vip in the city

Super Taste and birthday cake

After work, I met S & HYB at the Starbucks (they’re inescapable!) in Chinatown before AH’s birthday party. On the way over, we stopped off for a quick dinner at Super Taste on Eldridge, introducing HYB to the joys of hand-pulled noodles.

As I explained to him, according to New York Magazine’s profile, this noodle shop at the Fujian ghetto edge of Chinatown “makes what is indisputably a five-star bowl of beef noodles for a paltry $4… Alas, the mood, as set by the glum slurpers who patronize the establishment, is as cheerful as a July 4 picnic at Guantánamo Bay and weighs in at zero stars, giving Super Taste an average of two stars.”

Haha. But yeah, that’s about right.

A funny thing: since the last time (or since the above profile prominently appeared in New York Magazine’s Cheap Eats issue), the establishment removed all English language menus from the walls, making the place even less friendly for non-Chinese speakers/readers. All references to “Hand-Pull Noodle w. Beef In Hot & Spicy Soup” were absent, and I was forced to rely on my rudimentary Chinese reading skills to order. Luckily for all of us, “beef” and “noodles” are in my limited repertoire; I owe it all to Wah Kue on Mott Street. And pointing is universal.

Mmm, mmm good.

After another stop for what may have been the most expensive ice in Manhattan – $6 for two bags?! Grrr… – we arrived at AH’s top-floor apartment where the party was in full swing. I spent most of the night out on the balcony, admiring her views over lower Manhattan. AH had baked another one of her wonderful cakes for the occasion: this one a carrot and walnut layer cake with cream cheese frosting, that HYB lit afire with birthday candles.

On the way home, the warm smells from Doughnut Plant carried us along Grand Avenue.

Random celebrity sighting: Dennis Quaid on the 7 train, holding hands with a younger Asian woman. She asked me for directions, and I realized then that she wasn’t quite fluent in English. I thought Quaid was (re)married, and living in California? Or maybe it wasn’t him I saw after all?

Regardless, I’m sure it wasn’t Randy.