The HP incident and the forums (bridge)

I've been more vocal than ever before on the forums in this thread: http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?showtopic=40621&st=0 Please read through it to get some idea of what's going on before reading my thoughts below.

While I do not really care about the actual guilt or innocence of HP, the witch hunting and bashing in the early parts of the thread are extremely distasteful in my opinion, while some of the concepts brought up overall are disturbing to me in terms of my future enjoyment of bridge.

Let's start with my initial reaction. When I was first told about the hand, my reaction was not that something bad had occurred, but that 6D was actually quite a fun swing action. I asked about the state of the match conditions, while a couple posters kept saying the equivalent of "it didn't matter".

I have a couple of problems with the OP's posts, and I attribute that to how personally he took all of this. I have all the respect for JL as a player and he would actually be my first choice if I had the money to hire a pro for the long term. However, his first post sounded to me as an objective observer to be strongly accusatory: "Something is wrong with bridge that this can happen." Making such accusations in a public forum is quite distasteful to me, and I certainly could understand the subsequent reaction of HP, to want to speak directly to his accuser and defend himself.

JL then replied that he had not made any accusations, but was rather interested in saying that the bid and result in themselves should have led to investigative action. This is the part that I have the most problem with. So he's basically saying if 0 of 100 of his chosen experts would not have made such a call, it becomes highly suspicious and so action should be necessary. My point is that expert testimonial is useless here. Bridge is not a science. In subsequent private messages with JD, it seems to me that the disagreement at heart is with how extreme of an action the call was. JD said that in all his years of playing he had never seen anything like that bid, which happened to work perfectly on that hand. On the other hand, if I was down a bunch in a match and decided we needed to go swinging, I don't think the 6D call would've been out of the realm of my consideration. I also believe that my partners would agree with me on that and that those who have had experience playing with or against HP would agree that he's certainly creative enough to come up with a bid like that.

I just don't want to be in a situation where the future of bridge is such that I can't make a call like that because 100 experts told everyone that no one else would do it. That's pretty much what groupthink is. The real problem is that this is already occurring. Look at the appeals process in bridge, where the final adjudicators have their own biases on how hands should be bid, and the polling process is incomplete at best because they only take into account an idea of "skill" defined by strata, but not style. I have rarely been taken to committee or made many appeals, but at the same time, I've discussed certain hands with people frequently on appeals committees and often the answer I get back is that they would never take my side because they wouldn't think like me, and any descriptions of my own thought process would be considered self-serving. It's ridiculous. Essentially the highest form of adjudication in bridge belongs to those same 100 or so experts.

There's also an argument about the bridge logic of coming up with the call. People gave all sorts of stats and numbers, etc. However, I need to point out that the EV shippers are useless here. The only thing that matters is the EU of the call. That a swing is actually generated should he be right. The negative value of being wrong is almost marginalized at that point if he thinks he needs to go swinging.

Sunday Nonya Dinner at Double Crown (food)

I've mentioned before that I actually like dining solo or only with one other friend. It allows me to better concentrate on the food. I also find that places that cater to big groups often result in "meh" dining experiences (eg. Carmine's). It's also quite difficult to organize a meal with food to everyone's liking and cater to everyone's budget constraints.

So when I read about the Sunday Nonya dinner at Double Crown, I was intrigued. We went for dinner last week as a belated celebration of my birthday. After all, aren't birthdays just another excuse to go out at our age? Two members of our group cancelled late, so we only ended up with 3 people when we got there. The decor and vibe is interesting. I don't know how to describe it, you kind of have to see it for yourself. The food is served family-style with a background of Southeast Asian flavors.

We start off with the coconut laksa. A coconut curry soup with crab meat, rice noodles, and bean sprouts. Some places eat this for breakfast, so I guess it makes sense as a starter. The flavors are all there and I like the sweetness added by the crab meat.

A gravy boat of the curry soup in case we wanted to add more. It was fragrant yet light. I actually would have preferred a bit of a kick, but then again, this was the first course.

The bread selection included jalapeno chive bread and fennel raisin bread. I only had the jalapeno chive bread and it wasn't flavorful enough for me.

Yellowtail sashimi dressed in a soy-based sauce with some crisp lotus root slices. We each got two pieces and the fish was pretty good. The sauce was just slightly past the line to overpowering the fish for me, but the flavors were nice. There was a good combination of texture with the lotus root. I don't remember all the details but that happens to me when I dine in a group.

Salt and pepper squid with green chili dipping sauce. This was quite good overall although again I would have preferred more kick from the chili sauce. It's hard for me to get too excited about this dish when I'm not having it fresh off a boat in Hong Kong.

Molasses-cured pork shoulder, served with bread and apple chutney. Pork and apple really do go well together. It had a faint sweet taste probably from the molasses curing, but I would have enjoyed a nice bit of saltiness to go along with it.

Mussels and lobster meat with lo mein cooked in lobster broth. There was a nice solid flavor to the broth and we did find the occasional pieces of lobster meat. A good dish to start filling up on.

The last serving of food had several dishes come at the same time. There was shrimp, tuna, asparagus, and a bowl of jasmine rice that tasted like it was cooked in a broth and had some raisins in it.

Grilled asparagus with scallions and sesame had a nice sweet sauce and was delicately grilled.

Oatmeal fried shrimp had a nice crust, but it's one of those where you can't really tell how big the original shrimp was. I liked that they included the head though.

Seared tuna with mushroom salad was a winner for me. Warm, inviting flavors served in a slightly sweet sauce.

There were two parts to dessert. This was some kind of chocolate cake I think.

This was a caramel apple tart.

Again, sorry for the incomplete descriptions but this happens when I eat with a group and they also happened to just recently change their online menu. The quality, variety, and amount of food was quite a bargain at $35+t/t per person, especially for the neighborhood. It's a good family-style dining experience and it's actually a shame they only do it on Sunday nights.

Wow, so soon (poker, gambling)

So I started grinding online poker again recently and just started writing about poker again this past weekend with the intention of keeping it up. Ironically, the very next day (last night), I went on massive massive tilt and almost destroyed the online BR. Luckily, the damage was limited due to a good run, but it was really really bad. Out of control almost. Had to call my friend to talk me down. Hopefully I'll learn something from this since tilt has always been an issue for me whether at poker or at trading.

Even though I didn't play any, there was some poker from Vegas that I forgot to mention earlier. On my last day, I was killing time and decided to watch some poker as they were playing the WPT Bellagio Cup in one of the cafe spaces at the Bellagio. The disclaimer for the WPT is pretty scary. I only glanced at it, but I think it mentioned that just by being in the playing area, you consent to them using your image (if recorded) for any promotional material and media in perpetuity.

Anyway, I walked in to watch and decided to watch the table that John Juanda was at. I don't know if he puts on any makeup, but his features are very striking and very dark, especially for an asian guy. About 10 hands in I see UTG raise, UTG+1 call, and Juanda call from the big blind. The flop comes A55 rainbow. It goes check check and last to act now bets out. I didn't know any of the chip denominations so I couldn't follow everything closely, but had a general idea of what was going on. Juanda raises, the preflop raiser folds, and the flop bettor quickly calls. The turn is a 6 putting two hearts on the board. Juanda bets out now and his opponent agonizes a little before making the call. The river is a 7 putting 3 hearts on the board. Juanda leads out again and his opponent goes all in. Juanda says something about how he knows he's beat but he's priced in to call. Indeed he does call and his opponent shows AK of hearts for the flush. Juanda mucks his hand, but from my vantage point I could see that he had a 5 in his hand. Two hands later, middle position raises followed by two callers. Juanda pushes all-in and the preflop raiser quickly calls with A9 suited as the others fold. Juanda shows 88, loses the race and is out. That's poker, folks.

What Gets You Off? (poker, gambling, entertainment)

Now that I've been starting to play a lot more online poker again, and even doing some SnG grinding, I think I might write a couple more poker blog posts than before. As evidence of the hours of grinding I've been putting in, if I continue to play at the current rate I will make supernova on pokerstars just from July to the end of the year. Because of this, I've added a new "poker" label to the post labels so you can search for just poker-related stuff. Going back, I didn't realize I had written a bunch of stuff on poker on here before.

Most of us aren't professional poker players. Even if we have above average skill and are probably +EV players in the long run, we don't grind out the long run. We play an occasional cash game, an occasional tournament. We expect to do well, but often times just end up cursing out the bad beat we just took. Because we play for fun, I think we should figure out what maximizes our fun, and that might actually in turn maximize our profits.

So what gets you off when playing poker? Do you like to steal a lot of pots? Do you like to make big bluffs? Do you like tricking people into bluffing you? Do you like taking down a big starting hand with a bad starting hand? Do you like playing down the middle because you're one of those sticklers for rules and high card points (bridge pun)? Do you like to make the hero call? Or do you like to make the hero fold?

I believe that knowing what maximizes your enjoyment of the game and then choosing the right game situation for that will lead to more fun and more profits. If you want to steal pots, you should look for a table of nits. If you like to take down big starting hands, you should play deep stacked. Phil Hellmuth, for example, likes to get people to bluff into him and likes making the hero fold (masochist). But he'll frequently play online in a limit holdem game that just doesn't work out numbers-wise for that type of play.

So for the amateurs out there like me who are skilled but prefer to play for fun instead of grinding it out, I would recommend you look inside yourself and figure out what you're getting out of your poker. And if your tendencies turn out to be masochistic in nature, at least it's better to know it.

Another thing that's added to my enjoyment of poker is putting poker on tv while I play. Doesn't matter if it's high stakes, wsop, poker after dark, or the big game. I find that poker is a good thing to put on in the background to balance my concentration. And even if I do start paying attention to the tv a little more, it's ok because it still keeps me in the mindset of playing poker. I wonder if this is useful for other things as well. Perhaps having the food network on when cooking, or the DIY network when building something, or porn while having sex.

Rest of the Las Vegas Trip (food, gambling, VegasSummer10)

I felt that Musashi deserved it's own blog post, but the rest of the trip was not as eventful. Did not have much luck at the tables, and almost tilted away the hard work I'd been putting in on online poker (which I'll talk about in a future post). There were some bright spots though, so let's get to that.

After getting there Friday night, we started off with the Bellagio buffet. It's not cheap at almost $40, but there's a lot on offer. For my first plate, I went with crab legs, spicy tuna roll, smoked salmon, and a salmon pastry thing. They had two types of crab legs, Opilio and Alaskan, but neither of them really had that sweetness that I look for in crab. I love the spicy tuna roll there. There's no or very little mayo in the mix and it has a nice slow burn. The smoked salmon was good, and I love the combination of smoked salmon and drawn butter.

The second plate was meats and sides. Slice of kobe top sirloin was mediocre at best, but the one bite with fat was very tasty. Beef wellington was ok, but the grilled quail was quite nice. Creamed spinach, potatoes au gratin, and fingerling potatoes were as expected.

The third plate is more of a catch-all. Another spicy tuna roll, some salmon nigiri, some ham and pineapple pizza just to try, some shrimp cocktail, some california rolls made with real crab, and lobster ravioli. The lobster ravioli was surprisingly good, with a good amount of lobster meat.

After the buffet, we hit the tables and I showed my friend how to play pai gow tiles. It's a great game and he had a good time learning. We had a fun dealer and sat for a long time having drinks. I strongly suggest people who have had experience with pai gow poker (with cards) give it a try. There's a lot of good info here.

Saturday was more of the same with food, drinking, gambling, and that wonderful teppanyaki dinner. After the dinner, we caught the 10pm showing of O from amazing seats. Lowest level, 12 rows back, dead center.

They don't allow photos for obvious reasons, but I snapped this one of the clowns walking right in front of us before the show started.

The rest of the time, we ate dim sum at Noodles restaurant in the Bellagio, thanks to a generous comp from our pai gow floor guy. Pictured here clockwise from the top right are the har gau (shrimp dumplings), steamed pork spare ribs, siu mai (called shumai in American Chinese food speak), and zhan zhu gai ("pearl chicken" - glutinous rice filled with meat and sausage wrapped in lotus leaf and steamed). My friend BM was especially taken with the pearl chicken, which does provide flavors and textures that most Americans don't come across.

On the last night, after watching the World Cup final and having more dim sum, I discovered Blackjack Switch. I'm usually not a big blackjack fan. The swings are too quick, everyone (should) plays basic strategy, and I don't even get to touch the cards if I'm playing small stakes. Blackjack switch is a lot more fun, and even though the numbers are much more complicated, it's even a slightly smaller house edge than regular blackjack according to the Wizard of Odds. As for the basics of the game. The bad news is that if the dealer has 22, it's a push and blackjacks pay even money. Sounds pretty bad right? Here's the good news. Every player must play two hands, and after the first two cards are dealt, they have the option to switch the second card of the two hands. So if you were dealt 10-5 on your first hand, and 6-J on your second hand, you can switch the cards to end up with a 20 and a 11. This leads to more decisions (when to switch) and makes the game more fun for me.

Musashi Japanese Steakhouse in Las Vegas (food, VegasSummer10)

The Travel Channel's many food shows have led me astray before, but Musashi makes up for all the bad advice. I went there last year, and I'm beginning to think that I will go there every time I'm in Vegas from now on.

They make a big deal out of the Kobe beef, but it is indeed a big deal. I asked to look it over before ordering, and here's what they showed us.

Not bad, eh? It gets better. The price is $136 for 9 oz of this beef in addition to the normal teppanyaki set of rice, vegetables, soup, salad, and shrimp appetizer. The relatively cheap price for what they said was A5 Kobe beef obviously raises some suspicions, but I didn't care. If I had to guess, the difference in price could stem from the part of the cow this is from, just as different cuts cost different amounts of money. But with Kobe beef with that marbling, do I really need to eat a filet as opposed to whatever other cut?

Here's our chef, flipping his utensils before we start. There are only two chefs here. The owner with his back to us, who is Japanese, and our guy, his brother-in-law who is Korean.

Dim the lights, set the grill on fire, let the show begin! It's like being at an NBA game.

We start with fried rice. Delicious, hot, and well-seasoned.

The ubiquitous onion volcano while he made our vegetables.

Our vegetables included sprouts, zucchini, and mushrooms. The sprouts, loaded with black pepper, were especially good.

There were only a couple shrimp included in the set menu, so I ordered some extra.

They make all their sauces fresh. The sesame sauce was nice and included a cool lemon slice trick. They also had a terrific teriyaki sauce that was not as sweet as the regular ones. In fact, our chef told us that the owner was offered 100k by a restaurant group for the recipe but wouldn't sell.

The kobe beef. That piece was for both me and my friend BM.

Cooked to a beautiful, melty, medium rare. He didn't think it needed any sauce, but did provide a light wasabi cream sauce which went really well with the beef. Gave it a nice little kick without taking anything away from the beef's flavor.

Quick Thoughts, First Night in Vegas (VegasSummer10, food, sport, stock/trading, entertainment)

Quick thoughts and an interesting encounter.

Was in a ridiculous line to get through security while at the Delta terminal for my flight. The line went out the terminal and almost ran out of sidewalk. People had to be continuously expedited through the line to make their flights.

Cliff Lee is ridiculously good, but I understand that the Yankees already have two top left handed arms. This move, however, makes Texas a very very strong team, now that they have a real anchor in the staff who could win 2 games every playoff series by himself. Great move by Texas, and it looks like the Yankees did what they could, but it wasn't worth any more than what they offered.

Thoughts on the whole Lebron thing and the NBA in a future post.

So on the flight over, there was a pretty hot woman in the aisle seat. Looked vaguely familiar, but couldn't put a name to her. Then she started talking to the guy in the middle seat, and she mentioned that she was a former pole dancing competitor, but more importantly, is the wife of Kenneth Starr, the alleged ponzi schemer. Oh, the people one meets from NYC to LV. She was pretty down to earth though.

One of the entertainment options on Delta was a trivia game. The cool thing was that you competed against other passengers on the plane. Nobody talked trash, but we did look over to see who the other players were. It's a good way to pass time since your brain is engaged and so you don't feel the passage of time as much.

One flight attendant spilled a little soda on my pants while handling a credit card transaction (with a cup of coke in her other hand) and did not come back to offer even a napkin. This and the long line at the terminal are obviously signs for why US airlines are just all doomed.

Lots of quality here, and even on the plane over. Some of the hottest Chinese girls I've seen in a long time.

Introduced my friend BM to Pai Gow Tiles. It's not the easiest game to learn, but we had a fun dealer and a great time.

Ate at the Bellagio buffet. Pictures to come.

Looking foward to the World Cup final. Seems like the classic confrontation of the best team (Spain, pre-tourney favs, European champs) against the hottest team (The Netherlands haven't lost a single World Cup match or even one of the qualifying matches).

I'm actually tempted to play some online poker right now. Such a junkie.

A little bridge and a little poker (bridge, poker, gambling)

First off, congratulations to my friend JLW and his teammates for making the semifinals of the United States Bridge Championships. The link to his bridge blog is on the right in the blog list.

Let's move on to poker for now. My main game is Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or better. However, I will play some NL Holdem for fun, even though I don't think I have the patience to be consistently profitable at the lower stakes. The following was an interesting hand in that I made my decisions off time-based tells, which may seem foolish at first in an online setting where people multi-table regularly. However, I do find that there are some players who give off these tells and don't think about them enough because it is online and it is often only one table among many.

In a .5/1 NLHE 6-max game, hero has ♦3♣3 on the button. I'd raised preflop a lot during this 6-max game, and after three folds to me I continue the trend and make it 3 total. The small blind now reraises to 10. I call.

The flop comes ♦10♥7♣4 and the small blind bets out 10 rather quickly into the pot. A quick bet off the flop is often the sign of a continuation bet. Something that was planned ahead of time. It made me curious enough to call.

The turn comes ♣6. A bet of 25 came that wasn't as quick. Often, I find that someone trying to protect a big hand will often bet quickly and aggressively on the turn. The slower bet and the smaller bet size relative to the pot made me even more skeptical. It seemed to me that if you had an overpair, you'd need to protect against hands that picked up a straight draw or flush on this board. I called.

The river comes ♠K. Villain bets out a quick all-in of 68.5 into the pot. Again, the quickness is often indicative of a premeditated action, such as a bluff. I ask for time and go through his range. I still think that an overpair would have been more anxious to protect on the turn. AK and KQ/KJ were certainly possibilities, but so were AQ, AJ, and even QJ suited. While I know that I can only beat a stone bluff, I thought the range possibilities were not too far off from the pot odds I was getting, so I called. Villain showed ♠Q♠8 and started talking about how idiotic my call was.

Well, if you also thought my play/call was idiotic, then let's move on to PLO8, and let's see what you think of my thought process on this hand.

In a 15+1 turbo 9 handed sit n go with starting stacks of 1500 and initial blinds of 10/20, I held ♦A♦9♣4♥3 in early position on the second hand of the sng. UTG minraises and I call along with 3 others behind me. The blinds fold. The flop came ♦10♣8♦2. A pretty good flop for me as I have the nut low draw, the nut counterfeit low draw, and the nut flush draw. So what would you do after it goes check to you?

I can see the argument for betting pot, and I can see the argument for check raising pot. People like to be aggressive and get it all in when the EV is in their favor. However, I tend to take a different approach. First, it is important for me to maximize the chips I can take so I will let people freely draw to second best hands. However, since I know I am much better at this game than the average player, protecting chips also matters to me, even if I become a short stack.

So how did the play go? It checked around to the penultimate player who bet 180 into the 230 pot. The preflop raiser called. I also just called. The turn comes the ♠J. The preflop raiser checks and NOW I bet out the pot. From my point of view, if I get raised all-in, I'm in the same position as if I check-raised the flop. There is very little fold equity on the flop in a multi-way pot in PLO8. But by playing this way, I might get the best high hand on the flop to fold (I still haven't made a hand yet), or I could maybe bet him off it on a blank river. In PLO8, it is more important to have the aggression on the turn than on the flop.

Only one caller as the preflop raiser folds. The river is the ♦5 and I bet the rest. The other player quickly calls with a worse low and a worse flush and I scoop. This looks like it probably would have been the result no matter what I did, but I liked my line of play more. Thoughts?

Ok, back to bridge now. I'm not a big fan of opening borderline two-suited openers at the 1 level in general. In most of my partnerships, I tend to open sound. I also believe that most of the time, passing first will allow for a better description of the hand later, often by means of a two-suited bid in competition. One of the things that people use to determine whether they open is whether they have the master suit, spades. I was thinking about this and thought that perhaps another suit is important too. The club suit. If your two suiter contains the club suit, perhaps you should stretch to open too. It seems to me that it's very easy for your opponent to have a balanced opener and bid clubs, making it very hard for your side to get back into that suit. So what I'm suggesting is that perhaps with the 6-5 borderline opener with hearts and a minor, one should stretch to open with clubs but hold back with hearts and diamonds.

Big 30

That's it. I'm officially 30. According to my friends, it all goes downhill from here. But considering that I haven't gone much up the hill, it should be a gentle roll.

Going to Vegas this coming weekend. Unfortunately I don't have any money to spend, so it will all depend on the gambling gods. If things go well, Guy Savoy. If not, 75 cent hot dogs.

Food Around the Neighborhood (food)

One of the great things about moving back to the Woodside/Jackson Heights/Elmhurst area is the food. Lots of options and cheap. I've been able to sample more than usual since I've been taking time off work lately with the market being so dry. Here's some of the food from the neighborhood.

Let's start with wings. Tandoori whole wings. Found this at a place right off the 7 train stairs where they have a lot of fried food out on display. They're pre-cooked (although with whole wings there's always a possibility of being undercooked around the joints) but get finished off in the tandoor if you ask for them hot. $2 per is not cheap per se, but it's a good change of pace from all the fried "buffalo" style wings.

A close-up of the cubano sandwich from El Sitio (68-28 Roosevelt ave). Layers of ham, pork, melty cheese, crusty pressed buttered bread, etc. Good stuff. About $5.

Tacos from the Sabor Mexicano taco truck right outside the Roosevelt Ave. subway station. There are three taco trucks there, and this is usually the busiest one, so I go there. Shown here are lengua (tongue), tripa (people say tripe, but I looked it up and some site says that it's actually from the udder), and oreja (ear). I also like the suadero (beef paunch). $2 per taco.

In my mind the best deal at the taco truck because of its size is the quesadilla. Crispy and filled with lettuce and cheese, it's quite filling. The selection for filling is not as meat-oriented as the taco fillings, and the picture above is of the chicharron. This didn't work very well as it was all crispy (no texture contrast), but I've also had the tinga (stewed shredded meat) quesadilla before and it was quite good. $3 per quesadilla.

Moving on, food from Himalayan Yak. They give a 15% discount for takeout, which doesn't really make sense to me. Shouldn't restaurants be giving discounts for dining in because it helps pay for the waitstaff? Anyway, this is the beef momo (dumplings). I keep trying momos from different Nepali/Tibetan places but they never seem to impress. $8 is much more expensive than Chinese dumplings.

Chicken lollipops. Fried drumstick with spices. I wasn't big on the texture of the meat, but it did taste good. $6

Sadeko bandel. Roasted slices of wild boar meat. This was good in that it had a very strong bacon-y flavor. Unfortunately, the skin is too tough and seems a waste. $5

Tibetan style sauteed beef tongue. The flavors were good and the tingmo (steamed mantou-like bun) went well with the dish. The tongue was not very tender, but the bite in the beef went well with the tingmo. $12

Kabobs from Kababish (7064 Broadway). They had a little trouble with English, but the kabobs are fresh packed by hand and continuously thrown into the big oven. Tender with great seasonings, I recommend getting it spicy. The pic shows one chicken, one beef, and a garlic naan. All that for $6.

Goat biryani from a place on 37th Rd. I think it's called Family Circle. It's only 3 months old and was completely empty when I stopped by. They also do the 15% takeout discount. This was good, but I thought somewhat expensive at $12.

Back to Himalayan/Nepali food. Shangri-La Express (72-24 Roosevelt Ave) advertises a 4 item lunch platter for $3, $4 for non-vegetarian. There actually is only 3 items. A choice of meat (I chose beef) came accompanied that day by lightly fried kidney beans and rice. The meat had some good flavor and was less dry than it looked. There was a nice spice to it and the beans had a nice curry flavor to them. I would call this a laborer's lunch. Cheap and full of protein, oil, and starch for energy to go back to work with.

Like I said before, I keep trying those momos. These were filled with chicken and a much better value, with 8 full filled dumplings for $5. Not much in the way of flavor, but definitely filling, which I guess is the main theme of this place.

I've written before that I think every neighborhood needs a Vietnamese/Pho place. Thai Son (4010 74th Street) is ours. Good portions, above average taste, clean, and decently priced. Always satisfies. This was the Xe Lua, extra large bowl of everything beef (brisket, navel, flank, tendon, eye of round, tripe) with rice noodles for $6.25.

I've written about Hae Woon Dae before, my preferred of the two 24-hour Korean places in the area. This time I went for lunch. The picture shows the banchan of which my favorite is the tofu and the grilled fish.

The kalbi box lunch is not cheap. At $11, it even exceeds Midtown Lunch's criteria. But there's a little bit of everything in there, from the kalbi (grilled beef short rib) to kimbap (vegetable and rice wrapped in seaweed like a sushi roll), fried rice, japchae (stir fried bean thread noodles), salad, and a piece each of omelet, Korean pancake, and sweet potato tempura. There's also miso soup in case all that wasn't enough.

This doesn't begin to sniff at all the stuff available around here or that I've had. Just the stuff that I remembered to take a pic of. Come by and eat!