Spendthrift Shoestring

On Yelp, Taste Good Malaysian Restaurant, and Group Evaluation

I've always resisted turning to sites like Yelp for restaurant recommendations in favor of the opinions of experts. The best restaurants, cafés, and other venues, I've always been convinced, are best divulged by people I've deemed to be experts—by staff writers at magazines and Web sites I like, or by friends with focused obsessions on the best beignets, street tacos, obscure cocktails, and other essential things. Or, alternately, if the experts in question are too snobby to recognize the ordinary brilliance in front of them, the best things fly below the radar altogether. The more plebeian types of superlative things are either very easy or very hard to find or they're expressly unpublicized or they're so plain and to the point that they escape acclaim. Until recently, my general aversion to review sites has approached the status of personal gospel.

On Sunday night, after a day of great eating with Matt and Nathan and Richard—Prime Meats for brunch and Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pies for a snack—we had a vague idea to look for dinner in Queens. I hopped onto Yelp on Matt's iPhone to do research. Matt* has taken to claiming that we've never been steered to a bad restaurant by Yelp. After thinking about it for a little while in the wake of our Sunday dining experience, I realize that he's right. I can't remember a single highly-recommended place on Yelp with multiple reviews that wasn't good.

On Sunday we settled on Taste Good Malaysian in Elmhurst Queens, a restaurant with very strong reviews, as an appropriate place to eat. And when we finally pulled up, I immediately had a great feeling about the place. It is a hole-in-the-wall with little in the way of signage and even less in the way of décor. The tables are worn and the clientele was almost entirely Malaysian. We ate lots of amazing grub, including popiah, roti with chicken curry sauce, tamu emas (blocks of golden tofu), and beef rendang. After returning home, I did some research and discovered that the restaurant has tons and tons of fans beyond the Yelp universe.

My conversion from skeptic to Yelp devotee is still cautious, but it marks a definite shift in my approach to the group evaluation function of social media. I've also been reading James Surowiecki's very convincing The Wisdom of Crowds and I am convinced that various of Surowiecki's points about the surprising accuracy of collective syntheses of information has had a hand in my evolution.

I won't stop hitting up my friends for tips or peruse the listings sections of magazines and blogs that I like, and I'm not ready to trust the crowds on every subject. (I'll forever be taking my own friends' evaluations of hotels and beach towns over those most popular on user-generated sites.) But I have complete faith that when dozens of random people rave about a restaurant in Elmhurst, they're most likely onto something.

*It was actually Richard who expressed things in these terms, but Matt has communicated this idea on several occasions recently.

South Carolina, Pimento Burgers, and Waffle House

This past weekend I went to Augusta, Georgia to a family wedding. The weekend was quite wonderful. I ate, among other things, grits and catfish and a tomato stew that somebody called pudding. And an amazing chicken pot pie. And fried pickle chips.

But that wasn't all. On the way down to Augusta from Columbia my sister and I followed John T. Edge's advice and stopped off very briefly at Kingsman Restaurant in Cayce for pimento burgers. Gorgeous. Now I only have 99 of his recommendations to go.

No trip to the South is complete without a pit stop at a Waffle House. I fell in love with Waffle House in 1990 on my first trip to the South. I love the simple diner aesthetic, the laminated menus, and the black-on-yellow signage. The grub is intense. At the right moments, it can hit the spot. Marisa and I found a nearly empty Waffle House yesterday afternoon near the Columbia airport full of friendly and talkative staff. It was an appropriate place to bid adieu to the region for the time being.

(Parting question: How popular would a single Waffle House in New York City be, on a sort of flagship abroad model? You'd have to wade through hipsters and Southern transplants to get in.)

List: White Slab Palace, Niemeyer, Promises

Back in New York and working away with Nathan on a big project. Three quick things.

1. White Slab Palace. Nothing makes me feel more like a curmudgeon than being annoyed by bad service. Most of the time, I don't really care if my waiter is preoccupied or off in his own world. But last night at White Slab Palace, the Swedishish place that has essentially replaced Good World, I found myself grumpy. The service was slow and clueless. I ordered Good World's signature Berzerker cocktail only to be told by a waitress that it wasn't on the menu. Then, after being promised a drinks menu that never arrived, I grabbed one off the bar and discovered that the Berzerker was indeed on offer. The grub was fine but nothing great. And there was a security guard who stood around blocking the route to the bathroom. A security guard? Really? The whole experience was a huge reminder that hipsterism and good dining in New York City are all too often mutually repulsive.

2. Niemeyer. I've had an architectural crush on Oscar Niemeyer's French Communist Party headquarters in Paris forever. It's sort of my dream building—modernist, brutal, undulating. It was only through poking around the other day online that I chanced upon some images of its interiors. Check out Olivier Pascaud's gorgeous photographs here. That conference room almost makes me want urgently to have French Communist business to attend to.

3. Promises. Photos of San Sebastián, Bilbao, and Santander to come.

Random Round-Up: SkyEurope, Schengen, Lea's Lumpia, More

I've been out of town for a week and a half and on Friday I take off again, so I'm doing lots of catching up. Here are a few stories and objects that have caught my eye.

1. SkyEurope is in trouble. Has been for a while, but things are looking even more difficult for the airline just lately.

2. Swiss airports are prepared for full integration with Schengen, due on March 29. Meanwhile, the fact that Liechtenstein remains outside of the agreement is costing Switzerland millions of francs in border patrol costs.

3. My friend Lea Romingquet is an amazing cook. Right now she's making and delivering homemade lumpia in the San Francisco Bay Area to order. Run, don't walk, to her lumpia blog. There's contact information there.

4. These photos have me ready for spring.

Garden & Gun's Southern Food Odyssey

The November issue of Garden & Gun, the best-named magazine in the whole world, was just sitting there like an undiscovered treasure on a magazine stand at Dayton International Airport this past Friday, the cover trumpeting 100 must-try Southern foods. I didn't well and truly need to crack the cover before knowing that I'd be buying a copy of the publication. I live for round-ups of excellent regional food items, after all, and this once looked like a doozy.

Penned by John T. Edge, director of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi at Oxford, the feature is pretty amazing. Edge's list of superlative Southern foods is broad, exciting, and—to me at least—repeatedly exotic.

Among the lip-smacking inclusions: pig's ear sandwiches at Big Apple Inn in Jackson; crawfish fried rice at Hank's Cajun Crawfish in Houston; trout caviar at Sunburst Trout Farm in Canton, North Carolina; Kool-Aid pickles at Eastend Grocery in Cleveland, Mississippi; fried green tomatoes at Arnold's Country Kitchen in Nashville; biscuits at Beacon Light Tea Room in Bon Aqua, Tennessee; and fried peach pie at The Varsity in Atlanta.

If the feature doesn't prompt you to begin to think about a culinary Southern road-trip, you're probably in the low-fat heart-smart camp. Which is fine. I'm not judging. I'm just pointing out the obvious.

Also cool: the online version of the article includes a handy food map.

Five German Discoveries

I really enjoyed the time I had in Germany before and after my Balkans adventure. I haven't spent any time in Germany since 2006, and it was great to immerse myself in German idioms for several days.

Following is a list of five discoveries that delighted and intrigued me.

1. Milka with Daim. The mere sight of Milka's violet wrapping paper makes me hungry. I know that my love of milk chocolate disqualifies me from the good chocolate snob leagues, but I don't really care. Everyone knows that nothing makes milk chocolate better than liberal sprinklings of toffee throughout. This confection does just that, and it's dreamily perfect. Apparently, drfossie agrees.

2. Turkish language signage. This may not be new at all, but my recollection is that most public signage in Germany—regarding, say, which objects should not be thrown into toilets—has historically been restricted to German, English, French, Italian, and occasionally Spanish. The appearance of the Turkish language in such contexts is a no-brainer, considering that Germans of Turkish descent comprise the largest immigrant group in Germany by far. (Incidentally, I was also much more aware of the presence of Deutschtürken/innen in the German media on this visit. One media phenomenon, Gülcan Kamps (née Karahanci) seemed to follow me everywhere I went.)

3. How awesome the Süddeutsche Zeitung is. I think it might just be the best newspaper in the world. I really enjoyed Robert Knight's article in Monday's edition on the Germanization of southern Carinthia. It was fifty years ago this autumn that the southern Austrian state limited bilingual education dramatically. Knight writes about the introduction of bilingual education in the first years after the Second World War. The system was the brainchild of Josef Tischler, an ethnic Slovene who for a time was a member of the state government. Tischler sought to create a "second Switzerland" in Carinthia, within which Slovenian and German would coexist fruitfully. Alas, as we all know, Carinthia chose a more provincial path.

4. Great trashy pop tunes. Every time I turned on VIVA I came across delightful poppy songs, like "Florida Lady" by Frauenarzt & Manny Marc featuring Alexander Marcus, which samples Fancy's drastically underappreciated 1984 disco tune "Slice Me Nice." Also satisfying: sugary "2 Herzen" by Kate & Ben; the moody "So Soll Es Bleiben" by Ich & Ich; and, because shame is unknown to me, "Häschenparty" by Schnuffel.

5. Air Berlin. Free drinks, a sandwich, and newspapers and magazines on my cheap flight? Yes please.

Sugar-Dipped Rose Petals

Last night I had the good fortune to dine at the Chez Panisse Café in Berkeley, for the first time ever. It was lovely, especially the incredible salmon cakes with a delectable mayonnaise. The thrill of novelty of the evening for me, however, was in the half-handful of sugared rose petals tossed over my little scoops of sherbet for dessert.

Gourmet budgeteers should note that the Chez Panisse Café features three-course fixed menu dinners for $31. That's a great deal given the quality of the grub at hand.

London: Cafes and Bakeries

Monday wasn't an incredibly ambitious day. After taking care of some work-related things at home I met Gwyn and we took the bus to Soho. We had lunch and coffee at Milk Bar (3 Bateman Street; no site yet), the newish off-shoot of Flat White (see yesterday's post). He treated me, which was completely unnecessary but nice, and he provided something of a Soho primer. Later we walked to Monmouth Coffee Company on Monmouth Street. It was far too crowded, though, so we went elsewhere for our afternoon coffee.

After saying goodbye to Gwyn, I ventured over to Nordic Bakery, where I bought steaming hot Finnish cinnamon buns (at £2 apiece) and took them to go. They were still hot when I arrived back at our apartment in Clerkenwell a good 45 minutes later. Had I been hungrier, I would have gone for some of the beautiful open-faced sandwiches on offer. Obviously, the space is starkly gorgeous. I'm happy to have found my first Nordic outpost in London.

Dinner was at St. John Restaurant, which was thrilling. I won't write about it now, as it's just down the road and I know I'll return for some deeper impressions.

Friday List: Currencies, Rome Grub, Brussels

Here are a few things that have been driving my attention over the last few days...

1. FXHistory. Curious about the Serbian dinar-Swiss franc exchange rate in August 2005? Check out FXHistory, an historical currency conversion table. It's the perfect tool for travel writers heading to their accountants. And for currency nerds, of which there must be a few. My only caveat: if you are paid for your labors in U.S. dollars, don't research old dollar-euro exchange tables and fantasize about the vacations you can no longer afford to take.

2. Annie Shapiro's tips on finding good, cheap food in Rome in the EuroCheapo Blog. I may be wrong, but I'm fairly sure that Annie took me to one of her favorite listed restaurants (Da Augusto in Trastevere) in 2006. It was scrummy. I'm annoyed at myself for not taking notes.

3. Brussels. I'm getting really excited to visit Brussels by Eurostar this summer. I'm especially looking forward to visiting the 'hood of Les Marolles/De Marollen—despite evidence that gentrification has been underway there for quite some time. Check the neighborhood out here, or get a more cinematic sense of it in this advertisement for Broederlijk Delen, a Flemish NGO. I was last in Brussels in 2002, and look forward to having the opportunity to explore it anew.

Nylon Thoughts: NYC's Rain; London's Cultures

Burgertastrophe! Today's rain has forced a change in dinner plans. Because it's no fun to eat your burger in the rain, Shake Shack is off the table.

Among this past weekend's reading materials, Bob Sherwood's article in the Financial Times on the London mayoral election stood out. It looks at how "London's racial diversity and its attendant tensions" may drive voting patterns on Thursday. Were I closer to the flame—in a few weeks, happily, I will be—I'd be able to submit the article to a finer analysis. As a shameless lover of truly cosmopolitan cities, however, I can say that London's diversity is pretty thrilling to me, and is more or less what's driving my excitement to be spending a few months there. A fascinating note in Sherwood's article: of the possibly 400,000 Poles in London, 65,000 were registered to vote locally by February. How will they vote? Apparently, nobody really knows.