The most ridiculous meal ever

(I'm going to apologize up front for not having any pictures to go with this post. Sorry.)

So last night, Gillian and I had plans to go to dinner with my friend and longtime coworker Bruce and his wife.*

* I should say that whenever I see those Dos Equis "the most interesting man in the world" commercials, I think of Bruce, because...well, let's see, he's:

- among the smartest people I know (and let's face it, my friends are, generally speaking, pretty damned smart)
- an amateur gourmet chef who's made his own cheese, cured meats, and owns not only a chest freezer for storing vacuum sealed locally sourced sustainably raised meat, but also a sous vide oven (more on that in a second)
- married to a professional belly dancer
- a competitive Muay Thai kickboxer

Oh yes, and when he was younger he literally ran away and joined the circus. And did I mention that when I first met him, he wore his hair in a dreadlock mohawk? A blue dreadlock mohawk?

Stay thirsty, my friends.

So we went to Bourbon Steak, a Michael Mina restaurant in Union Square. As it turns out, Bruce's brother-in-law happens to be the head chef of Bourbon Steak, and on this particular evening, I'm told that he personally made everything we were served. Yum!

Our appetizer course was highlighted by this absolutely gorgeous squash-centric plate that was so beautiful I couldn't tell if it was food or art, and a butter-poached lobster sitting on a delicate samosa that was just delectable. But the entrees kicked it into a higher gear: Gillian ordered the lobster pot pie, which they re-plated at our table, putting the flaky pastry crust on the plate and removing the lobster from the pot and arranging the cut pieces of meat in the shape of a lobster on the crust, then drizzling the vegetables and pot pie juice over the meat; and I ordered the "beef and broccoli" - a huge chunk of short rib served over thin slices of Chinese broccoli.

This short rib is cooked sous vide -- a method of cooking where you hold a food at a very precise temperature in a water bath for a long time. In this case, the short rib is braised at 140 degrees for 72 hours. And it. is. the. best. short rib. I've ever had. Literally every time I put a bite in my mouth I had to close my eyes just to focus my senses on the taste and texture and smell of the meat. Mmmmmmm.

I'd actually been debating ordering the wagyu ribcap, which happened to be the most expensive thing on the menu, but Bruce convinced me to get the short rib instead, and I'm glad he did! Wagyu is a term for beef that is also known, more famously, as kobe; ribcap is a cut of meat that apparently is close to the very tender ribeye, but happens to be located right next to the bone, on top of a layer of fat. Mmm, fat. It's as tender as filet but has more of the flavor of a nice prime rib. And, I kid you not, the short rib put it to shame.

How do I know? Because between appetizers and dessert, the chef decided to send us all a cut of the wagyu ribcap. You know, just to say, hey, thanks for dining with us today.

So we've had appetizers. We've had a very generous portion of entree. The chef threw in a sampler plate of the best cut of meat in the house. (I didn't even mention the truffled mac 'n' cheese or the wild mushroom gratin sides.) And then? And then dessert, of course! We didn't even see a dessert menu; they just started bringing out dishes. There were cinnamon-sugar beignets with Macallan caramel sauce (yum); a peanut butter-chocolate bar with caramel ice cream on a bed of ground pretzels (yum yum); shortcake with strawberries, vanilla bean ice cream, and lemon curd (drooling on myself a little just remembering it); and pineapple upside down cake with coconut sherbet (I almost made myself throw up because we didn't finish it and I was so full and I didn't want it to go to waste so I kept eating it until I realized it would be horribly impolite to yak in the middle of the restaurant so I let the waiter take it away -- but I closed my eyes when she did so I didn't have to see the non-empty plate leave the table).

All in all, we were at the restaurant close to three and a half hours (we spent a little time hanging out in the bar/lounge area eating truffle butter popcorn).

Oh yes, and in the middle of it all, one of the hosts comes over to our table and says, "Hey. I thought you'd like to meet Lars Ulrich."

Um, what?

Am I not understanding this right, or does this not say:

"It's super effective! It's SO effective, if it doesn't work, YOU CAN SEND ANOTHER ONE! WOOOOO!"

How is that different from, you know, every other method of communication?

Bring your dog to work day!

OK, technically every day is BYDTW Day here at Zynga, but I decided to try bringing Biscuit in today, just to see how he does.

So far so good!


Yay! I'm in a car! I love cars!


Yeah, this is kind of how I feel sometimes too.

Never turn it off

You know how they say that the truly great athletes are hyper-competitive, how there are stories of how they'd want to beat you at marbles or ping-pong or tiddlywinks? This is one of those stories.

It's the fall of 1994, and my friend Leighton is a freshman at Stanford. He and his buddy Winston decide, hey, it'd be fun to go down to the common room and play some ping-pong, maybe meet some of the other freshmen. They head down there and find a couple of other guys playing, so they wait their turn. Eventually Leighton squares off against someone he doesn't know.

"I haven't played in a while," says Leighton, "so take it easy."

Next thing he knows the guy is slamming every chance he gets. And talking trash! "You can't touch my serve!", "Can you handle that?" "Oh, here it comes again!" He beats Leighton pretty handily and stays on the table.

Now, what he doesn't know is that Winston is really good at ping-pong. Like, really, really good. And Winston decides, hey, you're gonna embarrass my friend, I'm gonna embarrass you. So he steps up and starts tossing points away, lets the guy build up a huge lead, he's down 15 points, something like that. Then he starts playing for real for real. He's putting spin on his serves the other guy can't even see, he's returning the other guy's slams twice as hard as they came, he's basically tearing him apart. As he makes his inevitable comeback, the other guy's still talking:

"Man, what is that spin? Is that even legal?"
"That's a lucky shot! A lucky shot!"

And finally, as he realizes he's going to lose, each time he shanks a ball wide or hits it into the net, he exclaims in frustration, "This isn't my sport, man! This isn't my sport!"

A little while later, Leighton and Winston decide it might not be the best idea to make enemies on the first day of school, so they go over to introduce themselves.

"I'm Leighton," he says, "and this is Winston."

"Nice to meet you," replies the other guy. "I'm Tiger."