Cheap 'n' Choosy

Chelsea Nabe Suggestions for January 2012

2012-01-27T10:36:00.000-08:00

What's this? You'll just have to check out item 6 below!

Here's a copy of the little neighborly missive I send to a casual e-list of folks who live a 0.1 mile radius from my digs in Chelsea. But before I start, a couple of words from my sponsor (me):

I'm teaching the following classes at the very affordable Manhattan yoga studio (almost an oxymoron) YoGanesh on 23st and 7th Ave, Friday 7.30pm, Sat 8.30am, Thur 10am. $15 drop in, $12 with a 10-class card. Cheap, choosy and healthy!

I JUST got done editing my DVD of Peruvian kids and orphans, it's just waiting on a final deet. So if you have a spare 90 seconds, I'd love you to watch the trailer and pass it around, because it will really help the kids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-GYrrZf7xs
More story here.

So what to eat (and more)?

1. I'm celebrating emerging from DVD hell by eating the incomparable eggplant puree toast $4 at Company or "Co." on 24th and 9th. Make that the canellini bean toast as well. Dammit, and the ribollita soup $8. That's assuming can get a place at the bar because you'll never get a spot otherwise, unless you go at blue plate (5pm?) hour. If I can't elbow a hipster off the end, even with the help of the affable bartender Walter, I'll head to the less hip but decent New York Burger Company for their Shake-Shack comparative mini burger, $3.50. Failing that, maybe cereal over the sink? Scrolling back a bit ... who needs a line in summer, let along winter? NYBC's roll is even brioche-style so I can't see why SS gets all the hype (oh of course, marketing ...)

2. Three Tarts on 20th and 9th got an amazing amount of TV press for their home made marshmallows recently. Next Wed I will be helping film some "reactions on the street" for their site. We're focussing on Chelsea so people from all over will hopefully come to the nabe. If you want to be in the videos for a completely impromptu experience AND have luscious real fruit mallows popped your mouth, ping me. Meeting 12.30 next Wed. Stimulating the local economy one hundred calories at a time!

3. The slightly chintzy-looking looking WARNING: brace yourself before clicking on this website: Chelsea Royal Care Pharmacy OK have you recovered? on 9th between 19th and 20th is actually a really great pharmacy (despite their website). Apparently they deal in difficult onconcology and HIV-related drugs for way less money than the big pharmacies - they even cut me a super deal on a prescription when my job and insurance were eliminated recently. Support neighborly places with a neighborly attitude! Run by a Russian pharmacist called Aleksandr, who is a notary public and charges $2 for that service. There's even a color copier, saving you a trip to Staples. People on Yelp really seem to like them.

4. Did I ever mention my terrific, painless dentist on 23rd and 9th, Alexander Galperin? A bunch of his Yelp reviews got taken down for no good reason, but fortunately, my review remained.

5. There is a sensational grilled cheese with caramelized onion sandwich served at Chelsea Market Baskets right now, for $6.50. It's really a ton of calories but you'll burn it off eventually. I bought a bottle of the caramelized onions and it worked OK with lowfat cheese and healthy bread. Um, sort of.

6. There's a new place called Ports Coffee and Tea on 23rd between 7th and 8th that serves three really excellent cookies you must try unless sugar is against your religion - a raspberry hazelnut, a fennel and raisin, and a soft ginger and applesauce. $2 each, and pictured above. The coffee is the famous Stumptown from Brooklyn. They use the outrageously indulgent Mast Bros chocolate in their mochas and hot chocs. Well, indulgent if you consider Mast Bros chocolate retails for $7.50+ a bar, compared to my standing favorite - Trader Joe's 85% Tumaco Dark Chocolate Lover's Bar for under $2. However, for me, the best traditional cocoa is still the size small Chocolate Chaud at La Grainne $3.75 - in size large they seem to get the proportions all wrong...

7. If you've a spare $75, the wacky Sleep No More "immersion theater" show is STILL playing at the McKittrick Hotel in the Gallery District. It's a good Valentine's treat, although best experienced if you don't cling to your friend and go spook yourself solo in the labyrinth of rooms and corridors. You can go across the road after to Ovest and have a pretty OK pizza. Read my take on my ChelseaGallerista blog.

8. My NEW FAVORITE, SECRET PLACE: Hotel Americano, on 27th between 9th and 10th. I like to go there for breakfast after teaching at YoGanesh 8.30-9.45am Sat. It's undiscovered so far, so no lines and nonsense yet. Truly, you feel like you're in Barcelona. The green smoothie $5 is outstanding, you'll never drink an Odwalla or Naked again. There is a giant photo montage of a young Obama smoking a spliff (among other things). Prices reasonable, considering it's a boutique hotel. Just don't go to the Dream Hotel for brunch over on 17th to eat. Truly, truly, awful and truly, truly overpriced.

10. I still love the Tart Tartin and both Le Grainne and La Lunchonette. It's my benchmark dessert, much like I judge Pad Thai - or even better, Pad Woon Sen in Thai restaurants. So simple, yet so refined. Cookshop's desserts have gone way downhill in every respect. Just as well, we really don't need the calories.

11. Popping down to Chelsea Market, I have to mention Sarabeth's raspberry bread pudding $5. Don't eat it with a friend unless they are getting their own. You will say, "let's split it" and regret that you did. You will snatch it away from under her suspended fork and run to the nearest exit.

12. Best blow out place: Buddakan, which I've talked about before. Despite their main room being reminiscent of the mansion in the orgy scene of Eyes Wide Shut (sans the raunch), it's a sensational and curiously attitude-free zone on the edge of Meatpacking. One can only imagine that the owner, a Stephen Starr, has told his staff that the #1 rule if making money (and thus keeping them paid) is to make people welcome. What a concept! I suspect the very dark lighting might help melt the nylon parkas, baseball caps and Talbots blazers into the shadows, but I'm exaggerating here for effect - generally people like to dress up and it's worth it. It's the one place I'd bother wearing my impossibly high, gold tie-up Christian Louboutin shoes (bought third hand of course, from New and Almost New in the East Village). Monumental, surreal, and great, fairly reasonable food to boot. Don't order the chow fun though, it's too soggy. We Chinese know about these things.

13. Clothing. If you want something unique and original that is a zillion miles away from the Usual Stuff Inc I love LingoNYC on 19th St at 8th Ave. I think I have about eight things from there and I get compliments all the time. For the originality it offers, the prices are reasonable. For cheap and not so choosy, you'd have to head to say, TJ Maxx et al

14. Cafe Zemi. Best Pad Thai (esp shrimp or tofu), Tuscan Grilled Veggie platter with brown rice, Moo Shoo Chicken, Cobb Salad, Cold noodles, baby back ribs, braised duck, stir fry ginger fish ... basically these people really know how to cook and execute Asian bistro standards for around $10.
As far as drinks go, the Empress Tea with lychee, fresh mint, lemon, soda and gin is divine, assuming you're a drinker. I'm not, and I can're remember what happened next.

15. This just in from my London Terrace Nabe Dana: "Peter and Magic Fingers is an AMAZING massage person - I've gone to him while healing from surgeries and other assorted complications. It's a hole in the wall Tui Na type place on 9th ave + is $48/ hour. Can't beat that!

212-868-5865 - Magic Fingers/ New Relax Body Spa

346 9th Ave (29-30th), Next to Orchid Nail Spa. Neon lights outside. You need to be buzzed in.

Tell him Dana sent you, he's my pal! Oh + buy 10 get one free!"

14. Scroll back through my previous posts for other suggestions not mentioned here. And remember, as my mother said, if you don't support good things, one day they won't be there!

Until I stumble on the next cool thing around the corner ... support your nabe, or the things you like won't be there one day!

<$3: The Tuck Shop - A $3 sausage roll that rocks PLUS It's Tim Tam Time!

2012-01-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

Landing the most scrumptious sausage roll at the Tuck Shop NY

The Tuck Shop Revisited for Tim Tams, Mint Slice, and a runny meat pie

The Tuck Shop featured in my "Best Job In The World" application
The Tuck Shop? Never 'eard of it!

+++

HOW DO you make a sausage roll? Put it on a hill and push it.

That's the very clean joke about this snack from my kindergarden days, when the local Aussie "tuck shop" or school canteen dispensed greasy, fatty pies, pasties and sausage rolls to a nutritionally unenlightened public.

Oh how we loved that crap.

The pie - something that has never taken off in the USA except in the form of a 'pot pie' - was a pastry case filled with drippy, peppery mince in a brown gravy strong on Worcestershire sauce. How did you eat it? Peel off the pastry lid and eat that first. The using your index fingers, scoop out the filling and suck it off your fingers, ouching at the temperature. Finally, hoe into the pastry base.

The pastie (pronounced parse-tee) - no doubt a Brit hangover from a convict heritage - resembled the modern empanada with a bland stew as a filling. The healthier of the three, due to the presence of a 1/4" cube each of carrot, potato and celery.

The sausage roll - not my favorite snack due to its unabashed greasiness - was basically a cylinder of salty, peppery pork mince wrapped in flaky pastry and served hot. To eat it, you peel off the pastry first, then eat the denuded pork cylinder.

The sausage roll that rocks - sage and flesh of ex-pig. Vegetarians look away - to the chick pea version.

Fast forward 30 years to my talk at the 5 Borough Bike Club in NY, and the organizer Barry Hartglass has sourced a platter of Aussie food (sans the Fosters) in honor of my Aussiedom. Where from? The Tuck Shop, a dingo burrow on the lower east side of Manhattan.

The pork and sage sausage rolls, a gourmet interpretation of the original log of saturated fat, left a taste in my mouth that had me salivating at the memory for a whole year before I was finally able to return to NY and visit the source. I think I scarfed three in quick succession before, during and after my talk. No wonder no one could understand what I was blathering let along decipher my accent. It was juicy and tender, light and fragrant, savory and scrumptious all at once.

And here I now stood, in the Tuck Shop itself, purse poised in anticipation.

But which roll? There was a chick pea one too, for those who refuse to eat the flesh of dead animal.

"I think you're after the original," said Neil, the Oirish co-owner who opened the business because "there was already enough Irish bars." The reprise did not disappoint. In a bulimic moment I also scarfed the chick pea version, then a lamb and vegetable pie ($5), then a vanilla slice ($4), all washed down with a perfect none-too-sweet home made ginger beer ($2). All shared - but not exactly half-half - with a friend.

The best part? A mere $3 investment for the signature dish. A couple of regulars sat at the bar, one brandishing the SPEND LESS edition of the New York Magazine.

"So how is the recession affecting the Tuck Shop?"

"Business is booming," said Neil, who is resisting raising the price of that nirvanic sausage roll in the name of lowering the nation's obesity level.

The Tim Tam run.

Later, I re-visited the store and stocked up on packets of Tim Tams and Mint Slice, the Aussie interpretation of a luxe, chocolate covered cookie. Called 'chocolate biscuits' Downunder, they bear no relation to the doughy, anaemic white flour biscuit Upover, and impress overseas guests to high heaven in the same way that packets of odd little Japanese wrapped sweets impress Gaijins.

Tim Tams are the King of Affordable Treats downunder. It's a chocolate cookie sandwich with a distinctive break an flavor that's evident from the moment your front incisors shatter the thin, chocolate shell, descend through the sublayers of crisp chocolate cookie before reaching the core, a thick layer that is at once truffle, fudge and ganache, yet none of these. The taste is distinctive - honey, chocolate, vanilla, burned sugar, yet not too sweet ... who knows what it is? It should absolutely be eaten from the refrigerator, to fully experience the unique 'break' (distinctly different from the ho-hum Oreo) and subdued sweetness that chilling it affords.

I admit as an Aussie I was a little disturbed to see the American Pepperidge Farms logo on the packets, it being the new distributor in the USA. My first thought was, oh no, I bet they're now loaded with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (trans fat) or high fructose corn syrup, truly evil mainstays of most processed food in the USA. In Australia, we use plain old sugar - we grow a lot of it. But Niall assured me it was the original recipe, just re-branded.

But rather than have it stand like another soldier in the ranks of Pepperidge products, why not be clever and leave the USA branding off, promote it as an exotic downunder Aussie treat capitalizing on its heritage of addiction and rake in the cash. Why not take a leaf from another iconic Aussie treat, Homer Hudson ice cream. The brand imagery stayed folksy and funky when in reality, it was a big, bland Unilever stoking the freezers behind the scenes. If Pepperidge would pick the brains of Tim Tam's Antipodean Addicts downunder they would uncover a gold mine of marketing strategy.

Because Tim Tams are no ordinary cookie. They are that strange and elusive combination of a premium, yet affordable supermarket aisle product, and ironically something you never actually tire of, like fresh squeezed orange juice. It is well known that sitting down with a packet of Tim Tams in front of a television is dangerous - you will systematically demolish the entire packet then go looking for more. Just read some of the rapturous remarks about this Aussie diet destroyer on the Saatchi Lovemarks site.

I haven't ranted on about Mint Slice to the same degree, because they have a stronger, sweeter, richer taste - you simply can't eat as many and so rank lower on the addiction scale.

OK, back to the hot stuff.

So how do you make a sausage rock? Roll on to the Tuck Shop!

www.tuckshopnyc.com

Above: Owner Lincoln with my Bike Friday tikit - which slotted neatly under a bar stool ...

60cents-$5 Microdesserts @ Three Tarts, NY

2012-01-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

$5 Chai Greek Yogurt Cup trying not to eat it too fast ...

My folding bike experiment, tikit on Trial, included this visit to the Three Tarts:

I visit the Three Tarts almost as often as the bathroom but I can assure you there's no direct causality ...

The antithesis of supersize me, ThreeTarts is 'microsize me' with its tiny, utterly original, coin-sized cookies, tarts, muffins and parfaits, meticulously baked and priced to empty the small change in your pocket.

You will find concoctions here that you will find nowhere else. Here are the absolute standout numbers in my book:

1. The Chocolate Lovely - two superfine, super thin, super dark (almost black) chocolate cookies with a dark ganache filling. There is a delayed reaction as the chocolate hits your palate then creeps slowly over it, intensifying as it goes. Wow. What a way to spend 60 cents. Shape changes from bat to penguin to megaphone depending on the whim of the Japanese patisserie meister. You'll probably eat two.

2. Greek yoghurt cup. This breakfast/lunch/dessert is a total knockout. Creamy Greek yoghurt topped with pistacho, pumpkin seed and walnut something or other and bottomed with a sweet and spicy chai syrup something or other. Phenomenal combination. Not a single person who has tried it at my insistence has reacted with anything other than 'oh wow.' $5 but worth every spoonful.

3. The fig, caramelized onion and goat's cheese tartlet. An unbelieveable taste combination. The sweet of the fig, the salt of the cheese, the sweet and salt of the onions, and the buttery crispness of the short biscuit base. $3.80.

4. My everyday favorite (and because I couldn't afford to eat 2. and 3. every meal although I could give it a damn good swing) is the little apple tart. A tiny, poker-chip sized tart with high sides filled with good old fashioned, perfectly spiced fresh apple puree. Three little bites of heaven. $1.55

5. Outstanding biscotti - Just the right amount of nut, sweet, break and crumble. 60 cents.

6. The hot chocolate - very good, and on par with the well priced (under $4.50, NOT the exorbitant $8 kind) rich hot chocolates offered by the likes Amy's and Fairway. It's basically solid chocolate melted into hot milk.

Then there are other items like the jewel panacottas, the delicate marshmallows and more regular trufffles. The banana and green tea ice cream sandwiches were my initial favorite but I find the cake sides are a bit too cakey for me, and the wrapping unwieldy. $4.50

The co-owner told me that when they first opened, the owner of the equally impressive (for different things) La Bergamot came over and said, "I consider this war" on account of the truffles that both establishments offer.

My reaction: "Did you lean over and say 'and we're about to make a killing'?"

This is the indulgence food of a modern age: highly creative, right-sized and right-priced.

The Three Tarts
164 9th Ave
(between 19th St & 20th St)
New York, NY 10011
(212) 462-4392
www.3tarts.com

Free Monday Nights: Howard Williams Jazz Orchestra, The Garage NYC

2010-12-10T09:20:00.000-08:00

Monday is apparently muso's night off, and here in Manhattan some of the best Broadway musicians get together and jam "for fun". The 16-piece (looks a lot bigger from the wings!) Howard Williams Orchestra plays Monday nites 7-10pm at The Garage - a really cool and jazzy multi-tiered space.

Roger, whose brother pays the double bass in the band, says it has been a tradition at the space for 15 years.

"My brother carpools in from Philly, every Monday. If musicians can't make it, they have to find a stand in."

So fun it may be, but this is serious. I'm not actually a fan of this kind of jazz, but hearing and seeing it live like this has a presence and power that is hard to convey. I've been quite a few times, so I take that back - I guess I am a fan.

There is food, but the menu is somewhat pricey unless you stick to a fairly quesadilla or salad for around $10-15.

There's no cover, but please support musicians and businesses like this by being a good consumer and tipper if you visit.

http://www.garagerest.com
99 7th Ave SOUTH (not 7th Ave), near Christopher St, with a subway stop a block away.

Pretty much free yoga in Chelsea and beyond

2010-07-27T21:40:00.000-07:00

Free yoga on Pier 64 offered by Chelsea Piers Fitness Center.

Yoga in NYC doesn't come cheap. Classes hover around $18 unless you buy some kind of package. But here are some options in Chelsea and a little further, that can tide you over 'til you get that Wall Street job and can afford a membership at Equinox and wherever else you please ...

Free summer yoga at Pier 64, offered by Chelsea Piers Fitness Center
August/Sept only, before the snow comes in ...

Donation only Community Class at Laughing Lotus, 19th and 6th Ave, M-F, 2.30pm-3.45pm. Ongoing.
For Summer only, Lotus also offer a free Wed 7-8pm class on a grassy knoll near 15th and the West Side Highway.

Easy Yoga with the Galfromdownunder, Chelsea Rec Center, 25th bet 9th and 10th Ave. Tuesdays 6-7pm.
Ongoing. Yes folks, this is my completely free, 'tude free class, part of Boomberg's ShapeUpNYC initiative - you don't have to be a center member to attend, make sure you tell them that if the front desk gives you grief.

Easy Senior Yoga with the Galfromdownunder, Hudson Guild Community Center, 9th Ave at 17th St, Manhattan. Tuesdays 11am-noon.
Ongoing. My completely free, 'tude free Senior class - you have to be 55+ to gain admission to the center.

The Sivinanda Yoga Center , 24th between 7th and 8th Ave, has relatively affordable $10-12 classes daily. None of the teachers are paid - it is karma or "selfless yoga. Wonderful, donationa-appreciated Kirtans (meditation, chanting, discourse) Wed and Sunday - a real, 'tude-free oasis in the Manhattan maelstrom.

Yoga to the People: The original donate-what-you-can-but-$10-is-nice yoga studio, with several locations. The one with 3 floors in the village does get mighty crowded ...

Are there more?

$10 seats: World Class dance diversity at the JOYCE THEATER, Chelsea, Manhattan

2010-01-25T16:25:00.000-08:00

The Joyce, a neighborhood dance theater in Chelsea, Manhattan, reminds me of Dr Who's Tardis: a modest, low key, retro frontage that opens up into a giant internal world of global dance entertainment. It's not that the theater is huge - the tremendous variety of shows simply makes it seem that way.

In recent times they've started offering $10 seats, thereby putting world class dance within reach of a huge and recession-strapped audience. And if you've never been to a dance performance and experienced the psychological boost it gives you, you're in for a treat.

$10 buys you seats in the very front row, "the bleeding nose seats", where, unless you're tall or sneak a cushion inside, you will possibly see the show from the dancer's ankles up. But choreographers make sire a lot of action happens above the ankles, so for the amazing price, it's a no-brainer.

I might be the only person on the world that believes watching dance actually has a positive physical effect on your body - even though you're just sitting in a seat. Having spent an hour or more immersed in a display of the human body moving with levity and grace, you actually float up out of your seat and walk different. I remember watching mogul skiing championships on TV for hours, then experiencing a boost in confidence when I stepped onto skis (and I'm no skier). So you can consider the $10 like a visit to a dance-exercise class. Well, an adjunct at least.

I absolutely love the retro neon sign, which I sincerely hope they never, ever 'update'. It's even maintained its retro lettering for each show - I happened to stroll past when the sign guy was hanging the letters up for the next act:

Photo by Andrew Collins at this link

One area that could really do with a bit of revamping, is their downstairs bar area. It seems like a dead end, so people tend to congregate upstairs. My 72 year old mother enunciated the problem: "Teal, ugh, they need to repaint it and maybe put some mirrors on the back wall." I thought of initiating a Joyce community initiative to help refurb it - in fact, a stroll around the streets of Manhattan often reveals enough discarded designer object d'art to redo the dingiest dive ...

From my Galfromdownunder Uncut blog, May, 2009:

Last night we scored $19 frontish-row tickets to the most amazing, trippy, surreal, illusionist dance performance I've seen since Philippe Genty - MOMIX's 'Botanica' at the Joyce Theater. OK, I saw PG a looooong time ago. Perhaps this stuff is now par for the course...

"It's like Circ du Soleil before the latter went all commercial," said mum. Google MOMIX and you'll see it's commandeered by a truly Dali-esque character-choreographer, Moses Pendleton.

It opens with a stunning multimedia closeup of a rose that recedes slowly into deep space. Then this ghostly 30' (40?) tall plant costume wafts on stage, opening and closing like a giant jellyfish on a stalk. Three maidens in white virginal dresses rise from the billowing sheeted floor to frolic with its fuzzy tentacles.

Then there's an eye-popping blackout scene where only the bobbing and twisting lace-covered arms and shins of dances are illuminated in glowing green light, resembling caffeinated glowworms going troppo in a dark cave.

A gal did this amazing spinning thing with a hoop of floor-length beaded strands on her head. Mum dryly remarked "now if we tried that spinning beaded lampshade trick we'd end up with it wrapped around our necks."

Her favorite was the gal who did a conceptually simple but stunning piece where she writhed in a skincolored bodysuit on a tinted, tilted mirror surface - a 'hall of mirrors' idea pushed to the max.

A jaw dropper was this enormous, rubbery and anatomically-correct Triceratops skeleton ridden slo-mo-rodeo style by a semi-naked goddess, while in the background a bunch of rock-like creatures engulfed and cavorted with naked bodies. The museum of Natural History oughta get this act into their lobby to jazz up their dinosaur bones exhibit ... in short, A MUST SEE. Our cheapseats were quite acceptable, as some of the scenes best viewed from further back appeared on video simulcast on a giant screen at the back ...

Momix are coming back mid 2010. I'm so there!

Joyce Theater

www.joyce.org

175 8th Avenue
New York, NY 10011-1694
(212) 242-0800

$3.50: MUJI's minimalist metrosexual toothbrush

2010-01-15T06:31:00.000-08:00

TWO MONTHS after returning from my whirlwind bike+bullet train visit to Japan, I'm still turning Japanese. I'm cooking up a nabe storm in my Kyoto nabemono, I'm drinking sencha+matcha at all the wrong moments (like before going to bed) and I'm leafing luxuriantly through the copy of The Aesthetics of the Japanese Lunchbox by Kenji Ekuan "one of Japan's foremost industrial designers".

Ekuan-san romances the minimalist, orderly tension of the bento box with such a lyrical reverence I wouldn't be surprised if he had something to do with the design of this toothbrush.

This is just toothbrush. Thank god. It's not an mp3 player to groove along to while you floss. It's not a vibrating wand with meat-seeking infra-red technology to hunt and destroy trapped flesh of dead animal from your fajita binge. It's not an exercise in Pantone mayhem and ergonomic design overkill that typifies the average Oral-Turbo-ABC.

It's actually even less than your average, ugly, overwrought toothbrush. It's a barely-there, colorless handle, smooth and minimally sculpted, with no weird kinks and bends, ending in a brush that can actually duck behind the molars in the balcony seats. In fact, the bristles themselves are "rounded" to further reach those spots where floss fears to thread, although Muji also sells a slightly cheaper, "flat bristle" version - why, I have no idea.

The complete absence of color is restful. Perhaps it really is designed for die-hard metrosexual bachelors, who have no need for a pink or other colored version sitting in the rack to know which is theirs.

Radical idea: Imagine using merely the dictionary definition as a design brief?

toothbrush |ˈtoōθˌbrə | noun
a small brush with a long handle used for cleaning the teeth.

Before spotting this piece of marvellously modest Muji minimalism, both Stateside and Tokyo-side, I went to the usual place - a drugstore - to buy a toothbrush. I was bailed up for several minutes trying to reconcile the bewildering array of contorted, technicolor offerings. Like these:

I mean, holy cavity, what is that? I feel like it came from the 8-and-under section of Toys'R'Us, like the bristles are going to give me blue or purple teeth, and how much extra am I paying for some fancy die-cutting machine to sculpt all those graphical swooshes and dots? Have you not heard of "blue and green should not be seen, without a color in between?"

Now don't get me wrong - I am as much a lover of color and and bling and out'n'out maximalism when done right. But the Sagrada Familia these ain't.

In my FastCompany blog I wrote about Feldenkreis and the perils of escalation - otherwise known as "overkill". The product of overkill is ugliness. An overloaded piece of "pizza sushi", as my Japanese friend calls it - groaning under the weight of avocado, fish roe, mayonnaise, mango, tempura - is flavor ugliness. A boss that says "and if you do it again," after you've said "It will never happen again, boss", is personality ugliness. An overproduced studio track is ... Barry Manilow (no personal offence to Bazza, he's a good guy). OK, make that Celine Dion.

No doubt the manufacturer of the above blingy brushes will insist that focus groups like them. Well, when you force people in a fluorescent-lit, carpeted-partition room on a Tuesday night to focus on a bunch of objects on a white table, they'll eventually end up growing on you like a wart. How many of you have flicked though the unfathomable dross in an airplane duty-free catalog;then, for god's sake, ended up actually buying some bling at 30,000 feet in a frenzy of boredom?

Visual and aural escalation creates an environment of cacophany, causing dizziness, confusion, irritation and stress, ultimately leading to the consumption of happy pills, alcohol, therapy and television shopping. Include in this, road rage, stripmalls edged with awful neon lighting, Build-A-Bear - you get the idea.

Overwrought technicolor toothbrushes like this must be stopped.

Thank Buddha I can gaze through the barely-there, unobtrusive handle of my Muji toothbrush, and feel a sense of calm and clarity wash over me like ripples over pond of fat koi. Throw away your meds, buy a Muji toothbrush and notice a visible difference to your life in just three gargles.

Now about escalated dental floss - that's another 20 minutes in the aisle ... don't get me started.

toothbrush |ˈtoōθˌbrə | noun
a small brush with a long handle used for cleaning the teeth.

Cheap'n'Choosy Shoesies: DSW Shoe Warehouse, Union Square, NYC

2010-01-03T17:41:00.000-08:00

A new spin on the dowdy old Aussie UGG (sheepskin) boot - a decidedly Caucasian geisha by Ed Hardy

Oh woe is me.

The signs of ageing are happening at both poles - I'm plucking out the first strands of gray hair, and ... carting the nth pair of perfectly good shoes to the Salvation Army.

Yep, my feet have slowly but surely spreading over the years, from a petite size 5 at age 17 to almost a 7 (!) at age 47. Does gravity really suck that bad?

Now in my younger years I'd be rejoicing - what a perfectly legitimate excuse to follow in Imelda Marcos' stiletto-steps. I challenge all but the most die hard Tomboys to deny they had a personal warehouse of both silly and sane shoes between age 20 and 40.

Lately, I'm just disgruntled because it means having to replace perfectly good shoes that seemed to fit two years ago with new ones - just so I can walk more than a block without ending up hammer-toed.

But it's not all bad. I've come to genuinely believe that shoes are the single most important item in your wardrobe. Unlike clothes, they have to fit very well, because all your weight is distributed over them. Your arches and ankles are like the basement parking lot of a skyscraper - holding the whole thing up on stilts. If you're unhappy way down there, the rot will rise to the top.

With this in mind I dropped off 6 pairs of my most treasured shoes at the local Salvation Army. These included my beloved Harley Davidson boots, size 5 1/2, that I bought in London in 1997 and did most of my early travels in them. There was an extremely versatile pair of size 6 DKNY Gestapo boots (that's not the model name but it's what I call them) I bought only two years ago and wore everywhere but in the shower (yes, I even slept in them once). Plus some terrifically quirky other shoes I'd been hoarding for 20 years. The one thing in common - they were all now too small!

I then headed to DSW, a very large discount shoe store in Union Square, New York City.

Now I've been shoe shopping in Singapore, Japan, and Italy and beyond. I, and seems like many other women I talk to, concur - there is nothing like New York for shoe shopping - for both price and selection. Wandering around Rome, it was like all the interesting stuff had been exported somewhere else, and everything was $200 Euro. Imagine a price in NYC, replace the $ sign with the Euro sign, and leave the number part intact. That's what it costs to be in Europe. In Japan, someone bailed me up while on my bicycle and asked about my DKNY boots. They claimed they could not get the same subtle styling and quality, in Japan. This I find hard to believe, but there do seem to be a lot of buttons'n'bows on basically everything in Japan ...

DSW, which stands for "Designer Shoe Warehouse" is a virtual shoe-nami of shoes. The aisles of shelves are arranged in the longest rows you have ever seen, but no higher than chest height, with the shoes perched on top. This enables you to stand at the door and survey the entire sea of footwear in a single glance. You can then head straight for the boots, the sneakers, or whatever you're looking for. From a merchandising point of view, I think it's brilliant. It's as if the company realizes that people don't actually want to spend time shoe shopping, they just want to land on the right shoe for the right price - the faster the better - then get out of there, and get a life (wearing the shoes).

Ugg Boots from Australia and all their lookalikes are the current rage everywhere in NYC. Downunder we use them for scuffling around the house in winter, or looking tough if we were actually one of the tough kids at school (I wasn't). In NY it's high fashion. I don't like them because they tend to slump after while and resemble a tired old dusty donkey, only not as appealing. But they're sellin', for $150 or more.

Here at DSW there were stickers on everything ranging from 30 to 80 percent off. I spotted a pair of Kenzo flats previously priced at $400 or something ridiculous, now half price and 80% off that. No wonder, slipping my foot into them I could not imagine a less comfortable shoe.

I even spotted some Gucci loafers, which I found fascinating for their lore. I felt compelled to buy them just as a collector's item, a relic of the excessive 80's to go with my clapped out Tizio lamp. Then I discovered a whole pile of them, with uncharacteristic hiking soles, at 40% off - as if mass produced purely for the label-conscious Asian market.

You can see the rest of my shoe-capade in the above movie. I ended up walking out with a $55 pair of fake fur boots size 7, 30% off. which I returned the next day because they were too hard for my poor old feet. I need more cushioning too. The no-questions asked 30-day return policy is one good thing about DSW and a lot of places in America. Here's to spreading feet, and spreading the word!

DSW (Nationwide locations)
http://www.dsw.com
40 East 14th Street
New York, NY 10003
212-674-2146
Sun 10am-8pm, Mon-Sat 10am-10pm

Wholesale fashion @ NY Garment District: Happening Fashions et al

2009-12-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

This is one of the many rambling wholesale outlets in the Garment District with their questionable garish offerings in the window and racks of samples out on the pavement for $25.

But this one has great leather coats, jackets, dresses. And surprise, surprise, if the clearly non-commercial shopper walks in, the laid back dude patrolling the racks of fur leather etc will sell you the odd one-off wholesale. I suspect that if you've made the effort to come all the way to NYC he might as well.

Anti-fur people stop reading here...
I'm not really a fur person - I tend to wear the fake fluff. But I picked up an amazing Jean Harlow like rabbit fur stole for $40. It was made from the offcuts of fur I suspect, it has a kind of 'bobbly' texture.
Rabid vegans stop reading here...
I have to say, nothing warms like fur. I bought it for a friend's grandmother to sit around in her armchair while the snow rages outside, reading a book without having to don a giant sweater or a burdensome blanket (which never seems to say closed in FRONT of you let's face it). It works toasty-fantastic. She roundly rejected it because of the chocolate brown color, said it made her feel old. And that a rabbit died making it. But proceeded to happily eat turkey, ham, beef and whatever at the Christmas buffet. Go figure. So I'm wearing it.

They also gave these amazing, floor length leather coats, fully lined with fur, for about $250.

About rabbits. They are a renewable resource, inexpensive and low impact to produce (you can't stop them reproducing if you tried), and every part of the animal can be used. I use to breed them as pets. I believe if you're going to reject rabbit fur then you should immediately stop wearing or using anything made of leather, including your watchband, iPhone holder, belt etc. Since I admit I have leather sandals, and a leather jacket, I'm not going to have anyone accuse me of being a hypocrite. If they can invent lightweight, non-animal textiles that don't pollute the planet in production and don't sweat then stink to high heaven under serious use, I'll switch.

Fur and leather aren't the only things on offer here. I also bought a killer turtleneck dress for $20 ("retails for $69") - see picture - as for the bag, why you can read about that here.

I really like poking around the Garment District! It's just the threads, without the marketing hype. You can even hear the store attendant's boss yelling at him and down the phone and not caring who knows it like some Joe Pesci movie. Hey, this is New York!

Happening Fashions
209 W 37th St # A
New York, NY 10018
(212) 221-7977
Email: happeninginc@aol.com
Website: http://www.happeningfashions.com - but it doesn't seem to go anywhere useful

FREE: Kayaking on the Hudson (that's right, NYC)

2009-12-18T13:53:00.000-08:00

Kayaking in NYC Photo Gallery

Now that it's too damn cold to do stuff like put on a life jacket and shorts and get get whipped by subzero Manhattan tradewinds ... here's a joyous post about what you can do sometime next year.

Free kayaking. On the world famous waterfront of NYC. You heard it right! It's all thanks to the rabid enthusiasm of the collective at http://www.downtownboathouse.org who offer weekend and weekday paddles, all equipment supplied.

First, make sure you get to the right place.

To get to say, the Pier 96 location, subtract 40 from 92 and it's at 56th street.

I have no idea how one would find that out except I got it from one of the head honchos there, the Lord of Logos Michael Samuel. If you can undistract yourself from the big list of logos he's famously designed (list the History Channel Logo, Sears, Tasty Delight etc etc) you will find that he wields a paddle as impressively as his lightpen.

I'll be posting a movie here shortly of the action on the water. Meanwhile, check out the photos above.

Stand by ...

Curry Rice: Japan's cheapest and choosiest family meal

2009-11-24T20:16:00.000-08:00

What's the most eaten meal in Japan?

It's NOT sushi. It's not even ramen. Nope, it's this thing called curry rice.

Curry rice appears on practically every budget menu in Japan. You can buy it to go for around $3-4, when most simple noodle dishes or soups range from 600 yen or $US6.50. Curry rice is the staple of millions of ordinary Japanese families, and even more geeky bachelors, I bet.

It's even been immortalized by this miniature curry rice meal I found at Kid Robot in NYC.

So what is it?

It's basically made from a pre-packaged curry rice cube that comes in a packet - they call it a roux, and the competition to make the perfect roux is stiff.

Now of course, you can get this exact same kind of thing from India, China, Malaysia and so on.

But if you read Japan's S&B Foods site, they'll convince you that Japanese curry is the best, because the guy who made a fortune out of it sought to refine it, whereas other countries use it to "disguise the smell of rotting food". Well, that's how S&B would have you believe it.

I brought a couple of packets of the stuff back from my first ever visit to Japan this year.

I have to say it's the fastest meal in the east - just saute some root veges and a bit of meat (optional), cook in some water for 20 mins then melt the cubes into the pot until they dissolve and thicken to a decidedly brown, thickish gravy.

Of course, any pre-mix that requires next to zilch effort like this must be full of mysterious ingredients that would make you shudder if you could read the Japanese on the packet.

However, S&B assure us that the roux contains, among other mystery ingredients, "6 kinds of vegetables" which would certainly explain the slightly sweet, well balanced flavor of the resultant curry. In fact, the orange colored dressing you see on most Japanese salads is often a puree of vegetables and fruits, seasoned to taste. In comparison, I've found most other curry pastes too harsh, too hot, too heavy on one or more spices. Nothing like a vege smoothie to make a great curry or sauce base!

I'd recommend tracking down these cubes in a Japanese supermarket. There is another line S&B make called Golden Curry, which distinguishes itself by being packaged in English, but I've tried these in the past and they just don't taste as good.

Now all I need is a hungry family of 4 and a hubby that doesn't cook to really feel like a Japanese supermom. SUGOI!

More Japan on a Friday here on my Galfromdownunder Upover blog and even more Japan than you can stand at my Bike Friday in Japan 2009 report

ALOHA: Cheap (but not Cheesy) Cheesy Hawaii foods

2009-11-15T22:13:00.000-08:00

Here's an Gal golden oldie - a short clip from my Hawaii 2005 trip where I sampled a number of cheap'n'choosy Hawaii treats like musubi, super hygienic nori rolls and even a Hawaiian McFeast.

This was pre-YouTube, and before I knew how to wield a digital camera like a steadycam, but you get the idea!

Hawaii Food Movie Clip (a Quicktime movie)

$10 (plus tax): Takashimaya Pressed Salmon and Cucumber Sandwich

2009-11-14T20:44:00.001-08:00

This one barely scrapes in under the Cheap'n'Choosy banner, but I enjoyed it so much I'm going to include it.

Picture this: a rainy, drizzly day, I'm hobbling around having just returned from 5 weeks' customer evangelizing in Singapore (eating durian of all things) and Tokyo, having put my back out on the last day of the trip. Straight from the chiropractor, I need some neutral place to chill, neither restaurant nor bar nor noisy hard-chaired cafe to grab a bite where I won't be jostled or have to suffer loud music or a cooler-tha-thou 'tude, which has a bit of cushioning behind the lumbar region.

I know ... a department store cafe!

A hotel would be a close second, except they tend to be, well, a bit hotelish, and they don't stop pestering you with their pricey bar menu. A museum or art gallery cafe would be a close third, except you're talking hard floors, even harder chairs and uncosy cavernous dimensions. Oh yeah, and people pushing around dirty dishes trollies.

A department store cafe tends to be upholstered for the lunching lady set, and staff let you linger as long as you like to collect your thoughts and tally your impulse purchases, knowing you're taking a respite from spending money and thus allowing them to be paid. Suitably refreshed, you'll continue to the other floors and spend more money.

Traipsing through Henri Bendels, Bergdorf Goodman and so forth, I'm disappointed. I discover New York doesn't have the kind of spacious, elegant shopper's oases like Chicago's flagship Carston-Pirie Scott and Marshall Fields (now Macy's). The NY options are either crowded, might-as-well-be-a-bar scenes like the top floor of Bergdorf Goodman, or small afterthought nooks serving the usual overpriced sandwiches with arugula that you can make yourself.

Takashimaya's NY store is the best of the rest, because, at least it's cozy with a Japanese bent, making a bit more interesting.

So that's where I headed.

It a small space adjoining a pricey tea shop in the basement. The menu includes the priciest bento box since Iron Chef Morimoto, at $19-21. It didn't look particularly interesting after the bentos I had in Fukuoka. For a start, it contained western ingredients. Please don't give me a bento box with western ingredients, it's as incongruous as drinking Diet Coke out of a coconut shell ...

But this one sandwich caught my attention:

"Pressed Rice Salmon and Cucumber Sandwich"

It's basically 4 crustless sandwiches' using sushi rice instead of bread, pressed with cucumber, salmon, horseradish mayonnaise and a fairly generous lump of seaweed in the middle. So you could call it a sushi sandwich.

It just hit the spot. I can see it would be popular with the nibbling set (most women).

At $10 it's one of the most reasonable options on the menu.

I ordered an iced matcha and my check ballooned by another $5.50. But it's an excellent matcha, whipped with a real bamboo tea whisk. It's also a *good* matcha - perhaps the $25/200-serve box they sell in the tea shop. It certainly tasted better than the $5/20 teabag green tea I brought back from Japan.

I watched as well groomed women with smooth, blonde, sex in the city 'do's sat in twos or fours, eating and chatting, their $400 leather tote bags slouched casually at their feet. Many ordered the western style sandwiches and a glass of wine, others ordered the Bento Box.

I'd go back for the sandwich. Not that it's particularly outstanding, but sometimes you just want a break from Pret-a-manger, pizza, hoagies and paninis... care to join me?

Galfromdownunder in Japan

The Tea Box Restaurant
Basement Level,
Takashimaya,
693 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022
phone:1-800-753-2038, 1-212-350-0100
Between 54th and 55th Street, on the east side of Fifth Avenue

Store hours
Monday - Saturday, 10:00AM - 7:00PM
Sunday, 12:00 - 5:00PM

July 4, Independence Day, 12:00 - 5:00PM

$6.95: Tebaya Fried Chicken Wing (from Nagoya with love)

2009-10-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

I borrowed this shot from Michael G on Yelp because I ate mine too fast.

I'm off to Japan, for the first time in my life. (UPDATE: Here's what it was like).

It will be my first visit ever visit. I confess I've been getting stuck into these addictive fried chicken wings from a little hole in the wall around the corner called Tebaya. I've eaten them THRICE in the same week, I'm ashamed to say, because I supposedly don't eat MEAT and FAT and SALT in such quantities. What's happening to me? And how can they make the middle part of a chicken wing taste so amazing? This is how. The process, called teba, involves marination then double frying - once to remove the fat but leave the collagen, then once again to crisp what's left, then sprinkled with sesame seeds. The result is incredibly tasty, and not as greasy as you would imagine.

I end up sitting there, in the window where everyone can see me, gnawing the ends off almost the entire bone. Like when I was a kid, dad would make honey soy chicken wings in a big pot of black spattering oil and we'd sit around like lions attacking a carcass after Ramadan. There's a lunch special, 8 wings, with salad and drink, for $6.95. One their own, the wings are slightly less cheap'n'choosy, because 8 pieces are about $7 and 13 are about $9. You only get the middle part of the wing, mind you. Not the drumstick or the flappy part. Just the bit in the middle with the equivalent of the human ulna and radius in it.

I remember visiting Italy many years ago, eating ostensibly simply pasta with a marinara sauce, made from vine ripened tomatoes, bush ripened basil, ground ripened garlic and good olive oil. When I returned, I ate that same meal for weeks after. Who else has done that, like prolonging the trip?

Food is so comforting, so satisfying. Never underetimate the power of a perfect ripe fig, a slice of sweet peach. You don't need drugs or therapy or alcohol or television shopping, really. You just need to eat something that comes in it's own packaging with minimal intervention.

OK, there IS some intervention with these chicken wings. That's the only exception to the rule I'll make today.

Tebaya, 144 W19th St NY (between 6th and 7th Ave), 10011
Phone 212 924 3335

Free Delivery - since the wings are hotter'n'hell when they first come out of the fryer, there's chance they'll still be hot when they get to your pied-a-terre...

UPDATE: I got to try them in Nagoya thanks to Richard and Haruyo Gregg, but I have to say, the NY export at Tebaya NYC was better! Check out my Nagoya shots

FREE: (helmet) haircut @ Bumble & Bumble NYC

2009-08-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

Does it pass the test?

+++

MOVIE:
Bumble Razor Bob (4 min version, more hair action)
The above, shorter, 2-min version also appears on the tikit on Trial page

PHOTO GALLERY:
Inside Bumble & Bumble

+++

WITH HAIRCUTS in NYC ranging anywhere in price from $5.50 (yes I did see a sign somewhere and it said men AND women) to $250, a free NY 'do is worth its weight in overgrown bangs.

Bumble Model Project is a hip salon in the hipper-than-thou Meatpacking district with a 'university' that teaches experienced hairdressers from all over the country their signature 'razor bob' - a groovy haircut done with a traditional razor instead of scissors. Rather than use mannequins and wigs, they solicit willing guinea piglets form the freebie-lovin' public to be models, who thus get done for free. Super cheap and choosy if you're willing to give up your beloved Mamas, Papas and failed hippie look!

Why a razor? It's supposed to 'take off the weight, give more movement and texture', said my stylist of the day, Jessica (Jodie) Anderson.

Looking like she stepped right out of Sex in City, while I looked like I shuffled in from Celibacy in the Suburbs, Jessica was excited about returning to work the next day at Salon Red in Atlanta armed with her new secret styin' weapon.

Since I was just in hotter'n'hell Hotlanta on a speaking tour, I could have used a short haircut while there. You have to have enough hair to make it worth a bumble student's while, and I had to wait three months looking like cousin IT before I qualified. The first time it was cut really well by Jeff Stump, a young stylist from Costa Mesa.

I was also anxious to see if this cut would be a good antidote to "helmet hair". I told them last time, bike riders wanting a good anti-'helmet head' cut are an untapped market. The only problem is that the majority of cyclists are insanely cheap, never mind the choosy, so they'd never make any money on them.

A couple of instructors came by to make sure the razor was safely loaded, and that my 'bangage' (what a word) was falling to the ground the way it should.

Like many salons, Bumble make a lot of money on their branded hair potions and lotions. I looked at the ingredients, and being chemically literate due to childhood allergies to parabens and benzoates, noted that it was fairly standard stuff. If you don't have a problem with formaldehyde releasers and other questionable preservatives, go for it.

A lot of this 'product' was used on my hair, and since I'm super cheap'n'choosy I washed it all out and opted for what Jessica called 'your own product - NY grit, oil, grime, bit of dandruff thrown in for good measure ...' - now all we gotta do is stick it in a minimalist looking concrete bottle with a NY manhole cover for a lid and we got it made ...

The result? Take a look. It actually works really well for helmet hair!

I should mention I consider this excursion part of my ongoing tikit on Trial experiment in NYC. After being told on the phone "we don't have room for your folding bike" it turns out there was space to swing several cats end on end - the salon is cavernous and there is an enormous roof deck overlooking the Hudson. Proving that the convenience of folding bikes is not even on the radar of non-bicyclists. Moral: Just Show Up On It.

Bumble Model Project website

Jessica (Jodie) from Salon Red, Decatur, Atlanta, where haircuts appear to start at a very un-New York price of $35. Ask for her and her razor by (name).

That's the tool of the Bumble trade ...

SNEAKY: How to approximate a bottomless Latte: courtesy of Locanda Verde

2009-08-18T12:22:00.001-07:00

Continuing my tikit on Trial experiments, my folding friend and I ventured to Robert DeNiro's new eaterie, Locanda Verde. The place isn't cheap, but it's certainly choosy.

So how on earth does an upscale brunch qualify for this blog?

Justin, the Leo DeCaprio lookalike who served "il-latterate" yours truly told me why straight coffee drinkers get refills and latte drinkers don't ...

Fellow illatterates, you'll just have to watch the movie to find out.

MOVIE: The tikit on trial at Locanda Verde

More tikit on trial experiments

Left: A Brompton and a Bike Friday tikit parked just inside, the BMWs, Mercs and Aston Martins are languishing nearby in the gutter.

$5 nip and tuck: Express Tailor Service, Lower East Side, NYC

2009-08-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

That's what they charged me to take the waistline of my jeans in - and in about 10 mins flat. Nicely taken apart, cut, and re-sewn like new. Most other stores a few blocks west in Chelsea charge $15.

$15 was the quote for tapering the delightfully garish florid Debra Rodman shift I got from my favorite consignment store, New and Almost New. But the job was done properly - armhole binding opened and restitched, not simply run up both sides like I would have done if my sewing machine was her instead of downunder.

While I waited a woman brought in some green pants to be shortened and the hems were cut and sewn before she had a chance to sit down.

"$5," said the cashier.

"$4?" she ventured.

"OK, $4."

"You bargain here?" I asked her, incredulously.

"I do," she said. Pensioners (or pensioner-apparents) can get away with anything!

At $5 there can't have been a lot of profit in it. I just hope the workers are treated well.

What's interesting is the two rows of hombres beavering away at the machines - "not a mujer in sight" I said in my best Espagnol. Turns out they're largely from Puerto Rico and Mexico.

There's a plaque on the wall that says "Best Quickie Tailor" awarded by New York Magazine.

I actually dropped the dress off at 8pm - they were still open although the sign says the close at 7pm.

"You're the classiest customer who's come in this store," said the cashier in Spanglish. Classy? I noted the smart gent who came in to collect his Armani suit, seemed unhappy with the job, and showed it.

"I mean friendly", said the cashier. I'm glad they didn't mind me practising my Spanish on them. Love that language ...

Express Tailor Service
92 Rivington St, New York, NY 10002
(between Orchard and Ludlow)
Phone 212 674 7341
Open 7 days 9am to 7pm but they were still open when I swung by at 8pm and took my order.

FREE MAP (if you can get your hands on one): NYC's best map

2009-08-05T10:25:00.001-07:00

Doncha hate maps that ...

a) Tear along the creases, especially when flapping about on a windy street corner, and gets soggy when wet.
b) Omits streets. I'm sorry, a useful map has to have EVERY STREET marked to be called a map.
c) Is super detailed in some respects, but not others.
d) Folds stupidly, like a bowl of fruit, or so you mangle trying to fit in your pocket/on your bike handlebar clip

I discovered what I consider York's best map - all things considered being a freebie, assuming you can get your hands on one. It's by a company who craftily call themselves NYTAB.COM - New York Travel Advisory Bureau, sounding as government-sanctioned as "Department of the Interior". In fact it's a private venture that, for the sin of such a ballsy moniker, redeems itself by giving the goods away free, even providing nice downloads on their site.

The map is a simple, envelope-sized concertina shape with subway lines crystal clear. It names every street. The best feature is you can fold to precisely the area you're traveling in and flip it a page forward or back, one at a time as you go up or downtown. No massive unfolding or refolding. Much noted by a design-efficiency nazi like yours truly.

Admittedly, the paper stock is just a simple semigloss, so I got mine laminated at Staples for $5. It was worth it. Now it's ballistic.

I would love arrows to indicate if a street is one-way, and have the bike lanes superimposed too, but that's the cyclist in me.

And yes, the print might be a leeeeetle small for some.

And if they could somehow incorporate the elusive restroom circuit without the map becoming busy ... well ...

But all things considered, it's been my saving grace when out boulevardeering, as my entrenched NYer friend calls it.

Entranced by this map, I tracked down one of the owners, Jim Sorrell and met him at his favorite coffee nook in the South St Seaport.

"It's actually a map for concierges at hotels," he explained.

Yes, it does indeed have the usual ugly tourism ads on one panel - Jim does need to eat kobe beef once in a blue moon - but they are carefully placed to not overwhelm the map itself. And apparently, the ads really sell, says Jim.

"Amazingly successful, we have a waiting list for space."

Of course, concierges are wined and dined once a year to make sure they keep handing out the map, but since it's so useful it deserves to be supported.

Go track one down now, I expect to have mine in the orange pocket of my Traffic Cone Bag for many years to come. They're not building new streets in Manhattan any time soon. Now if they would just do one that goes up past 135th street to the very tip ...

<$5: Cool Laptop Sleeve

2009-04-27T19:25:00.000-07:00

Latest C'n'C tip comes appears on my Gal blog, in conjunction with my Traffic Cone bag. Take a look!

FREE: Buddakan Dining Room in Chelsea, Manhattan

2009-02-10T12:16:00.001-08:00

Looking like the mansion scene in "Eyes Wide Shut" with an orgy of socializing rather than shtupping, this cavernous restaurant/bar is total trip for the senses.

It features a massive, chandelier-feastooned central dining room harking from some Edwardian era (or a Hollywood set thereof), flanked by little dark nooks and crannies and passageways crammed with people drinking and schmoozing and shouting about the meaninglessness of life and 30 Rock. It's like being in one of the big ballrooms of the Titanic before it sprung a leak.

Best of all, unlike most nightspots in Chelsea, there's no velvet rope and unhappy attitude that goes with it - probably because it is a restaurant, not a nightclub, and restaurants always need all the chompers they can get.

A server said "We're in the business of hospitality." And he said it with a genuine smile. Whoa! They clearly have a great boss or they're on drugs. You can always spot a bad boss - it comes out in the faces, actions and if really bad, words of their employees. There seems to be a ton of employees too - there's even one who greets you on arrival and farewells you when you leave. I get the impression the owners are either Japanese or are clearly catering to the Asian market where politeness is appreciated and noted - and the opposite is remembered forever and passed on to whoever we can tell (speaking as a discerning Asian).

My favorite spot is downstairs in one of the bar areas, where I like to plonk myself a super wide day bed in front of a tiny, round, dimly candlelit table. There I choose either a sub-$10 Asian infused bar snack or cocktail and make it last, while soaking up the atmos. You get attentive service from groovy, attitude-free staff. Cool!

Apparently it's a chain - but that's OK. We don't mind if you do it this well.

I like to remind people that when you go to a place like this and pay $10 for a bar snack or $12+ for a cocktail, you're not paying for the ingredients in said snack or cocktail. You're enjoying the millions of dollars worth of equity and venture capital that someone else has put into it for your enjoyment - for a modest fee. This is truly what I mean, when I say "cheap'n'choosy".

Buddakan NYC
75 9th Ave
(between 15th St & 16th St)
New York, NY 10011
(212) 989-6699
www.buddakannyc.com

$22 Haircut with da works @ Jun Salon (Chinatown, NY)

2009-01-14T09:59:00.000-08:00

MULTIMEDIA: $22 'do with the works @ Jun Salon

"It's just hair."

This, from a card-carrying hairdressing salon owner. It's a statement that might freak some cashed-up coiffsters right out, and put others at ease - like me.

After umming and ahhing at spending $65-100+ on a trim in Manhattan I thought, there must be a cheaper, yet choosier, way.

I mean, look at our Asian hair - straight as the highway to hell and in any color you like as long as it's black - what's so hard about that?

I decided to try the well-reviewed-considering (see yelp.com) Jun Salon in Chinatown.

Jun is an unpretentious gal who reminds me of one of my favorite gal cousins. She says she use to do $105+ Uptown cuts before she went cheap'n'choosy - and many of her clients followed her, not minding having to pick their way along the cracked and cabbage-strewn sidewalks of Chinatown for their discount 'do.

There is something twee (we use the word 'daggy' downunder) about China town decor - the surgery-grade fluorescent lighting, hard white tiles, red lanterns and Taiwanese auto mechanic's calendars featuring off-duty Singapore girls ... yet as a Chinese descendent I find it strangely comforting as well.

Be prepared for a super lengthy shampoo and scalp massage. We're talking two different kinds of shiatsu and several sudses - "to relax the hair", said my attendant. Oh my god. Heaven. And to prove it, my movie got an inordinate number of hits on YouTube right after I posted it, from the shampoo kinky brigade. I wrote about this strange phenomenon here.

"What, you never seen Warren Beatty in Shampoo?" chided a friend.

Then followed a full service cut and blow dry ranging anywhere from a trim to a total transformation - all for just $22 ($18 for guy cut).

I've made a project of getting a cheap'n'whatever haircut in every country I visit - a $2 re-style in Peru, a trim in Cuba, a scissoring by an olde school 'dresser complete with those big boofy hairdryers that look like cranial MRI units in Dublin.

Results vary - my last cut was a disaster, and required styling with a brush and hair dryer, things I have no patience or room for when on the road. It was layeres and ended up like hippy dippy mama.

"You need wash and go," said Jun, showing me a bob style that was long at the sides and shorter at the back, exposing, dare I say, a little neck, "to make you look taller," she said.

When I hesitated, she said, "it's just hair. It will grow."

A bit of Zen and the art of pageboy maintenance never went astray ...

Afterwards, you can walk next door for terrific dim sum at Ping's, recommended by the Filipino client in the chair next to me.

What's not to love? Keep up the great work, Jun, by keeping down the great price!

Cheap'n'Chocolatey: Galfromdownunder 3+ minute Vegan Chocolate Mug Cake

2009-01-08T15:12:00.001-08:00

This is my slightly healthier spin on the 5-minute Chocolate Mug Cake recipe circulating furiously around the internet.
I say 3+ minutes because abandoning it in the nuker for 5 minutes can lead to burned bits - better to coax it gently to doneness ... here's me doing the dishes in County Kerry back in 1999

Galfromdownunder 3+ minute Vegan Chocolate Mug Cake
(with original, non-vegan substitutions indicated)

4 Tablespoons buckwheat pancake mix (or ordinary flour)

3-4 Tablespoons Splenda/Stevia (or sugar)

2 Tablespoons good cocoa (I used Fair Trade Organic unsweetened)

2 tbsp no-sugar fruit conserve (not in original recipe - I used Wholefoods grapejuice sweetened Raspberry spread)

1 glob of soy yoghurt (or 1 Egg)

3 Tablespoons almond milk (or regular milk/half&half)

3 Tablespoons grapeseed oil (or regular oil)

Few chocolate drops/chunks (optional - I used 70% chunks because I like it dark)

Few nuts (optional)

1 Mug

Method:

Mix dry ingredients in 1 mug.
Mix wet ingredients in another.
Make well in the dry mug and pour in wet.
Mix well with a teaspoon - don't leave flour in corners, not a good look
Mixture should resemble thick pancake mix in consistency. Add more liquid sparingly if too stiff.
Microwave 3 mins on high - until cake rises and then settles in mug.
Test with knife - check sides too.
If gooey in center, m'wave 1 minute more, test, m'wave 30 sec more, test.
Should need no more than 5 mins total.
Let rest in mug a bit - it's still cooking.
Run knife around and turn out on plate.
Good with cream, ice cream or someting baaaaad.

I'd post a picture but it was eaten by the occupants of this house before I got a chance!

I slammed this one together after my Uncle sent me the original and I couldn't be bothered going out in a Manhattan snowstorm to buy the ingredients. I've always been partial to getting to a destination via an uncommon route - story of my life. As a kitchen manager on a Vipassana course, I found a flour made from pulverized oats made a perfectly acceptable lasagne, sauce etc ...

Microwave cakes aren't new - there are moist, puddingy recipes based on pumpkin and other ingredients dating back to 20-25 years ago ... as long as you don't mind a puddingy texture. And as long as you believe that microwaves don't do health-hazardous things to the structure of food as the Toaster Oven Lobby claims.

NY -$20 a pair: Dumpster Diving on the Upper West Side

2008-12-16T16:46:00.000-08:00

MOVIE: Dumpster Diving on the Upper West Side, NY

WHAT'S cheaper and chicer than finding a rococo chaise at Goodwill for a song? Pouncing on a pair of apple green boudoir chairs turfed on the pavement!

That's exactly what fellow Aussie Sarhys Page and I did after emerging from a cheap'n'choosy night at the Hudson Hotel.

I say a c'n'c because the cooler-than-thou Hudson, like so many multi-million yen hotels, may be enjoyed for the mere price of a drink, no velvet rope suffered. Forget clubs with attitude plus, that's what the hospitality industry is all about, right? On this night I was carousing with the first person to give me a break in advertising downunder some 15 years ago, John Doorley, and budding Aussie actress Sarhys (pronounced Sar-reece), who happened to feature in the same issue of Aussie interview journal Dumbo Feather as I.
Planet pequeña!

But I digress ...

We stumbled out stone cold sober as you do on a c'n'c binge, to see this pair of ornate chairs perched on the pavement beside a pile of garbage bags.

"Oooooh, they'll match my kitchen perfectly!" squealed Sarhys. We hoisted them on our shoulders and made for the subway, getting all kinds of spontaneous comments from bemused security guards and the general public.

"You know you want 'em, getcha hairy eyeball off 'em!" yelled Sarhys over her shoulder in true blue Strine.

On riding them down the escalators (see the video) we faced envy as green as the fake leather upholstery.

"Ooooh, they'll match my kitchen perfectly!" squealed a woman to her friend. "I'll give you 30 bucks each for them!"

"Twenty bucks each," hissed a black gentleman lurking beside a post.

"Not enough!" shouted Sarhys.

"Tell him fifty!" advised another woman.

On the train we had the best seats in the carriage. I offered my seat to a fur trimmed matron with pursed lips who pursed them even tighter and looked the other way.

I left Sarhys to get them all the way to Bushwick in Brooklyn, where they now adorn her kitchenette.

"My housemates love 'em!" she texted.

Now this is what you really call .. Design Within Reach.

More Gal in NY

New York: Ducking overpriced workout gear at Daffy's

2008-11-02T10:25:00.000-08:00

THE MOMENT I found an impossibly cheap'n'choosy yoga class in Manhattan, the next task was finding cheap-not-cheesy workout gear.

By cheesy, I mean the ubiquitous pastel pink, ice blue and minty green styles of the styleless triathlon world replete with arbitrary detailing. Chintzy inserts, piping and words like "Workout World" - for those who regularly confuse their sweats with their Sunday burka - who pays these "designers"? It's as annoying as those no-doubt all-male designers who insist on making pastel pink hiking pants for women. Oh yeah, give me some camel shit to smear on 'em in Egypt ...

I also dislike the arbitrary ornamentation on running shoes too. They Inc. would tell you it's for technical reasons, but I doubt it. I have a pair of ASICS "neutral" runners recommended by the knowledgeable hasher who sold them to me. They look like a crazy paver sewed them. They're white and an equally mud-magnetizing pastel blue. Apparently white is perennially popular because psychologically the color makes people feel "faster", whereas black gives one the sensation of concrete feet. I believe the arbitrary detailing is merely to justify exorbitant prices while keeping poor Chinese workers who can never afford Lasik chained to their overlockers 17 hours a day.

But I digress.

The first and most carbon-footprint friendly place to look for clothing in general, is the Salvation Army, Goodwill and other thrift stores. In that order. Especially for jeans - if you insist on buying a pair of $250 jeans when you can't really afford it, you deserve all the 20% APY coming to you. After scanning the racks on the Salvo's 22nd and 8th outlet and finding nothing, I had to ask the assistant: just where is your workout gear?

"It's the first to go, 'cos of all the gyms round here," he said.

Seems that even in hipster-central Chelsea, no one cares about fancy workout gear. Perhaps because gyms are the last place to actually meet someone. You just don't talk to anyone in those places - they're either herniating on their 10th set of bench presses or trying to hide their breasts or buttocks from you in the communal change area - as if we all haven't seen one, seen 'em all.

Next stop: TJ Maxx and Filene's Basement. Here, it's all spendy Calvin Klein, Nike and Danskin - at $34.99 is still too much for a pair of yoga pants because you gotta buy three - you sweat, right? And, fellow shorty pantsters, if you're 5' nothing, forget it. As usual, the pants are not only too long, they flare at the wrong spot for the shorter woman, so even if you hem the bottom you end up looking stumpy. You have to run them in expertly and who's got time and money for that?

I stumbled into Daffy's by accident - I was waiting for the Talk to Talk Wireless Crackberry repair shop (148 W32nd, NY) to open when the skies opened. I took refuge The store on 34th St is inconveniently upstairs. You have to take an elevator. You stand there with "lady of leisure, rampant consumer, call me Imelda" written all over your face as you wait to be whisked upstairs. You pass Staples and a school of further education on the upper floors ... add "and you should be studying something and expanding your mind not your wardrobe," to the left cheek.

At first glance Daffy's looks, in a word, dowdy. All those cardigans and polyesters and slacks. Who wears this stuff? Someone. And no real 'designer' names to give it edge, despite the reviews.

Ahh, but descend to the 6th floor. That's where you find an entire wall - and then some - of workout gear.

I got a pair of Capezio Dancewear Capris for $11.99, down from $54. This is a genuine discount - it's full price in specialist ballet stores. There seems to be a range called Dee Ha or something, which is the main discount workout label. The tops, tanks, bras and combo top/tank/bras are good looking except I found the elastic shelf bra too tight for me, not matter whether I tried on XS, S or medium. By then the rest of it was hanging off me like a Sharpei dog so I gave up. But if it fits you - great!

There's Fila and a few other brands too.

Good luck, and if you're smallish and shortish, check out the kids wear on level 5. That's where I scored the pair of Gianni Ferre houndstooth strides you see below, for 25 bucks, down from $180. What spoiled brat gets to wear these threads? An overage brat like me.

www.daffys.com

New York: Downward Dog Days at a Buddha's price

2008-10-31T20:29:00.000-07:00

YESTERDAY I mentioned the donate-what-you-will daily yoga class at Laughing Lotus.

I did my second session this week, as one can, when a class is affordable and you're paid a Northwest salary in NYC.

The studio is on the third floor of an old building with an old lift and a big, cheerful orange and pink banner out front.

The 1 1/4 hour 'community class', offered at 2.30pm each week day, is taught by student or "blossoming" teachers, as they are called. The suggested donation on the website is $5.50, yet I understand attendees donate between $0 and the standard class price of $11, depending on their capacity. The donations are directed each month to a charity of the school's choosing - it was the Obama campaign at one time, the Tsunami another.

It's heated - great in winter - who needs Bikrim? It walls are painted with soft yet vibrant colors, depicting deities like Ganesha, "Lord of success and destroyer of evil and obstacles ... an elephantine countenance with a curved trunk and big ears, and a huge pot-bellied body of a human being."

It has ample change areas and mats to borrow. And the student teachers are, so far, excellent. I notice they teach with the kind of studied repetition and consistency you'd expect from students fresh from under a textbook, but this has huge advantages. For the first time in my life, I feel I am actually starting to remember the names of some of the poses or asanas. And I feel I can actually take home some sequences and start a home practice. Update: I have since become a certified Vinyasa teacher as of 2009

I like to use two mats because my cyclist's knees and shins demand it - or I'm gettin' old. If you're a hygiene freak, you might want to bring your own as you can be unlucky and grab a sweaty one, although the idea is to hang them up. Lately I've been bringing my a wafer-thin, foldable Gaiam Travel mat and placing it over a borrowed one.

Lotus sell some pretty fancy nice mats too, ranging from $40-50+ in the usual polarfleecy colors like purple and green. Some, like that Prana model, are strangely rubbery but pleasantly earthy, resembling a dirt floor.

My favorite teacher, Randi, a willowy Katherine Heiglesque blonde, introduced us to three poses I had never come across in 30 years of doing fairly straightforward Hatha yoga.

First, the Airplane: This is like a hovering forward splits in thin air - balanced only on your hands. It is remiscent of Circ du Soleil's "Dralion", where a Chinese pre-teen mimics a Swiss army knife with her body - balanced entirely on one hand. Except we got to use two (whew).

Second, the Bird of Paradise, where you (somehow) bring your your leg up from behind and hook it over your shoulder as effortlessly as a double-jointed egret.

And third, the Compass, which I can't quite remember but it got my problematic right shoulder out of hibernation.

Sprinkling a good, solid class with a couple of advanced poses gives even nervous students a bit of a thrill, in the hands of a teacher who knows how to be welcoming and non-intimidating.

In a departure from most Yoga Classes I've experienced, the teachers do use music in their routines. This is more the norm in A.D.D. NYC, and only once did I have a hard time hearing because a particular teacher chose some jazz numbers and had it turned up way high. You might hear anything from reggae to Gregorian chanting to Alanis Morrisette. Strangely, after a while it seems like the way it should be.

Got flexibility - i.e. your schedule? I love this class - a gift of health and wellbeing to the working class of NYC who don't report to Wall Street each day. Thank you Laughing Lotus.

Laughing Lotus
www.laughinglotus.com
Community Class Mon-Fri, 2.30 - 3.45pm
By Donation

Pictured: Colin Freestone, a cyclist with a serious yoga practice. Read more about him in this trip report.