It’s not possible…

Is this woman sitting on the mezzanine of the Ace Hotel in Portland eating pad thai from Osha in San Francisco? I know it sounds unreasonable, but I’ve eaten as much Osha pad thai as anyone, and I know it in my heart of hearts: This woman brought pad thai from the Mission and she is eating it in front of me to make me feel guilty about going to Pok Pok tonight. I’m sorry, Osha!

Wokka Wokka Wokka

I’m in Portland for Wordstock. Got home from Lung Shan and Mission Street Food around midnight last night. Was unable to sleep. So excited from a hectic night. Watched too much TV. Again, so excited, not tired. Sleep unable, so excited, though not tired.

Sorry, slipped into Palin syntax. Anyway, I didn’t get to sleep until 2:30 am, and had to be up at 5 am for our flight. At least the first things I ate this morning were 8–10 Voodoo doughnuts. Suffice to say, this post will be brief and largely nonsensical.

MSF last night was nuts. Here Anthony and I are in a Chinese restaurant kitchen, neither of us having ever worked a wok station before. When I walked in, Anthony asked me to work the fried rice, though, so I had no choice but to learn. Wok burners are ridiculous. You turn this steel lever and without pause the thing jumps to life, spitting towers of BTUs out of this blackened metal hole. Anthony told me to watch the Lung Shan cook for pointers, and the dude put me to shame. He was wielding this giant wok spoon like a fucking champ, stirring and flipping sweet and sour whatever, then using the spoon to move and operate this swinging faucet that sat above the burners. Meanwhile, I’m tentatively turning this lever on and figuring out how not to burn everything.