An Abrupt Farewell to Pacific Echo
Restaurants come and go, especially in New York, and I usually don't get attached to them or mourn them, but this sudden departure hurts a bit. For several years, Pacific Echo was the reliable little place around the corner for a Saturday night dinner. It was the first place my daughter learned to sit down and behave in a restaurant. This was where she learned to love California roll, edamame and green tea ice cream. When we first started going there several years ago, we kept going back for the seafood sate and the special rolls that did not use seaweed -- something that I had been told to avoid for obscure medical reasons involving a drug interaction with blood thinners. My wife, not always in the mood for sushi, became a fan of a particular marinated tofu dish. My favorite order quickly became the Hot Mama and the Bomb, spicy concoctions of eel, lobster, crab and other good bits wrapped either in cucumber leaves or rice paper. The cocktail selection was unique and interesting -- mango mojitos, a sake-tini, the French and others I forget -- and well-prepared. The owner was known to circulate among the tables buying customers drinks every once in a while. Some out-of-town friends stopped by there one night when we were not around and said they spent an uproarious evening drinking into the wee hours with him. The waiters and waitresses knew us and usually put us at the same table. There were times when we ate there two or three times a month. Sometimes we would order takeout.
There was some positive feedback on sites like Yelp, but Pacific Echo never really seemed to take off. It was somewhat off the beaten path at 242 W. 56th Street, between Broadway and 8th Avenue, in a row of restaurants that included a Baluchi's Indian restaurant, Patsy's Italian, a sushi place and some other nondescript Midtown restaurants we have never checked out.
From the start, they did not mind that we came in with a 4-year-old, who eventually turned into a 9-year-old, and the prices weren't too bad. (There's plenty of fine Asian food in the neighborhood -- we were delighted to stumble across Sugiyama recently -- but this was homey.)
Over time, we became regulars, and the staff knew our habits ("Another mango mojito? Some green tea ice cream for the little lady?"). From time to time, we recognized some other regulars, but most nights it was an odd assortment of tourists and other passers-by who had stumbled in. It was an easygoing crowd, friendly, and often jolly. On more than one occasion, people at neighboring tables jumped into our conversations.
No more. The first bad sign was the disconnected phone when we decided to order a delivery on a whim. A trip on Saturday confirmed the worst: A sign on the door stating that the landlord had seized the property. Judging by the date, it had been shut down a few days after we last ate there in mid-December, before the holidays. It felt a little like some good friends of ours had suddenly packed up and moved out of town without a word. To be sure, there had been signs of trouble for the last couple of years. The water on the wall waterfall was turned off. The clever tables -- with many varieties of beans and grains encased in glass -- were starting to show cracks and other wear and tear.
The extensive Asian fusion menu was scaled back a couple of times, with some favorite or odd dishes eliminated (no more seafood sate, or Malaysian specialties), and some obvious prepackaged things added (spicy rock shrimp). For a while, you could still order missing favorites even if they were off the menu. But then, you couldn't. The dinner crowd was thinner, though admittedly we had never had trouble getting a table without a reservation. The upstairs dining area was closed down. The owner no longer strolled among the tables, and while some staff faces remained familiar, there appeared to be new management and a strain to keep up appearances. On many an evening, as we strolled there, we had passed a second sushi place next door, with a much more traditional menu and decor, and not the same easygoing feel to it. On this evening, we doubled back and tried it for the first time. It was O.K. But it wasn't Pacific Echo.
Sugiyama, a Kaiseki Haven in Midtown
Our daughter was on a birthday sleepover, so my wife and I found ourselves with a few hours of freedom on the cold, cold Saturday night of the long holiday weekend. We live in Manhattan's tourist district, which makes it hard to find a good place nearby or dinner that isn't crowded, expensive or bad. Or all three. After fiddling around with a few restaurant finders, I came up with Sugiyama, right around the corner. We must have walked by this place hundreds of times since moving here nearly nine years ago, but our focus has always been on child-friendly places. Oh, my, what we have been missing. The Yelp reviews were promising, with Japanese people claiming that the Kaiseki dining here -- basically Japanese small dishes, in several courses, some cooked on hot stones -- reminded them of home. (This was all new to us.)
Reservations are definitely recommended. Thanks to the cold weather, we were able to make one for two at the last minute. Business was steady. We dressed casually. Don't expect to come here and have it your way. There are a handful of multiple-course dinners. We had no idea how much food to expect, so we each opted for the five-course dinner, seafood only. My wife is lactose intolerant, and neither of us eats land critters, but they were able to accommodate us easily.
The courses were a monkfish liver-tofu pate, a salad, incredibly fresh sashimi, a seafood and vegetable entree, a light miso soup, Japanese pickles, rice, a grapefruit jelly dessert. Everything was delicious. Amazing fish, especially the fatty tuna, squid and octopus. Real wasabi. Attentive service. The pace was perfect for a leisurely night out. We did not leave hungry, and I think we might have been in trouble had we ordered the six- or eight-course dinners.
Including a bottle of sparkling water, two glasses of wine and a tip, the bill was $178. Pricey, but I've paid more for worse in Midtown. It's not a price I'd care to pay too often, but there is an economy option. Get there before 6:30 or after 9, and order the least expensive, three-course dinner, which isn't offered during the pre-theater rush. The bill before tip will come in well under $100 if you skip the alcohol. (That may be hard to do if you're a sake fan.)
A Consumption Report From Virgin Airworld
I'm in Los Angeles with the family this week, visiting the in-laws. I booked the flight kind of late and decided to try Virgin America, which had been getting a lot of hype for its geeky amenities and Jetblue-style business model. The only way I could get three seats together on Virgin was to pay extra for the roomier bulkhead seats, the so-called Main Cabin Select, which came with "unlimited" food and media, a sort of discount business class. The flight was pleasant and as enjoyable as JetBlue, but the geek reality has not yet caught up with the hype. For example, the much-discussed on-board Internet was not available on our flight. (I've yet to see Jetblue's version of these services, either). So while the airline's Red touch-screen media console showed options for e-mail and Web surfing, those features were disabled. It was possible to chat with other seats, but my traveling companions showed no interest and as far as I could tell nobody else was using the system. And while there was a cool remote with each seat, in the bulkhead you had to lean forward quite a bit to use the touchscreen, which was set in the wall.
The satellite TV channel selection was about the same as JetBlue's, with some premium choices (HBO's "Entourage," a Bill Maher comedy special, etc.) and films for adults (I watched "Hancock") and kids (my daughter watched "Wall-E" again). I did not bother figuring out the parental controls, preferring to issue commands in person.
I made a brief effort to play one of the video games with the seat-remote, but gave up after finding lame graphics and needless complexity. I'm sure a kid could have figured it out, but my kid stuck to the games on her Nano. (Update: She has informed me that she did in fact try one of the games. Her review: "You were supposed to get to the top of this tower, with this little green guy who could shoot fire, but it was really hard because there were little things flying at you. You couldn't really go anywhere, because you kept getting knocked over by this little thingie. You had to jump a giant gap. I tried it for 12 lives and I couldn't figure it out at all.")
The seats were big and comfortable, and nobody had a problem with my frequent standing, stretching and walking around (I have a genetic predisposition to blood clots, which can be brought on by air travel and prolonged sitting in cramped spaces). The aisle seemed narrower than on other planes, but perhaps that was my imagination. In any event, passersby kept bumping me, and I am sorry to report that I did the same to others.
Instead of offering the usual snacks or meal service, Virgin lets you order drinks, snacks and small meals using the Red touchscreen.
A few minutes later, a flight attendant shows up with the order (the selections were slightly better than the JetBlue snack packs).
Also unlike JetBlue, Virgin America has first-class seats [video]. Other than the bulkhead partition, there is no aisle curtain separating those passengers from the rabble, however. In the bulkhead, we had a good view of first class (see picture at right), which had its own bathroom, bigger seats, better food and Red screens that were adjustable in some way. I was amused by the similarity to "Wall-E" -- the robotic console-equipped floating easy chairs that kept the humans supplied with a steady diet of Big Gulp-type drinks and media. Virgin America first class did not look as comfortable as the Wall-E spaceship.
This train of thought made me focus on my own consumption, so I powered up Zenbe Lists, one of my favorite iPhone apps, and kept track of my intake for the flight:
- Watched entertaining cartoon safety video. Finally understood how to inflate the vest that is unlikely to save anyone in the unlikely event of a water landing.
- Chewed two pieces of gum for takeoff, so my ears would pop.
- Drank cup of nondescript coffee, ordered directly from attendant. Saw first-class passenger select from a tremendous basket of muffins, more than enough to serve half the coach passengers. Plus a small bottle of water.
- Used Red toucshcreen to order Virgin's cheese and fruit plate (actually, a box), then ate it, plus some of the cheese from my daughter's box. Surprisingly good, especially the soft cheese and walnuts, although some of the crackers were stale and tasteless.
- Watched the end of "Witness" with Harrison Ford, on satellite TV, the scene where he kills a Philly gangster by dumping Amish grain on him.
- Watched a premium movie, "Hancock" with Will Smith. It was O.K., although I thought it was implausible that the villain was allowed into prison with a hook for a hand. Yes, more implausible than star-crossed immortals with superpowers. Oh, sorry, that was a double spoiler.
- Watched two "premium" short films, both available online, "Beard Science" and "Poke," both part of Campus Moviefest. The first, a sort of "Trading Places" with beards, was hard to follow. The second, about a slapstick-Rube Goldbergian effort to take back a Facebook poke, was funnier.
- Read through early-morning Twitter traffic on Twitterific for the iPhone. These Tweets had been downloaded to my phone before I put it in non-broadcasting airplane mode. Everyone was Twittering about being at the airport. This blog post represents what I might have been Twittering, if I had access.
- Played a futile game of Bejeweled on the iPhone.
- Read Friday's NYT Kindle edition on my Kindle, after solving last-minute battery problem.
- Drank contents of a can of seltzer. (By the way, whenever I order seltzer in L.A. restaurants, I get blank stares. Does this happen to anyone else? They show no recognition until my wife says "club soda." Virgin's Red calls it seltzer.)
- Ate a rather large can of Pringles chips,and refelcted on the burial choice of Fredric J. Bauer.
- Drank another small bottle of water ordered through Red, to stave off deyhydration, a contributor to blood clots.
- Had another cup of coffee. They serve real Half-and-Half, which is impressive, though I prefer plain milk or, better yet, soy milk.
- Shared a bag of chocolate chip cookies with my daughter. Her mother continued to doze between us, her preferred mode on planes.
- Listened to parts of "MacBreak Weekly" and "Uhh, Yeah Dude" podcasts for about an hour, for a future zeitgeist blog post.
- Walked around a lot to stretch legs, used bathroom.
- Read the dustcover and several pages of John Hodgman's "More Information Than You Require." I was stopped short by his prediction that one of the presidential candidates would reveal that he had a hook for a hand, which called to mind the villain in "Hancock." This kind of coincidence happens all the time. Good thing I'm not superstitious.
- Took comical photos of flight attendant using a tiny flashlight to search for a first-class passenger's lost eyeglasses. Too blurry to use.
- Listened to music on my iPhone, including Fleet Foxes, some Jonathan Coulton and Stephen Colbert's Christmas song. I briefly tried the Red music system, but I wasn't happy with the sound quality.
- Chewed two more pieces of gum for the landing.
I can only hope this was all helpful to the economy, if not the environment. I'm just doing my part. The flight was pleasant and relatively quiet, which made it bearable to endure the mysterious, hourlong wait at the Avis rental car center that followed at LAX, pictured at right.
Things I didn't do:
- Open my laptop. But I had to carry it on so it wouldn't get stolen by the Transportation Security Administration.
- Order a second cheese and fruit plate. No reason to be a pig.
- Attempt to read more of "Anathem," which I had hopefully lugged aboard, adding two pounds to my carry-on. But I will finish it on this vacation and blog about it, I swear.
- Stick gum under the leather seat. That would be wrong.
Coffee, Dinner, Love and the Twitter Mind
Twitter is fast becoming the real-time zeitgeist of the web hive mind. (Sorry, I don't know what that means either.) Anyway, I've been playing around with Twist, which tracks trends on Twitter and graphs the results. Two of the most interesting trends I've found are:
drunk, hangover - The drunk talk spikes on Friday and Saturday nights, followed by hangover talk on the following mornings. There's a similar correlation on Facebook.
monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday - This one is really interesting. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday get many more mentions than the three other days of the week, which shows the importance of the weekend in contemporary society. Wednesday is the low point, which turns the graph into a representation of hump day, only inverted.
O.K, so here are some that I tried: Breakfast vs. Lunch vs. Dinner
Dinner starts out strong, gets overtaken by lunch as the week goes on, then resurges. Breakfast starts out strong at the start of the week then later dwindles away in mentions on Twitter.
Big spikes for coffee breaks while the tea drinkers sip, sip, sip.
Liberal Internet bias.
I have no idea what it means.
No comment.
Staying on the ground.
Twitter is full of Mac fanboys.
Why so negative, Twitter?
All we are saying...
A heartwarming result. There's hope for us yet.