Thursday, May 31, 2007

Too much sadness

A classmate of mine, Peter Odebjer, died yesterday in a motorcycle accident. He was 32 and from Sweden, a guy who was literally always on the go. Did things like fly airplanes, run marathons, drink like a fish, work with Doctors Without Borders in Darfur, and make other people feel good about themselves. I was fortunate to get to know him better in the past year, especially during a spring break trip to Japan. I had been very much looking forward to continuing the friendship.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Obituary

Xiao Hei, a 150-pound Neopolitan mastiff who loved to eat noodles and roll in the grass after a bath, died yesterday of natural causes. He was 10 years old.

Adopted by the Loh family as a puppy, Xiao Hei spent his early years going to work every morning at Mr. Loh's warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, where he honed his skills as a ferocious-sounding guard dog. On weekends, Xiao Hei accompanied the family on outdoor excursions. He enjoyed running away from ocean waves, plodding around shallow riverbeds, and eating snow during winter trips to the mountains.

Family members described Xiao Hei as a gentle giant who, despite his intimidating appearance, was always careful not to hurt any person, even by accident. In fact, the most effective way of getting Xiao Hei to release something in his jaws was always to jam one's hand into his mouth, which caused him to immediately let go.

The only creature on whom Xiao Hei ever took out his wrath was Cheeto, a fuzzy orange cat who was his tormentor until the day the dog struck back with a paw under a fence that clipped Cheeto's leg, sending the feline to the hospital.

Because of his heavy build, Xiao Hei understood he could never be a lap dog. When he wanted to feel close to one of his family members, he would content himself with plopping his bottom down on one of their feet. He had tender feelings, and was known, after a scolding, to hang his head or occasionally take himself to a far corner of the backyard to brood.

In later years, Xiao Hei was bothered by a hind leg injury that caused him to limp. But there were still good days, when he would charge around the backyard for no apparent reason, or roll around in the grass under a hot afternoon sun, snorting and growling to himself. One of Xiao Hei's favorite treats in his old age was the bowl of noodles or rice in warm broth that he would be fed every evening after the family's dinner.

Several family members were present in the backyard yesterday afternoon when Xiao Hei laid himself down one final time, on a pile of freshly-cut peach tree trimmings. He will be missed.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Naming is such sweet sorrow

mr. fob lives on. Not in name, but in spirit. This is the ethnic food exploration business that some business school friends and I started last year. We run tours at mom-and-pop restaurants that serve great authentic food from different countries.

The name mr. fob was a riff on FOB, which means fresh-off-the-boat, for the uninitiated. It's used to describe recent immigrants in the Asian community. In turn, the fobs call people like me ABCs (American-born Chinese). mr. fob was a character we created, a kindly middle-aged fob who knew all the great restaurants to go to, and not just Asian ones but miraculously also Oaxacan, Indian, Moroccan, and even Ethiopian restaurants.

Sadly, a few weeks ago our name got around to some people who found it offensive. So they wrote us a bunch of nasty emails and insisted we change it. After much internal debate, we agreed it was our best option.

We are reborn as Tastination. Taste + Destination.

It was quite a grueling brainstorming and selection process, and everyone defended their favorites (usually the ones they came up with) passionately. We could only consider names for which the URL was still available. (Found out there are lots of meanies out there who park URLs and don't use them, then try to charge you loads of money. Like this guy in La Habra who tried to get $10,000 from me for "Hungry Ninja.") In the end, we polled a couple of hundred of our friends and got about 75 responses with the overwhelming favorite being Tastination. We hope you like it.

Here were just some of the names we went through. We might have been a bit delirious when we thought of some of them. Don't ask.

aefla (authentic ethnic food lovers association)
begopa
bepoga
bouffedom
chewtrain
chezsauj
cuisinecompass
cuisineat
eatavenue
eatdownhome
eaticy
eatizen
eatore
eatwithfatty
ethnicfoodie
fattystable
fiestasauce
fiestysauce
fiestytofu
foobuff
fooddummy
foodluva
fooducate
foodventurous
foopert (or with PH)
foopin
foorney
fooyin
foozine
foreignfoodie
gogrubbin
goodwithchopsticks
howyoueat
mahndu
mrJuanTon
mrmandu
mrphoodie
myphood
outdiner
pantanie
pholla
phoodfinder
phoodfinds
phoodles
phoodtown
phorksticks
platefull
reefoo
udany
wantonton
wantony
wewillwokyou
wontanie
wontonie

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Chez Panisse

I'm in the middle of writing up a hellish real estate investment case (case study, for non-MBAs), but just wanted to post the menu I had with some friends at Chez Panisse on Friday. Liz and I drove up from LA straight to Berkeley, where Alice Waters' famous restaurant is located.

Friday, April 27 David's favorites

An apéritif (This was fruity, light and chilled... or am I confusing it with the dessert wine that the nice staff treated us to after the meal?)

King salmon paillard with fava beans and herb salsa (I thought a paillard was a flattened piece of meat that is then fried - chicken paillard, non? This was actually a most delicious salmon carpaccio. Fresh fava beans = awesome)

Handcut pasta with green garlic and morel mushrooms (This turned out to be a risotto. Very delicate. Some of my friends found it bland. Fresh English peas dotted the dish. I wish I'd kept the printed menu! Now it occurs to me there were lots of substitutions.)

Warm Paine Fram squab salad with Banyuls vinegar sauce, squab liver toast, roasted celery root, carrots, and artichokes (I was wild about this one. Though I could have had the squab a bit more well-done. Basically it was an entire squab, in lovely deboned slices; each of our plates came with 2 squab hearts, for some reason)

Rhubarb-strawberry coupe with ginger parfait (A nice ending: Sweet rhubarb paired with lovely local strawberries, including one tiny one with a stem left on. But even nicer was the aforementioned dessert wine on the house and the tour of the kitchen and chatting with one of the assistant chefs who was extremely wired, and maybe even on speed.)