Unidentified Flying Chicken

I'm not a big fan of chicken wings. But the husband is on a quest to find the best chicken wings in NY, and I am thinking, eh why want to eat chicken wings in NY huh, since we have the real (and cheap) stuff at home already? (start from Commonwealth market, then travel 2 miles to Ikea, then if you want travel across causeway to eat Ayam Goreng, then got time go north and eat Gai Yang in Thailand then..)

Anyway, THE place to go to is K-town's Bonchon Chicken, only opens from 4pm onwards and like everything else, is just a little more expensive being in Manhatten. That explains why I haven't gone, like who goes to K-town just to eat chicken wings?

After some investigation, it was revealed that the REAL Deal could be found at Unidentified Flying Chicken, which had landed in a Koreanised part of Brooklyn we had yet to explore.

So we (I reluctantly) schelpped down to identify this place with the ridiculous name. 3 subway transfers later, we found the place - once, just to make sure it existed, the second time to actually order the wings.

20 wings came with 2 free sides. We got garlic soy and tangy mustard flavours with baked fries - the salad just to ease the guilt. It WAS good. Crunchy and juicy even tho they were oven-baked. Flavourfully salty with a touch of sweet.

After 13 wings and 2 sides, we packed up the rest for dinner ...and more for lunch the next day. I felt sick for the rest of the day because I've never had 8 pieces of fried chicken for lunch before. But I guess the chicken wing outing was a good way to learn, when it came to wings in an angmoh place, Koreans really ruled the roost.

A Conversation between Mother and Son

I like children. I like them as people because they are funny and most importantly, most children I know receive the best care ever from parents who love them to bits (thankfully). While walking from school on a chilly evening, this was what I overheard from a mother-and-son pair next to me.

Mother (tall woman holding the hand of a little 5-year old): "I didn't know it was going to be so cold today. It was fine when we left home this morning wasn't it? I think if it gets colder, maybe you should wear your fleece, don't you think?"

Boy (walking studily and bundled up in like a ball in an anorak): "I don't think..cold..Is it very, mommy? Well, can I? Maybe yeah okay."

Mother (walking purposefully with now-skipping boy): "And, also I want to apologise for being so cranky the other day...."

By this time, I had outwalked the pair and dodged into the warmth of a nearby store. It struck me then that this Mom could have been speaking to a 5, 15 or 25 year old. She sure got it right by ditching the baby-talk. Second, to hear any parent apologise to a child (and a very small one at that!) appealed to my asian sensibilities. So very refreshing - not to mention unheard off in our confucian world. I think children learn and internalise most of their values and worldviews from the home and their parents. What a good way to teach a child to speak properly, plainly and truthfully.

Swagger Like Us

Photo by Eleny M. Ynoa of Harlem

Depending on who I speak to, I say live on the Upper West Side, or (more accurately) around Harlem. Someone was correct when he said that we're not so much West Side but the Western Frontier and so even though I try not to scare people from visiting me, I still get concerned looks from non-new yorkers when I tell them my street.

But l love it that I can get to Harlem as fast as I could get from West Coast to Clementi (alamak at home I tell people I in live West Coast, they also say ulu) . There I can buy Clorox, kitchen wipes, socks and various other household handies for a buck or two. I like it that I can find T-mobile, Old Navy, Aerosoles, Nine West (the warehouse) H&M and 1.99 Depot all on one street.

So what I do when I get down the M60 bus is to hitch the bag up my shoulders, stuff my hands in my black jacket and swagger down the street like Harlem is filled with asians (are you kidding :P) and that I come to the neighbouhood all the time (I don't). The first thing to do here (and everywhere actually) is to look like you know where you're goin and you just wanna do your thang...

So then, if you see a little chinese girl walking down Martin Luther King Jr Street with hands in her pocket in the middle of the afternoon - yup, its probably me.

Trader Joe's

Trader Joes is my weekend-only supermaket because it's located all the way down on 14th Street at Union Square. They have some great in-house buys that are pretty yummy. My favourite pick ups are the Brioche buns, bake-it-yourself French bread (great for thick soups), rice (that tastes like what we have at home) and 99 cents Coconut milk. Definitely better than the pretend-to-be-organic supermart opposide my flat that sells it for $2.69. Wah piang.

The lines are ALWAYS long and the staff all look like teenagers that are having fun hanging. Check out the name of this fruit bar - it's so corny I love it. This BlueBerry Walks into A Bar..$1.69

NYC Recycles

I'm happy that recycling so easy here, and in our basement there are these huge garbage cans nicely labelled PAPER, BOTTLES/PLASTIC/GLASSES (no caps) and TRASH. I usually stack up my cereal boxes, hand soup bottles, apple juice containers weekly and bring them all downstairs during laundry time in the Trader Joe's supermarket paper bag. All mom's good influence!

Here's my favourite recycled item, the electric blue Sake bottle that we thought would make a pretty vase. Here it is, with Peachy (the peach coloured rose I named) on the living room/study table.

A Cool and Dry Chinese New Year

If Christmas is a time of rain, lights and avoiding the Takashimaya tunnel, then Chinese New Year is definitely about being bloated on hot afternoons and trying to erase the Dong Dong Dong Chiang you heard from the Chinatown Countdown earlier on TV.

This year, not only was I sadly un-bloated (chinese mah so being bloated is a sign of fortune), I was minus the TCS Chinatown Countdown and definitely not feeling the heat (both from our strong equatorial sun and giving out my first angpows - heng ah)

For the first time in my life, my (not-so) new year clothes included a down jacket and boots. The sunday before Chap Goh Meh, J, Ah Boy and I had walked from East Village, meandered past mid-town and somehow ended up at Chinatown. We headed straight for the Char Siew Bao shop near Mott Street like there was this Bao homing device strapped on us. The Lion Dance troupe played on the next street-which was where most of the crowd was gathered thankfully!

While J popped into the shop, Ah Boy and I stood outside to watch Chinatown in a swirl of colours. Kids terrorised each with party poppers, zooming back and forth. Entrepreurial roadside Uncles pushed their gold confetti guns to kids, then promptly sold them to harrassed parents. When J came out with 2 Char Siews and 1 Leng Yong, Ah Boy and I had bits of confetti in our hair and clothes. Even though it was dry and uncrowded, this was probably my closest experience to partying at Chinatown. A very surreal one too.

Back In The City

So I've made the shaky transition from B-school girlfriend and landed in a more permanent place as B-school wife. Yes, to all B-shool girlfriends out there, it IS possible to survive the required late night parties, endless networking sessions, cut-throat recuitment rounds, intensive internships - across the miles AND plan a wedding! (Praise God! And thank your girlfriends for the therapy sessions!)

Along the way, you pick up information you're not sure what to do with. I now know what a carry trade is, how CDOs work and the names of 2 dozen Hedge Funds and Private Equity groups (that may soon cease to exist) - and of course the remaining I-banks and their remaining stock prices.

I guess it's a great way to get acquainted with a world that I had little interest in. A year ago, my keywords were sustainability, advocacy, development, communications plans, presentations, e-blasts, timelines, 157gsm/4-C/gloss lami and web 2.0.

Oh well, I suppose that's all part of life-long learning (ha! I keep thinking of the WDA campaigns) but this is the kind that the School of Life teaches you; where you dont really have a choice in picking the modules you want. Yup, another class I'm taking up, Cooking 101 (elementary). Hopefully, i'll chalk up enough dishes to graduate to more advance levels *tries to look optimistic*

Since there's a university so near me, its great that there are some things you can choose to learn - East Asian Art History is in 1 hrs time *yay*. Today we're still on Song ceremics and celadon.