend a lot of time in restaurants and hotels. Luckily, my buddy James had planned ahead for once and booked Masa for that Saturday without telling any of us. A brillant move. By then, we were about twenty-four hours in and the food really hit the spot. Needles to say, I don’t remember much of the evening, but I think the food was excellent, although I felt like we were there for days and plates just kept coming and coming. The sake was a bigger draw than the food– and let me say – the one thing I do remember is some drink like Cakonkou or Kakonnku or something. The waitresses came by and I just kept saying Cakonku and it kept flowing. We were loud, but no one seemed to mind; it was a pretty festive atmosphere, not this “temple” everyone was telling me about. Delicious stuff. It all came to $3500 or something, and my dad was pissed when he saw the AMEX that month, but all that aside it was worth every penny.

*Disclaimer: Yes, the people who employ me publish it. But I bought his first "chef" book when it came out and I wasn't working here.
**Blair! You can't make that shit up. Or can you?

Went to the new Fairway in Red Hook on Saturday with my friend Julie and baby Elijah. Cheap cheap cheap, amazing selection of high and low, everything from gluten free breads to bulk packs of chicken to olive oils from around the world to Cheez Whiz in a squeezable bottle. Thick, beautiful asparagus only $1.49/lb.! Marinated white anchovies and blocks of fresh sheep's cheese! Applegate Farms AND Schaller & Weber AND Boar's Head AND Dietz & Watson AND house-made turkey, all hand-sliced!

But what nutter designs the Fairways? Both this and the Upper West Side Fairway (the only ones I've been to) are like overwhelming culinary K-holes to me. I go in and several hours later I am spit back out, dazed and confused. How do people find things there? The layout defies mental mapping.

It was a weird scene, though -- only Brooklynites with cars, which for the most part meant families from Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, even folks coming from as far as East New York. At one point in the produce aisle, I got stuck in a bottleneck of wide load middle-aged homemakers ambling with their ginormous, 12-pack toilet paper filled carts.

It's definitely one stop suburban-style shopping if you've got a car. I bet the Park Slope stroller pushers will be defecting from the co-op by the boatload.

With a million thanks to my buddy Adam, I'm up and running!!! I know it's ugly, but baby steps, people.

If you somehow managed to find my typepad blog, you are some kind of baby genius.  I broke my website and I'm trying to fix it.  Bear with me, people, you are watching my growing pains.  Believe me, this hurts me a lot more than it hurts you.

So in a fit of post-food poisoning indigestion and insomnia, I went and bought a year of server space.  And the personal version of Movable Type.  And I almost paid them $100 to install it because I am completely techtarded.  And I'm paying my friend to help me redesign this thing.

All of this means that I am making my long dreamed-of move from Typepad to the more flexible Movable Type.  So this site may disappear for a while.  Hopefully it will reappear sometime this month, both NEW and IMPROVED.

In the meantime, don't talk too much shit behind my back.  I am trying to make this world a better place for you and for me and the entire human race.

In the meantime, write me some email -- gandas at gmail dot com.  I miss you already.

xoxo,
Ganda

Happy Cinco de Mayo!  Forget the Mexican restaurant roundup.  Alcoholic slurpee + straw + 80 degree weather = good times!  Don't want to miss a second of sunshine?  Take that margarita party to go at these rumored rogue establishments:

El Sombrero (aka The Hat)

Ludlow and Stanton

When I first moved to New York (May 2 was my 7 year anniversary, holla!), we used to go down to Ludlow St., get our frozen margaritas in paper cups, and go watch movies at the park.  Haven't tried to get one there in ages, but the summer is young.

Caliente Cab Co.

7th Ave. and Bleecker

I wish I could say I've never eaten here but I was forced to go on a department lunch once.  The food is as disgusting as you can imagine, but I've been told by a reputable alky that they'll sell you margaritas in paper cups. 

Anyone know where else you can take your drink to go?  The comments are open.