Phaaling in love
Saturday, July 24th, 2010
(4 out of 5 hot dogs)
Loading ...Brick Lane Curry House Too
235 E 53rd (2nd and 3rd)
Time: Everyday, 11-4
Price: Curry, appetizer, samosa, rice, naan, dessert, $10
One pleasant afternoon, I ordered the Brick Lane lunch special to-go, and brought my meal out to a bench on the East River, so that while I contemplated the curious spices of India, I was able to enjoy peaceful views of oily seagulls perched on tires, and the owners of Peking Dragon China House fishing for their nightly special (I’ll blog about that later!) A boat passed, and was it just my imagination, or did I hear gunshots? And I could have sworn I saw two Russians dump a body overboard before paddling away, but alas I was too engrossed in the texture of my paneer to know for sure. How does it stay solid on my fork but then melt so perfectly in my mouth? My curry was gone, so were the Russians, and anyway dark clouds were beginning to roll in from the north. I stood up, glanced at the river one last time and let out a deep deep sigh. And I thought to myself, Life is Good.
Aside from their feast of a lunch special, Brick Lane is also home to the infamous Man vs Food challenge, “The Phaal,” apparently one of the spiciest curries in the world. If you manage to finish, you get a beer, an official certificate, and your picture on their website- woop woop!
Azuki is your average sushi restaurant, nestled in between the much better Sushi Samba and Haru. To step up the competition, they added alcohol to the equation. Apparently they used to have unlimited house white wine and sake with every meal, but now they’ve cracked down on the rules, and it’s much more confusing than that. It’s something like, if you spend $15, you get a serving of sake but no wine, or if you spend $20 you get wine, but only two glasses, or sake, but only one, but maybe they’ll give you two, but maybe not, or if you ask for another glass of wine they might charge you, but if you complain they might take it off the bill, but maybe not, and really who knows…drunken sushi is too true and pure an ideal to be tarnished with all these rules and regulations! In the future I’m sticking with the shitshow-wonderland-drunken-sushi-palace that is 
Urban Lobster Shack is located in a secret underground food-court. It’s sort of a lunch-speakeasy for people who have boring office jobs in midtown. When you enter the discreet office building location, a security guard gives you the evil eye as you turn left and go down an escalator into the seedy underbelly of Manhattan. The “Shack” is less of a shack, and more of a kiosk that could easily be converted to hawk bedazzled cell phone cases during other business hours. The lobster roll is tasty, although it fills you up only about as much as a hotdog (coulda eaten 3 of ‘em). The side salad and a mini-cup of coleslaw are fine too, but don’t do much to curb that terrible hunger that is slowly, minute by minute, engorging my body and soul.