(we originally ran this in 2009. but since CIBO MATTO is playing RNR Hotel tonight, we have a perfect excuse to re-run it (+ it is awesome). And yes, that IS Sean Lennon-ed)
Celebrity columnists: everybody's getting in on the action these days. Ben Stein was writing for the New York Times. You've got Duff McKagan (of Guns N Roses) writing about Finance for Playboy. It would be negligent of BYT not to jump on the bandwagon. We want to give you a taste of the rich and famous lifestyle, just as our colleagues are doing so. We've got Warren Brown whipping up fun in Washington D.C. and Tig Notaro making videos for us out in Los Angeles with the likes of Zack Galifiniakis and Mary Lyn Raskjub. But until now we haven't had a celebrity correspondent in New York City. That is about to change. Like the Seasons. And with the Seasons.
BYT is bringing you the biggest, baddest, bestest guide to New York. Four times a year we'll be bringing you what's hot and what's not in the Big Apple, compliments of our favorite rockstar/animated character/foodie/self-described Japanese Barbara Walters.
Miho Hatori is larger than life. She's worked with just about everyone in the music business, from Beck to the Beastie Boys to Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon. Her resume is ridiculous. A founding member of Cibo Matto and part of the original lineup of the Gorillaz, Miho has been a stalwart of the New York City music scene since the early 90's.
We first met Miho at the infamous Bushwick Boat parties, a sort of Burning Man-type ravefest on an abandoned boat on Bushwick Harbor in Brooklyn. She was performing with her new band, New Optimism.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78921285@N00/sets/72157622499306905/show/
I got the call from Miho as we were shooting up Interstate 95 on the Bolt Bus. "What do you want to do, Jeff?" asked Miho in the damn cutest voice I've ever heard. I told her that the next 24 hours was completely up to her, but that the only thing to keep in mind was that I had Dakota Fine with me: not only one of DC's most amazing photographers, but also the hungriest person I've ever come into contact with. Food would need to be a centerpiece of our visit.
Cibo Matto means "Crazy Food" in Italian (ed. not Japanese, sorry).
Miho suggested we start out our tour with a visit to Manhattan's Dim Sum gogo. We hopped off the Bolt Bus and made our way over to DSgg for the first of what turned out to be six meals in less than twenty-four hours.
DIM SUM go go **5East Broadway, New York NY 10038**
MihoHatori’s One Sentence Review of Dim Sum go go: “Duck Dumplings Yummmm”
NewYork Magazine's Review:
What do you get when a French-American food writer (Colette Rossant) collaborates with a Hong Kong chef (Guy Lieu)? Dumpling dough flavored with beet juice, seasoned beef patties on steamed buns with taro fries, roast chicken smothered with fried garlic stems, and more than 24 kinds of dumplings. Plus four variations on the dough-wrapper theme, four different sauces, and microwave-safe takeout containers. For a heartier meal, try a platter of the fluffy seafood fried rice (with lightly whisked eggs and slivers of apple-green broccoli stems) or the thin strips of salt-baked pork, fried into crinkly shapes like some strange form of ribbon candy.Read more: Dim Sum Go Go - Lower East Side - New York Magazine Restaurant Guide
We filled up on every type of dumpling imaginable. For the love of God, they have 24 different varieties. I must agree with Miho, though, the Duck Dumplings are probably the tastiest thing I've ever eaten.
As we left and walked down the street, we had our first encounter with attendees of that weekend's anime convention that was taking place at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center: AnimeNEXT: http://www.animenext.org/
Throughout our time in New York, we would find ourselves face-to-face with hundreds of these CosPlay fanatics. On the street, in shops, on the subway, they were EVERYWHERE:
Little did these kids know they were posing with a real life anime character. Miho is the voice and inspiration behind the character 'Noodle' of the Gorillaz, the supergroup created by Damon Albar of Blur and comic book artist Jamie Hewlett. She's even got her own action figure:
We spoke with the cosplayers for a bit about Manga and about their favorite Mangas and Anime. Manga is new to me, so I decided to do a little research on some of the biggest names in the genre. I had never heard of One Piece until yesterday:
One Piece follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy, a 17-year-old boy who gained supernatural abilities by eating a magical fruit, and his ragtag crew of heroic pirates, named the Straw Hats. Luffy's greatest ambition is to obtain the world's ultimate treasure, One Piece, and thereby become the next King of the Pirates. In 2009, Shueisha announced that they sold 176 million volumes of One Piece manga so far, making it the highest selling manga in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Piece
Central to the storyline of One Piece are something called devil fruits. Devil Fruits (from Wikipedia):
Devil Fruit (悪魔の実, Akuma no Mi) are a type of fruit which when eaten confer a power on the eater. There are three categories of devil fruit: Zoan (動物) fruits allow the user to fully and partially transform into a specific animal. Logia (自然) fruits give control over and allow the user "to change their living body structure into the powers of nature". Paramecia (超人) is a catch-all category for fruits that give the user superhuman abilities. Devil Fruit users cannot swim. When even partially submerged in water, they lose all of their strength and powers.
You wouldn’t believe it, and we didn’t even know it at the time, but we just happened to stumble across a basket of the damned Devil Fruits as we were making our way through Chinatown. Miho couldn’t resist stopping and buying a bag of them, even though she had no clue what they were.
I have no idea what Miho did with the Devil Fruit, she said she might do some sort of a creative art project with them. I'm kind of hoping she eats them and that they are of the Zoan variety, allowing her to fully and partially transform into a specific animal. Perhaps in the Spring we can pursue that adventure.
Anyways, while we weren't tripping on Devil Fruits, it certainly seemed as though we were when we made our way to the noise and light institution in a secret space behind a non-descript door on a random street in Manhattan. I don't remember the name of this place, but it's some sort of hippie, art exhibit with lots of strange lights and what sounds like some sort of electric generator powering the entire Lower East Side. And it's hot. Really hot. So Miho decided to show us some of her Bikram moves.
I'd had enough after about 20 minutes of ear-piercing white noise and eye-bludgeoning black light. Not to mention the intense heat. We would leave that place for the heavily-stoned.
Wooster Collective **18 Wooster Street, New York**
The Kehine Wiley exhibit at the Wooster Collective was a short stop on our way to the movies!
Next on the list was a stop by the Friar's Club for a showing of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead, a new indie film that Miho had written a song for. Sean Lennon scored the movie.
From Wikipedia:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead is a 2009 American independent film written and directed by Jordan Galland. The film's title refers to a fictitious play-within-the-movie, which is a comic reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and its aftermath. The cast includes Devon Aoki, John Ventimiglia, Kris Lemche, Ralph Macchio, Jeremy Sisto and Waris Ahluwalia. The film stars Jake Hoffman (son of Dustin Hoffman). An original musical score was composed and performed by Sean Lennon.
We got to talking with Sean Lennon about the dining-guide aspect of our little New York adventure. Sean suggested that we feast on the blood of the living in the spirit of the vampire movie we had just watched. He suggested we make a documentary: Miho Hatori, Human Savoy Truffle.
Ippudo NY **65 4th Avenue, New York**
Ippudo NY was next on the list of restaurants which Miho wanted to take us. She warned us that there might be a wait, considering it was a Friday night and there’s always a wait at Ippudo. But I had never heard of a three hour wait to get a bowl of ramen. Apparently this place is quite good. Still, there’s no way I’m waiting for three hours for soup. We decided to get dessert first and then try back later.
MihoHatori’s One Sentence Review: “All my friends is falling in love with the noodle soup.”
New York Magazine's Review:
The first American entry for a Japanese chain, Ippudo NY is a dark, bustling place with a surprisingly large modern cluster of dining rooms—once you push past all the young Japanese in the crowded bar area up front. Though the house-made ramen is the highly touted draw here—you can even see the noodles being made in a windowed chamber downstairs—the appetizers steal the show. The sinfully rich kakuni, a chunk of stewed fatty pork, melts in your mouth; beef tataki, thin slices of grilled ruby-red steak, is reason alone to get the chef's-choice appetizer plate. The ramen itself is excellent but not outstanding—the broth lacks richness and depth compared to the quality of the appetizers—and the somewhat brittle noodles are a little bit of a letdown. Still, the frenetically complex hodgepodge of the akamaru ramen, a bowl of noodles with red miso, black garlic oil, and ivory slices of Berkshire-pork, is a revelation.Read more: Ippudo NY - East Village - New York Magazine Restaurant Guide
Build A Bear **565 5th Avenue New York, NY 10017**
As we walked by the Build-A-Bear on 5th Ave, I tried to explain to Miho the idea behind Build-A-Bear. She just wasn’t catching on. We tried to talk our way into the store, even though they had already been closed for ten minutes. They weren’t having it, even after I explained that we wanted to bring a real live rock-goddess in to customize a bear. Nope. Dakota suggested that Miho lay out the schematics for her ideal TeddyBear on paper, and that we submit it to Build-A-Bear headquarters and see if they could do something for us. If Ford can create the Eddie Bauer model Explorer, Tony Hawk can get his own video game and Michael Jordan can get his own Nike kicks, we didn’t see why Miho Hatori shouldn’t get her own signature Build-A-Bear. Miho closed her eyes and you could see the artistic wheels spinning like a set of Sprewells.
Imagine our surprise when we got an email the following week with the designs for a Miho Hatori-brand Build-A-Bear:
We think she figured it out. Dakota was starting to get hungry again, so we dropped into Dessert Club, ChikaLicious for a little dessert before dinner. I’m not usually a fan of the dessert-only enterprises, but the carrot cake was fantastic.
Dessert Club, ChikaLicious **204 East 10th Street, New York NY 10003**
Miho Hatori’s One Sentence Review of Dessert Club, ChikaLicious: “I want to marry with Chika.”
New York Magazine's Review:
The petite, perpetually packed dessert bar ChiKaLicious spawned an even smaller takeout annex across the street in 2008. Like at the original, pastry chef Chika Tillman makes the highbrow treats while husband Don runs the business side. As cute as the menu appears—Pudding! Ice cream! Cupcakes!—this is a decidedly haute neighborhood sweet shop. The term “puddin” describes anything from “adult” chocolate cream so dense it can be scooped into a ball over chocolate-streusel crumbs to a rich cake studded with apples. House-made vanilla-bean soft-serve goes into sundaes dusted with pistachios or studded with fresh strawberries. And cupcakes, added by popular demand, demonstrate pastry-whiz techniques with the lightest, creamiest buttercream you can imagine and flavors like caramel and triple chocolate, which has cake piped with ganache filling. Chika even takes a torch to the marshmallow topping on a s’mores cupcake. There’s not much seating, and what’s available is cramped, but every dessert comes sized or contained to work best as a handheld treat.Read more: Dessert Club, ChikaLicious - New York Magazine Restaurant Guide
After dessert and before dinner, we headed over to Grand Central Station for a tour of the architecture, but not before Miho engaged some more of the Anime Convention attendees for some conversation and photos:
As you spend time with Miho Hatori, you realize that she's hardwired as a culture-vacuum. She just inhales all of the art and music and fashion and design around her, constantly bewildered by everything that's going on in this enormous place. Miho's about as perfect a tour guide as you could possibly get for a culture capital like New York.
And she loves babies.
At this point we were hungry again, but there was no way I was waiting in line for another three hours for a damn bowl of ramen, so we decided on some buckwheat noodles from Soba Koh. A wise choice. One of Miho's favorite spots in the city.
Soba Koh **305 East 5th Street, New York NY 10003**
Miho Hatori's One Sentence Review of Soba Koh: "Hearty, healthy noodle dish for comfort."
New York Magazine's Review:
Inhabiting a cozy street-level space that hosted a succession of restaurants in the early 2000s, this noodle house seems set on a long life for itself—and its customers. Handmade, organic, and protein-rich, the tastefully spare restaurant’s buckwheat noodles come hot, in a not-too-salty, soy-sweet broth with a hint of vinegar, or cold, with steaming-hot crisp tempura on the side. The understated, warm mix of light and dark wood, gently turning ceiling fans, and hushed mix of cool jazz and modern crooners welcomes a predominantly Japanese clientele alongside savvy Western slurpers. Soul-soothing Kinoko soba marries three kinds of mushrooms with a smoky, scallion-flavored broth; Kamonasu soba combines delicately fried Japanese eggplant with earthy ground duck and shredded mitsuba, a spicily fresh and aromatic green herb. Furthering the quest for good health and high spirits are the more than 15 sakes—with robust Junmais, light Ginjos, and complex Daiginjos alongside seasonal specialty brews—also said to contain amino acids and to “promote a rosy complexion.”
As we ate, Miho noticed her friend, Kazu Makino of the band Blonde Redhead sitting across from us. Of course, in a city of ten million people, the two most famous Japanese-American Indie Rockers would be in the same restaurant at the same time.
Before retiring for the night, we took Miho to a costume shop for some Cosplay of our own.
The next morning we caught up with Miho in Brooklyn for some brunch and a lazy Sunday at her pad. She brought us to a hipster brunch hangout called the General Greene, which I believe is in Fort Greene, but I really don't know my Brooklyn like everybody else does.
The General Greene **229 Dekalb Ave Brooklyn, NY**
Miho Hatori's One Sentence Review of the General Greene: "New Americana, a nice weekend brunch spot ;)"
And New York Magazines rather long winded review of the General Greene (which we dont mind if you skip past):
Co-owner Nicholas Morgenstern, the tall, lanky guy who bounds gazellelike from one end of the restaurant to the other, running plates and monitoring the door, is a pastry chef with a long and varied background in some of New York’s fanciest fine-dining kitchens, from Daniel to Gilt. He’s not exactly the type you picture donning a tractor T-shirt and fetching your bowl of bacon-wrapped dates. But Morgenstern is abetted in this New Brooklyn Cuisine venture by consulting chef Ryan Skeen, late of Resto and another veteran of French technique and suave Manhattan kitchens. Skeen has become known for his full-fat, Southeast Asian–inflected approach to food, and his porky presence can be detected throughout the menu of sharable small plates.
Eschewing the typical appetizer-entrée progression, the General Greene divides its dishes into “Cold” and “Hot” categories, regardless of size. “Bar Plates,” like those maple-syrup-lacquered, bacon-wrapped dates, make a fine snack alongside one of the house specialty cocktails or a refreshing glass of sangria. Order a few and you’ve got a meal. Mini mason jars come filled with chicken-liver mousse or an inspired, rilletteslike mixture of preserved lamb and fermented black beans to spread on oil-drizzled toast; a radish duo—razor-thin black-radish slices blanketing a few of the breakfast variety—is vividly dressed with sea salt and chopped anchovy. There are deviled eggs, too, and candied nuts that your affable bartender stashes on some rustic shelving behind the bar.
On each of the U.G.’s visits, the streamlined menu had changed slightly, subtly conveying the NBC notion of seasonality and market sensitivity. So one night’s wax-bean salad might be supplanted, at the next meal, by a superb tangle of julienned summer squash and piquillo peppers slicked with a rich pistachio pesto. An unusual watermelon salad mingles dabs of fresh goat cheese and delicious coins of spice-rubbed lamb, and a quartet of roasted pork ribs is aggressively seasoned with salt and pepper and painted with squiggles of sweet-and-sour tomato chutney. You expect a good burger at a joint like this, and what you get is a perfectly proportioned six-ouncer with English Cheddar and a side of potato chips.
Of course, you wouldn’t want to skip dessert at a pastry chef’s restaurant. A confectionery perfectionist, Morgenstern has been tweaking nonstop, and what started as a superdense pot de crème has morphed into a lighter, looser (but equally delicious) chocolate-hazelnut pudding. There’s usually a fluffy vanilla-lemon cheesecake, more mousse than cake, with a tart tanginess derived from yogurt and a garnish of Greenmarket berries. The favorite dessert among the boisterous young crowd, though, might be the chocolate-chip cookies, judging by the steady parade of plates that stream out of the kitchen like ducks at a shooting gallery. They’re heavy on the chocolate, served warm from the oven, and like just about everything else at the General Greene, they handily exceed expectations.
Read more: The General Greene - Fort Greene - New York Magazine Restaurant Guide
Miho isn't just a musician, she's also an artist, and she wanted to show us some of the work that she's doing, so she invited us over to her crib.
And so we ended our trip with a stop by Miho's House for Arts & Crafts. She is putting together individual, hand made album covers for her next release. Obviously they'll be limited edition, but you should snap one up when they become available.
Searching the City for Sci Fi & Wasabi
New York City. The Big Apple. This town will eat you alive. So I guess you have to eat it first. We'll be back in the Spring with a slightly warmer edition of Miho Hatori's Guide to New York City.
Previously in BYT Guides:
- 2/9: Valentine's Day is Made For Chocolates-A Handy DC/MD/VA Guide To Make The Most of It!
- 2/7: Pro Tips: Valentine's Day in DC
- 2/3: Eating Your Way Through Superbowl XLVI: A Round-Up
- 1/10: Fashion FWD: 12 Trends To LOVEEEE & EMBRACE For 2012
- 1/9: DC Restaurant Week Starts Today: PRO TIPS
- 1/4: What to Expect: 12 Months Til The Apocalypse
- 12/30: New Year's Day Brunch in DC: A Handy Guide
- 12/30: Countdown to NYE: The Ultimate Movie Marathon
- 12/29: Affordable Quality Bubbly? DC Sommeliers Weigh In...
- 12/16: STYLE GUIDE 2012: THE NEW YEARS EDITION
God loves a cheerful giver.
pretty awesome.
epic
Ridiculous.
dim gogo is outstanding, i'm there most sundays...the general greene has the most awesome brunch as well, too bad it's all the way in fort greene BK..it looks like this chick and i have similar taste in food.
I thought I couldn't like her more, and then I saw the copy of Off the Wall hanging with clothespins.
This was great.
Dakota - did Sean Lennon sign a model release form?
This is great. Erik and I are heading up there this weekend (my first time - horrible, i know) and I definitely wanna visit some of these spots. Nice work guys!
@Dakota - I didn't realize that you ate so much. We should get you to enter a pie-eating contest for a feature.
God, once again you guys know nothing about New York. You think you know what's "in" and "cool" but you are completely lost. Stick to wanna-be DC because this (real) city will eat you alive.
oh man, that comment from chris is fucking priceless! what a pathetic faggot.
it's unfair to compare ny and dc. one's a cultural capital, the other's a federal capital. both have their strengths and weaknesses. and i am qualified to say this considering that i grew up in the NY area and have lived in DC for years.
at the end of the day, it's easier to find parking in DC and the pizza in NY will always be better.
Chris,
This is probably the most innocuous, harmless, non-pretentious article that's ever been written on BYT. We ate at some restaurants. Nobody that's not from New York claimed to know anything about New York. That's the whole point. I'm not going to spend anymore time arguing with your sad little comment. Whoever you are, have a Merry Christmas. And get over yourself.
Whatever Jeff, Chris is right, Miho Hatori and Sean Lennon are such poseurs, they don't know shit about NYC.
I have to agree with Chris. Next time leave amateurs like Miho and Sean out of it and get real New Yorkers to show you how real New Yorkers live.
Apparently you can start living like a real New Yorker by not being able to find anything better to do in New York than read a DC blog.
Actually A., I just checked his IP and Chris is in Herndon.
Herndon? No wonder he's so fucking miserable.
i checked spokeo and it said Alexandria... really Chris, do tell us more about yourself, we're so curious about YOU!
Well I guess we know who to call for the next big spread, "BYT DOES RESTON TOWN CENTER"
Lesson learned: Don't mess with the CALE
Regardless, I thought this blog is about DC and was supposed to exemplify what makes DC great. I don't understand why this article was even posted.
BYT at RTC is actually more relevant than BYT at NYC
It's about living in DC. Sometimes when you live in DC you go to places not in DC. Like NYC. If you're from DC and going "Man, I wish I knew where a good dim sum place is in NYC," or going "Hm, I'm going to be up north for the holidays, maybe I should stop by NYC," then hey, nice tips for a road trip.
@ person
Fact: BYT = worldwide
Fact: Going to NY with the right heads from DC usually means WILDNESS
Fact: Going to NY and running into heads from DC at 3am usually means SERIOUS WILDNESS
Can we stop arguing about DC/NY and talk about Miho's SpeakerBears?
SpeakerBear!
SpeakerBear!
SpeakerBear!
i'd rather talk about how stupid i am for forgetting to mention Friendly Fire as the most under-rated album of the decade, if not of all time.
<3 sean lennon and his face.
Seriously, I love that album. Some of those songs are heartbreaking.
She is also in one of the coolest videos ever made by Michel Gondry, Sugar Water...
@Peter yea that album rips, and you can spring it on people always as a surprise. Tracks 1 - 4 especially. I never caught the videos, didn't he make one for each song though?
catch them all, they are AMAZING. The backstory to that record is ridiculously cool too--its about his real-life gf cheating on him with his best friend and the videos star all the players playing themselves. Weird and heartwrenching.
Good idea and nice photos, and I love Miho Hatori (who really needs no introduction), but:
(1) "Cibo Matto" means "crazy food" in *Italian,* not Japanese!
(2) You clearly went to GRAND CENTRAL station for a tour of the architecture, not PENN STATION, which would be a joke (it's all underground).
(3) A one-second Google search would provide you with the information that, yes, the General Greene is in Fort Greene (it's like three blocks from Fort Greene Park). Or you could have asked Miho.
Also, travel journalists typically read and synthesize reviews, and write their own; they don't just excerpt them.
Ah, lazy hipster journalism. Charming, really. Cute piece though, I mean it. Keep it up, but give us *a little* more effort next time.
Cute asian girl, anime, noodles, dim sum,... um.. is this article about NYC or a hipster's urban asian fetish..
Either way, I enjoyed reading the article, except the food/restaurant excerpts.
i adore her mix media stuff and the song in the video reminds me of home, Rio ... samba is divine!
Dear J.,
1) I'm sorry, you are right, changed. I made the mistake while writing the article quickly
2) Grand Central, not Penn, again my error
I'm not exactly a travel journalist nor a food critic. I went to write an article on Miho Hatori and we decided to make it into a quarterly column. I'll try and write some food reviews for you next time or bring someone who does.
Thanks for your fact-checking, I honestly appreciate it.
Awesome. I wanna go next time.
NY-Bmore-DC there is a connection. If you were born or raised in any of the three chances are you've got family, friends or have hung intensely in one or all of the above mentioned. There's nothing wrong with covering what other cities are doing especially if all the cities fall on this eastern incest corridor thing. The people who don't know that need to take their mid western asses back to where they've got a grip on the culture and save the train-setting for the grown folks. Great pics.
Speakerbears!
If you go to Ippudo again, you must try their pork buns! I would argue they are the best thing on the menu.