…on the salt

…and the fat

when we first mulled moving to the q borough, my wife entrusted the bastard to be the bellweather of what neighborhood in queens would be suitable for someone who lived in manhattan for her entire adult life and what just be too much queens for her.

it had to be new construction was one of the things that was a deal breaker for her.

or rather the deal maker.

but we landed here in the liquid city and it's been good for this last year

but,

my backup was always going to be sunnyside. it would be more neighborhoody than she would have been used to

but

it's because of the ever changing landscape of queens that we arrived at a restaurant called salt and fat

yes… you read it right

SALT

AND

FAT

and as a new American with a great deal of Korean flourish, the bastard had fantastic mussels with Korean snack sausage in the brine.

pork belly buns with sriacha hoisin

twice fried chicken served with sriacha and pickled daikon.

and rice crispy treat.

yeah, it's just that good. right on queens Blvd. it'll knock your socks off and into next week.

happy birthday to me.

—the bastard

...on grousing

the bastard has a bone to pick with new york media...

you see, he spends alot of time with gothamist...

it's sort of replaced ny1 for him as he isn't shelling out anytime soon for time warner cable

and recently there was a piece on whether or not people from the outer boroughs refer to manhattan as "the city" which found that 88 percent surveyed said that they in fact do.

the bastard does not.

the piece sighted that some "refuse to submit to the soft bigotry of Manhattan exceptionalism, and have never hesitated to correct anyone who insults New York City's other four boroughs by mislabeling that arrogant little overpriced island across from New Jersey as 'the city.' "

i don't think that hard on it as i refer to manhattan as "manhattan" because this city has 5 boroughs. plain. simple. my wife feels otherwise, raised in staten island, the forgotten borough which seems to have more of an inferiority complex than queens and jersey combined since pretty much anyone i know from ess aye refers to manhattan as the city.

so i don't try to change hearts and minds on the matter but it never stops me from correcting folks in conversation. and i let it go.

until of course the occasional "these are the best places to get food, drink, coffee" piece comes up.

yesterday, gothamist ran a piece on the 6 best places to get weak assed iced coffee beverages in new york and it seems by and large that there are only two boroughs in this city for these sort of pieces manhattan and brooklyn.

the dumb thing is...

i don't even look at iced coffee as my go to beverage in the heat. i just suck it up and drink coffee.

however, when it's crotch pot cooking hot out, i go to sweetleaf for my iced coffee. their rocket fuel has all of the gothamist mentioned places beat hands down.

this reminded me of a quote that former mayor ed koch had said about how brooklyn and queens is a series of cemeteries new yorkers drive through on their way to the hamptons.

that said, the bastard decided to make some changes to our cities map to reflect my disdain for this.

so as a citizen of westernmost part of the borough of "here be monsters" i enjoy my view of this cities two sole boroughs.

enjoy

—the bastard

every time…

so there's this chatty guy working the register at the trader joes…

…and the bastard initially wanted him to shut the hell up with his conversation about Russian family obligations with the lady in front of me…

… but it was really my sore knee and her 25 half gallons of orange juice.

but when it was my turn, comrade chattinski starts chatting about the hood…

… and the bastard tells him more about his living history than his wife would like…

… and he says he's not much of a manhattan guy.

I concur having lived there for a little bit.

manhattan is good and all but it puts the claustrophobic on you.

and comrade asks me, "so… queens or manhattan?"

and the bastard responds, "queens… every time"

billy dee would be smiling.

—the bastard