Restaurant Review: Taipan Bakery

Details: Two locations in Flushing and in Chinatown. The official site is http://www.taipanbakery.com/

Taipan Bakery is a Taiwanese bakery that’s been around a very long time. There used to be more locations, but there are only two now.

You can get a variety of things here. There are the many  breads and pastries, such as egg tarts, hot dog buns, shredded pork and mayo bun, corn bun, etc. There are too many to name. You can also get coffee or tea. They also do cakes, which I haven’t had for while so I can’t speak as to their quality.

Breads range from around a dollar to a few dollars. Usually, I get a Danish hot dog bun, a curry beef pie, and a corn bun with a hot milk tea. The one thing that this place has that other Taiwanese bakeries don’t have (I’m looking at you Fay Da) is the Danish hot dog bun. It’s just a hot dog bun wrapped in a croissant instead of the normal squishy bun. I much prefer this type of hot dog bun though. The curry beef pie is simply wrapped in puff pastry. The corn bun has corn and ham mixed with mayo sitting on regular bun.

People… are pretty rude here. They don’t really have a grasp of the concept of queuing or respecting others’ personal space. I’ll leave it at that.

Overall, if you’re looking to try some baked goods from an Asian (or more specifically Taiwanese) bakery, Taipan Bakery is a good choice with some relatively unique options.

Score: 6.2/10

Movie Review: The Nice Guys

Details: About two hours long. Stars Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.

I originally heard about this film after watching some reviews for it on YouTube. It received glowing reviews, which is interesting because it mostly flopped at the box office. After watching this movie, I don’t think it was that great nor was it terrible.

The Nice Guys is a film that attempts to replicate or take inspiration from films like Chinatown with Jack Nicholson, or L.A. Confidential, or any other old noir, detective story. The only difference from those films is the tone; this film is a comedy.

The premise is this: Ryan Gosling plays a private detective and meets Russel Crowe, who plays a thug, while investigating a case. Together they try to solve the case and see where the case leads.

In regards to the plot, the film was very reminiscent of Chinatown in that there was this big subplot involving Detroit and the big three car producers which didn’t really have that big of an impact on the overall story. That’s the thing with noir films, they have all these subplots that don’t really matter. The most interesting part of noir films are the dialogue, the interactions between characters, the surprise twists, and eventually the big reveal of who done it.

While there is certainly elements of suspense and noir here, those elements are not the primary draw of this film. The best parts of this movie are the funny pieces of dialogue between Russel Crowe and Ryan Gosling. This movie is essentially two hours of watching these two guys make fun of each other and screw around, which is great if that’s what you’re into. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that entertained.

A noteworthy mention is the actress who played Gosling’s daughter, Angourie Rice. She was good, but good child actors generally creep me the hell out. Rice had a lot of fairly adult lines she was asked to say, which was somewhat uncomfortable. Watching her mostly reminded me of all the child entertainers who tried to make it in show business and mostly grew up into messed up adults. I hope Rice has a better experience with show business.

It was okay. I didn’t find it that funny. The movie tried to be somewhat noir, but noir films generally have a mess of a plot and that was true here. I’d recommend it to Gosling or Crowe fans. I’d also recommend to people who want to see topless women. I saw an R rated version and there was a substantial bit of nudity. If you enjoy seeing young, scantily clad women, you may want to give this film a watch.

Score: 5/10 

Restaurant Review: Ten Below Ice Cream (Chinatown, NYC)

Official site: http://www.10belowicecream.com/

First time I heard about this was on reddit.com. I saw a clip of someone making this and it looked really cool. Here’s an example video:

Well, some entrepreneur decided that this was a great idea and opened a brick and mortar making this stuff. Its clear to me now that entrepreneur was right.

First thing I noticed when I got here was the line. It went about twenty feet out the door. Me and my friends decided to go eat dinner and come back. Luckily the line shortened, but it was still packed. The place is always packed.

The second thing I noticed is that the majority of patrons were children. High school, elementary school, all ages were represented in this crowd. As a result, it is loud and people keep bumping into you. Really not a great place for adults looking for a romantic time or even a quiet time.

Lastly, the ice cream was fantastic. The main draw of this place is the spectacle of the ice cream; watching them make it and picking toppings. None of the people I came with had ever had this before so watching it being made was really fun. We ordered the strawberry shawty flavor where the maker takes some strawberries and a gram cracker and mixes them together into cream that is quickly freezing over. After the maker rolls your ice cream together you get to pick toppings, no extra charge. I picked the toasted marshmallow, bananas, strawberries, and caramel.

The ice cream was fantastic and I would love to come back again if it wasn’t so crowded. In fact, I heard from other patrons that my visit was one of the least crowded that patron had ever seen.

Score: 6/10 Great ice cream, great idea, but crowded as hell. I would love to come back if not for that, but because of that, I don’t think I’ll be coming back anytime soon. Too successful I guess.

Restaurant Review: Wok Wok (Mott St., NYC)

Wok Wok is a southeast Asian restaurant in Chinatown.

The menu is pretty standard for these kinds of restaurants. There’s a lot of fried noodles, rendang, etc. What I noticed that surprised me was the hot pot rice, which I guess is similar to Korean bibimbap.

We ordered a number of things that I cannot pronounce nor will I try. We had a fried noodle dish, a spicy noodle soup with seafood, and Malaysia’s national dish… the name escapes me. There were also Thai iced teas all around.

It was all really good. While I enjoy this kind of food, it’s not French haute cuisine. You’ve had this once, you know what your in for.

Score: 6.8/10 Good Malaysian/Vietnamese/any other southeast Asian place for food. Probably just as good for takeout.

Official site: http://wokwokny.com/

Restaurant Review: Cutting Board

Details: Located at 37-20 Prince St, Flushing, NY 11354, among other locations. Couldn’t find an official site.

Cutting Board is a restaurant that specializes in Asian style Western food. In other words, Italianish-Japanese food. It’s… fusiony… sort of. Some people might describe it as Hong Kong style. I personally love this style of food because it’s something you don’t really see a lot of in Western countries. There are two locations that I know of; one in Chinatown and one in Queens.

What I love about the food here is that it is really simple, yet delicious. I’ve been to this place numerous times and ordered numerous things, such as: CB mussels (sake, cream, saffron, bread stick), fried crispy calamari (curry capers aioli, creamy spicy mayo, marinara), pork katsu (farmer’s market veggie, potato salad), fatty beef on creamy rice (Pepper, Onion, Cream, Tomato Sauce), grilled chicken over creamy rice, sea urchin pasta (in a creamy sauce), pancetta and cream pasta (poached egg, linguine, bacon), omelette rice, the teriyaki burger (grilled chicken, fries, lettuce), the souffle, and the Hong Kong style tea.

I’ve loved everything I’ve ever had here. Except the teriyaki burger. That was just okay. Otherwise, everything was fantastic. One of the things that I look for when going out to eat is that I get to eat something new, something I’ve never seen before. Cutting Board isn’t drastically new, but it fills a flavor void that is hard to find in this part of the world.

Score: 7.6/10 The food is simple, but good. And the cherry on top: it’s cheap. A person will spend from around $7 to $20 person. That’s like one dollar symbol on yelp.