We had some roasted artichokes, fried pizza dough, and octopus à la plancha. We got a seafood platter and I’m not a big oyster guy, but I’m a big shrimp-cocktail guy, and the shrimp cocktail was perfect. That’s my friend Matt Abramcyk’s new restaurant he’s a buddy of mine from college. I did some light sparring, had a pain au chocolat from Pret a Manger, and later a group of us went to a Summer Day Cafe. I’ll be doing the grinding, thank you very much.” What? Am I just gonna have this ground coffee getting dry in my house? That’s crazy. Whenever I’m out of his beans I’ll go to Joe Coffee. Right now I’m drinking his Highland Arabica, called Hacienda Scenario. I have a friend in Panama who grows coffee, so whenever I’m down there I bring home a couple of pounds of his beyond-organic, volcanic-slope-grown Panamanian coffee. It’s just one piece of sushi with a shaved truffle on top, and then he has a paste that he makes with, I think, Parmesan and truffle. Also on the menu is a seared fatty tuna that is insanity and a truffle sushi that is so good, I have to close my eyes when eating it. I will take that scallop over uni a hundred times over a hundred. He puts a little lemon on there, and some pepper. But of course it would be part of Hasaki’s omakase menu, but my guy there knows about me and usually replaces mine with a Japanese scallop.

Eh? How do you not like that? I’m aware that uni is the caviar of sushi for sushi heads. To prove that I’m not a snob, I will even confess to this: I don’t like uni. And I think if any food is about attention and love, it’s sushi. I’m not altogether snobby with food to be honest with you but with sushi, I’m super snobby. I don’t drink alcohol, but I can’t do sushi without beer and they generally stock one of the best fake beers, which is Beck’s. We used to do it at a minimum of once a week, but then he moved to Chinatown, and this was scheduled in advance to keep the dream alive. For me, Mexican breakfast is the best breakfast.ĭinner was omakase at Hasaki with a friend who used to live above the restaurant. The wrap is always hot and steaming, and it’s just a really nice balance of bean to egg to onion to tomato. NewsBar is not some place you would necessarily look to, but it’s one of those places that’s been around a long time. And I don’t fuck with it if they ever run out of the black-bean tortilla because the regular tortilla does not work with that dish. They know my order, including the extra green tomatillo sauce on the side. And one of my surf bros was like, “Dude, just paddle out, and you can eat afterward.” So now, as long as the exercise happens early enough in the morning, I can just get coffee and go I’m still good to do it.Īround 1 o’clock I had a Mexican egg wrap from NewsBar on University Place, a black-bean tortilla with eggs, onions, black beans, tomatoes, and cheddar. At first I was like, But I gotta get some fuel in the tank before I paddle out. As far as breakfast goes, I’ve learned from other sports that involve an early morning, like surfing.

My trainer tends to like making me suffer and he’ll book me at 9 a.m. When I’m in the city, one of my main pastimes is boxing. Read all about it in this week’s Grub Street Diet. “He would make Thai green chicken curry and go all around Michigan hunting for ingredients.” Banks, who now splits his time between Panama and New York, was in town this week for the run-up to his band’s latest record, Marauder, and the front man managed to celebrate the release with both omakase and Chop’t’s kale Caesar. That might be because he grew up in a family that loved food, with a father who went to great lengths for his favorite meals: “He would nerd out and make these very elaborate dishes,” Banks says. Interpol lead singer Paul Banks doesn’t take his meals lightly: “I can’t eat food that was made with nonchalance,” he says.

Newsbar university place menu