Timeout

The Magazine for Murray Hill Tourists took shots at the kid today. Its all good, I'm chillin. Fix my glasses baby girl... You got it? Thank you. Ok, so I put on these glasses to give the article a closer look and I see it clearly now. I'ma just break it down like Cornell Notes right now.

1. "...a cocky pretender to the David Chang throne. But while Chang is a genuine prodigy, Xiao Ye proves that Huang is just a kid with outsize ambitions—and a remarkable knack for grabbing the spotlight."
1. Besides the fact that we're from the far east coast, why would I be compared to Chang? He drinks PBR, I drink Four Loko. He makes pork buns, I do it better. Why doesn't timeout ask Meehan to compare Noodle Bar in its 3rd month to Xiao Ye in its 3rd month. If you compare us now, it's not even close. He's Hova. Big brother. I'm just tryin to show up at award shows and let Taylor Swift know she ain't all that. But is this city too small for three Asian People? Chang, Huang, Pelaccio? LOL. Only one of us can get money? As for the "spotlight", it aint my fault. Your chick chose me.
2. "Even by the relaxed standards of the Momofuku age, his narrow Lower East Side spot is radically chill, with slovenly service by young women in short-shorts, cramped seating on punishing wood cubes, and black walls adorned with his own travel snaps." 
1. Is this really a problem? Seems futuristic to me.
3. "Suitably sloshed, you may in fact have a fine time at Xiao Ye—failing to notice, for instance, how much the generic duroc-pork pot stickers ($8 an order) resemble the Chinatown classics, sold five for a dollar a few blocks away; or how the Princeton Review Bean Paste Noodles are like a milquetoast version of Grand Sichuan’s dandan (more sweet than spicy); or that the clumsily hacked hunks of poached Hainan chicken are in fact an alarming shade of pink."
   
1. Oh really? Tell me, where can you get open ended pot stickers with duroc pork and WITHOUT MSG? The closest dumpling shop to Dericious is Vanessa's, which I love, but it's different. They have my favorite northern style dumpling. The fact that you compared zha jiang mien to dan dan mien shows you know ZERO about Chinese food. Zha Jiang Mien is a bean paste noodle from the North, dan dan mien is a oil based noodle from the South. You basically just compared clam chowder to she crab soup. Nice. Hainan chicken ALWAYS has a red ring from the marrow. It's not raw, its a freshly butchered chicken out of an ice bath. I stand by the hainan chicken. Its been consistently praised... even by Cruella Deville and half the chefs in NY are getting on the hainan chicken band wagon thanks to Top Chef. You heard it here first. We cook it for 24 minutes and its always perfect. 
4. "an insipid mountain of shaved ice with tropical fruit, mango gelatin and Day-Glo blue syrup—are also best suited to bingeing while liquored up."
1. Did you even eat here? The syrup is not blue. The tapioca pearls are blue, the syrup is condensed milk. How did you confuse the two? This is our most popular dessert. Never sent back. 

In conclusion. Hate me. That's fine. You don't like me, you don't like the stools, you like David Chang. Fair enough. He's one of the illest chefs in the game. I just want to cook good food without the establishment. I'm interested in the culture of eating. I'm not a chef. 


And if you can't see that Xiao Ye is my attempt at defining a youth cultural American Born Chinese Food experience, then you won't appreciate it. I'm trying to redefine it with inspiration from Taiwanese Night Markets, St. Mark's St., and bodegas. Where else can you get a Johnnie Walker Bubble Tea, a Gochujang Grilled Cheese, and Taiwanese Potstickers? It's complicated, it's off the wall, but it's what I want to do, so do yourself a favor, and don't judge me by the standards of others. Will I ever win a James Beard Award? No. Do I care? No, I'm guessing he's just another dude who can't tell zha jiang from dan dan. You can't come in here judging the restaurant with your old lens. You need the giant .99 goggles I got on. I'm not Chang, I'm not Grand Sichuan, and I'm not Vanessa's Dumplings.


Timeout is basically on its C. Delores Tucker shit. This aint a "gangsta chef" blog. It's the Diary of a Chinaman in 2010: I'm a Futuristic Time Travelling Chinaman with a Spaceship called Baohaus 1. And yes, Chinaman is the preferred nomenclature, anything else would be uncivilized.