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chernobog13 · 3 years

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A Journey to the West art book I picked up many years ago at a bookstore in L.A.’s Chinatown. Whenever I had the time I would browse the stacks looking for anything Monkey King related.

The book contains wonderful line drawings of almost every major character from the novel. The artist is Li Yunzhong,

Here is his depiction of Tang Monk, aka Tang Sanzang, aka Tripitaka. I apologize for the bleed-through in the image. The paper in this book is thin pulp, even thinner than old-timey comic books and pulp magazines, and it’s printed on both sides, so the “back” image shows through. I suppose if I got really enterprising I would scan these images into Photoshop and clean them up, but I got exhausted just thinking about that.

Here’s the real star of JTTW, Monkey King aka Sun Wukong. This design of him very much resembles how he appears in the Shaw Brothers’ film series. I like how the artist has made Monkey King’s kilt a tiger skin, as it is in the novel. The kilt he wears in the films has more of a leopard pattern.

Here’s our ladies’ man of the group, Pigsy aka Zhu Bajie. Very much the comedy relief of our intrepid troupe. I’m kinda glad the artist drew him wearing a shirt under his open robe.

And then we have Sandy, aka Sha Wujing, aka Friar Sand. Where as Monkey King and Pigsy are always either getting into or causing trouble, Sandy does his best to be the “good kid” of the group; the one exasperated parent Tang monk never has to worry about.

#Journey to the West #Tang monk #Tang Sanzang #Monkey King #Sun Wukong #Pigsy #Zhu Bajie #Sandy #Sha Wujing #Li Yunzhong

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cocoa-dragon · 5 years

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Superiority Burger has ruined me for all burgers

My first experiences with pickles are hard to talk about. All I know is it hid in the depths of my cheeseburger. The juiciest bite of melted cheese, seasoned meat, delicate lettuce, would always be inevitably punctuated by the unmistakable tang of pickles. Rainwater, neglected socks, touch of vengeant lemons. I understood it to be less of a relish, and more of a toxic. For some reason, everyone thinks its secretly okay to put pickles into a burger, that they owe it to the person who adamantly orders otherwise.

Real pickles have the flavor of colors. Salty, sweet, sour, with a hint of vinegar, I have to say microbes know what they’re doing. After my first bite, I wanted to yell, LOOK WHAT A CUCUMBER CAN DO. But then I realized that this was not a secret, that there was a reason why everyone slid them into perfectly good burgers. Oh my god, I’m becoming that person.

{Sometimes, I worry that I will die and not be able to kiss this sauce again}

At Superiority Burger, the pickles were slapped onto yuba¹ and served open-faced on a sesame bun. The vinegary crunch against sweet, charred tofu, drenched in a creamy, nutty sauce was excellent. I loved how it was served open-face, so that my tongue was met with soft bread, the roof with tangy pickles. When I bit down, it was hard to imagine why McDonald’s wasn’t onto this yet. After inhaling the saucey thing, I concluded that every cheeseburger I had in my life had been a lie. I licked my fingers, and turned to the salads.

Burnt broccoli ‘salad’ was slick, transformed by their own juices and hot olive oil. Eating this reminded me that I could live on broccoli forever. Its tender stalks tossed with a generous mix of coriander, red chili, vin, proved that vegetables could be bright and assertive. Move over, fries. You’re not the only one who can lay claim to being crispy and addictive.

{I started to eat this with a utensil in both hands. By the end of it, I had dispatched it with my hands. Not for ease, but for the deliciousness, which demanded to be shoved, rather than forked.}

If my experiences with pickles were traumatic, pasta salads are unspeakable. It usually comes from a deli case somewhere, or sometimes its heaped onto my plate at summer barbecues before I know what’s happening. It wasn’t a surprise that the one at Superiority Burger was a revelation. The Martelli maccheroni was cooked al dente, perfectly crunchy, overloaded with a zingy tarragon dressing. Upon my first bite I made noises that made my friend Ying remind me that we were eating in a six person restaurant.

{My dear friend Ying, who let me order half the menu everywhere we went in New York}

Superiority Burger reminded me that eating meat is a fictional, collective construct. That vegetables are powerful. How textures can be twisted, how flavors can be layered in ways that are reminiscent of fast food. I’ll spare you all the finger-licking, lip-smacking, elbow-shoving details of the meal. But from the stingingly cold lemon water (in an unapologetic gatorade container) to the day’s specials scrawled on cardboard by the register (beans and rice and beans and rice), I want to keep this tiny restaurant a secret. But go follow them on Instagram for their hilarious captions, setting their creations out on the streets of New York. And should you ever find yourself in the East Village, get in the line that curves around the block at 5 pm. Trust me when I say they know how to make vegetables spectacular. And dare I say, the most superior burgers I’ve had in my life?

{Another picture of the New Creation. It is a fitting name for the dish, because what’s unpictured is me, newly converted to the power of pickles}

¹ Google informs me that yuba is tofu skin. My mother informs me that yuba is what is leftover from making soy milk, the sheets skimmed from the hot liquid. “It’s like how cheese is made,” she said. Milk, it seems, never fails to yield surprises.

SUPERIORITY BURGER

430 E 9th St, New York, NY 10009

Pictures edited by my Photoshop wizard sister. She makes all the dim pictures I take very bright and mouthwatering.

#superiority burger #cocoa dragon #new york #vegetables are awesome #power vegetable #yuba #pickles

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