Deft. Coffee Roasters.

Tomeo Sushi, Denal and Planet B-Boy at the Tribeca Film Festival
Got hold of a day pass for the Tribeca Film Festival so had to use it. By the time that I dropped off everything at my hotel and figure how to fit dinner in there as well, i made it to only one movie. If I had been more on the ball, and not as tired, then maybe I would have been able to make it to the other movie I was considering (Tides and Winds).. but it was too far to get there and get to Planet B-Boy, and still be able to get sushi which is a priority whenever I hear that there is good sushi right around the corner. So let’s start there. Megan suggested to goto Tomeo Sushi. just up the street from where I was staying and on the way to the AMC Village VII where the movie was playing. Perfectly convenient. t was, as Megan described, not fancy, but the best Sushi in NYC. Not fancy was right. you wait in an alcove of blue and clear plastic to protect you from the rain for a table to open up. Simple and small but solid wood tables. Tightly packed together and not very many.

First a word about the rice and seaweed. This place opened up my eyes to what they should be in sushi! A study in tensioned states: soft, supple and able to fall easily into parts, each part always remaining true to its essence… you could say the entire experience was the same thing.. unassuming decor (typical sushi posters slapped on the wall flanking box fronts from featured sakes, but the attention to service was impeccable and friendly.

So I have to say the rice was amazing. Christy and I bought this book on making sushi that described the training of a sushi chef.. 3 years before you even are allowed to make rice! and five more to learn how you are going to master it. It was like perfectly cooked fresh pasta—it had this slight, fresh sweetness (rice wine vinegar? the right amounft of salt?) It just didn’t intrude on the seafood inside it. The seaweed wrapping seemed to be grown to go specifically with the rice. It was ready when I chomped into it, yielding the contents without resistance, but again, as a study in tensioned forces, it didn’t just give and dissolve. It just gave way into parts. So I started with two rolls: Spicy Scallops with sprouts, and Unagi with sliced cucumber, & two sashimi: Hamachi (belly cut) and Toyo. I totally forgot to order miso. Ahhwellanyway, both the sashimi were excellent, though I think that the Hamachi was a little less firm than it should be. Distinctly sweet yellowtail flavor, and somewhat mild, but super oily! I was able to pull the layers apart with my chopsticks and it oozed oil-fat over my lips as I too the first bit. Caught me of guard. Tho Toyo was amazing though. firm and delicate. it melted in my mouth. All I had to do was press the flesh against the roof of my mouth and it would fall apart without turning to mush even in the slightest. I began feeling refreshed just from that single piece of tuna. whew! The Scallops, i think were the next best. Spiced well, without over powering the flavor of the scallop, which were firm and fresh. The mayo was maybe a little thick on the end piece, but the other cuts were more balanced… The eel had kept it’s firmness and it wasn’t drenched in sauce like lesser places will do to disguise the low quality of the cut of eel. This had texture that I can only describe as stranded firm texture. The carmel sweet sauce setting the eel up on the top of the palette as it should. I should have stopped there, but I was still hungry so I ordered a salmon skin roll with cucumber. I thought it would be a nice combination of fresh cucumber and
the sharp flavors of fried salmon skin.. nope. it was dull. The salmon skin was over cooked, strange since it was a nice thick cut, keeping a little of the fatty meat with it, but I couldn’t taste anything in it. And since the charred skin was so dominant, the subtle flavors of the cucumber and rice were not apparent. It lost the tension of the other rolls.

But so would I go back? of course. By the time I slid out through the plastic curtains onto the street, There was a line of about 15-20 people waiting to find a place to sit. And it was full the whole time I was there. Anyway, I headed off to get close to the theater. It was only about 9pm, and the show wasn’t till 11:30, but I wanted to get a drink somewhere close-by, so I could simply relax, maybe read, maybe write, maybe talk with someone at a bar… So I got there waayyyy early. I think they were laughing at me I was so early. But at least I found out how early they thought I should be there to make sure I could get in (the pass got me in but didn’t guarantee it). I asked if there was a bar close that they recommended. They pointed to the corporate meat market sports bar across the street, saying that my first drink would be free. Ohh. I crossed the street and just kept waking—huge plasma screen in every corner of the bar, loud with obnoxious businessmen trying to impress either a client or some chica with how many VIP passes they has access to for the Festival while ordering peach stoli ‘martini’s. No thanks. But one street down, I heard a clean sounding bustle of a restaurant and could see dim light spilling from a basement restaurant. Danal.

Somehow, I walked right into a cross between a Southern French Country Farmhouse and it’s city market. Boxes and baskets of bread, sweet onions, potatoes and racks of wine lined the walkways and filled eery corner. Every use of space was efficient and clearly about the ingredients of the food. The air was mixed with the sweetness of white oak when burning in the fireplace. A soft natural weight seemed to wrap all the furniture—50 year old Assam Oranjuli Tea boxes sat on top of brass and glass coffee dispensers that were almost as old—everything worn though use. Each piece had a history and sounds didn’t echo at all—with each crisp, clear clink of glass, silver, heel on hardwood gave you one chance to hear it before passing on to another, different but no less clear sound. Voices were soft and easy. No need to strain to talk or hear your companion.  This was Denal.

I just kept thinking how Christy should be here with me, that smile she gets when happiness swells through her would just light up. A sparklie twinkle in her sweet almond blue eyes that is merriment. Just warms my heart. But instead I’m surrounded by aging filmmakers and art travelers, but thankfully absent of artistes and wanna be hipsters. This place has sophistication. Because of the hand embroidered flower blankets, and pillows with wharf scenes printed on the front side. Hand-painted, hen-shaped crockery. And ancient children’s toys in beat wood displays on the wall.

I had just enough time for two glasses of a Buzet that was very nice. Pretty full bodied and the flavors were not exceptionally distinct but when I stopped to pay attention to it, it became slightly spicy but mostly clean cherry juice. A very nice wine to sit at a small round French bistro table and watch people’s legs as they went out to smoke or walked by. And then it was time for the show…

Planet B-Boy.
So Wild Style is required watching. So, I would say, is The History of the Beatbox. There:you have graf, beatboxing, and with Scratch covering DJ’ing you are almost there… Plus a ton of documentaries about the emcees—they get all the hype (don’t believe it) but this is the first film I’ve heard of that covers, in-depth, breaking. (Yes, there’s Rize but technically that isn’t breaking though I would say it sort of is… anyway, that is a new new form and doesn’t touch on its roots too much). So Benson Lee follows several teams as they train and prepare for Battle of the Year: finals in Germany. All I can say is wow. the stories are heartbreaking, or inspiring. or just watch Kiuki break. I was kinda wandering to myself while watching this… slipping back more and more into that kid pushing against the grain, going for broke. The stories in this documentary are inspiring. They are heartbreaking. They are real and they are global.

And I just don’t get it sometimes. I though that there would be a good rep of hip hop at the screening. That there would be camaraderie, that there would be people in the audience that would be nodding yesss. That’s right. In the very least, I though that there would be people that would be moved by what I was witnessing. But there, in the middle of some great beats I began to look around and I realized that I was the only one moving to the rhythm. All these film-type goers. All these NYU/NewSchool grad students were sitting there going “hmmmm this is very culturally significant… and I think that I will decide to like this…” so dis-affected. Dis-ingenuous. Can’t imagine what a show the premier party was going to be next door…