Orkin grabs a Sicilian slice before he splits for Japan.
Ivan Orkin's return to New York has been met with a response you might call rapturous fanfare as people await the opening of his Ivan Ramen shop on Clinton Street, now schedul...
Orkin grabs a Sicilian slice before he splits for Japan.
Ivan Orkin's return to New York has been met with a response you might call rapturous fanfare as people await the opening of his Ivan Ramen shop on Clinton Street, now scheduled for mid-July. ("Hopefully," Orkin says of the date. "We're going through the throes of the build-out.") Even still, he says his own heart is still in Japan: "I didn't leave because I didn't like it. I left because it was time to do a new project." And so, while he gets his New York project together, he still found some time this week to head to Tokyo with his new chef. The goal: "We're gonna eat like motherfuckers." To read all about sushi and intestine hot pots in Japan, a Mission Chinese feast in New York, and lots and lots of ice-cream cake, read on in this week's Grub Street Diet.
Friday, May 17
Morning. Chobani pineapple yogurt — was in a hurry to get out the door.
I stopped at the Essex Street Market on the way to the shop and and bought a 35-cent banana to tide me over until lunch at Mission Chinese Food.
Met friends at Mission and we benefited from Danny's upcoming menu change. We got treated to amazing new dishes: cabbage salad with anchovy dressing, schmaltz-fried rice, unbelieveable rice noodles wtih sausage, and all the other classics. I ate so much I waddled out of the shop.
Power-walked from my shop to get a cortado at Abraço on First Ave and 7th Street. My favorite place for a cup — so deliciously bitter.
Walked through Union Square on my way to Paragon to use a gift certificate I got for my birthday and bought a Martin's Pretzel, probably one of my favorite things to eat. I once schlepped an eight-pound box on the plane back to Tokyo.
My boy turned 13, so we went to the local expat Japanese restaurant and had sushi for 20 bucks — and it's not bad, fun mix of expat Japanese and local Americans. Somehow I think of myself as expat Japanese ...
Got home and had Cold Stone Creamery chocolate ice-cream cake. Never much liked their ice cream, but I love their cakes.
Saturday, May 18
Woke up and had a freshly ground cup of Peet's coffee, which I've been drinking religiously since the eighties — have every morning.
Make my wife and 4-year-old — the big kids are still sleeping — breakfast quesadillas with cheese, avocados, and roast turkey. It sounds stupidly simple, but it is delicious.
Lunchtime it's Caeser salad, which I've been playing around with for the shop. It's a silky tofu dressing with a baby anchovy frico. I'm in love with it. More ice-cream cake for dessert.
A lull between meals, so a bowl of Berry Fruitful Kashi cereal with soy milk as a snack. My wife got five boxes for a buck apiece, and it's sort of healthy-ish, so I've been eating it every day, practically.
Fiftieth-birthday dinner for me at my sister's house. They knocked it out of the park with steak, shrimp, and chicken tacos cooked on the grill. And, of course, Cold Stone Creamery birthday cake. This time strawberry — a sacrifice, because chocolate is alway the first choice, but my older sister can't eat it.
Sunday, May 19
Natto and a raw farm egg whipped together on rice with a little scallion. It's one of my favorite breakfasts: creamy, gooey — everything a Western breakfast isn't. I could eat this everyday, but you have to buy special eggs at the Japanese market. In Japan you can eat any egg raw without worry.
I go to Ren's buddy Drew's birthday party, and they have lunch! Roast veg and portobello sandwiches, salad, mac and cheese, and chocolate chip cookies, Pretty fancy for a 4-year-old's birthday party.
Started to reach for a slice of ice-cream cake but found resolve and had a bowl of Kashi cereal with banana and soy milk. Later, my wife made everyone fruit smoothies, and I participated.
Headed to the Bronx with the fam for pho on Jerome Avenue. Great noodles and really funky, delicious bahn mi.
Came home,
