Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Pan-Asian Invasion, 8/30/05

We Bergers like traditions. We have specific traditions for specific occasions. For example, for JB's birthday we always go to sushi. And when JB gets a new job we go to sushi. But when I get a new job, we go to Fusha. Since I've only gotten two jobs, we've only done it twice, but two times make a tradition in this family.

We got to Fusha at about 9:00 after sharing a few drinks with my now former co-workers at Redemption on 2nd & 53rd. The highlight of Redemption was the Bacardi Vanilla which resulted in multiple free shots for those were interested. I wasn't, but JB and others certainly were.

Fusha, a pan-asian restaurant located on 1st Ave on the corner of 58th, was packed. Not bad for a Tuesday.

We were four and luckily there was one free table for us. Our luck ended there. Service was abysmal. We laughed at how many times the waitress walked passed us before she even asked for our drink orders. Our first courses came in about three minutes, but not everything at once. And in the end our bill was wrong.

The food went from fine to bad. JB's wonton soup was ordinary, Emily's calamari didn't taste like fish and my shrimp tempura roll was bathing in mayonnaise. Larry was the winner by default here with an eggplant starter. Eggplant is pretty tough to ruin, even I can cook it.

We had hoped for better with our main courses. Having been before I knew that the Malaysian noodles were a safe bet, so I had those with shrimp. JB had sushi, of course, which he said was average. Poor Larry & Emily had both been craving pad thai. To quote Emily, "This is the worst pad thai I've had in the city." Larry practically drowned his in hot sauce so he could finish it.

This is the problem with the pan-asian invasion. Typically, there's one chef and he's only from one country. He's not from Pan-Asia. So at a pan-asian restaurant, you should ask where the chef is from and then order the dishes from his or her region. Case in point being Fusha's Malaysian chef and my Malaysian noodles being the most superior dish.

Needless to say, Larry & Emily, probably won't join us the next time we have to celebrate this tradition. But frankly, the next time I wonder if Fusha will still be in existence.

Until we eat again, KLB

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank goodness there is finally a blog for me to keep up with the Bergers and their dining obsession! Next time KO and I come up to NYC, I expect to be featured...or maybe you and JB can make that long-talked-about trek to NC and discuss the fried food and gun shows. ;)

All of this abbreviation...can you tell who has been reading your blog religiously since I found out about it?

Love you Bergers.

Anonymous said...

the public course in greenwich has awesome chow