vip in the city, page 30

Jing Fong on Elizabeth Street is easily one of the largest restaurants in Chinatown. At the height of the yum cha crush on Sunday morning, we and our out-of-town friends rode the long escalator to the oversized, overloud banquet hall. The five of us were immediately ushered in by a headsetted hostess, who darted quickly through the maze of tables to lead us to a large round eight-top in the center of the room, where we joined a couple of elderly Chinese men just beginning their meal. After placing our tea order (chrysanthemum), we were ready to start selecting from the bounty being wheeled before our eyes.

Other than one stray case of vegetarianism – good thing for Buddhist dishes! — our friends were very good sports about the often inscrutable offerings.

Last year, six waiters sued Jing Fong for allegedly using their tip money to pay the wages of the dimsum cart ladies. The restaurant has a history of labor disputes: a decade earlier, Jing Fong was involved in a protracted, highly public battle with their staff, sparked by one waiter’s unceremonious dismissal after confronting his bosses about missing tips. Through the summer of 1995 heatwave, hundreds of protesters demonstrated on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. In response, Jing Fong infamously hung a pair of 25-foot banners on the building’s facade bearing the face of “the devil” Wing Lam, the leader of the Chinese Staff and Workers’ Association. (“Oppose the labor tyrant stirring up trouble!”) The cause was eventually taken up by the Attorney General’s Office (under Dennis Vacco), and the restaurant settled the disputes for $1.1M(!) in back tip wages.

Isan (or Esan, E-sarn, Isaan or Issan), the Northeast region of Thailand, is edged by Laos and historically, inhabitants of this area identify closely with Laotians in culture and cuisine. The food of Isan, while similar to that served around Bangkok in the south, has its own distinct, rustic flavor and generally tends be spicier. Much is dictated by the region’s harsh environment: while Central and Southern Thailand are lush and fertile, Isan, by contrast, is a poor region, situated on a high, semi-arid plateau, and given to frequent droughts. Whereas the mid-region and south’s staple is jasmine rice, Isan grows crops such as maize and the hardier glutinous (sticky) rice, neither of which require flooded paddies to flourish.

One of the best places to sample the cuisine of this region is Zabb Queens located along the same stretch of Jackson Heights’s Roosevelt Avenue as the Burmese Café (and just a couple doors from Korean fried chicken purveyor, UFC, where we loitered a bit for some much-needed air-conditioned relief.) Despite its off-the-beaten path locale and small, unremarkable frontage, several of the NYC media outlets have keyed into this little restaurant over the past couple of years… and I suppose once The Times enters the picture, one probably can’t really describe the place as “under-the-radar.”

We were Zabb’s first — and for the duration of our meal: only — customers this sweltering Saturday afternoon. On the extensive menu: pages of salads (such as som tam (papaya salad) and laab (ground meat salad) — both staples in fuel-scarce Isan), hearty soups, noodles, curries, and meal-size soups.

Most of the restaurant’s reviews praise the Isan specialty sausage, so we made sure to sample an order: they arrived bias-cut and warm, accompanied by whole fiery chilies and roasted peanuts. Tangy and smoky, and flecked with pepper and fat – like a cross between kielbasa (or “kielbara” as they were described on the menu) and Chinese lop cheong.

Instead of the curries (which I’d read are not the region’s or the restaurant’s strength), curry puffs:

Pad Kra Prow Lard Kaw: sauteed ground beef with basil sauce —

Pad Kee Mao: sauteed drunken noodles with tofu, chili, and basil leaves —

The terrific flavors packed quite a kick, which were soothed by our meal-ending green tea ice cream. (Zabb offers durian ice cream, too.)

Last year, Zabb Queens opened its own East Village outpost, Zabb City, much to the delight of outer borough-averse chowhounds. Naturally, the inevitable comparisons with what most consider the gold standard of NYC Thai food abound; for their part, New York magazine declares, “Zabb could give Sripraphai… a run for its money.”

On Friday: one last visit to the Downtown Dance Festival.

New York City-based Spinnin Ronin Dance Company was the final troupe to perform at this year’s festival. Their segment was described as “Martial Arts Dance Theatre.” Director/choreographer Tsuyoshi Kaseda conceptualized a fantastical story (narrated in voiceover) around which he arranged choreography, fusing elements of modern dance, acrobatics, martial arts and traditional dances of China and Japan.

A princess! Ninjas! Not your typical financial district scene. I spotted more than one double-take from the suits passing through the plaza this afternoon.

In 2002, Spinnin Ronin put on a self produced show at La MaMa Annex. They’ve also been seen at Joe’s Pub and at the Joyce Soho where they garnered fine reviews for their unique vision and eclectic style.

The group reprised their performance the following Sunday on the Lawn at Battery Park.

All this week, the 26th annual Downtown Dance Festival presented 19 dance companies from the United States, Europe and Asia for lunchtime crowds at Chase Plaza. The troupes represented styles as varied as ballet, modern, African, Indian and martial arts, and included several NYC and U.S. debuts. This year the festival introduced “Everybody Dance Now!” in which the companies invited audience members onstage to learn a segment from the pieces showcased on each performance day. The average age of those who cared to take the dancers up on the offer was solidly in the single digits.

The Parijat Desai Dance Company (one of four groups on the roster this afternoon) performs a blend of Indian classical dance (bharata natyam) and modern dance, with elements of yoga and martial arts.

A full house on the plaza:

Tonight, the launch party for “Gen Art Fresh Faces in Fashion” at D’Or, located below Amalia restaurant adjacent to the Dream Hotel .

M and I checked in at street-level, and descended into D’Or’s cavernous subterranean space by way of a candle-lit staircase. The lounge had the vibe of a swanked-up wine cellar: all secret, shadowy nooks, wax-dripped candelabras, exposed brick and stone, gilded mirrors and crystal chandeliers.

For the past dozen years, Gen Art has hosted this showcase for up and coming designers; past beneficiaries have included such now well-known names as Zac Posen, Rebecca Taylor and Chaiken. This year’s New York show will take place September 5, opening night of New York Fashion Week, and will feature the runway debuts of eight hot new designers: six womenswear and two menswear collections. Another four accessory designers will be showcased in installations during the show’s pre-reception.

But tonight: the party to build the anticipation for the main event. The clothes themselves were represented by designers’ sketches, hung up on walls around the lounge. M and I wandered among the pretty people, as we sipped on pretty p.i.n.k. drinks. The spirit is the brainchild of David Mandell, who in 2004, launched this plain Dutch vodka infused with caffeine and Brazilian guaraná plant extract, to capitalize on the popularity of energy drink and vodka combinations. Mandell’s end product is intended to produce the same energizing effect as a Vodka Red Bull without all the extra sugar; one serving of 80 proof p.i.n.k. contains about 80 mg of caffeine, or the equivalent of a small cup of coffee. Just the fuel to keep us partying through the night.

The fashion evening’s other sponsor: Botox. (And yes, I already made the joke about this being an event for “Fresh and Freshened Faces in Fashion.”) The company spokesperson on hand to deliver a brief presentation was quick to clarify that they were promoting the product not for its more widely known wrinkle-treating purposes, but to combat excessive sweating. Apparently, when injected into armpits (or other sweat-prone areas) Botox temporarily paralyzes a nerve that stimulates sweat glands, a use for which the drug was approved by the FDA in 2004. The condition is known in medical circles as hyperhidrosis, and while there was a young woman in attendance that night to testify how greatly she was helped by the treatment, I strongly suspect that the company has a target audience much wider than the 1-2% of the population truly afflicted. I couldn’t help thinking of those plastic surgeons so quick to point out the fine work they do mending cleft palates and helping burn victims, when most of their time is actually devoted to giving nose jobs to teenagers and performing breast augmentation.

As M dryly (ha!) observed, “Are there really now no other problems to treat?”

We hit the road early Sunday for the Englishtown Auction – known more commonly as the Englishtown Flea Market – which without traffic, is just an hour’s drive from the city.

The family-owned and run market dates back to 1929, when the grounds serves as a meeting place for farmers to buy, trade and sell livestock, farm equipment and produce. Englishtown Auction continues to operate year-round, rain or shine, on Saturdays and Sundays. By 9AM, the parking lots were already filling with cars; we opted to pay the $3 premium for a spot in the lot directly across the street from the main entrance.

Forty acres of open-air field were divided along rows with names like “Canal Street,” “Times Square,” and “Fifth Avenue.” The ambience was a mix of tag sale, Jersey Fresh farmers market and one of the less-exciting NYC street fairs with its fried foods — even a BBQ truck! — cotton tube socks, cell phone accessories, rugs and brassieres. Five larger buildings (identified by color: brown, yellow, red, blue and green) housed up to 300 additional merchandise and food vendors, though the booths this morning were only half full.

It all felt very familiar somehow.

A fine change of pace for a Sunday morning, but the fact that this was voted best flea market in New Jersey — 8 years in a row! — made us wonder about the competition. Largest, very likely… but best?

Oof. How did we end up back here so soon?

Note: “Sushi is meant to be eaten with the rice. There will be an extra charge for leftover sushi rice.” Growing up, I recall sushi being less widely available, and hence, more expensive: all-you-can-eat was an astounding concept, and articles were written about how diners would try to game the system by just eating the pricey fish and hiding their sushi rice in the darnedest places, so as to maximize the value of their buffet tabs: tucked into napkins, slipped into pockets, discreetly dropped onto the floor under the table, hidden under dinner plates. Bathroom attendants at the end of the night would find the wastebaskets overflowing with discarded vinegared rice pellets.

Unethical diners? Somehow, it does not surprise me at all.

The thing about eating the black and white cookie, Elaine, is you want to get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate. And yet somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie all our problems would be solved.

– Jerry Seinfeld, “The Dinner Party“

Ah, the black and white cookie. Beloved by generations of New Yorkers, this ebony and ivory treat is technically not a cookie, but a flat, thinly frosted drop cake. The icing is half white (vanilla, sometimes spiked with a hint of lemon), half black (dark chocolate) giving the cookie its descriptive name.

It was just the thing to bring to SYB’s “Half and Half”-themed dinner. My back-up would have been black and tans – known as “half and halfs” in the U.K. — but Shandies and possibly Arnold Palmers were already on the menu. Some guests only had to bring themselves.

I picked up my black and whites from a bakery on Columbus Avenue that make a “mini” version — actually, by normal cookie standards: just slightly oversized, as opposed to the standard black and white, which runs 4-6 inches in diameter.

I’d always thought these cookies were specific to New York City, but according to one upstate New York native at dinner tonight, the black and whites are popular in Utica, where they are known as “half moons.” Uticans know the best place to get them are the Hemstrought Bakery chain of stores, local favorites since the 1920s, and the subject of a feature article that appeared in Saveur in 1999.

The upstate version is similar, but not identical, to its city cousin, made instead with a cookie base of chocolate, spread with double-thick icing—half fudge, half buttercream vanilla. Intriguing! Hemstrought Bakery offers shipping of their most popular item to New York City: $32 for two dozen half moons, as of when I called the shop this morning. Taste-off, anyone?

We’ve read reports of Mother Teresa appearing in a cinnamon bun, or Jesus on a fishstick. If the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich can fetch $28,000 at auction, what price for Buddha in a bundt cake?

At the Music Box Theatre with B tonight to catch Deuce in the final week of its 18-week limited run.

The play, which opened on May 6, 2007 is a two character study of Midge Barker and Leona Mullen — two (fictional) long-retired tennis players, once the most celebrated doubles partners in women’s tennis. The pair, who have not been in contact for the past decade, are reunited to be feted at the U.S. Open. Over the course of their 90-minute conversation – no intermission – their long-held hopes, triumphs, disappointments and heartbreaks are rehashed, towards the goal of some kind of closure. That’s the general idea, anyway. What happens on stage (and it isn’t much) is beside the point; the true raison d’etre of the night could be summed up in two words: Angela Lansbury.

Actually, the whole production carries its share of star power: playwright Terrence McNally is a four-time Tony winner (Master Class, Ragtime, Love! Valour! Compassion!, Kiss of the Spider Woman), the director, Michael Blakemore, a two time honoree (Kiss Me Kate, Copenhagen). Lansbury’s co-star, the wonderful Marian Seldes, is something of a New York institution: a Tony-winner and American Theatre Hall of Fame inductee herself, with a decades-long career on the stage, screen and radio, and on the faculty at Julliard and Fordham.

But it was almost entirely for the much beloved Lansbury that the audience cheered as soon as the curtain rose. Deuce marks the 81-year old’s first time on Broadway since her performance in the 1983 revival of Mame. (She withdrew from Kander and Ebb’s planned Broadway musical version of The Visit – book by McNally — in 2000 to care for her ailing husband, Peter Shaw, who died in 2003.) Until this year’s awards when she lost to Jennifer Ehle (for The Coast of Utopia), Lansbury was the only actress to go undefeated in a Tony competition, having won all four for which she was nominated. In a career spanning over six decades, she may be best known as the star of Murder, She Wrote, the longest-running detective drama in television history. From 1984 to 1996, Jessica Fletcher entertained the geriatric set until CBS moved the show to Thursday nights opposite Friends, sounding the death knell for the long-running drama. (Lansbury, despite bring nominated 18 times for the Emmy, has never won.)

A Viagra joke early in the evening was overshadowed later by the cheap shock of these two ineffably classy thespians trading the c-word (you know: “See you next Tuesday”) in referring to one former husband’s new wife. But nothing could detract from the overall joy of watching the two theater legends banter, even though the wisp of a play by the talented “McDonald’s” McNally – so called for his famed prolificacy — was more amusing than thought-provoking. USA Today likened the performance to “two gems set in pewter.” Most reviewers, including the Times‘s Ben Brantley, loved the leads, if not the play – a sentiment with which I could fully agree.

You still rule:

At The Conran Shop again for the United States launch of ENO, Édition Nouveaux Objets, “a collection of smart and eclectic designs for the home.”

The hand-picked assortment of 70+ pieces — no plastic allowed — brought together an international mix of 11 new and established designers, including Sebastian Bergne, Paola Navone, Laurence Brabant and Inga Sempé.

There was a MoMA Design store feel to the line: quirky and whimsical pieces like Arik Levy’s Gold Bar Door Stop ($79) and Book Stool – essentially a $39 cotton-nylon belt with which to bind together stacks of catalogues and magazines. Think of all the extra seating I could have in my apartment!

Other practical items included Gijs Bakker‘s $15 Windrider Bicycle Clip – PVC reflective bands used to wrap around a rider’s pants legs to keep them out of the bike chain — and Donata Paruccini’s wall-mounted grouping of large leather balls for hanging clothes.

I especially like these leather basket bowls by Douglas Legg (as it seems do the editors at House and Garden.)

Free-flowing Lillet cocktails added a festive air to the reception, and made everything look that much prettier. No Vesper martinis, though. (“Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large, thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?“)