Sachin Agarwal: October 2007

I've been bad about keeping my reviews page up to date. I recently updated my "to do" section, but I have many reviews I need to put up. In the meantime, here's a summary list of where I've been recently:

GREAT
The Modern (steak tartare and lamb), Russian Tea Room (beef stroganoff), Barbone, Etat Unis, Spigolo, db Bistro Moderne, Land Thai, Morimoto, Hope Lounge, Lakeside Lounge, Spuyten Duyvil, La Caverna

The Whitney (not food, but great!)

GOOD
De Faros, Geisha, BLT Fish Shack, Eleven Madison Park, Flea Market, JoJo, Kobe Club, Essex Bar, Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Merc Bar, Bua, Meet the Johnsons (cheap PBR!)

OK
Mandarin Oriental (for drinks), Daisy Mays, Hifi, R Bar, Tom and Jerry's, Babycakes (vegan cupcakes)

I just renewed my lease a few days ago!! When I moved to New York I wasn't sure how long I was going to stay. I thought I'd be here a year, *maybe* two, and then go back. But now I have no time frame for returning. In fact, I'm not sure there is a "back" anymore. The idea of moving to the Bay Area doesn't excite me at all.

Does that make me a New Yorker?

I always talk about how the food and drinks are better in New York than in San Francisco. But to be fair, I never sought out great food in SF like I do now. Here are some places I went to on this past trip:

Boulevard Supposed to be one of the best in San Francisco. I wasn't impressed. Appetizer was good and creative but main dish was plain. Drinks were terrible. Way too expensive.

Aperto Definitely the best Italian food I've ever had in San Francisco. They specialize in pasta dishes and I would say they are on par with Spigolo in New York. However, I wish they had a larger meat selection. I wanted to order a pasta primi and meat segundi but that's not how they roll there.

Swig SF Wednesdays was at this cool bar in the Tenderloin. Some drinks were good, a little inconsistent.

Rye After Swig we moved on to Rye. I thought the drinks were more creative and excellent. They specialize in a Basil Gimlet.

Both bars had bitters sitting on the bar, a sign you should get a well made cocktail!

Last weekend was my five year reunion at Stanford. I can't believe it's been that long. But a lot has happened in that time. Those five years have included 3 years living in the Bay Area and 2 years in New York; five years working on Final Cut Pro at Apple, first in Cupertino and now from home in the East Village; five years full of hiking, photography, and driving. I feel like I've changed a lot, especially since moving to NY.

Reunion was lots of fun. Mainly, it was just great spending time on campus and seeing old friends. It brought back lots of great memories of my time at the farm. Even though I've been going to California every few months, I rarely spend time on campus. But on this trip I must have been there on 10 different occasions. Driving campus loop was great. And it was cool spending time at the bookstore and running into people from my class, just like when I was a student.

Highlights:

Thursday
Dinner on the quad was delicious. But there were few people there.
Went to the Rose and Crown with Aki and others
Went to Castro St to hang with Garry

Friday
Great sushi dinner with Eric (it's a tradition)
Stanford party at Blue Chalk. Eh
Met up with Jason and others at Terra
Went to the Phi Psi house and raided their fridge
Decided to go back to my hotel and drink there. But where to get alcohol at 2am? Eric's house. Thanks, Eric!
Drinking with Jason on the roof of the Cypress Hotel (there's no roof bar, we were just on the roof)

Saturday
Great football game at the beautiful new stadium
Phi Psi homecoming dinner. Delicious!
Saw lots of old Phi Psi friends, and Bob and Debby!!
Reunion party at the alumni center. Awesome. Lots of fun. Ran into some old people I hadn't seen in years
Walking from the alumni center to Jason's car in a random lot. This time he was prepared with a case of beer
Drinking beer in the parking lot
Walking from the parking lot (near the Oval) to my car on the row. Along the way carrying a candle stolen from the party (to light cigarettes with) and a case of beer
Offering beer to every random person we saw on the way. No one accepted
Driving to Jack in the Box. My windshield was so fogged up I had to stick my head out the window, and Jason was looking over the top
280 freeway to Cupertino. Jason: Look up. Sachin: shit is there a cop? Jason: No, look up. Then seeing a beautiful clear sky and tons of stars. You don't see stars in New York
More beer in the hotel

Sunday
Dropped Jason off at Stanford
Did donuts and drifted around the dirt parking lot. it was awesome. Just turn the wheel slightly and hit the gas, the rear end comes around and you spin freely. So much fun. It's amazing how much control real drifters have while doing this (ala Tokyo Drift)

Fun weekend. Many, many pictures coming soon. Can't wait for 2012!

This whole week has been stormy and cloudy, a bit chilly, which I love. Makes for great photos. And as long as it's not actually raining, perfect top down weather, with the heater cranked. While being in the Bay Area isn't super exciting, there is a great feeling to be at Apple, on our beautiful campus and surrounded by all the talented people who have brought this company back.

Tuesday was awesome. I woke up and went to work for an early 10am meeting. We just moved into brand new office on Valco Parkway. It's gorgeous. While the exterior of the building looks pretty shabby, the interior is beautiful. Awesome offices for everyone with wide halls, comfy chairs, lots of open space, soft seating areas, game areas, and more.

I checked my email when I got to work and saw I had an email from Steve Jobs. For the fourth time in the past six years he gave the company Thanksgiving week off, paid. Awesome. I was half expecting it. After my 10am meeting I got my annual review. I continued to work until I had a late lunch with my dad at 1:30 (he won't leave the computer until the market closes). At lunch we saw Steve Jobs in the cafeteria (of course I've seen him many times before, but it was a celebrity sighting for my dad).

I had work and meetings all afternoon. After work Josh, Sean, Evan, Al, Chris and I went to The Duke of Edinburgh for some beer. After a beer I decided to go to Josh's place in Boulder Creek for a bit until meeting up with Aki and others later in the evening. This ended up being a somewhat bad decision.

We left Cupertino at around 7:30pm and it was still light outside. The weather was good, top was down. Josh was in the back seat of the Scion xA with Maya and Kazuko was driving. There was a baby on board sticker on the back of the car. In the past I've followed Josh driving his AWD Baja to Boulder Creek and have had no problem keeping up (or wanting to go even faster). On dry roads the Miata dominates.

Kazuko was ripping through the twisties on Foothill and then the 9 freeway. Unreal. There's a baby in the car! Once we got high up the mountain, it started to rain a bit and visibility went way down. This seemed to be no problem for the xA, but my Miata with rear wheel drive and bald tires was NOT happy.

At one point we hit a bunch of esses and my Miata couldn't take it anymore. "Why are you driving me on wet roads in the mountains?!" My rear end broke loose and started coming around. I counter steered to control it and start fishtailing. I was mostly able to keep myself in my lane going straight, but there was no way I could make the next turn. I sorta, kinda, maybe, crashed into a little tree. Luckily when I hit it I was probably only going like 10mph. It just stopped me.

I tried to take it easy after that, but I had to keep up with Kazuko. When we got to the 237/9 stop sign, I hit my brakes and my wheels instantly locked up. I slid totally straight heading for the back of the xA. It's like it all happened in slow motion. "Hmm, this sucks. There's nothing I can do. I am going to hit Josh's car. I wonder how much the damage will be." Somehow my tires caught just at the last second and I stopped in time.

Long story short, I took it way easy on the way back. It was cold, sorta rainy, visibility sucked. Of course the top was still down; why would you ever put it up? I saw a coyote on the road, and other than locking up my wheels a couple times (on safe, straight parts of road) it was an uneventful (but still way fun) ride back.

I drove to Aki's place in Palo Alto where Aki, Eric, Garry, Jason, and Sham were having dinner. Good times. After dinner we walked around Palo Alto trying to find dessert but everything was closed. Next option? Bar. We went to the Old Pro for some beer.

Palo Alto must be really desperate for bars if a place like the Old Pro can survive. How fucking terrible. The service sucked and I gave our waiter shit for bringing us the bill even though we didn't ask for it. We're at a bar, we're just going to hang out for a beer, ok? Anyway, I was just being an ass for fun, I still tipped him well and all that.

Overall a fun day in the South Bay.

Here's a list of pluses and minuses from my week in the Bay Area (hopefully updated daily)

Pluses
Driving
Driving sideways
Drifting across lanes of traffic
My Miata. Less than $3k and the most fun car I've ever driven. Solid.
The drive from Apple to Stanford
The 280 north Page Mill Rd offramp
The Page Mill Rd to 280 south onramp
Trying to lose as much rubber off my tires as possible while i'm in town. If it's not squealing, you're going too slow
Did I mention DRIVING?
Seeing friends
Apple campus
Being on Stanford campus. Beautiful
Cheap drinks. One round here equals one drink in New York

Minuses
Food isn't as good as in New York
Drinks aren't good (even at Boulevard)
Having to consider driving home as you are drinking with your friends
Sitting in Gio's office and being interrupted every 5 minutes. How do people get work done?
The stock market opens at 6:30am
It's going to rain. Driving in the rain sucks
Taking my cousin out to lunch for his birthday and asking him if he's going out for dinner. "What's the point? Nothing compares to the weekend we just had in New York"
Bars are empty on Thursday nights
Blue Chalk really is as bad as i remembered it being
Jason is moving back to New York

I love New York. It feels like the East Village is the smallest big neighborhood in the world. Sometimes this works against you.

A couple weeks ago I was walking down the street and passed by the guy who has cut my hair for the past two years, Danny. I hadn't had a haircut for over two months and was looking pretty shaggy. I told him I was growing it long and Danny told me I should clean it up, trim the sides, etc.

Fast forward to today. I was out getting coffee and on the way back I ran into my gym trainer, Ron, on my block. For some reason he's always hanging out around there. So we start chatting and he tells me I should get a haircut before going to California. Then he walks to Danny's shop and pulls Danny outside and tells him to cut my hair.

Now the problem is, I just got a haircut yesterday *from someone else* for the first time in two years. I actually went to my friend Marco's salon in the West Village and got a super fancy haircut (it was free, it looks awesome). Obviously Danny knows I just got a haircut, and I didn't get it from him, and I feel like an ass because I went to someone else. Argh.

Anyway, slightly awkward situation. Pretty crazy that in the East Village shit like this can happen.

This weekend my cousins Sandeep and Leslie came to visit from California and we had an *incredible* weekend, really taking advantage of everything New York has to offer (mostly restaurants and bars).

They arrived on Thursday evening, a bit tired from the flight, so we immediately headed to Venieros for some coffee and cannolis. After that I took them to my favorite hidden bar, Angel's Share. Angel's Share just added an autumn menu with some great new drinks. That night we had dinner at Stanton Social which they loved. After dinner I took them to The Back Room, another great bar that's owned by Tim Robbins. My cousins lived in New York about 10 years ago and were surprised you can now safely go out in the East Village and Lower East Side.

Friday was a work day for me so my cousins were out exploring on their own. That evening I made reservations for them to eat at db Bistro Moderne, a great restaurant I went to last week and loved. After that they saw A Chorus Line. Meanwhile, I was having dinner with Alvaro who was also visiting from LA. We ate at Baluchis and then went to HiFi, which is a cool bar on Ave A. Then we wandered to Lakeside Lounge on Ave B which is awesome. Totally loved it. Drinks at both bars are like $5. Cheap night!

This weekend was Open House New York, where many buildings are open to the public. So on Saturday I went to the Chrysler Building to see the lobby and hear about the history. It's a beautiful lobby with a great ceiling mural and cool elevators. RANDOMLY I ran into Monika and Christian there. Small world. After the Chrysler Building we went to the Scandinavia House. We had food in their cafe, including a great plate of smoked salmon for only $7. Definitely a good lunch spot for me. The Scandinavia House has a great photography exhibit that makes me want to go to Stockholm.

That evening I met my cousins at the Royalton hotel for drinks. I had a great G&T made with the new Tanqueray Rangpur. Yum. We then headed to The Modern for dinner. It was one of the best dinners any of us had ever had. At The Modern you generally order a 3 course meal (not including the dessert course) so we had 9 dishes in total to taste. Everything was unique, interesting and delicious. And with 9 small tastes, you really savored every bite. The Modern is one of my favorite restaurants in New York.

After The Modern we went to The Campbell Apartment in Grand Central for a drink. My cousins got the prohibition punch. Then I was able to get a midnight reservation at Milk & Honey. We met up with our other friend Marco. Oh man. We were at M&H until 3:30am. M&H isn't usually the sort of place you park yourself for a while. It's a place you get a great cocktail to start or finish the night.

We went a little nuts there. The waitress actually had to ask my cousins to quiet down a bit (which is annoying, but that's fine). My cousin Sandeep was obsessed with the ice. It is very cool. We had some great drinks and everyone got caught up on everyone's life. It was a blast.

Sunday I went to Rockefeller Center to explore more buildings that were open as part of Open House New York. In the evening I met my cousins and Marco to see Blade Runner: The Final Cut at the Ziegfeld Theater. We saw Holly Hunter there, hiding under a large hat.

Then off to the LES for some chinese food, and then a nice walk back home.

This is seriously the greatest city in the world. I can't imagine leaving New York; I don't know where else I would go. My cousins lived here 10 years ago and are still in love with the city. They are now considering buying a small studio to use when they visit. It makes a lot of sense.

I hear this from a lot of people: the dream is to be bicoastal. You want a place to live in both SF and NY and travel between the two. You avoid NY in the cold winter and hot summer. It's perfect.

I love New York.

A couple weeks ago I had a last minute party since Nikhil, Becca, Sam, Emily and many others were in town from all over. We had my specialty gin martinis, a mini keg of beer, and then manhattans. Oh boy.

There was plenty of dancing to go with it since Sam brought the music!

Photos can be found here:

Sachin's photos
Becca's photos on facebook
Sam's photos on facebook
Shilpa's photos on facebook

I think the price cut was a good idea. Sucks we screwed over the early adopters, but now this thing is flying off the shelves. Check out another email I got from a friend:

This thing is amazing

Im not getting shit done today. Just learned I can watch so u think u van dance on you tube. Brilliant little device

Sent from my iPhone


Have you ever had a phone you thought was amazing?