Need New Year’s Eve ideas? Crash some plates!

by Tom Johansmeyer on

I assure you that when the ball drops on the last day of 2008, I will not be in Times Square. I will be nowhere near Times Square. So, unless you like the thought of being shoulder-to-shoulder with people you’ve never met while freezing and lamenting the lack of public bathrooms in that part of town, take a look at some of the choices you have this year.

Chomp twelve grapes in Spain
Think of it as a drinking game without the fermentation. Every time the bells toll-12 times in total-eat a grape. This should ensure a sweet year. But, if you cram into Madrid‘s Puerta del Sol (see my thoughts on Times Square), listen carefully for your cue to chew.

Slam china in Denmark
Wait for the queen to finish her annual 6 PM New Year’s Eve address to the Danes. Then, join the locals in a big meal. On a full stomach, throw plates at people’s houses (typically, this is done to friends). The thrown plates are expressions of friendship. I have to assume that a direct hit on a window or expensive glass door is not. Again, just guessing.

Wait for Pinocchio in Ecuador
Ecuadorians burn effigies to prevent their real-life counterparts from stopping by, and people run around the block 12 times while wearing yellow, which they say is lucky. I do hope that they aren’t wearing only yellow … that would look funny.

Mexico: Another place to run around the block
Wear yellow if you choose (and only if you choose) while carrying your luggage around the block in Mexico. But, only do this if you want the year to bring you many travels. Investment bankers, management consultants and attorneys: don’t bother trying to resist it. You’ll be on the road anyway.

[Thanks, IgoUgo]

Undiscovered New York: Beyond Central Park

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Welcome back to Undiscovered New York. This week we’ll be taking a look at some of New York’s most famous public spaces – its parks. First time visitors are sure to spend a few hours getting to know New York’s most famous greenspace, Central Park. After all, this massive outdoor space tends to dominate both the geography and collective imagination of our city’s residents. And frankly, with all that Central Park has to offer, including a zoo, Shakespeare and ice skating in the winter, it’s not a bad place to start.

Yet Central Park is just the tip of the iceberg. If you truly want to understand New York, you could do worse than spending some time at the city’s many parks. The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation maintains more than 1,700 public spaces set across all 5 of the city’s boroughs. And while they might not be as well-known as Central Park, New York’s parks are as diverse as the residents that come to visit them, boasting their own unique amenities and personality.

Want to enjoy one of New York’s best hamburgers al fresco? How about spending the afternoon at a beautiful recreation of a medieval monastery? Or perhaps a $3 rock concert is more up your alley?

Click on through below as Gadling takes a closer look at some of New York City’s lesser known public parks and presents you with a list of some of our favorites.
Park One: Fort Tryon and The Cloisters
Way up at the very top of Manhattan, the city’s typically dense urban grid begins to fade away. Expansive panoramas of the Hudson River open to view, and the city’s streets are increasingly punctuated by large clusters of trees. It’s right about then, around 190th Street, where you’ll come upon the urban oasis of Fort Tryon Park.

This former site of a Revolutionary War Battle now boasts a pleasant outdoor space with some of the best views you’ll find anywhere in Manhattan. But the best reason to make the trek up to Fort Tryon is for The Cloisters, an annex of the Metropolitan Musuem of Art that is home to thousands of priceless works. Even if you don’t like old tapestries, it’s a pleasant place to spend an afternoon strolling the site’s well-maintained grounds.

Park Two: Madison Square Park
Located in New York’s Flatiron District, Madison Square Park is probably one of our favorite parks in Manhattan. Though it tends to attract less attention than its better known park neighbors like Bryant Park and Central Park, Madison Square Park holds its own for several reasons. Most importantly, the park is surrounded on all sides by some of the city’s most beautiful historic architecture, including the graceful Flatiron Building and the soaring Met Life Tower.

While you’re busy drinking in the facades of these two majestic buildings, make sure to grab a milkshake and a burger at Shake Shack, located in a modern stainless steel building within the park’s confines. The business is run by New York restauranteur Danny Meyer, and the Shack’s reputation for great burgers ensures there’s always a healthy line standing outside throughout the year.

Park Three: Empire Fulton Ferry State Park
One of the most prominent architectural features of New York is its many bridges. These massive structures strut across the city’s landmass like steel and concrete monsters, dominating the views in all directions.

In the Brooklyn neighborhood of DUMBO, you’ll find one of the best places to get a bird’s eye view of these enormous feats of engineering. The Empire Fulton Ferry State Park sits directly beneath both the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges, making for one of the more unique New York park-going experiences. In addition to a number of walking paths along the East River, the site backs up against several huge 19th Century warehouses and the ancient structure of a former ferry terminal that once moved New Yorkers between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

Park Four: Prospect Park
If Central Park were to have a twin sibling, it would have to be Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. Sitting on almost 600 acres smack dab in the middle of the borough of Brooklyn, Prospect Park is truly the green heart of this historic section of the city. Boasting an antique boathouse, its own zoo and enormous 90 acre Long Meadow, Prospect Park is truly a green gem for the citizens of New York.

Once you’ve had a chance to paddle around the lake and check out some animals at the zoo, make sure to stop by Prospect Park’s bandshell during the summer months for free concerts featuring some great up-and-coming rock bands.

Phew! We’ve taken you past four of New York’s best lesser known parks and we’re barely even started. We didn’t even have a chance to talk about other great parks like the Bronx Botanic Gardens or the enormous Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, home of the National Tennis Center and Citi Field. Did we miss out on your favorite New York City park? Leave us a comment below and tell us some your own picks.

Undiscovered New York: Rambling Red Hook

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Welcome back to Gadling’s weekly series, Undiscovered New York. Being the global metropolis that it is, criss-crossed with highways, cargo ships and landing airplanes, you may find it hard to believe that any part of New York City could be considered isolated. But the fact of the matter is that there are still some parts of the city that could easily be labeled “the place that time forgot.”

One neighborhood that holds such a distinction is Brooklyn’s Red Hook, a charmingly disheveled waterfront district cut off from the rest of the city by the BQE Expressway. Red Hook’s reputation as a working-class, hardscrabble industrial port area is well earned. From the mid 1800’s until the middle of the 20th Century, this was a thriving hub of marine-based commerce in New York City and home to around 20,000 residents, primarily longshoremen.

But by the mid 1960’s, a changing shipping industry had moved many dockworking jobs to New Jersey. The departure of these jobs from Red Hook, along with the completion of the BQE, sent the neighborhood into a period of decline. The 1970’s through the 1990’s saw the area ravaged by crime – LIFE Magazine even went so far as to declare it the “crack capital of America.”

Yet by the end of the 90’s Red Hook was taking a turn for the better. An influx of new residents, attracted by the neighborhoods cheap rents and gorgeous views of the New York Harbor were opening new businesses at a record pace. Recent years have seen further development, including a huge Fairway grocery store, the recent arrival of furniture behemoth IKEA, and a house for castmembers of MTV’s popular reality show The Real World.

Still, despite these changes, Red Hook maintains a unique charm unlike any other part of New York. Want to eat a chocolate covered Key Lime pie on a stick? How about taking in sweeping views of New York harbor and aging industrial relics? Click through for Undiscovered New York’s guide to Red Hook.
Red Hook Food
If there’s one thing that has New Yorkers talking about Red Hook, it’s the many unsung food spots. If you’re anywhere north of Key West, Red Hook is ground zero for some of the country’s best Key Lime pie at Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies. This unassuming shop is nothing more than a small counter and a refrigerator with some freshly made slices of citrus-y heaven. If you simply can’t wait to try it, get yourself a swingle, which is a personal-size key lime pie on a stick covered in chocolate. Enjoy it outside on a picnic table while you take in some of New York’s best harbor views.

The other amazing food spot in Red Hook is the Red Hook ball fields, home to what is arguably New York’s most authentic collection of Central and South American cuisine. On weekends during the warmer months, the fields host lively soccer matches, and the competition is ringed on all sides by food vendors offering everything from mouth-watering ceviche to milky Horchata drinks to cheesy pupusas.

Van Brunt Street Strip
If lonely Red Hook could be said to have a main strip, it’s probably Van Brunt Street. A range of quirky and eclectic businesses crowd both sides of this thoroughfare, reinforcing Red Hook’s shifting reputation as a home for artists and artisans. LeNell’s is Red Hook’s liquor store and then some, stocking a diverse range of small-batch liquor and exotic mixers for the cocktail enthusiast. Meanwhile dessert specialist Baked offers a mouth-watering array of muffins, cakes and cookies. Those looking to discover their inner longshoreman should stop off for a pint at Sunny’s Bar, a proudly old-school local watering hole since 1890.

Urban Exploring
One of New York’s greatest forgotten pleasures is urban exploring. While there have been great benefits to the city’s gentrification, it’s also stripped away some of the quirky buildings and spaces that once gave the city its character. Red Hook still retains an essence of this “gritty” charm, and it can be amusing to get lost on its many deserted side streets and alleyways, revealing a number of deserted architectural relics. You might stumble upon the imposing Red Hook Grain Terminal, which looms ominously along the area’s waterfront. Or you may meander past the ancient Clay Retort and Fire Brick Works Storehouse, a well-preserved Civil War-era factory that dates to 1859. Meanwhile, massive cruise ships drift by like lumbering giants as they inch their way into the nearby Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. It is perhaps bittersweet to note that one of Red Hook’s most iconic wrecks, the Revere Sugar Refinery, met the wrecking ball in 2007.

A Self – Indulgent Interview With Mike Lee of Studiofeast

by Mike Barish on

Last year, Gadling’s own Grant Martin wrote about Studiofeast, a New York-based underground eating club. Since then, Studiofeast has thrown several more semi-secret culinary events that have occasionally included guest chefs such as Ilan Hall (winner of Top Chef Season 2). This past weekend, Studiofeast joined forces with four other eating clubs to throw the two-night Undergrounds Unite event at a secret location in Manhattan.

Now seemed like the perfect time to revisit Studiofeast and learn more about the seductive world of underground eating. And what better way to do that than with an interview with the creator of Studiofeast, Mike Lee?

(Full disclosure: I am friends with Mike and his Studiofeast partner, Derrick Yuen. I usually help out at Studiofeast events and get drunk for free with great regularity.)

For people who have never heard of an underground eating club, give us the simplest definition you can. The bastard child of your next door neighbor’s dinner party and a restaurant.

Now describe your eating club, Studiofeast, in a haiku.
Two Asians cook food
Thirty one people enter a loft
Mike Barish is here?

How did you end up joining forces with four other underground eating clubs to throw Undergrounds Unite? The girls at Homeslice West approached me about bringing Studiofeast to this event they were planning, Undergrounds Unite. I’m not sure how they first heard of Studiofeast and I didn’t know a lot about Homeslice West at the time, but I think we quickly passed each other’s basic, level 1 foodie litmus tests with a shared love for quality BBQ, Mac & Cheese, and Fried Chicken. From there, I started throwing ideas into the pot about Undergrounds Unite, created the logo and website, etc. But they were the marshmallow of the rice krispie treat the whole time. They did great work pulling everything together, and getting our hands all sticky.

So was it more like the Justice League or Voltron? The other supperclubs cook with a decidedly more western style, while Studiofeast leans heavily on the Asian side. So I guess it was the Justice League granting a work visa for Voltron to come over from Japan. I have 6 more weeks left in the group, unless I marry one of them.

Is the underground food scene in New York as competitive as the restaurant business is? I don’t think so, and I hope it doesn’t get that way. The thing is, we aren’t actually restaurants where we should be fighting tooth and nail for customers. It’s all about fostering something with more of a communal feel. Even though we seem exclusive with passwords and guestlists, it’s only because we: a) operate occasionally, so we’re limited in terms of capacity, and b) we need a little more control over who gets into the door because it’s a clandestine sort of operation (and to filter out douchebags).

In the end, we’re all rooted in making something that’s interesting and connects people. Even though we strive for great food to hit the table, this isn’t about Michelin stars, Zagat ratings, or getting Frank Bruni to love you. It’s about packaging an experience that’s uniquely compelling and honest.

How is Studiofeast different than the other clubs out there? The collection of people that help me run Studiofeast as well as the people that end up at our feasts. That’s the difference. I’ve been very fortunate to have chanced upon some great individuals over the course of this project and it’s those people who put the color in Studiofeast. One of our hosts (who shall remain nameless) recently quipped to a guest that he’d “bring out farm animals” to the table just in case his attention waned between courses. How great is that? What a commitment to excellence. It’s too bad the offer was made after the beef entree was served. Old Bessie was cute (and tasty).

People throw the word “foodie” around a lot when these clubs come up in conversation. And foodie has taken on a bit of a pretentious connotation. I guess my question is, Why are you so pretentious? I am so totally above this question.

Gadling is a travel blog, so let’s talk travel a little bit so that my bosses don’t get too pissed off. What place that you’ve visited has the most interesting food scene? Japan all the way! For me, one of the most notable examples of how interesting Japanese food culture is comes from visiting a department store Depachika in Tokyo, like Isetan or Takashimaya. There are probably a hundred or more food counters in one of those, each just focusing on a narrow category of food. I love that, because they’ve just committed themselves to one thing and doing it really, really well. And since they’re all in one place, you can literally graze for hours and pick up so many new things in one spot. It’s so opposite to what we have in America, where we have the mall food court, and it mostly sucks. If I told you to visit New York and have a serious meal in the basement of Macy’s, you’d laugh your ass off. There’s simply nothing like a Depachika in the States, and there are probably only a few dozen equivalents to it around the world in other countries.

Underground eating clubs are, by definition, not mainstream. How do you find similarly clandestine activities when you’re outside of New York? I’d suggest visiting the Ghetto Gourmet site to see what’s happening underground eating club-wise in your area of interest. They’re a great resource for this sort of thing and have a wide reach across the country. Also, to the extent possible, latch onto someone who’s a local and just follow without asking questions for a while. Even if that person has no idea what he/she is doing in terms of food, you’re bound to gain some kernel of truth about how other people live. This especially applies when traveling internationally. Talk to your Japanese bartender, or the Icelandic girl at the fermented shark counter and you’ll rarely be led astray. And if you do, then it makes for an even better story, doesn’t it?

Let’s play food word association. I’ll name a place and you tell me your thoughts on their food in one word.

Italy: Delicious

Spain: Reallydelicious
Japan: Reallyreallydelicious
Your kitchen: Reallyreallydeliciousinaporkysortofway

If you could take one dish that you’ve eaten from each place you have traveled in order to create your ultimate international menu, what would you pick?
This is by no means a complete list, but from recent travels:
Spain: Jamon Iberico & Manchego Cheese
Morocco: Merguez sausages straight off the grill in the central market
Iceland: Skyr & an Icelandic Hot Dog with remoulade and crunions
Sweden: Fish stew from Salu Hall and the meatballs from Pelikan
Tokyo: Daiwa Sushi and, of course, the Ramen.
Osaka: Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki
Sterling Heights, Michigan: The shrimp fried rice and egg roll from my parents’ restaurant, the Golden Wheel. I’ve been eating this all my life and it keeps me centered.

When you’re not being a pretentious foodie, what foods do you slum it with? My girlfriend makes the best Buffalo Wings with the Blue Cheese baked into skin. It’s only categorically slumming it, because they’re absolutely amazing and I’d pay top dollar for them anywhere. Also of note are Spam, Slim Jims, Cup of Noodles, General Tso’ Chicken, and Gray’s Papaya.

And to close us out, an SAT-style analogy for you. Studiofeast is to food as ________ is to sex. A Caligula-style Roman orgy…with farm animals.

You can sign up for Studiofeast’s mailing list at their website. And you can read more about the first Undergrounds Unite event here.

‘Megacities’ Film Review: An eye-opening tour of the world’s greatest cities

by Jerry Guo on

Think you know New York or Moscow? That you’ve seen all the sights in Mexico City or even took a tour of the slums of Mumbai? Well, you haven’t seen anything until you watch Megacities by Michael Glawogger, one of my favorite documentaries. It’ll take you to places and people in these four megacities that you’ve never seen. Oh, and the cinematography!

“I don’t use beauty filters!” says Austrian filmmaker Michael Glawogger, concerning his 1998 documentary, Megacities. “If the place wouldn’t have beauty in itself, it’s not possible for me to make it look beautiful.” Through a mastery of cinema aesthetics-from color and composition to the mixing of the soundtrack and manipulation of the scene transitions-Glawogger infused the apocalyptic urban wastelands he saw, a world populated by blue-dyed men, knife-wielding hustlers, and sagging prostitutes in the nude, with an aura of the surreal.

This film reject standard documentary conventions, such as the use of voiceovers and a strict narrative arc; yet they ultimately offer, through their flipbook storytelling structure, a coherent narrative of a world in flux, buffeted by unseen forces of globalization.

Glawogger noticeably restages many scenes in Megacities, and while some shots were staged due to logistical reasons (for instance, hiring extras for a scene inside a train carriage since there were too many bystanders in the way), other shots were so fantastical in their intimacy that they require a conscious suspension of disbelief. Two particular scenes, both involving Tony the New York hustler, are particularly salient to the degree that they were staged.

The first involves Tony hustling a young 20-somethings man, whose eyes dart every which way in suspicion-but never in the direction of the camera. The target is led to believe that for $60, he can have an hour “to do anything you want” with a prostitute. The camera follows him up the stairs to the prostitute’s alleged room, where a gruff stranger (a man, no less) answers the door and promptly slams it in his face.

This scene stretches the imagination: why did the target never question the presence of the camera, or acknowledge it? Why didn’t he display any emotions after finding out he had been hustled, or direct his anger to the cameraman, for that matter? The cognitive dissonance resolves itself once the viewer realizes Glawogger hired the target, albeit without telling him the exact context of the gig. “So, to a degree, those people also didn’t know what was going to happen. And it almost looks like what it looked like when I saw him really do it,” explains Glawogger.

The second, more controversial scene, involves Tony once again hustling a man, this time someone slightly older and of Persian descent. The two go up to a room, where both Tony and the target completely undress. As they are about to have sex, Tony pulls out a box-cutter and mugs the man; in the process, he smacks him on the head in intimidation.

This scene pushes the limits of what one would consider a documentary (and one reason you should go watch the film). Granted, such intimacy is logistically impossible to film, as Glawogger elaborates, “If you’re in a small room and somebody robs some other preson or even if there’s a private conversation between a couple, that’s not, in that sense, ‘documentary’ filmmaking-that even though you’re there it will happen anyway.” Thus, the resulting image fulfills the voyeuristic urge of a viewer in a similar, but more corporeal manner than that of a fiction biopic of a New York hustler.

Although we witness Tony hustling his marks, in another sense, we see Glawogger hustling Tony. Here, Glawogger subverts the traditional role of the documentary filmmaker as one who assigns, rather than records, the dynamics of social actors within his gaze. Ironically, the most powerful scene from this story, and possibly the film, is unscripted: the sight of Tony, high on heroin and splayed out on a couch, ranting on about the realities of his life. Although his words are visceral, the very image of this hustler at his most vulnerable, with eyes drooping under the lull of a drug addiction and his bare chest drenched in sweat, says more about the human condition and his alienation in this urban jungle than any of the staged scenes. The section on Tony ends here as he drifts off, mid-speech, into a drug-laced stupor.

Part 2 tomorrow