Earlier this week Archinect interviewed me for their new series on architecture photographers.
Read it here:
http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=96395_0_23_0_C
Earlier this week Archinect interviewed me for their new series on architecture photographers.
Read it here:
http://archinect.com/features/article.php?id=96395_0_23_0_C
Stunning computer rendered short film that "tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view." Buildings by Kahn, Mies, Gehry, Calatrava and others are breathtakingly rendered. I particularly loved the depiction of the Barcelona Pavilion in the film.
If you love architecture, set aside 12 minutes and watch this in HD in full screen (you have to click on the link to go to Vimeo in order to watch this in HD).
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Image courtesy Mike Mitchell.
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The door is comprised of 40 sections of 254mm-thick Burma teak and integrates 160 pulleys, 80 ball bearings, a wire-rope and a counter weight. I need to see a video of this incredible door in action.
Photo credit: Dinesh Mehta [via Architecture Review]
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Photo credit: "Big Daddy" Nelson on Flickr [via Frank Street]
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Bigger view. The smell of ham must be intoxicating in there. Umm........ prosciutto.
Photo credit: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters
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Found this photo attached to a NYTimes article about how the U.S. can't track whether foreign visitors have left the country.
It appears to be a spherical tent attached to a one-car shed. It's identified as a "bungalow" in the article. I find it fascinating, but a cursory Google search has not turned up any info. Eyeballing the photo, the unit can't be bigger than 150 sq-ft (probably closer to 125). There's a certain dystopian futuristic look to these pods. I wonder how much the rent is for one of these things. Also, is it unbearably hot in the Texas sun? A/C? Shower and toilet? Who can tell me about these things?
Photo credit: Ron T. Ennis/Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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Beautiful.
57 years ago today US Patent 2,612,994 was granted for the barcode.
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There's fine french dining, and then there's Robuchon's extravagant replica Loire chateau in the heart of Tokyo. It is undeniably luxurious, elegant and beautiful, yes, but yet at the same time, flamboyantly over-the-top because it is in the middle of Tokyo! Maybe it's the Japanese and their meticulous building prowess or more likely it is because it is housing someone of Monsieur Robuchon's stature, the chateau didn't seem at all ridiculous or cheesy, which these types of replicas tend to be in Asia.
Inside, there's a bakery in the basement level, a less expensive restaurant on the first floor and two stories of his finest cooking on the second and third levels of the chateau. Dinner for two can cost as much as ¥10,000/US$1100 after drinks and service in the upstairs restaurant.
Amazingly, in the first floor restaurant, there is a ¥2950 per person set meal option during lunch. US$30 (give or take, depending on prevailing exchange rate) for a meal at this high temple of fine French dining? I'm there.
]]> I've loved Robuchon's cooking ever since I had dinner at his Tokyo L'Atelier two years ago. It ranked as one of the best meals I've had, all things considered. So I was curious to see what kind of experience he offers at such a low price point in such a fancy palace.Despite the low entry price point, the dining room is haute French dining through and through. The purple decor gives it a stylish modern touch, but also gives the room a bit of a diva-ish personality. Not quite gaudy, but threatening to become so at any moment. The high ceiling room was airy and quiet, and not even a fifth full when we showed for lunch at 11:30 am without a reservation (it was about half-full when we finished around 1). Seemed like a spot for rich housewives as we saw quite a few tables of them around the rather large dining room (80 person capacity according to their website).
L'Amuse-Bouche
The amuse-bouche was just a couple of tiny toasts with tuna on top. Didn't taste like much, and I've had better hors d'oeuvre from no-name caterers. I suppose this is one place where they're skimping in order to turn a profit on ¥2950 per person.
Le foie gras fondant sur une gelee au vin rouge aux figues fraiches.
On the menu dejeune (French for lunch menu), there were three options for appetizer and four options for main course. My dining companion and I both picked the foie gras to start the meal (the other opions were a gazpacho and a white asparagus dish). We probably should have done foie gras plus something different to sample more things, but we have no regrets: the foie gras was amazing. The foie gras mousse was crazy smooth and the red wine gelee was all manners of tasty. A great combo.
La daurade poêlée avec un bouillon parfumé au jambon.
Fried sea bream in ham broth, topped with arugula. Amazing fish dish. Reminiscent of the sea bream I had at his Atelier, except a little less Asian, a little more French in this version. I remember the Atelier one having more of an impact intellectually on top of just being wildly delicious. This was only wildly delicious.
El arroz bomba dans un bouillon aux saveurs paella.
This was fantastic (as all his dishes tend to be), but I was in a way disappointed because I love paellas and I was looking for something special from the "chef of the century" and this wasn't "special."
I'm not entirely convinced this is one of those dishes that works in this type of environment. This is comfort food, and you want a large portion of it all by itself, not a small serving as part of a multi-course meal. A few small bites and the many elements of the paella didn't seem to really mash together coherently enough.
He did try to put a twist on the paella by making the chicken with some Japanese flavors but that turned out to be more of a curiosity.
That was the end of the lunch set, an amuse followed by an appetizer and a main course.
The dessert was a ¥900/US$9.94 supplement.
La menthe en gelée avec une crème au citron et ananas mariné.
Mint dessert with jelly, lemon foam and marinated pineapples. This is a less sophisticated variation of the dessert I had at Atelier. The one at Atelier was with grapefruit instead of pineapples and the added sophistication came from the sugar stick where at Atelier it a thin tube of hardened sugar containing sorbet (amazing!) and here it was just meringue.
La peche en clafoutis avec une glace vanille et figues fraîches.
Peach dessert with vanilla ice cream and fresh figs. There were little cubes of peach cake in the bottom of the bowl.
This was die-and-go-to-heaven good.
Obviously we only tried 3 dishes (let's not count that silly amouse-bouche), so my pronouncements don't really mean a whole lot. Overall, I find the dishes here have pretty much the same style as his "casual" restaurant, L'Atelier.
It's an unbelievable deal for ¥4235 (including the dessert supplement and 10% service), considering you are getting it in a top level fine dining French restaurant, with the accompanying attentive service. Even regular casual restaurants in Tokyo could cost about that much for lunch.
But in terms of value, I still think a dinner at L'Atelier is better. For roughly 3 times the cost (¥12600 vs. ¥3850), you get 3 times the dishes and each dish is better.
For more pictures, see my "La Table de Joël Robuchon" set on Flickr.
La Table de Joël Robuchon
Château Restaurant Joël Robuchon 1F
Yebisu Garden Place
1-31-1 Mita, Meguro-ku
Tokyo
03-5424-1338
Open daily 11:30am-2:00pm and 6-9:30pm.
But I'm curious as to what the adoption rate will be after a few months. Judging from a sample of one, my girlfriend, a typical non-techy user, it won't be too good.
"So, your Macbook has new software (eschewing any technical terms like 'operating system,' or I would lose her right off the bat)."
"What's new about it?" she asked, very reasonably.
"Um... nothing."
A pause as she looked at me like I'm wasting her time.
"Well, not nothing. There are a bunch of little tweaks here and there and it's supposed to be a little faster."
"Nah, I don't need it then," she pronounced. "It's working fine right now, why bother?"
True, by the way.
"Well, it's only US$30."
"Wha?!?? And this costs money? I definitely don't want it then."
"Well, it's good, trust me, let me install it." I insisted. I wanted to see all the hoopla myself (I don't use a Mac). She said fine, whatever, since I'm her one-man I.T. department. So a few days later, I installed it while she was at work.
She looked at it when she came home and said to me, "So? it looks the same."
I started pointing out the small differences here and there and she just shook her head and rolled her eyes at me like I'm a silly, silly boy.
]]>You add it up and I consume about 15 hours of television a week, give or take two hours, depending on what's on repeat. That's nearly one whole day (minus sleep) gone from my life due to TV. Scary. Good thing all commercials are zapped out, otherwise, I would be spending closer to 20 hours a week watching TV.
That's why I haven't started watching Battlestar Galactica, despite multiple recommendations (or Mad Men, or any other good show you might be wondering why I don't watch). I just can't add another show to my mix. Once I get invested in a show, it's nearly impossible for me to stop watching it, no matter how lame it becomes (see: Smallville... oh god please, let this be the last season... and I may have been one of ten viewers who watched every episode of Enterprise... that's about a hundred hours of my life I'll never get back). The only time in recent years that I have stopped watching a show has been Prison Break. I need to watch less TV, not more.
]]>I decided it's time to make a serious attempt at securing a reservation at el Bulli so I went to the reservation page on their website to determine when they will start accepting reservation requests for the following year.
I checked the reservation page out in mid-September and it said the 2009 season will start June 13th and ends December 20th and reservations will be accepted starting in mid-October of 2008, no exact dates given.
Not knowing what they mean by "mid-October," I sent an email (according to the reservation page, only email requests are accepted) to them on October 6th figuring that it's about a week into the month and maybe that's mid- enough for them. I asked for a dinner table for 4 for any available date for the 2009 season.
A day later I got my reply:
Apreciados Señores,We do not take reservations for 2009 at this moment. You can send your request in mid October of 2008 to bulli@elbulli.com as we never start the management until we have finished the season before.
October 14th-15-16th will be the first moment (there is not an exactly one to give the same option to the most possible of requests).
That sentence in parenthesis about not having an exact date was worrying but at least I have dates to work with now. So on the 14th at 2 p.m. (local time in Spain), I sent another reservation request. Again, I asked for a table for 4 for dinner for any available date.
There was no reply the next day like last time. I thought perhaps that's a good sign that they are working on fitting me into their reservation book. Because it would stand to reason that if it's full, they would just set some sort of auto-reply to all reservation requests coming in.
Two weeks later on the 28th I got my reply:
The demand that we have received at the first moment has again surpassed our limited possibilities for one season and we regret not to be able to full fill more reservation requests.
Son of a...
Their whole reservation process is so opaque that I can't even tell how I could improve my chances next year. You get one shot a year and it's very frustrating when you don't know exactly what you need to do in order to succeed.
Do I need to send my request at 00:01 on the first day of reservation? But when is that exactly? They gave me three dates and then said they can't tell me which one it is. So is it all a crapshoot? Should I have sent in a request at 00:01 on the 14th and then another on the 15th and another on the 16th? Then would I be in danger of annoying the reservationist and therefore getting my reservation canceled when three requests show up if they in fact started taking them on the first day? Send three requests on three different days from three different email accounts?
Do I get a better chance by requesting any dates or by requesting a specific date? Any date would seem more flexible and easier to accomodate but perhaps they don't want to deal with working with people who don't have firm dates?
Ah, just frustrating.
If you have a reservation, please tell me how you did it! Or better yet, let me join you! I'm crazy enough about food that I don't mind flying half-way across the world to eat with strangers! But seriously though, if anyone has a reservation that needs to be canceled, let me know, I'll happily take it.
]]>I still have about a half-dozen buildings that I have shot but have not had the chance to post.
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