Poverexic in NYC

QUIT MY JOB AND TODAY WAS MY LAST DAY!!!  A truly momentous occasion, so of course that means one thing and one thing only: NEW ASHIYA ALL YOU CAN EAT/DRINK CELEBRATION.

Specifically, that means endless amounts of this:

Sake Bomb

And more importantly, endless amounts of THIS:

all you can eat SUSHI

All you can eat sushi including ALL SPECIAL ROLLS and even HAND ROLLS.  So we asked for literally one of every special roll on the menu, plus more.

We were all having a grand ole time until M arrives and accidentally knocks over someone else’s camera at the next table when she drags over a chair to join us.  Uh oh, drama.  That someone else was a really angry, super drunk, anti-white Asian chick who flips a shit over her camera being dropped and starts yelling racial slurs at our table of white people.  This starts up a huge fight between our white table and their yellow table, and it got really ugly.  These Asian gangsta chicks literally got out of their seats and started physically pushing M and my friends while I sat quietly with my head down taking this opportunity to finish up the rest of the sushi rolls on the table while everyone else was preoccupied with the fight.  The racial slurs they were yelling out didn’t apply to me anyway, like “YOU UGLY WHITE BITCHES, THAT’S WHY YOU AGE POORLY.”  Not me, bitches.  So I just didn’t get involved in that shit.

Anyway, this exciting New Ashiya celebration was actually last night because I start my new job already tomorrow so couldn’t get chocolate wasted tonight.  Today my coworkers threw me a farewell party with pizza and cupcakes, so that was a great way to end my 2+ poverexic years at my company.  Apparently my new company has pizza Thursdays, and my first day is tomorrow, Thursday, so that means more pizza tomorrow!!!  Comforting to know I won’t be poverexic at least one day a week moving forward.

All we’ve been doing for the past few weekends is World Cup, World Cup, World Cup.  Which means booze, booze, booze.  AND FOOD!!!!!!! 😀 😀 😀

Actually, taking a step back… Friday night we had another farewell dinner for A, this time at BOKA, which is right underneath Sing Sing on St Marks and is famous for their Korean fried chicken, whatever that means.  I wasn’t that hungry because I had a huge lunch at work as usual, but apparently everyone else at the dinner was because among 6 people we had food for about 20.  I split a large fried chicken combo with S, and everyone else got a bowl of bim bim bow or whatever that Korean thing is called, plus rolls of sushi plus tuna tartare plus edamame plus more fried chicken plus this octopus dish plus a few other things I can’t even remember.  I was like jesus christ people.  Anyway, of course there’s tons of leftover including the entire octopus dish that no one else wanted, so I got to take all of it home in a nice takeout box.

Boka Leftovers

The fried chicken was really good but the octopus not so much, but I wasn’t going to not take a full leftover dish with me.

Didn’t get a chance to eat the leftovers o Saturday because it was USA v. Ghana time starting early.  S, C and SL had been at Slainte since 9am for both games that day, and K and I got there around noon.  Disappointing game, but what wasn’t disappointing was all the food and booze we consumed that day.  I started out with their brunch omelet with free bloody mary and fries followed by 4 Hoegaardens, a Corona, a shot of Jameson and all of F’s leftovers (free):

Slainte Appetizers

On top of that, the waitress comes by a few minutes later with a plate of hot wings and a basket of fries and we naturally assume S just ordered more food (he was in the bathroom so could not confirm), so we just took it.  Turns out S didn’t order it, neither did anyone else at the table, so oops we scored an entire order of wings and fries — as Randy Marsh says, SCOREEEE!!!!  That got consumed pretty quickly.

Following the Ghana game I had the briiliant idea of going mid-afternoon karaoking, which was fun and disastrous when SL decided to order an entire bottle of soju to consume with our pitchers of beer while singing Journey and Gaga and Aladdin.  I was having a blast all day until I got home past 9pm, somehow found myself passed out on the couch and woke up at 1:15am with the most nauseating feeling in my stomach.  I immediately ran to the bathroom and puked up more food than I had ever puked in my entire life — it was literally a toilet bowl full of wings, fries, omelet, sliders, nachos, mozzarella sticks, and 3 gallons of beer.  I thought I felt better until I proceeded to wake up every hour on the hour until 5am vomiting the rest of my food, booze and bile.

That was a lovely Saturday night I had, and when I woke up the next morning on Sunday, all I wanted to do was kill myself.  So I decided to take care of that by eating the leftover octopus shit from Friday night (terrible idea) then meeting S at VAMOS! for some chips and guac, tortilla soup and bottomless margaritas for the Argentina v. Mexico game (fabulous idea).  Vamos vamos Argentina, vamos vamos a GANAR!!!  Hangover is completely cured and I feel like a million bucks.

Friday was date #2 with Judah Friedlander at Mole in LES, which was INCRED and much better than Paquitos where we went on date #1.  Earlier that day before I knew I was going on this date, I was starving for lunch and had ordered myself a huge lunch at the office of fresh shrimp rolls and bbq beef and spring rolls over vermicelli from my new fav Vietnamese takeout place Pho something.  Well that was a big mistake because I actually got uncomfortably full for lunch and wasn’t that hungry for dinner, but of course I can’t resist authentic carne asada tacos like these:

Mole

The carne asada tacos were awesome and I even got some refried beans and rice with them but thought beans were bad news for a Friday night so refrained.  Following dinner date at Mole I immediately had to run over to dinner #2 at Japonais for A’s farewell dinner to send her off to Beantown.  Since I’d just come from a dinner, I obvi didn’t order anything for myself at Japonais other than 2 delicious Geishas (lychee martinis) but scored some leftover duck from A and beef on stone from C:

Steak on Stone

A relatively poverexic-friendly Friday for me.

Saturday I spent literally all day tanning, ie sleeping outside on a blanket with a pillow, on the lovely Stuy Town lawn, and then today was Sunday Funday watching Brasil v. Ivory Coast at Professor Thom’s.  I was starving by the time I got there and was annoyed to find that there was apparently no waitress on duty, and the bartender was doing all the order-taking and serving, which I knew would slow down everything and would mean more work for me.  It all paid off, though, when the really nice hungover bartender acknowledged this was annoying for us and so picked up our first round of drinks instead, which meant free huge bloody mary for me and also a free extra fried egg on the burger that I had ordered:

Thom's Burger

I thought my burger was a good deal….. this is what arrived at our table when F ordered “appetizer” nachos, along with chicken wings and extra waffle fries:

Nacho Platter

A large platter of heaven on our Sunday Funday.

This weekend was the most I’d ever done on a weekend in NYC since I can’t even remember.  My usual weekend routine is wake up at noon, order Tasty King with roommates, finish eating Tasty King with roommates over TV/movies, take nap from 3-9pm, wake up at 9pm, get ready and go out for the night.

I think Union Street Festival last week in SF motivated me to actually leave the apt and go do something this weekend.  Both Saturday and Sunday I left the apt during the day and went for brunch with the girls followed by some intense World Cup watching.  I haven’t actually given a shit about the teams that played Saturday/Sunday, but I do enjoy interacting with male soccer fans.  What I’m really waiting for are the Brasil games.

Following an entire Saturday of me being out and about, I was exhausted but committed to stay out and go to G’s rooftop party because I hadn’t seen G in a million years.  It was delightful to see him and hang; however, what was even more exciting was the endless cans of PBR and bottle of Absolut Brooklyn that we downed over the course of the night, followed by the several boxes of pizza that were ordered later on (all for free).  While I strongly dislike Brooklyn, I did quite enjoy Spike Lee’s apple and ginger vodka on the rocks.  I didn’t enjoy it all that much a few hours later when I hurled it all up in the bathroom, along with the spinach omelet that I had eaten for brunch.  I suppose that was a good sign of a good night.

Then on Sunday we stupidly attempted to get into Zum Schneider for the Germany v. Australia game, which was of course impossible.  The line was literally around the block.  So we went right next door to Arcane, which looked super disturbing with all its voodoo dolls hanging from the ceiling, but the food turned out to be fantastic.

Voodoo Dolls

They have one of the best brunch deals I’ve heard of in NYC, which is meal + OJ + coffee/tea + brunch cocktail for $9.95!!!!!!!!!!!  It was incred.  Most other places I’ve gone to are OJ OR coffee OR brunch cocktail but not all of it!!!!!!  This place is so kind.  Look how many beverages we had on our table between the three of us.  And the selection was impressive — not only did they have your typical mimosa, bellini and bloody mary, but they also had a rasperrini and a mangorini, which is what we ordered.

Beverages

With the cutest idea for a cup of coffee:

Coffee

The best part of the brunch other than watching all the crazed German fans sing songs in German was when roommate K puts down her fork after eating only half of her eggs benedict plate and gave me the rest.  Yesssssss.  This is why we are roommates.  That means today I had 1.5 eggs benedict brunches, 3 cups of coffee, a glass of OJ and a mangorini for $9.95, and it was all absolutely delicious and filling.

Eggs Benedict

Go Deutschland!!!

Was in SF over the past few days visiting bff K, and that usually means anti-poverexia to the MAX.  However, this particular trip was a great win for poverexia — free/cheap food every single day!

The first day was Union Street Festival on Sunday afternoon which meant an entire main street full of cheap beer gardens, free food samples and drunken Marina folk, which are my fav.

Union Street Festival

The place was an absolute shitshow on Saturday afternoon, and while Sunday was tamer, it just meant more booze and free food for the rest of us.  I got myself a huge plastic cup full of Miller Lite for $7 and started stalking each of the food booths for free food and each of the Union Street stores for free mimosas.  The best free things I scored that day were curry on naan and 3 mini containers of Sabra hummus with various toppings.

Monday was $1 oysters and $5 martinis at Mayes happy hour.  $1 oysters!!!!!!  Adam Richman of Man v. Food once took on a 180-oyster challenge, and I certainly think I could have beaten that challenge.  However, I didn’t have $180 on me, so instead I started out with 15 oysters and got another 5 after that, accompanied by a bloody mary.

$1 Oysters

Then!  The best day was Tuesday when K and I went to go finish up her wedding registry and then celebrated at Burger Bar.  Can’t leave SF without getting my burger.  So we sit down, and immediately out pops celebrity world famous chef Hubert Keller, who owns the restaurant and who I of course recognize from Top Chef Masters.  I have really been on a celeb roll lately.

I guess Hubert caught me staring because he comes over to our table and is the friendliest guy in the world — Hello ladies, how are you today?

(GASP.  HE TALKED TO ME.)  I’M GOOD!!!  I REALLY ADMIRE YOUR WORK.  I AM SO HONORED TO MEET YOU.

Oh why thank you!  You ladies are lovely.  Let me treat you to some of my zucchini fritters and pickled jalapeno fritters!  On the house.

Fritters on the house!

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Best celebrity chef ever!!!!!!!!!  This was just the most perfect thing to ever happen, and they were absolutely delicious.