Baseball Game: Yankees vs. Phillies

I grew up about 14 blocks from Yankee Stadium. I am a Yankee fan through and through. So much so, that in high school two of my crushes lost MAJOR points for being Mets and White Sox fans. If they'd been Red Sox fans, they would've been deleted from existence. However, I've only ever been to 3 games. The first when I was like 6, and I don't remember anything. That's why I was excited when I heard that one of the perks of attending NYU are the discount Yankee tickets. So during Senior spirit week, me and my Polish friend Anya went to see a game. Again, I have no recollection of who they were playing, but I do remember having an awesome time, despite the fact that it was drizzling and Anya got bored after the first five minutes. lol

Remembering that adrenaline high, I jumped at the chance to see another, asking one of my NYU friends to buy me tickets. They were sold out. :( So I resorted to StubHub.com. $33 later, I was sitting in the nosebleed seats in Left field with a good view of the JumboTron. Never have I been so afraid of heights in my life. Seriously, how do children not cry uncontrollably when they get there? Must be all the ice cream and french fries—which probably bring their parents to tears at $7+ prices. Yowza!

Me and my bff Alice are movie fiends. We figured we'd have downtime to watch a flick on her portable DVD player while watching the game. I don't know why. We were delusional. Normally baseball games are slow-going. Nothing like a soccer game or a football game. It's practically golf but with less walking and a whole lot of chanting. But by the 2nd inning, we were wrist-deep in a nail-biter. The Phillies loaded the bases and ended the inning with 4 runs on the scoreboard. New York was disheartened. And I, I was sick and tired of hearing Jay-Z songs every time ARod came up to bat. He doesn't deserve Jay-Z. NINE fucking innings and the only 3 runs were made my Posada and Cano. How is it that Jeter and ARod get paid the most? [Taking deep breath.]

The Phillies murdered us in innings 2 and 3, forcing the Yanks to switch pitchers to a rousing applause from the audience. By the 9th inning, fans were so over the game they were already leaving. The only way we'd win is if they followed the Phillies' initial tactic: loaded the bases and got one out of the park. The bases were loaded. We were at bat. Fans stopped leaving. They gathered around flat screens all over the stadium. And...NOTHING. So anti-climactic. Like a faulty magic trick.

I felt like someone had run over my dog. I don't have one, but still. It hurt. The $13 I spent on large fries and a small soda hurt. But this was excruciating. The only upside was that I paid for excitement and I got my money's worth.


Favorite part of the game: chanting and clapping, especially "hip-HIP!" "JORGE!!!!"
Least favorite part of the game (besides losing): when people would stand up and block the plate. Seriously, SIT. THE. F#@^. DOWN!
All in all…I'd watch another game. Next time, Yankees vs. Mets. Battle Royale!!

FLASHBACK: Cerveceria 100 Montaditos

In the summer of 2005, my Chinese friend Anna convinced me to study abroad in Madrid with her for our Junior Spring semester. I mention her ethnicity, because even though I'm Dominican, she was more confident speaking Spanish than I was. Of course, she learned Spanish in a classroom, five days a week, and I learned it in the barrio. Not everyone knows this, but all Spanish people do not speak the same Spanish. We all have our own cultural colloquialisms that get lost in translation once we cross the border, and it can lead to plenty of misunderstandings. Not to mention, Spaniards pronounce the letter "z" as "th," and they use the "vosotros" tense. The idea that I would have to be a mime for 4 months was freaking me out. What I didn't count on—despite my history of being a picky eater—was not liking the food.

When we first arrived, our school treated us to a few snacks at orientation. I passed. I rarely like buffets at meetings. Then they told us to meet them at a restaurant for lunch, and bought us all paella. I rarely if ever eat seafood. Chalk it up to my deep fear of aquatic animals or the fact that it just tastes like salt, so I didn't eat much. To top off the day, a few us met up at a restaurant for dinner—safety in numbers and all that. I had the chicken. It was a little weird. I figured I just needed to get use to Spaniard menus and learn all the translations, and eventually I'd find something I liked. Until then, I was a frequent customer of Burger King and TGI Fridays. Yes I know, how American of me.

As a part of the study abroad program, our school organized several weekend trips to some of Spain's cities. Places, like Segovia and El Escorial, that tourists rarely think to go. On every trip I played it safe: chicken, with a side of chicken, drizzled with chicken. Then one day I saw what looked like spaghetti and meatballs on the menu…only to discover that "meat sauce" was alfredo style with chunks of pork. The Spaniards are HUGE fans of pork. The cow has no stock here. Babe is king. So I gave up. It was no wonder I lost 20lbs in 2 months. With all the walking and the serious lack of food, I might as well have been on a diet.

Then one magical day in Seville, on a birthday weekend trip for one of my roommates, we all went to Cerveceria 100 Montaditos for lunch. It's a restaurant that runs like clockwork. At each table is a list of 100 tapas, small dishes—each for 1 euro. You check off as many as you'd like (or can afford), bring it to the counter, and wait to be called for pickup. I tried my friend's tortilla española: eggs, potatoes, onions, and a shaker-full of salt. At last! It was like my stomach had finally arrived from America. It got stuck in customs, but once it was cleared, it was ready to party. After that, I was a little more adventurous to try more tapas. There were a few hits (ox tail) and misses (patatas bravas - eck!). I was just happy to finally feel like I was in Spain.

Photos by jordanfischer and E Vön Zita

Best. Dumplings. Ever!

Alright, full disclosure, I'm not an adventurous eater. The first time I had dumplings was because a co-worker pretty much called me out as a woose and demanded I tried a variety at 23rd Street's Rickshaw Dumpling Bar. I tried the steamed and fried dumplings filled with pork, chicken, and other mysterious contents, and it was…decent. It wasn't exactly a mind-blowing, life-altering, palate-changing experience, so I confidently resigned dumplings to the Inedible column.

Then I went to Pocha 32 (15 W. 32nd St.) in Koreatown and, at the urging of my friends, tried chicken-filled fried dumplings for the 2nd time. It was perfect!!! I'm Dominican. Our dumpling-equivalent is pastelitos. We have beef-filled and chicken-filled, and I hate the chicken-filled. I've never liked chicken-filled anything in all 24 years of my life. But these dumplings were perfectly fried and perfectly juicy. I couldn't stop eating them. I felt bad about it. I hadn't ordered them, but my friends insisted they couldn't finish them all, so I kept going. If they let me, I would've eaten every last one. If I weren't on a budget, I would've ordered some to go. Instead, I just kept reminding myself, "You can come back!" You know the food is good when you've already decided you're coming back before the main course arrives.

Speaking of which, I ordered the Korean BBQ thinking it tastes the same everywhere—my favorites being from Seoul Garden, Friend House, Aoki, and a food truck in Midtown. But it doesn't. My friend's roasted beef tasted way better. I know what you're thinking. This could be one of those situations where everyone else's food just tastes better than yours, a.k.a. grub envy.

n. the ravenous sensation that eaters get when they realize someone else's food tastes better than there's and they've made a horrible mistake picking what they ordered. Example: Monica's got grub envy. Look at the way she's drooling over your fried dumplings.

But everyone agreed. Fried dumplings and roasted beef was the thing to order at Pocha!

Of course, being the negative-Nelly that I am, I fear that it won't be as good the second time around. What if they're not fried to perfection again? What if the chef from that night is out sick or on vacation? What if I get the order wrong? lol I'm a fatalist. I rather expect the worst than fantasize about the best. This Saturday, I'll return to decide once and for all if fried dumplings go in the Edible column.

6/26 Update: ALL of it was still amazing.


Photo by Charles Haynes

Murder Mystery at The Met

"Who wants to pay $46 to play a murder mystery game at the Met?!"

That's the text my friend Kristine sent me a week before the event. My mind immediately calculated the number of things I could purchase with $46:
- 3 movie tickets
- 23 iTunes tracks
- dinner
- cab fare...

Obviously, I was trying to talk myself out of it. But everyone I ran it past, thought it sounded like fun. I actually thought it sounded hard. I was afraid they were going to make me act out a persona, like a live action Clue or that wonky day at Dunder Mifflin. I also thought there would be pressure to contribute from my fellow teammates. I mean, I haven't "solved" anything in 7 years, having finished all mathematical and deductive problems in high school, so I was pretty sure I was going to suck at this. Ultimately, my mom and my bff convinced me to go, and the Met pried 46 pesos out of my tightly-gripped fingers. As for the pressure, I figured I would just be the comic relief slash cheerleader if nothing else.

When I first arrived, Kristine introduced me to her college buddies, Steph and Yedi. Our first task was to name our team. Steph wanted The Fantastic Four, but then squealed when she heard Yedi's suggestion, Rockapella. I suck at naming things, which you might agree with if you find this blog's name to be lame, so I was happy with whatever. But by the suggestions that these ladies were churning out, I knew I already liked them.

Once we were all branded and united under a common goofy name, the event coordinator from Watson Adventures, the company who runs the game, gathered us for mystery orientation. She gave us clues, waivers, and team sheets. Uhhh, signing a waiver that says the Met is not responsible for anything that happens to you during a murder mystery game is a little unnerving. There were muttered jokes about the likelihood that one of us would be the actual victim. I was happy she was going over the mystery details and games instructions, because I'm an unbelievably slow reader and it was hard to concentrate among all the excited chatter. The giant number on the front of our clue sheets denoted the question number to start with. Ours was 6. Afraid I was going to screw this up, I immediately started pounding her with questions--one of which being "What about questions 1-5?" Turns out, to prevent cheating, overlapping, or overhearing, they start each group at different numbers and then you have to circle back to finish off the ones you "skipped." Seems easy enough.

After the Q&A portion was over, we all playfully bolted towards our respective starting lines. Each clue starts with directions on how to get to the piece of artwork where the answer is hidden. Our first question brought us to a room with religious paintings and statues. The clue asked something like "There are 12 of these men and one is not like the other." So I thought, What religious painting involves 12 men? Thankfully, my mom's Roman Catholic and I immediately thought of The Last Supper. Calling the girls over so we could examine the painting, we realized that one man didn't have a crown, Judas. But Yedi corrected me and called it a halo. Later, we discovered that being exact would be crucial to finding the murderer. My favorite clues were the ones that involved cool paintings/sculptures, like the memento mori (left). The clues I hated were the ones we couldn't find because of confusing directions. At the end, we went over our clues and discovered an anagram. Once we were triumphant, we had to figure out a motive. Duh! Power! Every villain's kryptonite/Achilles heel/Rosebud.

With 15 minutes left on the clock, we raced towards the finish line to discover the events coordinator sitting all alone near an Egyptian temple. We were 1st! I'm not a natural born gloater, but these girls were. They were ready to crown themselves and take a victory lap. We spent the rest of the time taking pictures in front of a temple and filling out opinion surveys.

Once the other groups arrived, the events coordinator calculated each of the groups' points and with an implied drumroll announced that two groups won: Womp! There It Is (the new name Steph and Yedi came up with while we waited, lol) and Asian Invasion. We were tied! Eager to win the mysterious prize, we waited with baited breath for the tie-breaking question: "How many possible endings are there to the game of Clue?" WHAAAAT??!! Who the ffff..?" Only two members of my group had ever played Clue, so we were at a disadvantage. Not to mention, I was never any good at probability. In the end, the group that guessed closest to the number won. And that group was...Asian Invasion. Their prize? T-shirts with modern hieroglyphics spelling out "Watson." Bummer, I know. But still, the most fun I've ever had at a birthday party.

Photos courtesy of Karrie Anne Ducusin and DanielMitsui.com (memento mori)

Road Trip: Conan O'Brien at Mohegan Sun

I can't drive. That's why I've never been on a road trip. Films and magazines always make them seem like the best bonding experiences you could ever have. So when my bff Alice asked me if I'd like to join her and her brothers on a 2-hr mini-road trip to Uncasville, Connecticut for Conan O'Brien's "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television" Tour, I jumped at the chance.

My dream road trip was an idea Jane editors had to send pairs of writers to different BBQ-loving states and determine which city in each state had the best BBQ. It was sort of unbelievable because half of them didn't even look like they ate red meat, let alone meat, but it sounded delicious. Plus, Jane girls always knew how to have fun, so I was bummed I was just an intern. I mean, don't they need interns on road trips? Who will…read the menu to them?

So, needless to say, I had high hopes for this mini-road trip. Perhaps too high. First off, I expected to be better at DJing, but trying to be considerate of two 20something Asian boys is difficult when most of your playlist is riddled with tracks by Ke$ha and Bieber. So I left the DJing to them. Then there was the conversation. I love talking to my girl Ally, but I have a very low toned voice and she's practically hard of hearing (lol). Now add speeding winds (due to the lack of AC on an 80-degree day) and the radio volume, and you can imagine how limited our conversation was. I resolved to not being too bummed, since it was my fault for developing this unrealistic picture in my head, and geared up for Conan's show.

I love Conan, but I hadn't seen him in a while and I was hoping he'd be back to his usual antics. He was…somewhat. I should've realized that if the title of the tour was bitter, he would be too. It was essentially 2hrs of him playing with his band and griping about getting fired/laid-off. I was laid-off last year and I don't complain as much as he does. Granted, millions of people weren't notified and I wasn't treated like dirt, but I was given less than 24hrs to vacate the premises and I wasn't given any sort of monetary compensation for the abrupt notice. Plus, I live at home with my parents and I owe more than $50,000 in loans. Soooooo, I was pretty much over Conan's whining after the first hour, which was mainly monopolized by mildly amusing opening acts.

The drive home was better because my expectations had been brought down to a reasonable level. We proceeded to play the "Date, Marry, Screw" game, and Alice learned that her eldest brother is in love with Cameron Diaz. lol And I learned that not everybody knows who Adriana Lima is.

Next time, we bring snacks, a portable DVD player, a pre-made pre-approved playlist, an air conditioner, and cards. And we head to the beach. Because there's no way a road trip can be anticlimactic if you end with sand between your toes and the ocean before you. Right?