hashtag live from the kitchen!

Malena and Margaux have a DJ night at Old I tonight. Should be cool. I am planning to cruise by, early-ish. Unrelated: a couple of people I trust have told me I have to really give the D'Angelo album time to grow on me. I am willing to devote the time.

 

 Ugh Blogger why are you so weird to upload this picture in a different orientation than I did? What is your problem. This is the nam kao tod at Asian Café, a dish I have written about ad nauseum. Crispy rice and fermented pork sausage. This time it was lacking the fiery dried chilies that are fun/scary to nibble on.

 Kao Poon! Love ya babe! K.I.T.

 I must have ordered the Lao sausage here before but I can't rightly recall. WB ordered it and I'm glad. I will probably order it every time now. I've had a lot of Hmong/Lao sausage and this might be the best. Very redolent of lemongrass and good mix of meat/fat. Not overly salty. Comes with total sting ring chile sauce that is great on sticky rice.

 

 Boom! Right in the middle you have a picture of Npire (on left, big bro of rapper C+, and Clyde aka Lurkavelly). They were performing at a legitimate rave I went to at Barfly that was very fun. You can't find much better people watching than 18 year old candy ravers. The setup had three rooms with DJs and my favorite one was the actual kitchen, which used to be the kitchen of Bacon and Butter. It was DJ Sushi from FM 103 playing R&B and early 2000s hip hop and he kept saying "live from the kitchen!" in his DJ voice. And "hashtag live from the kitchen", which I think was a joke. And then a guy started making French toast right next to him! The best. I think I got me and MC Ham a gig there in the future. Fingers crossed. Heckarap! Live from the kitchen!

 Oh man Yang's Noodles is so good! You know this. I love the tofu appetizer.

 Beef noodle soup has been praised to the heavens in the Bee and it deserves it. Stew-like beef, tangy rich broth and rustic noodles.

I like the smoked meat pancake better than the beef roll! I said it.

young people

Scott pointed out something about young people (probably younger than any of you reading out there, although I guess I would count some that are edging up to 30) they say "amazing" a lot, even if it's not warranted. Now you'll notice it. They are easily amazed I guess, which is not a bad trait. They also put "lol" into written communication reflexively, not always to indicate something funny. It's just peppered in there.

Fun new video for a song I like that's been out for a while. Typical creative, weird (amazing!) Young Thug lyrics. "Catch me ridin' with them slimes, them my youngins"

 

Heckarap was fun. It's like a new crowd drifts in every ten minutes, so it's a completely different vibe every time I look up. I enjoyed Mike C.'s set a lot, and Amir (aka Slap God) took over the decks to play the latest latest as usual.

2014 and 2015

I had a really fun, kinda busy weekend. Sac is really hopping these days. Thursday night I went to see Tig Notaro (it was unseasonably warm if you recall) and was biking around areas I never see, like where University of Beer is. It was packed, including the patio and I'm not gonna hate. I might not hang there but it looked like a place you would see in a city that's open at night and makes things livelier if you are out walking around.

Long post after the jump

cool show bro

We did this personality test at a team-building exercise at my work today and I scored like the exact opposite of most of the people in my department. Kind of depressing. The personality description was VERY ACCURATE for me. I am a total Abstract Random (which sounds pretty bad) in a sea of Concrete Sequentials. They emphasized it takes every type to build a team. I'm the person who cares about birthdays and stuff like that, which is important! Still, made me wonder if I'm in the wrong line of work. I'm sure in a creative workplace the distribution is opposite.

 

There's a good early show on Saturday at the Hideaway. Crude Studs (Nick from Phono Select's band), 2015 and Monster Treasure from Stockton. I love Stockton bands!!

Chain and The Gang

So no pho recommendations, huh?

 

Saw Screature/G. Green/Chain and the Gang last night. I didn't know Ian Svenonius had a band called Chain and the Gang until not too long before the show, I was just going because of the local bands. Dude keeps is sooooo fricking real. The realest. He is punk as hell. I first saw Nation of Ulysses probably in 92, because Sassy had named him Sassiest Boy In America. Hmm...guess they broke up in fall 92 so maybe it was even 91. I got him to autograph my 7 inch at the Cattle Club. That must have been really weird for him to come from such a punk place and having suburban chubby teens ask him for his autograph but he was very nice about it. He drew little lucky charms doodles on it and I treasured it.

 

Here he is with Sac's own Tiger Trap!

Here's the sassy spread that started it all! Damn I wish I had saved them. The Kurt and Courtney one is on ebay for 180 right now. Anyway, last night....Ian elbowed in front of me to watch Screature and he really liked them. Then he and his cool-looking band changed into sharp gray shark skin suits and proceeded to put on a show. He has always been an insane front man. I saw the Make Up a couple of times, too, at big places like the Fillmore and he would always walk around on top of the crowd. Even with this small but enthusiastic crowd he gave it his all and was really funny and cool. He spread high fives around after and that 18 year old in me felt quite a thrill. Great show and Starlite is an OK venue. It's just about the only place, except for Café Colonial, so maybe there will be more shows there.

Bon Mua

I wanted to get pho last night but since I have eaten at Pho Saigon one million times I decided to go somewhere else. I don't like to use yelp usually but in this case I checked it out. I was surprised to see that Pho Saigon was not that highly rated. Bon Mua had about a half-star above it and I hadn't tried it so I figured why not. We started with their chicken salad, served with rice crackers. Pho King 2 serves this same dish (peanuts, cilantro, lime, fish sauce, shredded chicken, cucumber, some more stuff) and theirs is sooooo much better and fresher tasting. In fact, I even had a second biting into this one where I wondered if I was going to get food poisoning, just because it tasted rather old. I totally did not.

 



 At Saigon the rare steak with tendon is always my jam, but I was not about to order tendon at a place unless I knew that everything else was good. At Bon Mua the specialty is New York steak pho (rather odd) so I went with that. You can see above that they use wide flat rice noodles and that they are skimpy with the scallion and white onion.

The meat is lovely and has a more luscious (uh) mouthfeel, but the broth was lacking the flavor and spice of Saigon and I missed that damn tendon. It was fun to try a new place and I was happy to confirm that Saigon is my by far favorite pho and I'm not missing out on something better. I'd be happy for pho recommendations, though!

hot new band 2015

Happy New Year!! I think it's going to be a good one based on leading indicators.

 I haven't been to New Canton in so long since I always go to Asian Pearl 2000 in fear of the New Canton wait. On Sunday at noon there wasn't a wait and this rad sign with the golden pointing finger is new to me. Some early 2015 pictures after the jump