time suck

Rather than paying attention in my physio lecture…

I miss traveling. Alan and I managed to hit something like eighteen cities during a 2-3 mo timespan. We saw lots of stuff, met lots of people, and ate lots of exciting, foreign food. Now that I’m all settled down in St. Louis I’m starting to get cabin fever.

That’s not to say that I’ve fully explored St. Louis or eaten every food St. Louis is famed for. But not having a car in a city without extensive public transportation (not to mention a healthy fear for my own personal safety) makes for very limited travels.

Speaking of which, what foods are St. Louis famous for?

Here’s a uniquely Midwestern phenomenon: the KFC buffet. No, I have never seen this calorie fest before.
There’s also Schafly’s beer, brewed in St. Louis and co-headed (or owned? Not sure.)by an anti-feminist whose values are so backwards that it makes me ashamed that she’s a member of my gender.
No, I haven’t had it, but I heard it’s good. I’m not a big fan of beer anyway.

Last point: I wasted so much time on artificial owl this morning. Artificial owl is a website about exploring abandoned modern buildings: Chernobyl, being the most famous, Sea-rama in Texas, a UFO-like hotel in Taiwan, etc. My favorites were a theme park in Japan abandoned in 1999 and the Ever Prosperity, run aground on the reef coast of New Caledonia. You can actually see it on Google Maps.

They’re strangely beautiful, in their own way. Forlorn and eerie, but still very beautiful.

optimism (and chicago)

I went to Chicago.

I ate Chicago-style deep dish pizza. Adi would have been a fan… I think.
Fan was in town too, so I had lunch at Giordano’s with him, Grace, and their Optiver interview friends. I felt terribly awkward, being the only person not dressed professionally and the only non-trading person there. Had Grace (and to some extent Fan), not been there, it would have been a sad, boring lunch for me as everyone at the table I didn’t know (1) didn’t even acknowledge me when I joined the table and (2) talked nonstop about trading firms/other financial blah blah blah. It made me wish I had brought another med student with me. So… about the perineum…

I wonder how much situation affects your perception of food. Giordano’s is supposed to have the best deep-dish pizza ever, according to the Today Show and USA Today, among others. Actually, the house special is a ginormous mound of cheese with flecks of sausage and veggies interspersed within the (surprisingly, not too oily) gooey, calorie-hemorrhaging mass. If you like pizza, you’ll love it (too bad I don’t), especially the crust. The upside is that one piece is enough to fill your belly and leave you with boxes of leftover pizza you’re not going to know what  to do with.

Solution: give pizza to hobos. Quite possibly one of the most rewarding activities of my Chicago trip.

Service is slow, restaurant is crowded, but there are a plethora – yes, I said “plethora” – of shops in the vicinity to keep you occupied while you’re waiting.

I also hung out at the Corner Bakery, a chain restaurant that’s like a cheaper, healthier Panera Bread with a better (and better tasting) breakfast menu.

Overall, Chicago, I like you. I like your downtown shopping, your public transportation, your buses that actually run on time, and your especially impressive food selection. I am sorry I turned down going to your medical school; I didn’t know that Fan might be working there, and I interviewed in December, where I woke up 3x during the night swearing up and down that I would freeze to death before dawn broke. Alas… maybe residency?

Obligatory couple’s picture in front of bean-thingy.

life update

In summary:

• I graduated from MIT.
• I spent the summer in Germany.
• I moved to St. Louis.
• I’m in med school.

Long version:

St. Louis exceeds expectations. Although the Asian food I’ve had here has been meh, all other fare I’ve sampled has been fantastic.

St. Louis is a sprawling city with a crappy public transportation system that consists of one overground train line (red or blue) and a number of buses that do not run on time. On the flip side, the city has a handful of unique attractions – read: not found in Las Vegas, NYC, Boston, Atlanta, Washington D.C., and other larger, civilized cities – that are often free, provided you can get there in the first place. For those of us who don’t believe in the murder of our environment (ie: licenseless people who do not own cars), this proves a little tricky. Places of interest: City Museum, Arch (better in real life, really), Botanical Gardens, & Zoo. Minus points for the St. Louis Galleria for not having an Ann Taylor Loft or Abercrombie.

Contrary to what the Careers Office told me, I don’t regret graduating early. That’s not to say I hated undergrad so much that I tried to run away as quickly as possible (not true! I love you guys!). Simply put, life has improved much-ly since the era of sleep deprivation/napping in the Athena cluster/wanting to gouge my own eyes out in 5.08. On top of that, my cousin mentioned that I seem a lot more optimistic and romantic these days, perhaps due to the absence of stress and presence of … uh, someone.

It kills me inside to admit that I’m becoming a warmer, fuzzier person. It really does.

Med school wise, I’m happy. I have nice classmates and sweet teachers, and I can’t think of anyone I dislike. Med school is easier than MIT, which of course doesn’t mean that I’m good at it. I’m having trouble with this regurgitation business, a trouble I think that stemmed from being Course V. We never had to memorize. Chemistry itself is like an alphabet: once you know the basic concepts, you mix and match them to make sense of 5.43, 5.61, etc. If chemistry were a language, it would be something simple, structured, and beautiful. Like German. Alles klar?

Anatomy would be Chinese with its 1349028395 charactervomit, because there are SO MANY DARN FACTS to memorize. SO MANY. SOOOOOOOOOOO MANY. And though I really do think some of my subjects here are interesting and I am getting better at this memorizing business, the way a lot of my classmates murmur in agreement when Dikranian prefaces his sentences with, “Obviously…” is still extremely unnerving. “Obviously…” up until a few weeks ago, I had no idea where the heck my glenoid process is. “Obviously” I’m still shaky on my minor heart vessels.

“Obviously” I should have been a bio/bio-related major.

Oh well. Thankfully, the material isn’t too hard so I just need to put in a lot of time… Le sigh.

Summary: St. Louis is better than I thought it would be and med school is easier than MIT, which means that now instead of going to lecture and understanding less than 50% of the lecturer’s wordvomit I now understand 99% of the information, most of which I do not retain.

*My attention-seeking boyfriend has mandated that this life update include something about him. So fine. I HAVE A BOYFRIEND. HIS NAME IS FAN.
That is all.

st. louis

I have arrived.
St. Louis is not so bad. I’m going to miss the fam though… Where else am I going to find people as brutally honest as I am?

We went to Pho Grand today, on S. Grand Boulevard here in St. Louis. Pho Grand is listed in my orientation guide with a large, thick black box around it that indicates that it is a “must-try” in St. Louis. In addition, there are tons of colorful award stickers all over its door.

My mother and father ordered the House Special Rice Noodle, I ordered Vietnamese Eggrolls, and my little brother ordered Charbroiled Pork on Rice. My mother, who was famished and dug into her noodles first said, “药味很重!” I took a bite and said the same thing… Gah! It tastes like medicine! (Too much star anise and MSG = weird, weird after taste). When they brought out my little brother’s charbroiled pork, I was a bit alarmed at its bright, fire engine red color, but otherwise it was alright. Dry. Kind of burned. I actually thought my spring rolls were pretty good. A lot of oily eggroll skin, but really, that’s the best part!

Gosh, I hate to sound like a snippy, snotty city girl, but I have to agree with my father’s comment: This restaurant would not survive in Las Vegas. Oh well. Maybe we’ll have better luck with St. Louis barbeque tomorrow?

PROS: Efficient, friendly service. Uber cheap. Semi-close to med school.
CONS: the House Special Pho.

nyc

P. Bear and I went to New York City for a day trip. I think NYC is entirely too big for a day trip – you need a week or more. We walked around Times Square and Penn Station for the day, shopping for clothes. In the end, P. Bear got a very stylish Banana Republic jacket and I got … nothing.

We had stracciatella gelato in Little Italy. Stracciatella reminds me of chocolate chip ice cream, but since I’m not really a fan of ice cream (not to mention, I definitely OD’ed on ice cream in Germany), I didn’t have much.

Stracciatella Gelato

Jamba Juice!

Gyeran Jjim

Ban Chan

P. Bear at the restaurant

Budae Chigae

Seafood Udon

Unidentified purple-y rice

For dinner we had Korean food at Kunjip Restaurant, in the middle of Korean Town. They brought the ban chan (side dishes served with rice) first, served in very meager quantities. I liked the Gyeran Jjim (steamed egg with scallions) the best, but I noticed that only some tables - like ours, luckily - were given one. Our seafood udon lacked seafood at all, save one large shrimp, but the Budae Chigae (the spicy noodles) were interesting. I found a piece of SPAM in it! Actually, I thought it was just unpleasantly spicy and tasteless (much like Frietnesse’s Currywurst Au Hurrrrr), but P. Bear seemed to like it and he thought the udon was bland (as far as udon goes though, I thought it was yummy). For dessert, we were served Sujeongwa, a warm, red, and cinnamon-y fruit punch. That was a nice finish to our meal. We both agreed that dinner was good, but despite the quantity of it, it was not too filling.

I’m a bad person to comment on Korean food since (1) I don’t really like it, (2) I’m not Korean, and (3) I know nothing about food, save how to eat it!, so please don’t excoriate this blog like the foodies bully Julie Powell. But the presence of several legit, straight-up Koreans in this tiny restaurant combined with the claustrophobicness and the line – snaking around the restaurant and extending out the door – makes me think that this might be pretty authentic. Not to mention, Kunjip has 4 stars on yelp from 254 reviews, many from Korean people.

PROS: good food and lots of it, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
CONS: so-so service, insanely cramped, and the wait time

my favorite things about boston

After a long journey, Alan and I made it back from Germany. I stayed in Boston from August 1st to 5th. During this time, I pretty much ate everything in sight… or at least, everything I had missed while I was in Germany. Within 24 hours of getting back to America, I (1) gained back the precious few pounds I lost in Deutschland and (2) had a Chipotle burrito bol (!!!) and boba tea.

Panda & Chipotle

Panda & Boba Tea

We also went to Gourmet Dumpling House, which Fan says is the “#2 Chinese restaurant in Boston” (#1 being Taiwan Cafe, of course). I’m not sure which one I like better. There are many yummies which I cannot name nor can I describe, but I believe pictures will suffice.

P. Bear ordered and I can’t find the menu online, so I dunno what any of these are called. I do have to say though, that my first few bites of the fish reminded me of the Currywurst Au Hurrrrrrr or Leslie’s curry of death. Oh, and that the XLB was better at Taiwan Cafe.  Other than that though, the food is decently cheap and super good. Definitely a must-try in Boston!

last days in Aachen

Germany is crazy about ice cream. I’m not such a big fan of ice cream myself, but I thought this was pretty interesting. Spaghetti Eis! At first I thought it was really pasta with ice cream, but it’s actually vanilla ice cream that’s been squeezed through a device to make it noodle-shaped. The ”tomato sauce” is actually strawberry sauce, and the “mozzarella” is white chocolate shavings.

Of course, in our last days in Germany we had Doeners as well. It’s hard to believe that Doeners are so bad for you, since they don’t taste any unhealthier than McDonald’s or Burger King or any other fast foods.
I was initially sad to be leaving Germany, but thanks to Lufthansa, I got another’s day stay free! Hah.

Actually, Alan and I were booted off our Frankfurt to Boston flight because it was overbooked. Because we were a “special booking class,” (ie: Lufthansa has a partnership with MIT, so our school buys our tickets at discounted prices) we were offloaded first since we are “lower priority” than the ticketed passengers. At the same time, we were informed that we would get NO compensation – no hotel, no transportation out of the airport, and no meals either. Stunned, we sat down. Luckily, the American lady next to us informed us that other passengers were given sweet compensation deals and advised us to “march up to that counter and demand your hotel!” After a mini-fit at the counter, we were given a room at the Intercity Airport Hotel… where the dinner buffet is yucky, but the breakfast buffet is actually pretty good.

Since we were now flying standby on an international flight, we decided to play it safe and take the least overbooked (and by least overbooked, I mean by 14 and not 25-30 people) flight. We ended up in NYC JFK, where we had to take a cab to Manhattan and then the Fung Wah to Boston. Dear God. BUT we made it back to America, so I guess it’s all good.

 

Spaghetti Eis

Doeners!

Intercity Airport Hotel

allemania aachen

I went to an exhibition game last Sunday between Allemania Aachen and Werder Bremen. I initially wasn’t too thrilled that the stadium was a 50-minute walk from Kastanienweg or that we were standing in the “S section,” reportedly where all the “hooligans” are. I’m glad that I went though – it was a great experience. We ended up getting locked out of the S section so were exiled to a corner section where the fans were considerably older and more subdued. And though I passed half the game surrounded by a halo of cigarette smoke – because, really, half of Europe smokes like a chimney - watching the players through a large metal grate, I thoroughly enjoyed absorbing the crowd’s emotional energy. All the goals were made on our side of the stadium, which was an added bonus.

I’m guessing because it was an exhibition game – the last game to be played in Tivoli Stadion – Werder Bremen wasn’t trying too hard to win. In fact, most of the goals scored during the game weren’t the exciting ball-rocketing-into-the-goal-just-beyond-the-reach-of-the-keeper’s-fingertips type, but more of the wow-the-keeper-is-way-off-his-line-and-the-ball-is-just-meandering-past-him kind. This was disappointing since Werder Bremen is (1) in a higher league than Aachen and (2) has three players on the German national team.

Aachen won, there was lots of singing and sparklers and fireworks and speeches… blah blah blah. To make a long story short, here are that evening’s two most important points:

Torsten Frings, in the center

Bratwurst mit Brotchen und Bier

1. Torsten Frings
gahhhhhh holy CRAP gahhhhhh!!!!! I saw a [minor] celebrity. I saw him on TV playing for the German World Cup Team when I was … 13. And again at 17. This is not as cool as seeing Michael Ballack or the ridiculously attractive Miroslav Klose, but it is awesome all the same.

2. Fußball Game Food
I was looking forward to seeing what German people eat at sporting events, but actually there isn’t much difference between what they eat and what we eat. There’s beer. This time, because it was the last game in Tivoli Stadion, the beers were free. There was also Bratwurst mit Brotchen, which for all intents and purposes is a super long hot dog with three inches on both sides sticking out of the bun. Not that exciting.

love story, part ii

Paris, continued…

I like French sweets better. Jerry bought these horrifically expensive macarons (not to be confused with macaroons) at McDonald’s, of all places.

Macaron

Macaroon

They’re pretty delicious – like two miniature, super fluffy cookies glued together with cream. Like a soft, Wen Hui-sized version of stroopwafel! Macarons come in all sorts of flavors, from chocolate to lime.

We also had crepes at a crepe stand across the street from the catacombs. So while I was sulking that I had been denied entry again, I munched away on my crepe with crème de marrons and watched the line from the entrance crawl along. Creme de marrons is chesnut puree. Alan says that it’s popular in Hong Kong too, and I can see why. Paired with a warm crepe, it’s deliciously sweet! I contemplated taking a can back with me – it’s better than eating sweetened condensed milk by spoonful! – but I decided it’d be better for my wallet (and my teeth) not to.

The crepe itself was miniscule and unattractive compared to its cousin in Liege, but it tasted much better than the crepe with Sirop de Liege.

Crepe with crème de marrons

Crepe complete

Jerry had the Grand Marnier crepe, which I wanted to try too but was glad I didn’t. As Jerry put it, “It was horrible. It tasted like alcohol.” Grand Marnier is a liquer made of cognac and bitter orange. Meanwhile, Alan had the crepe complete, which was good but reminded me of a breakfast burrito. Just swap out the tortilla for a crepe and the ground beef for jambon and voila! you have a crepe complete! Mmmm…

love story

I went to Paris last week and formulated life goal #4.

VISIT PARIS CATACOMBS. I failed to fulfill this goal the first time I visited Paris. And I failed again this year. So sometime before I am old and wrinkly, I’d like to see the Paris Catacombs. I used to watch History Channel shows about them ALL THE TIME when I was little. Morbid, huh?

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Food-wise, Paris is alright. Not as many street vendors and definitely not cheap. I still like German food better.

Trio de Côtes d'Agneau

Agneau is lamb. I ate lamb chop. Not the puppet. As someone at our table said, I don’t usually like lamb, but because this lamb doesn’t really taste like lamb, it’s pretty okay. I don’t understand what is distinctly French about this dish (I was told that it is typical French), because it tastes like a smaller, more expensive version of what I could get at any Ruth Chris’ Steakhouse - a chunk of juicy, oozy meat with no particular flavor except … oily, meaty bloodiness. Dear God. And it comes with FRENCH FRIES??? There is some unwritten rule in Europe that EVERYTHING you order MUST COME WITH FRENCH FRIES. Considering I never liked them to begin with, I never want to see/eat/touch/smell another French Fry for as long as I live.

Onglet à l'Echalote

 ”Onglet” is hanger steak from the diaphragm of the steer and “echalote” is shallot, commonly used in French cuisine. Here we have a very chewy, almost rare steak buried beneath a pile of shallots. Considering that I love uber-rare meat AND shallots, I liked this better than the lamb. But again, this didn’t taste much different from any generic steak… Maybe my taste buds are dead.

Confit de Canard

And lastly, we have “con-FEE.” Confit is a fancy pants name for a method of preserving food. My first thoughts when I tried this was that (1) This reminds me of something Chinese and (2) This tastes like it’s been drowned and baked in its own fat. And it has, vaguely – according to wikipedia it is ”slowly cooked submerged in its own rendered fat, in which it is then preserved by allowing it to cool and storing it in the fat.” And what does it taste like? Duck confit is supposed to be moist and easily shreddable, with crispy skin and a strong “cured” flavor. Perhaps I missed the “cured” flavor, but the duck confit was alright. For a French delicacy, I was expecting to fall in love immediately, but perhaps this restaurant is not so adept at making confit?

Actually, I really like foie gras. I know that’s terrible and that PETA is going to come banging down my door any moment now, but just thinking about foie gras and its creamy, buttery, fatty goodness makes me wish I had a zillion dollars to blow on food. As Jerry said (very emotionlessly), “It tastes like blood. I like it!” Foie gras is sickeningly rich though, but on baguette it probably ranks as one of the best foods I’ve had. EVER. I’ve tried its cheaper cousin, pâté, which tasted like SPAM. Sad face.

to be continued…