NYC folks...

Ha, so I have a great story about my first (and only time) here at Momofuku Ssam Bar.

So let's see, it was my Christmas break my senior year of college and I went to go meet my boyfriend and his parents for a nice dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar. I had never heard of it before but I was curious to try the cuisine.. which seemed like a mix of different Asian cuisines or Asian Fusion or whatever you call it. I find my way there and look in the window to see if they are already there since I'm a few minutes late. All of a sudden, my phone starts ringing and it's the boy on the other line telling me to walk to Beth Israel immediately, his father is in the emergency room! WHAAATT?!

Let me just state that in the four years I've been with my guy, his father has never liked me. Oh and he's told my boyfriend to break up with me, date other women, play the field, Catholics are crazy, etc etc. Although he might be on to something with the last item, the rest is just hurtful. Karma works itself in mysterious ways though...

I run to the hospital's emergency room, which luckily was only 2 blocks away and there's his father, sitting in a chair and holding a towel up to his nose which had been gushing blood for what seemed like a while. What happened? He apparently walked right into the side door window at Momofuku Ssam Bar thinking it was a doorway (in his defense the lighting and lack of decal did make it look like a doorway) and broke his nose! And this wasn't any ole break.... part of his bone poked through. It was nasty. So to sum it up, we sat in the hectic (and totally unorganized!) emergency room with blood dripping all over the floor for over 2 hours. Finally, he saw a doc who stitched him up and gave him pain meds and we were on our way out of that hell hole.

After ALL of this, we went back to Momofuku Ssam Bar to eat our dinner. It was kind of an interesting situation... I could tell the staff were watching his father, gaging his reaction about the whole thing. Aka will he sue? Will he be difficult? We ordered a few dishes and the kitchen gave us a few dishes for free. I don't know if this was an act of appeasement or....? I'm surprised that if they were worried they didn't just comp the meal... but whatever I wasn't paying either way.

For the food, I remember this is the first time that I ever had eaten raw oysters and I loved it! They were sweet with this limey sauce that went down really well. That's right, my obsession started here. Thank you for making me fall in love with a delicacy Momo. I also remember loving the pork buns. The pork was juicy, tender and literally melted in my mouth. Pork can melt in your mouth people! And the bun! So soft and fluffy! I think I could have made a pillow out of two of those buns and slept soundly in the restaurant. I honestly I ate two or three of those alone... and would have happily devoured more.

I eventually want to come here with a group to have the pork butt meal. I hear that they require a certain number of people for it- maybe I'll make a UYE out of it? Who knows, but from what I've heard of that delicious butt it needs to be sooner rather than later!!!

P.S.: Oh and I'm pretty sure his father's insurance did go after them for some money but it was never talked about ever again. Because of this incident, I've heard that the restaurant put up a decal on that glass frame to prevent this from happening again. I've yet to visually verify it though. Karma is a b*tch!