Thursday, January 19, 2012
More Yelping
Take a stroll around Old Town sometime, see the sights. See the loud, angry homeless people, the polite, well-behaved homeless people (courtesy of Right 2 Dream Too), the Chinese Garden, the puddles of clubgoer vomit punctuating the sidewalk, the godawful semi-testicular One Pacific Square building...but, most of all, the Hung Far Low sign. Yes indeedy, that beloved old restaurant shingle bearing a no doubt innocent Chinese phrase I can't be arsed to look up, which--quite by accident--connotes gravid genitalia in our mongrel gwailo tongue.
The restaurant itself fucked off to 82nd years ago--didn't love us anymore, I guess. Doesn't matter, though, as a new restaurant now huddles in its erstwhile space: Ping. Which is, apparently, one of GQ's top 10 best new restaurants of 2010. Not that I give a fuck what GQ thinks. I mention this only as an excuse to point out that Ping hasn't let this no-doubt-high honor go to its head--or prices.
Yes, a mere $18 will get you a full dinner of a steamed pork bun, spicy mama ramen, and a bottle of Chang. The bun was not only made to order, but heated all the way through--more than I can say for the pork buns of some Old Town restaurants *COUGH*houseoflouie*COUGH I could name. The ramen is the standard "everything including some hard chunks we're pretty sure are bits of the kitchen sink, so watch your teeth" noodle bowl local Asian restaurants love so well. It's odd in that I like everything in it EXCEPT the noodles, which I'd swear came out of those quarter-a-pop packs you can find in supermarkets and convenience stores the world over (and believe me, having subsisted on the things the middle third of my life I know my cheap ramen). I can't comment on whether it tastes like your mama (who, if I may say so, is damn tasty if it does), but they're not kidding about the "spicy" part--be certain of your bravery before taking the wait staff up on their offer to toss some more capsaicin in there. The Chang, eh, confirmed my suspicion that I don't really care for Asian beer. Not that that's the restaurant's fault.
The place is a bit of a closet, albeit a cozy one--all chunky wood paneling and mood lighting. The waitstaff are helpful, if not what I'd call friendly--but then if I wanted my ass kissed I'd go to Red Robin. As is my wont, I sat in the most out-of-the-way corner I could find just to see if they'd forget about me. They didn't, and I wasn't kept waiting for hours on end, so what more do you want?
Recommended.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Dagnabbit
So I was watching Batman: The Animated Series just now. The episode was fine, just as awesome as I remembered, that wasn't the problem. The problem (if it can be called such) lay in the end credits, whose copyright dated the episode to...1992. Dear lord. Yes, that's right, the (for me) iconic Batman series, Timm and Dini's masterpiece, is twenty years old.
That latter word is what I'd like to discuss today, because the revelation left me feeling very much so. I don't know if that's a good thing or not--I may lean one way or another, depending on my mood. Right now the trend is towards "bad", if only because it was the first time I'd truly felt that way, and as we all know, old farts hate new things.
I'm supposing this happens to everyone--the sudden, searing revelation that one is regarded as "uncool" due simply to one's age. This is of course monstrously unfair, as in the great uncoolness spectrum it is, perhaps, the only factor over which one has no control. (Most of the others have to do with "not being a douchebag" and "staying open-minded, for fucksake", truisms that hold regardless of vintage.)
That latter word is what I'd like to discuss today, because the revelation left me feeling very much so. I don't know if that's a good thing or not--I may lean one way or another, depending on my mood. Right now the trend is towards "bad", if only because it was the first time I'd truly felt that way, and as we all know, old farts hate new things.
I'm supposing this happens to everyone--the sudden, searing revelation that one is regarded as "uncool" due simply to one's age. This is of course monstrously unfair, as in the great uncoolness spectrum it is, perhaps, the only factor over which one has no control. (Most of the others have to do with "not being a douchebag" and "staying open-minded, for fucksake", truisms that hold regardless of vintage.)
Friday, January 6, 2012
How do I really feel?
(Please to note: I may have a teensy bit of difficulty remembering what, precisely, I ordered at Chin's Kitchen. It's been several months since I ate there--time I've mostly spent trying to block the memory--and fucked if I'm going to repeat the experience for the Internet's sake. Now, onward!)
Imagine, if you will, a locker room. The specifics are unimportant, just your stereotypical, garden-variety locker room. The sort in which all the traditional locker-room activities took place--the communal showers, the storage of damp clothing, the wet-towel-snapping ass-torment, the semi-public-nudity-emboldened braggadocio, all of it. Imagine that this locker room functioned for many, many years, literal decades of black mold and simmering homoeroticism, before finally closing, at which point it sat empty for several more years, just to make extra-sure the fungi had taken root. Finally, imagine that someone or someones came along and decided, without so much as setting mop to tile, that this locker room would make a fantastic Chinese restaurant.
You can stop imagining now, because now you have Chin's Kitchen.
Chin's Kitchen is the sort of place where, upon setting foot inside the doors, your first thought is this is gonna suck. Most sensible people, upon finding themselves in this situation, do the sensible thing--turn on their heel and go eat at Shandong instead.
Very rarely have I been accused of being sensible.
Yes, I walked into Chin's Kitchen, saw the state of the place, knew on the spot what I was in for--and sat down and ordered something anyway. Call me stupid if you like--I prefer to think of myself as an optimist. First impressions have led me astray in the past, after all. Hell, for the first several months of its existence I was convinced Sizzle Pie was a strip club. I must have been in a forgiving mood that day, because I ordered a combo platter, was presented with a pile of hot garbage and I STILL ate it.
And garbage it was--canned/bagged storebought garbage, from the looks of it. Canned water-chestnut slices are never a welcome sight in my eyes, and yet here were the little frozen-jizz slices infesting my chow mein without so much as a by-your-leave. The chow mein's "noodles" were those awful rock-hard brown things (like fossilized goldfish shit) only crappy Chinese restaurants buy, despite their near-ubiquity in the "ethnic foods" section of your local supermarket. Gluing it all together into one gelid mass was a gravy best likened to thick, gluey phlegm fresh from the lung.
So, bad fucking food is what I'm getting at. Almost as bad as the decor. There's no reason for this place to exist, not when GOOD chinese food is less than a mile away. Surely you can walk that far--nobody's THAT American.
Imagine, if you will, a locker room. The specifics are unimportant, just your stereotypical, garden-variety locker room. The sort in which all the traditional locker-room activities took place--the communal showers, the storage of damp clothing, the wet-towel-snapping ass-torment, the semi-public-nudity-emboldened braggadocio, all of it. Imagine that this locker room functioned for many, many years, literal decades of black mold and simmering homoeroticism, before finally closing, at which point it sat empty for several more years, just to make extra-sure the fungi had taken root. Finally, imagine that someone or someones came along and decided, without so much as setting mop to tile, that this locker room would make a fantastic Chinese restaurant.
You can stop imagining now, because now you have Chin's Kitchen.
Chin's Kitchen is the sort of place where, upon setting foot inside the doors, your first thought is this is gonna suck. Most sensible people, upon finding themselves in this situation, do the sensible thing--turn on their heel and go eat at Shandong instead.
Very rarely have I been accused of being sensible.
Yes, I walked into Chin's Kitchen, saw the state of the place, knew on the spot what I was in for--and sat down and ordered something anyway. Call me stupid if you like--I prefer to think of myself as an optimist. First impressions have led me astray in the past, after all. Hell, for the first several months of its existence I was convinced Sizzle Pie was a strip club. I must have been in a forgiving mood that day, because I ordered a combo platter, was presented with a pile of hot garbage and I STILL ate it.
And garbage it was--canned/bagged storebought garbage, from the looks of it. Canned water-chestnut slices are never a welcome sight in my eyes, and yet here were the little frozen-jizz slices infesting my chow mein without so much as a by-your-leave. The chow mein's "noodles" were those awful rock-hard brown things (like fossilized goldfish shit) only crappy Chinese restaurants buy, despite their near-ubiquity in the "ethnic foods" section of your local supermarket. Gluing it all together into one gelid mass was a gravy best likened to thick, gluey phlegm fresh from the lung.
So, bad fucking food is what I'm getting at. Almost as bad as the decor. There's no reason for this place to exist, not when GOOD chinese food is less than a mile away. Surely you can walk that far--nobody's THAT American.
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