News You Can Bruise for 2006 July 1

I got one of those "I ♡ NY" plastic bags when I bought some cheese. But inside the heart was the word "Love", for those who speak English but don't know the connotation of a heart. But the word "Love" was itself spelled with a heart: "L♡VE". So why stop there?

Went with Sumana and Adam to a party last night which was way too loud. But we did hear a story about a theme restaurant in Manhattan called Ninja New York. It sounded like a very expensive Chuck E Cheese for adults. I say "adults" only because it serves this weird Asian fusion food that I suspect kids would hate. The New York Times hated it.

Confusing the point of a restaurant with the mission of a "Saturday Night Live" skit...

In the name of "new style sushi" Ninja employs rice cakes as beds - or sometimes graves - for a rectangle of truffle-flecked omelet (it tasted like soggy French toast), a sliver of sautéed foie gras (pleasant, but how could it not be?) and a finger of seaweed-crowned mackerel (fishy in the extreme).

Adam thought this was orientalism at its finest, but this restaurant is an offshoot of one in Tokyo, so there's clearly some self-orientalism going on as well.

The only cool part: the restaurant is camoflauged. It looks like an apartment building and you go down in the elevator and the door opens to reveal a ninja standing in front of you. They should cut the dining experience short right there and call it "Be Scared by a Ninja For $5".

Oh, I don't think I mentioned that the Ruby Cookbook has back-cover blurbs from why and Matz! You can see them both at the Ruby Cookbook Official Unofficial Homepage.