What’s this? I’m trying to blog once a day for 50 days! Inspired by Forking Mad and Lou Plummer.

Why do you like your favorite restaurant?

In my life there is absolutely no competition for what my favorite restaurant is: Asian 83 on 83rd and 2nd.

We have been there literally hundreds of times - weekly for years now. It is a takeout Chinese food restaurant where the owners are very friendly and the food is consistently good. It just reminds me of home - home, in this case, being New York City.

Zooming out a bit: I had actually never tasted Chinese food (Americanized or otherwise) until college. Growing up with family members with dietary restrictions, I did not have a chance to try a lot of different food. That all changed in Duluth and Worcester during my college years.

When Miranda and I moved to New York, we celebrated the first day of my new job by getting some Chinese takeout at the temporary apartment we were staying in… and it was terrible. We tried again on the very first night in our new permanent apartment, at the place across the street: Asian 83. We sat on the floor, since we had no furniture except two cast-off IKEA tables from another temporary apartment. And we’ve been eating there ever since.