Fried Chicken Club, The First Meeting

On Saturday, I met up with Summer, Sydney, Sydney's husband, and few of Sydney's friends for the very first Fried Chicken Club meeting at The Drink in Williamsburg. So what's the deal with Fried Chicken Club? It's pretty simple. Bring any sort of fried chicken (chicken fingers, Korean wings, nuggets, fancy or cheap, sandwiches) to share with other people. We did really well for our first meeting. A nice variety of fried chickens.

Here's what everyone brought...

Summer brought a whole bucket of fried chicken from Wilma Jean that came with pieces of fried chicken + skewers of fried chicken chunks, 2 sides, and buns. Sydney brought hot chicken sandwiches from the Meat Hook Sandwich Shop. Sydney's friends brought a whole box of Popeye's fried chicken (regular and spicy), Korean wings from Brooklyn Seoul, and chicken strips + chicken nuggets from Sticky's Finger Joint. I brought a whole box of thighs and couple breast from Yafa Deli.

I have never been to The Drink. It's a great bar with a really nice backyard. It was buy 1 beer get 1 beer free when we went but most of the people preferred their delicious $5 punch.

Thanks to everyone that came out and brought delicious fried chicken to share.

The hot chicken sandwich from the Meat Hook Sandwich Shop made it to my top 5 sandwiches out of the 13 I've eaten so far list.

Also, Wilma Jean made it to my top 5 fried chickens out of the 27 I've eaten so far list, back in 2014.

A Taste of Home

After taking my first bite of this homemade pho by Lily's mom, I turned to Anh and said..."that's it, I can't eat any other pho." When people say, "oh this was made with love..." yeah, I totally tasted love in this bowl of pho and also time and also mad skills. I finished the whole bowl and drank all the broth. Super deep flavors that I have never tasted in any pho I have had in NYC.

We were lucky enough to get invited by Sydney to join her at her friend's mom's pho pop-up at Ramen Lab.

This really got me thinking about what I consider to be good and authentic. I have never been to Vietnam but definitely ate enough pho while growing up in LA. My family and I would drive to Westminster aka Little Saigon for our fill of Vietnamese food. After moving to NYC, it's rare to drive to Little Saigon when I'm visiting home. (I guess I should do that next time when I'm in LA.) When I was a kid, I didn't doubt the pho that I was eating wasn't authentic. Actually, I didn't know much about food until I moved to NYC in 2003. I went on a food journey when I first moved here, trying to find good pho. Pho that reminded me of LA and not Vietnam.

What does it mean to be authentic? Or traditional? And this isn't just about pho but almost every foods in every century, time and space, there are different variations. People grow up with different experiences and tastes which will affect the way they cook. Maybe the base is the same but with different hands mean different outcomes.

Now that I'm writing this (Hi! I didn't think about writing this. I'm more or less just letting my words spill out.), I guess I have never really searched for authenticity but I was searching for home or my life in LA. Nostalgia? Probably. Every time I eat a taco, I think about all the $1 street tacos in LA. When I eat Hainam chicken rice, I think about the version I had in LA.

This bowl of pho I had on Monday is like the true meaning of being home. It was made by someone's mom that really put care into it and maybe because I was eating in a crowded restaurant with mostly their family friends.

Breakfast Sandwich Crawl

Another successful food crawl, done. Back in April, we did a hot dog and tater tots crawl through Williamsburg. For June (sorry, we skipped May), I decided to do a breakfast sandwich crawl cause who doesn't love breakfast sandwiches? Also, I was pretty proud of myself. I was able to convince a bunch of food writers/bloggers/photographers that were all in town for the Saveur Blog Awards to trek out to Red Hook. Hello! There was like a dozen of us all crowding into Defonte's. Ah, good old potatoes and eggs with mozz and ketchup sandwich to start the crawl at Defonte's of Brooklyn.

Next we headed to Court Street Grocers and ordered all of their breakfast sandwiches. Someone was smart enough to grab their hot sauces since obviously we couldn't fit everyone inside. After that, I showed the out of towners the magnificent Gowanus Canal before heading to Four & Twenty for pies.

What happens when you have pies and a bar full of bloggers/writers/photographers?

Then 7 of us made it up to Mile End but it was 5p and no breakfast sandwiches were in sight. So we ate poutine! BUT the friendly people at Mile End decided to make us breakfast sandwiches so it was a glorious end to our crawl.

By this time, half of the people had to catch their flights so the rest of us went to Grand Army for cocktails and more eats.

Thanks to everyone that came out (Molly, Hannah, Talia, Sydney, Alana, Summer, Phi, Stephanie, Stella, Sari, Michelle) and wandered through Brooklyn. It was great seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

Hot Tot Dog Crawl

This past Sunday, Molly, Sydney, Talia, Hannah, me, and few other people did a hot dog and tater tots crawl through Williamsburg. My original idea was to try and get people to do a photo crawl but somehow it has morphed into a food and photo crawl. Which is fine with me! I love to eat and gave me an excuse to eat way too many tater tots. We went from Kent Ale House to Crif Dogs to The Grand National (Jell-O shots and photobooth and BINGO!) to Burnside for fried cheese curds.

The main point is to have fun and hang out with friends. Next month is wings crawl.