First, be aware that there is no such thing as a light lunch with Josh Ozersky. I knew this well, and though we were scheduled to tour the Cantonese restaurants of Chinatown at 2 p.m., I didn’t eat a bite before that.
Josh is a well known food critic, having written for New York Magazine, Time Magazine, and now Esquire, where he’s their food critic. He also has a Ph.D. in American history and, importantly, is intensely interested in evolution. That provides a fantastic symbiosis, for he gets to ask me about evolution and I get to ask him about restaurants. And, like me, he’s an apostate Jew, very fond of BBQ. Our tour, then was, to concentrate on the BBQ of New York’s Chinatown. I was in Josh’s hands.
Our first stop was Sun Say Gai on Canal and Baxter, full of both Chinese and Westerners chowing down on barbecued pork, duck, and an assortment of steamed and baked buns. Our first order was half a barbecued duck and a large dumpling filled with pork, egg, and other stuff:
The dumpling halved, lateral view:
With the half duck (superb; I shall dine on the remnants now) we had a side order of bbq suckling pig, with incomparably luscious crispy skin:
Then it was on to the Big Wong, a nearby restaurant which, says Josh, has the best ribs in Chinatown. We accompanied the ribs with an order of salt-and-pepper squid:
The ribs—fantastic.
Josh met an old friend on the street, who took a really nice photo of the two of us, but sadly his friend pressed the “record” button and now we have about two seconds of a movie that I can’t show here.
On the way to procure dessert, we went by a store called “Evolution,” which really is about natural-history artifacts. They have fossils as well as mounted beetles and butterflies (which sadden me), and a passel of the old natural-history posters I love. I was photographed next to what I’ll look like in 30 years.
After all that BBQ, we both felt like some dessert, and gelato was on our minds. According to Josh, the best gelato in New York happened to be nearby (he seems to know where every good place to eat is in the city): Grom, on Bleecker Street. We both had a medium cup of gelato; his was dark chocolate, mine hazelnut, with whipped cream (we shared, as the combination is great). But we couldn’t resist an order of fig sorbetto as well, a fantastic concoction tasting exactly of fresh, ripe figs. Here is Mr. Ozersky before we dug in over intense discussions about the origin of life and the evolution of sex.
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Do you plan on getting taller in the next 30 years?
Also:
Big Wong- (snickering) sometimes I think like a 10 year old boy.
🐷🐖🐾🐾🐾
I feel stuffed just looking at the pictures! Yummy.
I feel so much the opposite. 🙁
I’m so hungry now!
BBQ rib is fantastic! Agreed. I used to buy half Peking Duck takeout whenever I went to Chinatown since the time I went to Chicago Chinatown. But, one morning, before merged into subway, I stepped into a restaurant randomly and found the freshly cooked BBQ ribs looked delicious, I ordered a box for takeout… Since then BBQ rib is the takeout I get from Chinatown. For the newcomer, try the freshly cooked for your first time.
Sometimes, you don’t really know when history is going to change its wheel… :)))
If you’d like, you can send the movie to a tech-savvy person by email and they can extract an image from it. Ben Goren can probably do it. (Or myself.)
It is easy to extract a picture from a video. My digital bridge camera will do it, then there is always screen capture via Ctrl Alt PrtScn…
If you have MS OneNote you can do it yourself. Just click the Screen Clipping tool while the video is playing, save to Clipboard, paste it into Word, and while it’s selected, save it as a picture.
That’s how I got my image of Lemon, Camerota and Aslan for my latest post, and one of Lauren Green and Aslan that I didn’t use in the end. The audio keeps playing while you do the clipping, but the screen freezes. When you’ve done your clipping, the video carries on as if nothing happened.
Amazing looking food too. I want some of that duck, followed by fig sorbetto right now for my breakfast! (It’s 8.30am Tue in NZ)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I have absolutely no idea how it is that Jerry ( and for that matter his friend Josh as well) doesnt weigh 450 lbs. I gained 3 lbs just looking at the pictures of his culinary conquests in NYC. I grew up in NYC and now live in CT next door so I’ll be visiting all these places the next time I visit!
The answer is simple: I eat like that ONLY on trips (or when I have a guest in Chicago). Usually I’m quite abstemious and don’t eat unhealthy stuff.
Yes, well, I kinda assumed that was the answer. Either that or you run the equivalent of a marathon every day. I tend to believe that ones appreciation of X is inversely proportional to ones self-control regarding X so I’m a bit jealous or your evident immunity to this rule.
I wish I could eat all that and look like the skeleton – because then I would have room for even more food!
If you looked like the skeleton then you could eat as much as you like as it would just fall out through your ribs.
You would have to be fed though as the skeleton has no muscles with which to control its arms and you would have no tongue with which to savour the taste and no brain to experience the pleasure. 🙂
I said “look like” the skeleton not “be” the skeleton. That’s just gross. 😉
Hang on a cotton pickin’ minute.
How can you look like a skeleton without actually being a skeleton? Heh heh.
The same way you can look shifty without being shifty.
Right now, I am looking like a skeleton by ginning really widely. I figure that’s the first step.
😀
Since I’m a “foodie” (ugh..we need to find a better term) as well, this subject comes up a lot and I find it fascinating too.
I’ve seen many conversations about why so many “foodies” actually seem to be slim, or if not slim, at least not particularly over weight (whether talking about people who blog about food, or Yelpers, or what have you).
Unsurprisingly there’s typically no magic “metabolism” answer to that type of question. Especially if you are over 30, it takes very mindful eating and behavior to avoid putting on too much weight. The typical answer is that the foodie eats generally healthy, conservatively, and mindfully most of the time, allowing the indulgences for certain restaurants, social occasions etc. It also helps the mindful eating attitude insofar as you tend to eschew junkier cheaper foods, which are so ubiquitous and easily acquired, in favor of fresher, higher quality food with more flavor, which usually takes more effort to acquire. It makes you appreciate food in general more, especially the restaurant experiences.
I’m a food-nut, hanging off all Jerry’s noms posts. Last night at Thanks Giving dinner (Canadian here) some noticed how much I’d eaten, and seeing me on my 4th slice of my mom’s amazing pumpkin pie with ice cream and whipped cream, were asking why I didn’t weigh 300 pounds (I’m fairly skinny). Answer is the same as Jerry’s: I don’t eat like that all the time, I eat more healthy and moderately most of the time, and I get
good exercise every day. No magic metabolism to fall back on…unfortunately.
On a similar note: Just as my wife always asks how I seem to eat so much but I’m not obese…she doesn’t notice when my portion sizes are smaller than hers at other times…I get the same impression from my two boys, 12 and 16. They are both skinny yet they SEEM to be able to eat whatever they want, as much as they want. The impression is they are eating 3 times as much as I do, and should not be thin at all.
But if I really take notice, I see how they actually moderate their intake. It’s not deliberate, but they listen to their body.
They over-indulged on some after-school snack? They will end up picking at their dinner and leaving a lot of it on the plate.
Sometimes they refuse a treat that I know they’d love, just because whatever they’d eaten before that day made them “not really hungry right now.”
We of course encourage healthy eating and balance in our house, but the kids seem to have some naturally-driven balance going on in terms of both their metabolism and their appetite regulation, that keeps them from eating too much.
Yeah, loving good food usually means eschewing junk food because it’s nasty shit. Even if Jerry did eat this way all the time, he still wouldn’t get as fat as somebody who consumed just as many calories, but all of it in the form of fast food and soft drinks.
And good food is much more filling and satisfying than fake food, so there’s less compulsion to overdo it.
Restaurant portions are generally (but not always, of course, depending on the restaurant) about double what I’d prepare for myself. I rarely eat out, so when I do I might take the opportunity to indulge in overindulgence, but, if it’s just a meal on the road because there’s no time for anything else, I’ll eat half and get a doggie bag for lunch the next day.
There’s also psychology at play. We generally clean our plates. When eating “family style,” you dish out however much you think you want to eat and then clean your plate. At a restaurant, they put down in front of you a plate full of however much they think is necessary to satisfy their hungriest customers…and then we still tend to clean the plates, even though it’s much more than we would have dished out for ourselves in a family setting.
If you love good food, chances are that you’ll cook for yourself a lot; it’s easy to best all but the top-tier restaurants in terms of quality, and even if you do all your shopping at Whole Paycheck you’ll be hard pressed to average more than $5 / meal. When you consider travel time, eating at home generally leaves you with more time for other activities as well. And, of course, if you eat at home, you’ll only prepare and / or serve just as much as you want to eat, so there’s your self-regulating portion control again that goes out the window at a restaurant.
Cheers,
b&
OMG 4 slices of pie! I can barely finish one. I actually hate feeling stuffed full so only eat until I’m somewhat full. Still, I put on weight easily now, though given my activity levels for the last year, I should be obese.
A friend’s girlfriend stayed slim by going on a lettuce leaf diet for a couple of days until she got back down to where she wanted to be. I don’t know how anyone can do that.
Diana,
Most of the time I’m the same as you: I don’t stuff myself and don’t want to.
But there is a time for gluttony 🙂
I remember Jerry saying something about this that rang true to me, something along the lines of the best meals are always the ones where there were no inhibitions, where you eat freely, and a lot! Which pretty much describes all the best eating experiences (restaurants included) I can remember. Not a time for moderation. If I’m in the position Jerry’s in, visiting New York, I personally want to feel free to try any food I want there, without some “Well, I really shouldn’t…” guilt trip putting a damper on the experience. (I also make sure I eat very healthy and moderately leading up to such a trip, so I’m starting from a healthy zone).
At the same time, I couldn’t eat like that – to the point of being stuffed – regularly.
After a day or two I’m dying to get back to
a regular eating pattern. I have no idea how
lots of people (I’m looking at you…fat America!) manage to stay in this mode of eating day in and day out.
David Duncan,
I don’t know about that lettuce-eating concept. One doesn’t want to under-eat. Personally I have an optimal healthy BMI/weight target that I stick to so I cut back or eat more to stay within the health zone.
That said, the day after a big feast, e.g. Thanksgiving, is the perfect day to cut back.
I’ll typically wake up still feeling full leading me to eat very little, almost to the point of a “fasting” day. So I listen to my body’s hunger cues and don’t just eat for the sake of it or out of routine. The next day after that I’m at my normal hunger and back to normal non-feasting eating.
I understand though that this approach isn’t as tenable for everyone. One reason some people put on unhealthy weight is that their appetite and hunger cues are out of whack, and if they “just listened to their body” they’d be eating all the time.
Ben,
Agreed on all points. I cook a lot at home and generally cook healthy food and or watch portion size if it’s a a richer type of food.
I also employ smaller plates at home so we are not tempted to go for restaurant sized portions. Ultimately my favorite style of eating is tappas-style, or chefs tasting menus, where you get a small portion of each dish. I don’t really need a lot of any dish as the best bites are the first ones, you get the point of it pretty quickly, and
it tends to get less interesting as you eat more. So I tend to serve smaller portions of interesting flavors at home.
I just learned how to make my Mom’s pumpkin pie. NOW I have to be careful because I have the power to conjure it at my command and don’t have to wait another year.
I have a sweet tooth. If I get into eating sugar, I will find it hard to stop. It also winds me up really bad – worse than caffeine.
Mmmmm sugar.
What I often do is the worst, unhealthy way you can eat; realizing that the sugary snack is full of calories/fat I decide to only eat that as a meal. Tasty without the weight gain, but horrible for your health.
Diana,
No shame there.
Deserts often taste best in the morning. Apple Pie or a slice of Red Velvet Cake for breakfast? Count me in!
We can just get healthier fare in the rest of the day. And wasn’t there that recent study that said cake for breakfast is actually good for maintaining healthy weight?
(Reduces sense of deprivation).
I always read about the supposed blood sugar spikes associated with carb-heavy and sugar heavy foods, like bread or cakes, and that eating them purportedly will make you more hungry. I rarely find that to be the case, personally. I eat no more during the day if I had a dessert for a meal than any other day. It’s actually one reason I try to limit my drinking soda: 1/2 a can can make me feel full and keep me feeling full so I don’t even need a meal. Something about that concentrated sugar. So I avoid soda near meals, though sip it sometimes here and there. I know, I know…naughty to even touch the stuff.
Dark chocolate and molassesey(sp?) dark-brown sugar flavors are my downfall. And crispy crusty sour-dough bread. Oh, and Portuguese custard tarts. On the savory side, the almost burnt turkey skin which sticks to the stuffing…Off to the gym!
I’m a big butter tart fan.
Butter tarts toooo sweet, unless they have a ton of pecans in them.
I like all butter tarts but my favourite are the plain ones. Mmmmmmmm.
Butter Tarts! I’m a fanatic. I scour the city for the best butter tarts and can never pass one up. Fortunately the best I’ve found are actually made by some great bakers right around the corner from where I live.
They do just the right proportion of delectable, layered, flaky, pastry with a slight chew, with a sweet but not-too-sweet filling (the slightly gelatinous type, not the all liquid sugar type). Every element in their tart is like the platonic ideal, and they are fresh out of the oven in the morning. To die for!
There are 3 items I’m helpless to resist:
1. Butter Tarts (good ones), 2.Fresh Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies (I also turn the city upside down for good ones) and 3. Nanaimo Bars. No can defend a good Nanaimo bar.
I like to lick the gelatinous parts out of the butter tart. So good. I even eat butter tarts from the grocery store & I swear when I was a kid they were much bigger & tastier!
I had mint chocolate chip ice cream for breakfast. I was getting over a migraine and my stomach didn’t want anything else so that’s what I gave it. If I eat the ice cream in the evening, I’m up all night with a tired but wired sugar rush!
You might try first eating some fresh veggies, and then rewarding yourself with the sweets. Even if you eat the same amount of sweets as you would without the veggies. The veggies will dampen the negative physiological effects of the sweets, and, after a while, you might find less sweets just as satisfying.
b&
I mostly sweeten my coffee & tea with stevia (the drops not the powder) and I find it so sweet that I actually prefer it. This has cut down on some of my consumption of sweets and since it doesn’t affect your blood sugar it is a better alternative.
You really are addicted to sugar! For me, sugar has no business in either coffee nor tea — if either is so bad it needs to be adulterated with sugar, it has no business being drunk in the first place.
The best solution I’ve ever come across to sugar addiction is lots and lots and lots and lots of fresh veggies. Treat ’em like medicine that you have to take, not necessarily something to eat for pleasure — though, to be sure, quality fresh veggies really should taste good. When you’ve stuffed yourself silly with the veggies, if you’re still hankering for sweets, eat a piece of fresh or dried fruit (not juiced or canned or cooked!); then, and only then, go ahead and indulge yourself with the sugar, however much you want.
You especially, I suspect, might be particularly worried about eating all that extra food…but, in the first place, it’s not physiologically possible to get fat from eating excessive amounts of fresh veggies; next, the veggies fill you up and reduce the amount of sweets you’ll want to eat; and they’ll also block and slow the absorption of the sugar, thereby reducing the harm it causes. And it…erm…speeds up the digestive tract, if you know what I mean, meaning there’s that much less time for all the rest of the food you eat to make it into your bloodstream.
Eat more to lose weight, I know, sounds crazy…but if the “more” is fresh veggies, it really does work. Plus, it’s the only psychologically sustainable way to go…you’re not going to have much luck starving yourself, but it’s trivial to stuff yourself silly, even if on radishes and celery and carrots and cabbage and broccoli and what-not.
(And, of course, you still need to make sure you eat reasonable amounts of protein and healthy fat; just make the bulk of your food be fresh veggies but don’t cut down on the essentials.)
b&
I have Dutch friends who are worse with sugar so I come off looking good. I used to put 2 heaping tea spoons worth in my coffee/tea so I’ve improved a lot. 🙂
Wow…two heaping teaspoons is about a tablespoon…in one cup?…that’s not coffee, that’s syrup! And more sugar (in any form) than I’ll eat in a day, often even several days. Glad you used the past tense in that sentence….
b&
That’s a mighty fine dumpling.
The squid looks divine. Whatever is for dinner tonight…it’s doing to be fried.
Okay, please don’t think I’m dumb, but do you eat those ribs and duck with your fingers or knife and fork?
I eat using my fingers at home – I wouldn’t be able to get much of the meat off the bone otherwise. I love ribs but find there’s not much meat on them, so it’s all a bit frustrating.
Looks like a wonderful lunch you had there.
One is supposed to eat some of them with chopsticks, presumably 😉
Mounted/pinned insects for sale always bother me. Fossils too. The specimens usually don’t have collecting data associated with them and the sale/trade typically isn’t regulated. (I agree that the food looks good – I don’t have anything to say about it that wasn’t already said)
Are those peppers on the squid? I am going to NYC very soon and want to go to terrific Chinese restaurants….but have a real hard time with even the lightest of spicy things.
Awesome noms. Thanks for sharing.
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