Sachin Agarwal: May 2008

My going away party has animals, cupcakes, tiger balloons, and party favors.

Thanks cyndee!!!

-Sachin

Sent from my iPhone

The first time I saw pictures of the new Audi A5/S5 I thought it was a rip off of the current BMW 3 series coupe. I saw one in person in Napa this past weekend. While they share some features, I find the new Audi "5" to be gorgeous and definitely one of the nicest cars on the road. I would love to own one. The front LED headlights and tail end are both beautiful. I'm a huge fan. I think both these cars look better in person than in pictures, so I suggest visiting an Audi dealership before making judgements.

I got a straight razor shave at The Art of Shaving today, thanks to a gift certification Michelle gave me (thanks Michelle!). The shave was a 30 minute process which included many hot towels, oils, the shave, and more.

On Saturday we went to Mojito for dinner. It was fabulous. After that we went to Sweet Ups in Williamsburg. Great little bar away from the busy areas.

Last Saturday was a beautiful day so we went to the zoo! We saw Sea Lions, Polar Bears, Penguins, Monkeys, Rabbits, and more. It's pretty amazing to be in the middle of Manhattan and surrounded by these animals.

I gave my 30" display to Paul yesterday. My workstation from Apple was unreal. It's sad to see it go. There is no doubt in my mind that the extra screen real estate made me significantly more productive. (And watching DVDs on the 30" was sweet too)

The last couple of weeks have been AWESOME.

Kate took me to Allen and Delancey for my birthday. Beautiful restaurant, great food. We also went to my favorite Italian restaurants, In Vino and Bonafides. Kate says it's the best italian she's had outside of Italy. I love those places.

Last week we got a cheese plate from Nolita House for dinner. Wow. I LOVE CHEESE. We had 5 different kinds, they were all amazing. Friday night we went to Rue B, which is one of our favorite bars. They actually have great sandwiches. Saturday we went to Virage.

Then Saturday night. Oh boy. Kate's favorite restaurant, Mojito, in Clinton Hill. It's crazy good, and cheap. Delicious mojitos of course. When you walk in you get awesome toasted bread and garlic spreads. We got empanadas with guava and cheese. Avocado salad. I got chicken, rice and beans. Kate got a veggie sandwich. Then they brought out a giant flaming Tres Leches cake for her birthday.

Sunday night we went to Little Owl, one of my favorites. We got the gravy meatball sliders as an appetizer, and more fancy cheese. Yay, cheese. I got the pork chop, Kate got the chicken. We had raspberry beignets with nutella for dessert.

Unbelievable. This city knows how to eat. I highly recommend all these places. Especially Mojito....It's a trek but it's worth it.

Kate designed this t-shirt just for me. It has New York on it, and animals. What could be better? I love tigers. And since Kate knows I hate American Apparel tshirts (and all cool tshirts are printed on them, grrr), she had this custom printed on a super soft Gap tshirt that she picked out.

I think she could sell this stuff. It's great!

I've been cleaning out my closets. I found lots of random clothes my parents brought back from India, which went straight into a box. They are finally making their way to Goodwill. Here's the ugliest of the bunch:

Bed Bath and Beyond!

Nikhil and Becca came down from Boston for my birthday, which was awesome. On Sunday we all went to brunch in the East Village ($13 with a bread basket!!) then hung out in Little Italy and China Town with Monica, Vanessa, and others.

That night Kate took me out to dinner at Allen & Delancey. Yum! We had so much great food. Even the bread they gave us was better than bread at most restaurants. Yay. Thanks, Kate!!

Kate and I celebrated our birthdays together on Saturday by taking the New York Health and Racquet Club open bar booze cruise around Manhattan. So much fun, and the weather was PERFECT. Thanks to everyone who came out.

Besides Per Se, I've been eating a lot of great food the past few weeks. I highly recommend:

In Vino: One of my favorite restaurants in New York. Skip the meat entrees and just get appetizers and pastas. This last time we got meatballs, spinach salad with apples and goat cheese, procutto with buffalo mozerella, gnocchi with gargonzola sauce and walnuts, parapardelli with shrimp with red pepper and spice.

Two Boots pizza: Creole food and pizza. Get the Mr. Pink pizza. Spicy marinated pizza with spicy sauce, tomatoes, and garlic. Unbelievably good. I have ordered this 5 times in the past month, including 2 days in a row.

Applewood: Went for brooklyn restaurant week. Loved it.

Brooklyn Brewery: Not food, but still good. They have picnic tables and you can drink beer and order takeout. The Brooklyn Local 1 is great.

When I returned from California last week, I was randomly searching on OpenTable to make a reservation for me and Kate. I searched for Per Se, which I do somtimes just to see the "full" message. But somehow I got a 9pm reservation for just 2 days later. I couldn't believe my eyes. Everything was going my way last week.

The dinner was the most incredible meal of my life, definitely worth every single penny. Or more even. First of all, the service was perfect, of course. It wasn't snobby at all. Everyone was really friendly even though we were 30 years younger than the average person in the room. Before dinner we tried to get a drink at the Mandarin Oriental and were turned away by the snobby hostess.

Dinner was a 9 course meal. And that doesn't count a couple items before the first course, and a couple things after dessert. The menu is set but you can tell them things you don't like or are allergic to and they are happy to substitute items.

Nothing was super experimental, which surprised me. It was all very simple, yet spectacular. Every single course was perfect in taste, quantity, and presentation. Things you may think you don't like, you will *love* because the preparation will be far better than any other place out there.

It sounds like a lot of food, and it was, but surprisingly you don't leave feeling stuffed or uncomfortable. I think it's because all the food is fresh and high quality, not at all greasy.

We had oysters and caviar, I did the foie gras supplement which was phenonmenal (even Kate loved it), there was fish, shrimp, duck, beef, and some great desserts.

The other part of the meal was the wine. I just asked for wine pairings, "3 or 4 glasses" and didn't know what to expect. Believe me, they weren't stingy on the wine. If you finished your glass before your next course, they just gave you a little more. Awesome.

Really once you stepped through the door, you weren't worried about what to order or what to drink, or how much each glass of wine would be or how many to get... You just walk in, know you're paying for the best, and they give you the best.

Without a doubt an incredible experience and I recommend it to anyone who has the chance. I would love to return another time. We're eating at Bouchon in Yountville in 3 weeks!

On one of the first warm days of the year, Kate and I went to Prospect Park.

Clinton Street, a clever gym ad, and drinking at the Natural History Museum.

I love Chinese food. But I had sworn off it because every time I eat it I feel sick for days. It's always so greasy and heavy. But the thing that gets me most is the poor quality meat they use. The chicken doesn't even look like chicken! And if you ask for white meat, they don't know what you're talking about. "You do use a real bird, right?" Maybe they don't.

Kate and I decided on Chinese last night and I said it was fine as long as I could get white meat chicken. Sean (Kate's roommate) always orders from Aroma Fine Chinese in Hoboken. So Kate asked him about the quality of the meat. "Yeah, it's real meat, lean and good."

Not only was I happy to hear that the meat was good, but that Sean acknowledged how at Chinese restaurants you often don't get "real" meat. It's usually all white in color and rubbery, either processed or just plain fake. And it's really fatty and covered in grease. I feel most people don't even realize how bad Chinese food really is.

At my parents restaurants we had hundreds of fresh whole chickens delivered every week. Our employees would cut and clean each bird by hand, using different parts of the chicken for different curries or Tandoori items. The meat was fresh and real.

Anyway, if anyone knows about a high quality Chinese restaurant in New York, I would love to know about it. I do love Chinese food. Maybe i'll stick to Chinese Indian food at Chinese Mirch.

God I hate Google. The quality of products they release is soooo poor. Sure they are dominating search and advertising. But the other products they throw over the wall in perpetual beta are killing me.

I've been using Google Docs a little bit recently. In single user mode, it's ugly but it seems to work. When you have multiple people using it on the same document, it falls apart. You end up losing people's changes and other bad things happen. Test a product before you release it!!!

I just got invited to a Google Group. This is probably the first one I've actually needed to join (I ignored previous requests). It's buggy as hell. I don't want to subscribe with my Google email address (which I only have because you need a Google account for some of their services). Trying to associate my .Mac email address with my google account was incredibly difficult.

And once I did get my .Mac account on my Google account (I better not get Google spam!!), it won't let me select it for use with this Google group. I can select my Yahoo account, but not my .Mac. Seems like a bug where Google Groups doesn't pull your email addresses in real time.

Unbelievable. People use these products? Fuck, people have low standards for software when they aren't charged anything.