Do Your Thing Wilson...

For years, a lot of us that lived in Chinatown avoided Nom Wah because it was too grimey... even for people from the hit movie, Gremlins. We respected it as the oldest Dim Sum Parlor in NYC Chinatown, but it looked more like a place for foot massages than almond cookies. Enter Wilson Tang.

People say Wilson revamped the restaurant, but the adjustments were all front of the house. He cleaned it up, re-organized it, got a wine list, and did the things any owner would, but left the kitchen and most staff intact. Yet, when Nom Wah re-opened, received a great review from Ligaya Mishan, and people outside Chinatown descended on the landmark, people in the neighborhood resented it. 

Anytime I asked how Nom Wah v2 was, they'd say things like "It's a hipster spot" or "White people eat there". Traditionally, these are valid identifiers of shitty restaurants. It took white people a while to get adventurous and eat "authentic" ethnic food, so, it's only reasonable that it's taking a little time for 1st/2nd gen immigrants to accept that it's possible for them to have good taste. This integration is a two-way street yall. 

One day, I decided to try Nom Wah for myself with my boy, Steve, at the recommendation of his Grandma and it was a revelation. Bouncy dumpling skins with perfect pores, toothsome rice rolls, shrimp that was actually cleaned. I mean, really, dim sum joints, HOW ARE SOME OF YOU STILL SERVING RICE ROLLS WITH SHRIMP POOP. If that's authentic, I eject.

Nom Wah became my spot for a few months and I really liked that they served dim sum through the night. Most places cut off at 2:30 or 3pm. One night, I had a date at Nom Wah and for what was probably the first time since Y2K, I was early by 10 minutes. I walked up to the joint, grabbed the handle of the door and stopped. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a food photographer, a writer from grubstreet, and some other industry people at the long table. 

I called the girl and we bailed. Not because they aren't nice people, but because Nom Wah had officially become a hangout where you'd get your spot blown. It sucked to realize that I'd have to cross Nom Wah off the date night list, but I'm happy for Wilson and I'm there once a month on weekend afternoons. We complain all the time about American chefs getting credit for fucking up Asian food and putting it on square plates, but here's a guy who dedicated his life to the family business and serves food his parents and grandparents would be proud of. Shit, all of New York is proud of the dim sum being served at Nom Wah, it's probably tops. 

Wilson did not "cater" to people outside the neighborhood or make it uncomfortable for Chinatown residents. He didn't tell people he was elevating, refining, or setting a new standard in Chinatown. 

All he did was CLEAN THE COT DAMN RESTAURANT. There's nothing wrong with that. Really, "Asian People Who Don't Like Nom Wah", YOU ARE THE HIPSTERS! You are the ones who can't judge things on a case to case basis and instead rely on stigmas that good Chinese food is cheap, dirty, and served by gremlin keepers. One reason a lot of Chinese people in Chinatown are still broke and dirty is because you dumb asses perpetuate it. I bet half of you are yelping from cubicles because you have the luxury of "slumming" it. Get a life; Chinatown is not some poor laborer amusement park you come visit for fun. 

It's really rare to see someone running their restaurant in a way that serves the current residents, respects the past, delivers quality, doesn't encourage displacement, while also drawing the next generation of customers. Wilson Tang hit the mother fucking trifecta and he should get a medal. End of story.

P.S. Not addressing "authenticity" here because we've done it numerous times before. Read old posts. Company line: Authenticity is an outdated filter for judging food, but it doesn't mean we can be irreverent about where things are from and how they're supposed to be done. It's fine to break the rules, but only if you're better. Creativity is not license to shit the bed. Like we learned in Major League 2, "If you can hit it, you can name it..."  "I call it the masturbator."

The Jeremy Lin Story Belongs in NY

My boy Uncle Jesse said it best, "Only the Knicks can have a day like this -- J Kidd drives into a telephone pole and we lose Lin, some KNix shit." True story, J... and it's sad. For 2 months, I went to basketball courts and people expected Asian mufuckers to ball hard. I remember playing ball at Masaryk the day after the Lakers game and every time I did anything resembling a positive play, people shouted JLin. 


In 30 years of playing hoops, the two months of Linsanity provided the most gratifying basketball moments I've ever had. As stupid as it sounds, there was a different feeling walking on courts and we had fun with it. We saw ABCs flying Taiwanese flags at MSG, American Airlines Center, and the Staples Center among others. Even if we still sucked, we belonged. Asians arrived in the American Basketball Lexicon.


I would never in my life discount the effect of Yao Ming. He's the god, but if Yao exported the NBA globally, Lin penetrated it domestically. He looked like us, talked like us, and had a xanga like us. I could've sat next to this fool in Chinese School, piano concerts, and Kumon Class. My boy Maxwell gave me the SAME EXACT BLACK APPLE JACKET he has on in this video and then I sang the same song as Landry at Karaoke Boho the next night. The kid was spotted at Avenue carrying around one Bud Light all night like he was my brother, Evan! Only an Asian American is capable of getting fucked up, turning red, and being satiated by one bud light for a 3 to 5 hour period. This was the beauty of JLin7, he was real!


He confirmed stereotypes, he broke stereotypes, but we didn't care either way because he wasn't manufactured or forced on us. He just happened and we could tell from jump he was one of us. There was no foreshadowing, there was not a perceived need, but I don't think any of us can imagine Asian America or basketball without him. As much as I wish he had less to say about Jesus and more to say about race, I thank him eternally. My personal agenda and allegiances aren't his nor should they be and that's a tough pill to swallow. 


This is bigger than basketball. Yao was going to redefine the NBA on a global level whether or not he played for Houston, but there was something special about Jeremy in NY. The Simpons are from Springfield, the Transformers are from Cybertron, and Jeremy Lin is a Knick for life. He is the quintessential NY immigrant story. Kicked around, down and out, but these days he could stunt like Killa Cam "drinkin' sake on a suzuki... in Osaka Bay". Hollywood made movies like Rookie of the Year, Eddie, Little Giants, Unnecessary Roughness, and the Sandlot, but for once, here it was in front of us: Jeremy Fucking Lin every other night live in the Garden. You can't write a better script than an Asian person starring in an arena with the acronym for Mono Sodium Glutemate; and no matter what a stripper tells me, it's not supposed to end in Houston. 


This story belongs in New York! I mean really, is there no sanity in this world? I don't blame the Knicks for Jeremy signing a poison pill contract, but I don't blame Jeremy entirely either. I'm just surprised neither party gave themselves an out to fix this shit before it's gotten where it has. Jeremy wanted an offer, the Knicks were stubborn and wanted him to test the market, he found a crazy named Daryl Morey, and the Knicks just got flattened, backed over, then run over once more by Bun B's Cadillac. Is there anyone that can fix this relationship? Don't comedies of remarriage have a punchline? It can't really be Jason Kidd running into a telephone pole... can it? 

...

I don't think anyone debates that Jeremy's value exceeds his abilities as an athlete. On the court, he's some combination of Ginobili's yardsale moves, Harden's goofy handle, and Jameer Nelson's janky court vision. He's a motley of strange skills, but the one thing he has is fearlessness we haven't seen since Allen Iverson. It's the type of thing you get growing up in Hampton, French Lick, or having Asian parents that make you kneel while holding buckets of rice over your head. I remember Carmelo bowing to Lin during timeouts early on, the disbelief on the faces of Knicks teammates, and the constant media questions about whether he could keep it up. All along, you could see that he believed in himself and it was inspiring.

636 Words

It's been bothering me for weeks that people take an important discussion like the one Francis and I had, then reduce it to "whether white chefs can cook ethnic food" or to conclude that at the end of the day "taste is what matters". The Marcus article was an extension and it was fun to see how people danced around the actual challenge in the article for dominant cultural food editors/writers to hit the pavement and find more voices of color. Maybe for once put a voice on the soap box even if it's threatening...

Instead, reactions became Eddie v. Marcus and comments were about Yellow v. Black or Harlemite v. Non-Harlemite. The lack of a response from any writer living in Harlem proved the entire thesis of the article. Marcus is the only voice we hear from and the situation is flawed whether Michael Symon's cackling ass thinks so or not. You simply can't have a Swedish-African-$28 Fried Chicken Selling-Chef that reduces the neighborhood to "eating, dancing, and praying" speak for the ENTIRE food scene in Harlem. He most certainly can and should be ONE of many voices, but not the only one. This is true of any person or neighborhood. It'd be offensive to have an Asiatic-Holando Transplant with a J.D.-and-an-F speak for all of the East Village. That'd never happen in the East Village, but why in Harlem? Whether I'm Chinese or not, I'm going to tell you we can't enable that because I'm absolutely right.

I don't care if NY Mag thinks Asian Hipster Chefs are the next great thing or if they want to attribute our stories to some David Chang legacy. It's all bullshit and no one will care in 3 years so I don't even know why my dumb ass engages these shit storms. I'm fucking disappointed in myself. The only conversation that matters to me is defending culture, resisting assimilation, and creating my own America... every thing else is ancillary. It's important to be conscious of what America is and isn't. I wanted to write the below for a while and people kept stopping me, but fuck it. Writing this is more productive than a lot of frustrated, not well thought out tweets. So here it is... 636 words on why you should fight every single fucking day taken out of the context of food because, clearly, the element of food and Harlem precludes anyone from being reasonable.

636 Words

        America is an adversarial society. Whether we want to accept it or not, the good guys don’t always win. Biggie was right, “it’s an every day struggle.” Your life begins as an American when you recognize and accept that nothing you have will be given to you; it’s taken. Notice I said “taken” and not “earned”. You can’t trust that for said amount of work you’ll get said amount of pay. It just never happens. If you want to make sure you get what you deserve: take it. 

When you bring your cultural goods to market, expect someone to try and take it from you, especially the dominant culture because they can. The only way to come up is to defend the things you have and learn to take for yourself. Offense is the best defense. Look at all the inspirations we’ve had as 80s babies. Barack - took the youth vote and micro donors; Fab Five - disrespected every thing about collegiate sports, rejected white socks/short shorts, took booster money, and peace’d; Brooklyn - like BDP said, “Manhattan keeps on makin’ it, Brooklyn keeps on takin’ it.” As much as I love Francis Lam, his ideas about aspiring to “join” America lead to the loss of your culture and Indian Casinos. What if the Tea Party wins and that bullshit definition of America rules? You want to be a member then? Sometimes you shouldn’t respect the other side because it’s wrong #Newsroom. The only America that matters is yours... but you’ll have to fight for it.

I remember in 9th grade we had this exercise in class. The teacher said, “Form groups of 5. You’re all in a crashing plane and there’s one parachute. Figure out who gets it.” I didn’t want to die so I campaigned for the parachute. Every one else was embarrassed to put their life above someone else’s but I wasn’t. I believe in myself. I believe in my values and I believe that I'm more valuable to the world alive than dead. I didn’t know how to explicate that, but I wanted the parachute and was the youngest in the group so I took it. The teacher asked why they gave me the parachute and we answered “Because Eddie is the youngest in our group.” She said, “That’s the wrong answer. You should all want the parachute and if you don’t, then what’s the point?” I never forgot that lesson. Far too many of us have something to offer the world and sit idly by thinking someone will make it better for us, but they won’t. The world you want has to be taken. 

I don’t care if people think I’m angry because no amount of peer pressure will force me to submit and allow another culture to consume my identity. I worked too hard unearthing myself buried under American stigma and stereotype to turn around and give it all up because someone wants me for a member. Like Groucho Marx, I’m not joining your club but not because you’ll have me. I’m not joining because assimilation is cultural and ethnic baptism: you lose every thing you came with in exchange for false moral approval. It matters that we don’t let you take over neighborhoods and displace those that made it what it is simply because you have and they do not. It matters that we don’t let people shark bite gua bao or call it Peking Duck because it’s Beijing mother fucker. Why should we let The Man romanize our shit? We were good enough when we came, we’re good enough if we leave, and we’re good enough if we stay. People are different and society should just accept it... but they won’t. You’ll have to fight for it and that’s the most important thing I can tell you.

Note: To readers who want to discount this by saying culture is fluid, you can't defend it, it's supposed to change, I ask you this: Why is it that there is copyright protection for Louis monogram but not my Mom's recipes? People draw the lines where they do because it benefits them and they CAN. I use the world "culture" and I understand it may not be the precise term. Maybe we should be talking about this through the lens of intellectual property but that's possibly too dense. This applies to every one from anywhere from Martha's Vineyard to Canal St. We all have a "way of life" and no one likes to see that taken, distorted, or expelled. The point is that if you want it to continue, you have to fight for it.

Weekends

YEAAAOOO #BeachCrew was in the house for Sparkz's going away. Shouts to Prodigy, Shouts to Hima, Shouts to King & Grove, Shouts to Jessica L, Shouts to Turkey's Nest, WE OUT HERE. THIS HOW U DO A MUFUCKIN WEEKEND STAYCATION MY G.

VVVVVV RVRE Vanessa Flores sighting...

U know the kid @fluxuryb

Haiii boo

SPARKZ

IT'S P!!!

YOLO

T-Rexes was out in City Island... NEED THAT

Wake-n-bake situation

#NYCCRABMURDERERS

TEMPERATURES RISING

VICTORY IS IN MY CLUTCHES. #WEEKENDS #CATCHUP

DEUCES SPARKZ

YEAAAOOO

I met my boy Sparkz (white boy in middle with the tennis hat game on smash) at Cardozo in '05. Every one was on some brooks brothers flow but I seen your boi roll through with the Union 180s CRISPY and the rest is history. He's moving to Berlin... I'm happy for the boi but you know P and I had to give him that @baohausnyc send off ruff, rugged, and raw (no millz). Here's the playlist for the event mixed, mastered, smoothed out and melodic from @worldsbestever

http://www.mediafire.com/?oovh6ovtvdcrc8n

LET'S GO

WE OUT HERE

Anderson Cooper #Inspiration

This article is so inspiring. Anderson Cooper is a public servant in the truest sense of the word. There's nothing I can say that he didn't. I still believe America is an adversarial society and that there is a place for advocacy, but if we had more self-less zen masters like Anderson Cooper maybe we could put the guns away? I don't know... At least for today, you can read this article, leave the gun, and bring the cannoli. Thanks Anderson.

Heat Meltdown

OKC played well and Scott Brooks made some great moves.

1) In the 2nd half, they fell back and dared Wade/Bron to shoot and it worked.

2) Switching the screens on the heat to shut down the drive and give them jumpers.

3) Playing Derek Fisher for most of the 3rd quarter recognizing that defense was going to drive their offense. It really helped getting Russell Westbrook in transition off good defense.

4) Playing Collison over Ibaka or Perkins to match up with the Heat's quickness at the 4 and 5. Collison was a beast defending the pick-n-roll also challenging shots.

5) Every one is going to talk about Durant and he was knocking down shots, but his shots were created by his teammates. Sefolosha, Fisher, and Collison's defense, Westbrook's drives, and also the Heat's inability to guard the pick-n-roll.

Why Eric Spoelstra and Dwayne Wade are killing the Heat

1) Bosh should be starting these games and utilized more in pick-n-rolls. I understand that they exploited the Celtics with the Bron-Wade pick-n-roll, but that's because it exposes Pierce and Allen's slow feet. You need to run the pick-n-roll with the ball in Bron's hands and Bosh screening because it forces them to go through screens. It takes away the ability to switch AND it forces them to play Durant on Lebron. If you play Sefolosha on Lebron and Collison or Ibaka on Bosh, then Bosh can shoot 15 footers over Sefolosha all night or back him down.

2) Wade SHOULD NOT be initiating offense. He does not pass to set up his teammates. The only good pass he made all night was when Chalmers slipped a screen in the 4th quarter. The rest of the game, Wade was throwing shitty jump passes or misplaced post entry passes. He's passing after his one-on-one game gets shut down. He's not driving to set up the offense. Run him off as many screens as possible while Sefolosha is guarding him. You have to make Sefolosha work by playing team offense. If you let him guard Wade isos all day it plays right into OKC's plan. The more tired Sefolosha is, the less effective he will be guarding Bron in the 4th.

3) I'm not mad at Lebron. He was aggressive the entire game. Yes, he took one bad flat footed 3 pointer in the 4th, he also missed free throws, but the biggest transgression was that he wanted no part of Russell Westbrook on the defensive end. It's one thing to switch the screens, but Bron put absolutely no pressure on Westbrook and just gave him jumpers. Quarters 1 through 3, it should be Wade on Westbrook, Bron on Sefolosha, and Battier on Durant, but 4th Quarter it should be Battier on Westbrook, Wade on Sefolosha or Harden, and Bron on Durant playing deny defense with help from Bosh. They should NOT be switching, they should be hedging and retreating. Deny Durant the ball!!! If Westbrook scores it's fine because he's most likely going into the teeth of the defense alone leaving his teammates standing. You can't win in the Finals that way. Westbrook is the dumbest player on OKC, keep the ball in his hands, he will play selfish basketball, and self-destruct.

4) Also, it makes me cringe to say this, but if it's not Bron initiating offense, I'd rather it be Chalmers. Force OKC to defend someone besides Bron, Wade, Bosh. Chalmers is HORRIBLE initiating the fast break, throws bad outlets, but in the half-court, he's aggressive and he forces OKC to guard him on the pick-n-roll. Wade is taking way too many flat footed jumpers and it's killing the Heat. It should not be a lot of Chalmers, but just to give Lebron looks in the post or to initiate some plays for Bosh, let Chalmers run the point. He is also a better 3 point shooter than Wade so it gives you better spacing to post up Lebron. You get no spacing with Wade because they all sag. Wade can't shoot 3s.

5) MOVE the ball. The Heat are not a good one-on-one team. Besides Lebron's drives in the secondary break or post-ups, no one else on the Heat should be getting isos. Wade simply isn't explosive like he used to be. Look at his field goal percentages. I don't mind Bosh isos if there is a switch on the pick-n-roll and he has a matchup, but otherwise, they play much better moving the ball. They got ahead in the 1st half because they made the second pass. They have guys who can knock down 3s, they need to utilize that and move the ball. You look at the stats and it looks like Durant took over, but he got his shots out of great sets where his team ran 2 screens, used the clock, and got open looks. If the Thunder continue to give the Heat jumpers, post up Lebron and run the offense out of the post, OR, put the ball in Chalmers' hands, run Bron off baseline screens and get him the ball in triple threat position 12 feet out. When the Thunder gave the Heat jumpers, they did not adjust at all. Spoelstra sucks. Run Wade off stagger screens, get him some pick n pops, if you're going to take jumpers, take them in rhythm. No one on the heat should be dribbling the D down and shooting flat footed. That's not their game.

6) Initiate offense off the elbow. Use Bosh for a few Princeton offense type sets with Wade and Bron cutting around him. Anything to move their offensive sets closer to the basket and force OKC to step up. You can't keep initiating your offense from behind the arc and allow OKC to force you into jumpers. If Bosh isn't getting the ball on the elbow, use him to free up Wade off the ball for easy baskets on stagger screens or back door cuts. Way too many plays were basically Battier running across the court to screen for Bron out of the corner only to get a post-iso. If you're going to use Battier to free Bron on a post-entry, simultaneously run a back screen for Wade with Bosh on the weakside!!! Either way, you still get the iso, you get a cutter, and when the smoke clears, Battier is probably open in the corner if Bron doesn't like his matchup.

7) SPOELSTRA, make sure people know their cot damn defensive assignments! How is it the 4th quarter and your entire team doesn't know their rotations? Durant got most of his buckets off blown help assignments!