The next night we prepped to head out to Semilla, Pam’s new restaurant. I Tumblr and tweet about Semilla incessantly because it’s Pam's (and Jose, her partner) first solo project. They’ve been getting rave reviews from everywhere and I was hoping to get a reservation squeezed in because when I was here last year, Semilla was still, literally, under construction. The amount of work that Pam and Jose put into building out the space was amazing — JMZ did their website and some other graphic work too. (Update: Semilla just received a Michelin star!) The food is “vegetable forward” and if you’re in town, you should give it a shot before it blows up even more. At dinner, we sat next to a guy visiting from Austin and since he said he was a dancer, I invited him along with us to Daybreaker the next day.
I had been to the San Francisco version of Daybreaker, basically an early morning rave with coffee and juices instead of alcohol, but this was the original and much bigger in every respect. I saw my camp friends there, the ones who started Daybreaker, and it was pretty fun to just dance around for two straight hours. I’m not sure how much fun my other friends had, but it was a unique experience at the worst. At around 8:30am, they opened the blackout curtains and it really was like the sun was rising to engulf the club. Not bad!After some rest and collapse, I ran uptown to Asian American Writer’s Workshop to stalk/see this blogger I’d been following for years, Technicolor. I covered her book release here, but in general it was mind-warping to have one of my favorite bloggers on-stage at AAWW, talking about her book debut. I kind of don’t like to talk to talk to people I follow but in this case the audience size was right and the space un-intimidating, so I chatted it up with Alex for a few minutes as she signed my book. As it turned out, she’s half-Taiwanese (I had always assumed half-Japanese) and her professor mother was slated to come teach in Taiwan soon. Can you imagine if I somehow became real life friends with a blog person I’d been tracking through the years? It would be like a dream come true, but also weird right?
With that over, I met J at Union Square to take in Sleeping With Other People, which featured Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis as a pair of serial cheaters who, no spoiler, end up falling for each other. Sudeikis is an annoying on-screen presence, like a schlubby Ryan Reynolds. Even with some good lines and cute moments, a rom-com lives and dies by its leads and this one died for me, even though I love Brie. Movies I wanted to catch in New York but didn’t: The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Pawn Sacrifice, Sicario, The End of the Tour.
J left to go back to Taiwan the next day, but not before we got to try out the “V Special,” which was V’s deli sandwich special: something like eggs, ham, avocado, and hot sauce. Pretty incredible. And somehow I stumbled my way to lunch too, to eat arepas with K during her lunch break.
On Thursday night, after a long nap, I welcomed the newest returnee to New York, our friend R from the Bay. He had been talking about moving back to the East Coast after some time in L.A. and S.F., but it all happened super quick as he took a new job and was out here in like a week. We caught up at yakitori in St. Mark’s and then headed over to Tiki Tabu, a rooftop tiki bar in LES. Turns out, I’d been to this bar before, but it was something entirely different. Still, the music was good and we got to hang out with a Manhattan view while listening to some good music. (The music was good pretty much anywhere I went, which made me ache even more to be back.)
Last October, when I was still fresh to Taipei, I attended a Sunday b-boy party at Chess and met a few friends there. One of them turned out to be from San Diego and we’d kept in social media touch since. After getting to know him better, J is like the successful version of me — or I’m the poor man’s version of him, either or. What that means is that he’s a nomad who seems like he’s just traveling wherever he wants, but while accomplishing things and getting shit moving. We trailed each other down California’s coast for a few weeks before hitting the beach one afternoon in San Diego. Since then he’s been back to Taipei for a food pop-up — he’s part owner of a hip ramen / Taiwanese restaurant in D.C. — as well as a few other locales. From what I can tell, he’s got his hands in a ton of random things, including Fashion Week related. Who are these people?!
Friday night we also ended up stopping by his place, a LES food and dance place that I’d been to before, but didn’t even know he owned. The music there wasn’t quite my speed though so we left after a bit to head to the Meatpacking. Oh, before that, we had dinner with my friend K, newly engaged and in the midst of moving with his new fiance into an apartment. Lots can happen in ten months when you’re gone eh? Last October, K and M were barely even dating — he was still in dogged pursuit. And now, engaged!Although I missed my friend in Meatpacking, we ended up shifting to No.8 in Chelsea and found a lively dancing scene there — with, you guessed it, great music — and so of course my friend and I stayed till they shut down. Another Friday, another fantastic going out time!
I woke up ass up super early on Saturday, in order to hit up dim sum with my new hostess, SW. There was once a time when I relied on her for all the dancing spots but now SW is of the “go to sleep at 11PM and go hiking at 8AM” variety. We walked down from her Chinatown apartment for dim sum at Golden Unicorn — plus a huge long wait — and met up with a friend she’d met the night before.
After parting ways, the two of us headed to the New Whitney Museum, which was huge and crowded. We zipped through the upstairs floors, hit up the terrace for awhile, and ended up by on the fifth floor couches, overlooking the Hudson River. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon. After waiting around for K and her friend A to say hello, we booted out of there and hit up Chelsea Market to fuel up on tacos. The taco place, Los Tacos No.1, was new to me and quite legit, even with a long line.
Even though we were a bit tired, we headed to SL’s apartment for a casual dinner she’d invited us to, on the strength of our dim sum lunch. SL was British, as were her three friends, and we ended up having a really great dinner and convo. As it got to around midnight, I coerced them to come karaoking with us and a few RSVP misfires later, we were embedded at Wow Karaoke in K-Town, belting out Eighties hits. Again, it was another of those perfect New York weekends, when you start one place and end up somewhere else completely, with old faces and new friends thrown in.After the too-short karaoke session, we whipped down to Central Bar for some nightcap dancing, which went well until K burned her hand on a candle and our night officially ended around 4AM.
Sunday was busy busy. I popped up and rushed out of the house to get down to Brooklyn Book Festival, in order to see D&S’s book panel. Unfortunately, I got there about five minutes late and the panel was overcapacity. It ended up alright though, as I lingered around outside, chatting with S’s husband about Taiwan and his years spent wandering around China and Asia. I really wished I could have seen D&S speak but oh well, they’ll have other book events soon I’m sure.
The book festival was crazy packed, with lines for everything — the last time I’d gone was maybe three years ago — and I didn’t end up having much time anyway. I snuck in a quick fifteen minutes with my writing friend, M, before having to rush off to half a panel on gender and sexuality before having to bolt to K-Town to catch up with D&S. Basically Sunday was just rushing rushing rushing, with hardly any quality time fit in.
After sitting down for dessert, S came to meet me and we threw down some pizza before going to watch Mission Impossible. This fifth installment got an improbable 92% on Rotten Tomatoes. Again, never trust the wisdom of the crowds… After some post-movie tapas and a short walk, I grabbed a Citibike and cruised the thirty or so blocks back home, blasting Carly Rae Jepsen all the way. Glorious!
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