[June 18, 2011]
Dear softrice fan:
I want to take lover on a world tour, starting in New York! From the ongoing list of restaurants Honey wants to bring me, there are already enough representatives for a culinary world tour in our home city. These lucky few include Pomaire for Chilean food, Bar Paya for Peruvian food, braai for South African food, and Tsampa for Tibetan food. This list does not even include the restaurants that I really want to go to, such as ABC Kitchen and Marea. Honey wants to go to L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon the most, even though Italian is her favorite cuisine. As for mine, it is French. Hence, Honey and I decide to push aside all these other plans and first go to tree, a neighborhood bistro in the East Village that opened after its owner won the Iceland lottery. I think of tree as Yggdrasil, the world tree from Thor, so we are at the source of all life, and we want to rub off some of the lottery winning luck.
Honey desperately misses me and demands for my immediate presence, picking me up from my home. We take the opportunity to walk and catch up, since our lives took separate paths yesterday. I did not wait for her to get a midtown lunch, where we both work. Honey is a late and boring eater, so she simply went to her corporate cafeteria for a quick bite around 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM. I starve once the clock strikes noon, so I went without her to Food Gallery 32 in Koreatown. Lucky that I did so, because then I ran into Victoria, having lunch with her girl friends there. I give every pretty girl equal opportunities for their softrice time.
Honey and I take the 103 bus from Chinatown to Union Square, moving our conversation about the past into the future. She wants to fly me to Madrid and Barcelona in October to spend her first birthday overseas. I approve the plan. However, Honey still has an obstructing Canadian uncle that may come to New York with his son, which would use up her leftover vacation days to be their paying tour guide. The most annoying part is that he is holding up our plans, when his intention of coming to New York remains undecided. I mentally note to wish him out of existence. Then Honey and I talk of a farer future, to see the Chinese countryside, with landscapes, and climb their mountains, such as experiencing firsthand the beauty of Danxia.
From Union Square, we walk back to the East Village, refocusing our talk back on the present, centering on why I write and why I take pictures. I do not maintain softrice so that other people will know where to go or where not to go. I do not care about what happens or what does not happen to strangers. Of course, I want to share my experiences with lover and my fans, but writing and photography is my attitude towards relationships as well. To show that I care and cherish our time together, even though we may spend only hours of a day doing whatever we do with each other, I will spend that many more hours and days to preserve it. This will ensure we will remember our life together, looking back from the future. I capture the details, through writing down our conversations and taking pictures of our food, to reboot our shared memories with greater ease and precision. This is my positive and hopeful insistence on why softrice exists.
tree
190 First Avenue
New York, NY 10009
212.358.7171
www.treerestaurantnyc.com
Good times pass fast and we shortly arrive at tree. Honey stops to smell the winds and the sun, the divine fragrances released from my being. We walk through the narrow bar and exposed brick interior, decorated with old photographs and lined with as much wooden tables as fitted into their small space. Honey expected a bigger restaurant, which we do see, when another couple and us transfer to their enclosed garden in the back. However, as everyone wants to be in the garden, Honey and I have to share a table with the other couple, wherein they take the left corner, while Honey and I sit adjacent from each other on the right corner, right before their plants and tree.
The garden is an enormous white tent, sheltering us from the skies, with enough space to look up into the nearby residential buildings. Honey wonders if the residents can look down and see her. They surely could, but I reverse her worries, in that the residents should worry about her looking up and seeing them naked in their own homes, whereas she is fully clothed for an al fresco dinner with the one and only softrice. Honey laughs and comments that she rarely likes al fresco dining, due to the undesirable arrangement of sitting next to busy city traffic and inhaling the resultant air pollution. Yet tree has a wall blocking off our view to the streets, so it is out of sight and thereby out of mind.
Thirsting for a drink with softrice, Honey curiously experiments with a glass of red dessert wine, the tawny port. I cheers with her with a similar port, cementing our good time together. Even to the novice, our ports were warm, potent, and not as desirably sweet. It is the start of a bad meal.
Honey and I order a full board of La Mer to share, which includes two batter scallops with sweet chili dipping sauce, calamari accompanied by sauce gribiche, and three fried oysters with sauce remoulade. The unhealthy deep fried appetizers had too much batter, erstwhile Honey complains about their overwhelming sense of saltiness from the liberal amounts of sea salt. The scallops and oysters were soggy and wet, without much taste. Although their sauces were homemade, they did not taste or go well with our fried seafood assortment either.
The next incompatible marriage of tastes arrives in the form of a Grilled Pork Loin, with fig jus, Greek yogurt, and sweet pearl cous-cous. I generally prefer meat without sauces and this is a perfect example why. The fig jus and Greek yogurt are twirls of brown and white sauces, drenching the pork loin underneath. The fig jus is sweet, tastes like apricot, and clings on a pork loin that filed for divorce. Meat is better savory than sweet, unless I specifically ordered sweet and sour items. Honey shared much of her entree with me. Both of us agree on pushing the grilled pork loin to the back of our minds. The only surprise from this dish is the bed of sweet pearl cous-cous. These white balls have a delightful texture, similar to tapioca, except the kitchen did not know when is too much and ruined its saving grace.
I really wanted Honey to try monkfish and expand her fish repertoire. She did not feel comfortable having an entire portion of a fish she had no prior experience with, so I order it as my entree. It is the better decision because the Monkfish, parsnip puree, red pepper relish, and Brussels sprout leaf salad is a smaller offering, apropos for my appetite. Three large chunks of white monkfish meat sits atop a parsnip puree resembling a softer version of mashed potatoes, crowned with tiny red pepper cubes, with Brussels sprout leafs brightening the center. This is the first time Honey is having monkfish, and tree did not do the fish justice. The meat and its preparation are not at their best. While Honey can accept the monkfish because it did not have a fishy flavor, this performance would not merit a repeat experience. I like my vegetables the most of this dish.
Honey had time to catch up on her TVB and watched Yes Sir Sorry Sir. Linda Chung was awesome as Miss Koo! While most viewers rave about the breakdown in tears scene, I totally adore the love hug scene. I so want one from lover! By one, I mean infinite encores as well. Honey claims she would never allow herself to be so lost in love. I, on the other hand, am beyond saving.
We contemplated on saving our stomachs for desserts at Spot Dessert Bar, given our unpalatable experience at tree thus far. However, Honey with her eagle eyes spotted fried Oreo on the dessert menu and gave tree a redemption opportunity. I inform our waitress that we are sharing the Panna Cotta, but Honey stops and tries to correct me in that we want to share the fried Oreo. Honey thought they were two different desserts, while the Cookies & Cream Panna Cotta comes with spiced honey and a fried Oreo on the side. Oh, silly Honey, softrice is always right!
Our favorite part of the meal is dessert. The Cookies & Cream Panna Cotta is not a pretty dessert, but it certainly packs the most flavors. The dessert is one-half Panna Cotta and one-half fried Oreo. The spiced honey flows in between. Honey likes her fried Oreo so much that I only take a small bite and leave her the rest. In return, she offers me the whole of the Panna Cotta, which is overly sweet for her tooth, but just right for mine. I like sweets, most especially the sweetness lover reserves for me!
Food: F
Drinks: F
Dessert: D
Ambiance: D-
Final: F
Overall, tree is not a restaurant to bring lover. The food is extremely unworthy. For what it is, the prices are expensive too. The ambiance is lacking, more practical than romantic. Service is friendly, but there are too many factors against them. Honey and I take pictures together, in front of their small patch of fake plants and real tree, hugged by many green leaves, and then leave for an evening stroll.
Originally, we were going to see Kung Fu Panda 2 after dinner, but Honey wanted to save an excuse to see me again and postponed the plan. Instead, we go on a car cruise and aimlessly drive into the dark, enjoyably continuing our time to communicate and sweetly remember our past. Honey laments that her friends do not bring out their friends on outings, so that she can meet new people. They fear losing their friends to her, so they protectively keep them hidden.
I recount the time when Honey somewhat met the love of my life, whereby lover and I were going to Battery Park to watch a movie, to discover Honey and Joey were already on line waiting to buy tickets. I did not make formal introductions then, but I remember saying something to the effect that Honey had time to be with Joey but not me. Lover understood me without words, which is her power and charm.
On another occasion, when I went with Eddy and company to the chocolate show, Honey and Joey also joined us. She counters that time was convenience more than intentional. Well, given that I have no friends, I do not foresee myself filling this void in Honey anytime soon.
Her younger sister, Janet, went to see the afternoon Glee concert and missed seeing the one and only, always amiably axiomatic, best of the best, softrice. Honey did not think Janet went with any man of boyfriend material. The benchmark skyrocketed after I came into her life, understandably and inevitably so. Lover would be proud to know, Honey thinks I have potential, on being boyfriend material!
Honey says I have potential, because she identifies a singular area in need of improvement – I have a flirtatious nature. It is only a worldly charm before all pretty girls, but Honey considers the lack of security a girlfriend faces when I have such a mass appeal. Honey thinks until her head hurts, but this is the only problem she sees in me. She comments on how electrifying my tongue can be, and I suddenly worry if I had been unconsciously electrocuting her all this time! I do underestimate my lips.
I reach out to hold Honey, in case she falls before the awesomeness of softrice. Mustering all her inner strength to be strong, Honey withstands against her bodily impulses to faint. I suppress the unstoppable might of my tongue and allow her a breathing moment to recover. Case in point, Honey reiterates that I easily allow (pretty) girls to flirt with me, mostly due to my honest and easygoing personality.
This is not something new to me. It is an established consensus. Ex-girlfriends, my parents, ex-best friends, and all the pretty girls that enjoy flirting with me have told me so. If I admit to one fault, it is that I am just too disarmingly charming sometimes, effortlessly and unintentionally. While none of the pretty girls that rely on my casual flirting to pass their days would dare imagine the apocalypse should I change, I wonder if lover shares their insecurity.
One of the reasons why I love lover is because she is believes in me. Lover is different. She has the utmost confidence in both of us. That self-confidence is much more an attractive bond than the products of doubt and fear. I am the evidence incarnate.
A teleportation later, Honey and I are enjoying an evening stroll along the Bermuda beaches. Travel time is no match against my wit and humor. We proceed to build a sandcastle and our dialogue still shows no sign of fatigue. I am quite the potential artist too. Yet a sudden wave of translucent water comes washing ashore and our sandcastle dismantles as if we never met. In her navy blue vacation dress with thick black floral outlines, Honey leaps into my arms, but there is no escape from the fresh and clean waters. Her wet right leg and beige flowery flip-flops awaken her joys of being on vacation. With me by her side, our night is superior to any imaginable earthly vacation. Except we did not see Kung Fu Panda 2, which Honey craftily knows, we will just have to come together again another night.
Always in a puff of smoke,
softrice
