{"id":158,"date":"2010-05-17T13:18:56","date_gmt":"2010-05-17T17:18:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/?p=158"},"modified":"2010-05-23T17:47:51","modified_gmt":"2010-05-23T21:47:51","slug":"new-york-minutes-109","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/2010\/05\/new-york-minutes-109\/","title":{"rendered":"New York minutes\/Early May 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

The reassuringly decent: Qi downtown, where we took refuge after the zooish market at Union Square when my consort wanted Asian. The hoisin duck banh mi was as satisfying as always, so the just-adequate mushroom spring rolls didn\u2019t matter (and I\u2019d pay $8 for the sandwich alone). Bob was happy with his spicy basil chicken thing, and the sauce on his fried chicken-shrimp dumplings had more zest than the syrupy one with my appetizer. We were in and out for $20 with tip. WIGB? Sure. Location\u2019s great, and the place looks phenomenal — just not sure I\u2019d brave it for dinner. 31 West 14th Street, 212 929 9917.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The surprisingly bad: The Red Cat in Chelsea, which Bob picked for lunch with our Italian friend in from TPW for the New York Photo Fest in Dumbo who had an appointment close by. Now I worry Carlo will think I know nothing about restaurants. I don\u2019t know about his \u201cfettucini,\u201d but my cod sandwich was a mess — the fish was okay, and fried right, but so much wet slaw had been loaded onto the lame sliced(!) bread that it fell apart on the first bite. I almost didn\u2019t order it because of that apple slaw, too. Decent greens came with it, and they were a relief after all the glop. Bob was even more bummed by the carnitas salad, which was like the driest ropa vieja laid dispiritedly over greens and beans, with a little crema and crisp tortilla strips on top. Even the usually fabulous tempura green beans were slopped out, greasy. As for the service, the inattentive waiter seemed intimidated by our friend, which felt odd in a neighborhood that should be so cosmopolitan. My cappuccino was one of the worst I\u2019ve had in New York, and Bob later said the espresso was not even hot. WIGB? J\u2019doubt it. Two days later we were still talking about how off it all was. Maybe the lesson is: Never expect much from a restaurant where the chef is hanging out on the sidewalk at the start of service. . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The reassuringly decent: Qi downtown, where we took refuge after the zooish market at Union Square when my consort wanted Asian. The hoisin duck banh mi was as satisfying as always, so the just-adequate mushroom spring rolls didn\u2019t matter (and I\u2019d pay $8 for the sandwich alone). Bob was happy with his spicy basil chicken… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,81,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asian","category-bad","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158\/revisions\/160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gastropoda.com\/trails\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}