maru

i have been hearing lots of good things about maru and finally got the chance to go last night!  we thought we were going for happy hour but it turned out they didn't really have a happy hour but i was fine with shelling out cash money for delicious drinks and awesome sushi.

my one disappointment was that they did not have a chirashi on the menu but i bet if i would have asked for it they could have made it for me.  they did have a bacon roll that all of my friends were freaking out over and although i am not normally a huge fan of creative meats in sushi i felt that i needed to make an exception for bacon.

the rolls were really good and i would like to go back to try their sushi in a less adorned format because the quality of the fish was great.  i was also pleased with the fact that they embrace bourbon cocktails whereas pretty much every place around here is like "omg yes we have a list of 85 tinis but that is it" for cocktail menus.  but i know you guys are sick of hearing me bitch about that so i will shut up.

i liked the layout and the ambience.  there is at least one other location that i know of so i am talking about the one on lake lansing road.  really high ceilings, lots of light, simple concrete and wood design.  one thing i didn't think was great was service.  i went a looooong time without water which i hate and also, when the waitress took my empty old fashioned glass, she did not ask me if i wanted another one.

i was on the fence and would have said yes to another one of their overpriced cocktails if asked, but wasn't going to actively hunt her down to order one.  i always think it is weird when servers don't offer another drink because i am so often in that on the fence, easily persuaded mode, and they could make a lot more cash money off me with very little effort.

ok i smell bacon right now, or i think i smell bacon, maybe i am just making it up in my head, so i have to go raid my fridge for my leftover sexy bacon roll that is going to be all dried up by now but i am going to eat anyway.

jet's pizza

ok i'm so hungry right now and i need to go grocery shopping so i am really wondering why am i writing a post for a food blog right now, and especially a post for THE BEST FUCKING PIZZA EVER???  something is wrong with me.

jet's pizza is amazing.  somehow in growing up in michigan i totally missed what everyone tells me is a michigan food staple but no, i never had it.  it is classic detroit style square pizza.  i have been a lifelong buddy's pizza fan and i have to tell you, jet's is better than buddy's.  yes.  you read that right.

eat me

the amazingness of jet's is limitless.  so first of all it is like the best, crunchiest, butteriest crust ever.  then there is the fact that they pile on the exact right amount of gooey delicious cheese and zesty sauce.  and the toppings are ridic.  it does not hurt that the first time i had jet's pizza it was covered in bacon.  but i have since had it with other toppings and still feel the same way.

and in the interest of science (ha) i ate buddy's pizza covered in bacon right after i ate jet's pizza covered in bacon and it was not as good.  the crust is less flavorful and the sauce is disproportionate, and also buddy's has always had this problem where like the toppings and sauce pretty much only hit the middle third to half of the pizza, and you have way too much plain crust.

moving on to other menu items, they have super delicious cheesy bread sticks and super delicious boneless wings and the most fucking amazing ranch sauce you have ever had in your life which is reportedly made in house and which annette tells me you will never eat again if you know what is in it, and i do not know what is in it and do not plan to find out so i can happily gorge myself on it until the end of time and/or until i die of a corotted artery (or however you spell that) (and what the hell is a corotted artery anyway?  is this one of those things that i just made up in my head?).

clearly the ranch sauce has already gone to my brain.  eat jet's pizza immediately.  that is all.

eaglemonk pub and brewery

matt and melissa got this book of like every brewery in michigan and the goal is to hit as many of them as possible this summer.  they decided we should start early and we went to eaglemonk a few weeks ago because it's right around the corner.

don't go here for the food.  we got panini and it was basically white bread with some meager filling and not much flavor.  i can't even remember what kind of panini i got which is like totally unheard of for me.  it was that unmemorable.

what you should come here for is the beer and the atmosphere.  i also can't remember what kind of beer i had (ok full disclosure... we were at zoobie's before and i drank some ridiculous 13% beer and everything after that is a little fuzzy).  the mugs hanging from the ceiling are made by a local artist and they are amazing and you can buy one and keep it there and then just get refills whenever you go.  i wanted one but melissa was like "just buy one of those at an art fair this summer and it will be cheaper and you can keep it" and i was like "oh ok good idea."

it's mostly just locals hanging out and most of them seem like regulars.  i wouldn't necessarily go out of your way for it, but it's definitely worth a stop if you're in the area.  there's also a room in back with like shuffleboard or ping pong or foosball or something if the beer isn't enough entertainment for you.  clearly it was enough for me...

how to move to a new city as an adult

by moving as an adult, i mean moving when you are moving for a job rather than to go to school.  or i guess you could be going to school but not living on campus.  i'm talking about when you are moving somewhere on your own, as an independent person, and have no set structure in place to set up a social and personal life for yourself the way a full time school setting would be able to give you.

here is the view from my new house

when i first moved to cincinnati, i had a hard time for years with developing a good solid friend group.  part of my problem was that just when i would develop a good friendship with someone, they would move away.  i also blamed cincinnati's insularity i'm sure more than i should have.  here and here and i'm sure all over that blog and this blog if you look back far enough are my thoughts from back then if you want more on that.

moving to lansing, and probably just generally being 8 years older now, has drastically changed my opinion of what it means to be a new adult person in a new city, and what your expectations should be in that position, and what your responsibilities are to yourself and your new city.

rule number 1: everybody is insular (everywhere)

yes, cincinnati was insular.  by insular i mean they liked who they already knew, and people would say things like "i don't need any new friends" or "i have been friends with the same people since high school."  but i realize now that everybody everywhere is like that.  even in new york, do you know what my friends there do, who are not from there?  they hang out at the same bars with the same people that they have been hanging out at and with since 2002.  i am not saying that is a good thing or a bad thing.  it is just what they and everybody do.

the difference between bigger cities and places like cincinnati where most people either never leave or leave and then come back to is that in bigger cities you have a lot more people who understand what it's like for you as a new person to the city, and may make more of an effort to reach out to you.  but at the end of the day the people who have been there longer than you are going to have established social connections that it's going to take you a while to become a part of.

rule number 2: it's nobody's job to be your friend

i was pretty disgruntled for a while when i first moved to cincinnati because i really liked my work friends and we would all hang out and do lunch and happy hours and stuff but then once the weekend rolled around, nobody invited me out.  a holiday with no family around?  nobody thought to invite me to join them.  i was like "aren't these people my friends?" and i would wallow in my misery and read and write lots of self pitying blog posts about how making friends as an adult was so hard.

what i realize now is that it is on me to make friends with people and not the other way around.  if you want more friends you have to be a friend.  invite people over and make them hang out with you as much as you need to.  and if you do that over and over and they never reciprocate, eventually you have to call it a wash and look elsewhere because the fact is that if they really liked you, they would start including you.  you have to do the work though.  that's just the way it is.

rule number 3: you have to join or start a shit ton of groups, even if it is dumb stuff that in your normal life you would totally never do

i think the only new group i joined for years in cincinnati was my book club which i found on craigslist, and which in the end turned out to be the source of some really wonderful friendships (and some bat shit crazies who were good gossip fodder).  but it was not enough.  i just realized that i didn't join my running group until over 3 years of living in cincinnati, and what the hell was i waiting on?  i think i was probably waiting on having someone to do it with.

here is a delicious meal i cooked for myself with the
salt of my lonely friendless tears

well fuck that.  when you are new in a place you need to put yourself out there in every way imaginable.  so far after 2 months in lansing i have joined all of the following: a running group, a young professionals networking group (yes this sounds cheesy but fuck it, i need to meet people), a local inn of courts, a meetup group for foodies which seems to fill up every event before i can get around to RSVPing, a meditation group that i keep forgetting to go to, a new book club that i started, and i have started up this blog again.  i started reaching out to people in several of these groups before i even got to town and was able to have coffee with a few people right when i first got here.

you are not going to find great awesome new friends in a lot of the groups you join but what i have learned is that it's a numbers game.  the more things you do, the more you increase the odds that you will meet someone cool somewhere.  so get your ass to that dungeons and dragons meetup.

rule number 3.5: the internet is your friend

there is meetup.com and shit for a reason and that reason is because it is hard to meet people as an adult. anybody who is going to judge you for looking for friends online is someone who you are better off being rejected by anyway.

rule number 4: throw all shame/self-doubt/inhibitions out the window and make people be friends with you

you don't want to approach people to be your friend because you think it will make you look lame or pathetic or friendless?  well guess what, you are lame and pathetic and friendless so get over it.  the only way to fix it is to force yourself to approach people.

are you at the bar and there is someone cool there of your gender who you want to talk to, but you are afraid they will think you are hitting on them?  who gives a fuck?  if they get weirded out then you will have dodged the bullet of befriending a homophobe.

do you want to start some type of club or group but think posting on craigslist is scary?  get with it, your email address will be hidden and it's a lot safer statistically than walking out your front door after 10 pm.  actually i have no idea because i just made that statistic up but seriously, some of my best friends are from craigslist and i have been an avid craigslister since 2003 and i haven't been raped or murdered yet.

did you meet someone who seemed cool who would have lived upstairs from you while you were looking for apartments, and do you remember the address of the apartment they lived in, and do you want to hang out with them?  send them a letter!  they'll definitely write back and want to be friends and not think you are a crazy stalker.  to be honest this is not true, i tried this and the girl never wrote back.  but it's no skin off my nose.  who cares if someone i will never see again thinks i'm weird?  and who knows, maybe her grandma died or something and maybe one day she will write me back.

rule number 5: don't move somewhere where you literally know no one

at 33, i'm old enough where i think it's just crazy to do that.  i know enough people in enough places that i can pick from.  at least i have a couple of good friends and a few acquaintances here in lansing so i wasn't wallowing in utter solitary misery at first.  i really can't imagine starting up totally from scratch.  but if you have to then take these other tips and suck it up.

rule number 6: meditate

here is an inspiring photo of the sun rising
 on your exciting new social life

i'm for real.  meditation will make you realize that a) being alone is not so bad and b) you have a lot of other fucked up shit to deal with in your head so that maybe this transition/solitary time is going to be good for you.

rule number 7: take drugs if necessary

are you like super depressed and unable to leave home because you are so lonely and/or anxious?  get your ass on some prozac or xanax or lorazepam or whatever the hell you need and keep it moving.  i mean it, get over your shit however you need to.  nobody is going to want to make friends with debbie downer and then you are going to be all in this vicious cycle of like "i can't make friends because i'm depressed and i'm depressed because i can't make friends."  i guarantee you that you like at least one of your friends solely because they are properly medicated and you don't even know it.

rule number 8: force yourself to go out at least once a week

so ok if you are REALLY wallowing in your misery and depression, and you are not all zen about being new to a place like granny here is, you need to make your ass go out and do shit.  going to a movie by yourself is actually really fun, in fact i prefer it because you can sit wherever you want and nobody will try to talk to you in the middle of it or eat your popcorn.  going out to eat by yourself is also super fun because you can stare at people and facebook the whole time and again, nobody will try to get you to share shit.  i am not really into the whole going to bars alone thing because i always feel like that is an invitation to get raped and disemboweled in an alley somewhere, or at a minimum get stalked by some weirdo.  i do like going to coffee shops and reading and listening to people's weird ass coffee shop conversations though.

you need to do these things and get yourself out otherwise you are going to become some weird ass recluse, and also you need to have something to talk about for when you do actually end up meeting people.  nobody wants to hear about how you sit around and watch the harry potter movies on repeat every weekend.  trust me.  i know.

altu's

i'm like your average fan of ethiopian food... i like it and i think it's interesting and super tasty and who doesn't like eating shit with their hands, but i also am not like OH MY GOD ETHIOPIAN the way i am like OH MY GOD KOREAN or OH MY GOD A JEWISH DELI or OH MY GOD DONUTS.

for being the only game in town, altu's is really good, and by that i mean it would be really good even if it were not the only game in town.  it's all your average american ethiopian restaurant staples made at a high level of quality.

service is really friendly and drinks (non alcoholic only) are included with your meal.  sadly lansing does not have the same it's not really legal but "no alcohol on the menu = byob" policy that other cities generally do.  the ambience is strip mall-ish, but it is in a strip mall so what do you expect.  also you don't have to worry about parking.

i have nothing else to say on this topic but i am very glad altu's is a dining option here.

thai princess

i don't usually like to write about a place unless i have a few photos because i think stories about food without pictures of that food is kind of boring and maybe also kind of pointless but you need to know about thai princess so i can't wait.

pictured here is the best penang curry i ever ate, which sadly is located in bangkok and not lansing, but the curry at thai princess comes close(ish)

this place is absolutely delicious.  it is one of the best thai restaurants i have tried not only in the lansing area but pretty much anywhere.  the first thing you will notice about this place is the awesome creative not just the basics menu.  sick of pad thai and massaman curry and spring rolls?  you are in the right place!  here are a few examples for you:

• Apple Avocado Salad: Shredded green apple with cashew nuts, avocado and red onion in spicy lime sauce
• Peanut Curry: Red curry with ground peanut, bamboo shoot, eggplant, string bean, snow peas, basil leaves
• Soft Shell Crab Garlic: Crispy soft-shell crab with garlic, mushroom and pepper
• Coconut Noodle: Sautéed thin noodle with coconut milk, bean sprout, onion, and scallion in yellow bean sauce

everything is prepared perfectly and they use a nice interesting authentic variety of vegetables.  i had the pad khee mao and it came with chinese broccoli, which i love and have never gotten in pad khee mao before.

the most insane garlic fried chicken which you can find not at thai princess but at soi polo, but i bet if thai princess made fried chicken it would be good

service is attentive and prompt.  one tiny complaint i have is that they did not ask how spicy i wanted my food and i didn't think to say and it came totally mild.  so make sure you tell them what you want.  even without spiciness it was still tasty.  oh and you are also going to have to ask for chopsticks if you want them.

the ambience is nice, the lighting is good and there are lots of pretty pieces of art and plants around.  the prices are comparable to any other thai place.

as for drinks, there is no alcohol and apparently lansing is not like cincinnati where you can just BYOB whenever it's not on the menu, so you are going to have to shotgun your singha in the parking lot.  they do have tea though.

the most ridiculous whole fish with lime and chili sauce that i ate in ko samui, which unfortunately is not thai princess, but as a consolation price thai princess does serve whole fish

one thing i am curious about which i am going to have to check out is whether you can get sticky rice with your meal.  they have a few desserts with sticky rice so i know they have it.  if i could get sticky rice with my curry i would crap myself with joy.

hopcat

so matt is like "quit pretending to be surprised about all the good beer here, you're from michigan for crying out loud" but i can't because i am still amazed!  until moving here, i did not realize the state of beer affairs here and i will not get over it for a while.

one of the best new additions to the local beer (and food) scene is hopcat which i hear opened in like august or something.  rumor has it they have a location in grand rapids too, which my sources tell me has better food and also a more expansive menu, but i am pretty happy with what we have here.



i have been there twice now and i can't get over their beer list.  my sources also tell me that even though they have approximately 972 taps, they are regularly running out of things.  oh i'm sorry, you only have 834 beers available to me?  WELL WOE IS ME.  run out of all the beer you want hopcat, i can find something to drink on this list.

the first time i went there was for one of their tap takeover events, which is when they have like pretty much every beer ever created by a brewery.  that one was for atwater so you really could not go wrong.  i tried the macaroni and cheese and it was delicious, although i was slightly disappointed that it appeared to just get slopped in a crock right before serving with some breadcrumbs sprinkled on top rather than being all oozy and baked in the crock.  but the other side of that coin is that the food literally came in like 30 seconds.

tonight i had the amazing experience of their insane happy hour deal, which is a delicious burger (any burger you want!) with delicious fries AND a delicious beer for... wait for it... SIX.  DOLLARS.  yes, you read that right.  oh wait, i only get to pick from one of your top 20 taps for my beer?  and those top 20 taps include atwater vanilla java porter and dragonmead final absolution?  ugh, you guys are so stingy.

i like how the place looks and feels too.  it is really open with two floors of window walls and they got their hands on some of the cool antique lights from the MSU buildings that are slowly getting remodeled and the lighting is good in general (lighting is a thing for me).  service is good and friendly and prompt and attentive.  it can get busy, but it has never felt too crowded when i have been there.  of course granny has only been for dinner so who knows what it is like at like 1 am.

i also hear that they have a great brunch which involves a bloody mary bar so you know i will be spending a lot of quality time here in the future.

ozzy's kabob

much like the insane tap lists here in michigan, i cannot get over the ridiculous number of awesome lebanese restaurants.  i really should not be surprised because a) i am lebanese and b) i know that detroit has the largest middle eastern population outside of the middle east.  but i am in shock in the best way possible, probably because i went so long being deprived of regular access to above mediocre hummus and non smushy falafel.

we had a going away lunch a few days ago at work and went to a place i had never heard of called ozzy's kabob.  although my coworkers laughed at me for taking pictures of my food while regaling me with stories of getting hit on and/or proposed to by clients, i had to.  it was ridiculous!  i knew you guys needed to see this to believe it.

ok so this place takes it a step further than just insanely amazing and comprehensive lebanese food (they had kusa!!!).  they have a $7.99 lunch buffet.  yes.  you read that right.  all you can eat competely off the hook baba ghannouj and shawarma (with garlic sauce!) and cucumber and tomato salad.  i mean come on!

i tried to eat a lot but i could only get through two courses.  i need to go back.  unfortunately they don't have the buffet at dinner but i am sure i can make do.

service was good and the price was clearly right.  go.  now.

zoobie's

i forgot how time consuming blogging is... i have only been here for a month and i already have a list of places that i want to write about and am scrambling to find time to do it.

zoobie's is a great bar that i have already been to three times.  melissa was telling me that i needed to go here before i even moved here so i was really excited about it.

they have an excellent beer list (i know i keep saying this about every place but i'm not over it).  they have delicious craft cocktails which is super exciting for me of course.  and they have truffle oil popcorn!  not much other food, but you can gorge yourself on this shit and die happy as your heart gasps its last artery clogged breaths.

zoobie's is low key without being a hole in the wall.  i am thinking that the people who hang out there are lansing's brand of hipsters, which are a lot less annoying than cincinnati's brand of hipsters.

they also do interesting things like one night when i was there with matt and melissa we ended up in a connect four tournament.  of course i could not figure out how to play even after having it explained to me like five times and i lost in the first round.  but a good time was had by all.  or if i want to avoid the wrath of english teachers everywhere, all had a good time.

there is not much else that needs to be said about this place but it is a great place to hang out and it's always somewhat busy but never too busy (says the person who first went there a week ago).  zoobie's has lots of visits from me to look forward to/try to avoid at all costs.

tavern 109

annette and kevin came to visit today to bring me some furniture and help me attach my tv to the wall with one of those arm thingies so i can pretend i'm a real grown up with a tv over my fireplace.  we wanted to eat before trying to do any manual labor and i thought it would be nice to kill 2 birds with one stone (brunch + cocktails) so i suggested tavern 109 in williamston.

it's one of these new american type places with the whole wood floor/exposed brick/big windows things going on.  i enjoy that kind of a vibe.

 infused liquors

the cocktails were great.  kevin and i got the bacon infused bourbon manhattan and it was good (i did think it was a little strange that it came on the rocks but that's probably for the best at 12 pm anyway).  annette's bloody mary was delicious and had a bunch of nice snacks on a stick (cheese, pepperoni, olives, pickles, celery, etc.).

annette and kevin got the chili and really liked it.  then annette and i got the ham and cheese sandwich which is basically a croque monsieur on white bread and it was delicious.  we also got the macaroni and cheese and it was fine but nothing to write home about.  kevin got the shrimp po boy and he ate the whole thing so i'm assuming he liked it.  worth noting is that kevin made a fuss about not wanting brunch and they let him order off the full menu so that's nice.

(mac + cheese) + (ham + cheese)

service was ok.  the server didn't come by very often and we had to wait a while to get things like cream and sugar for coffee, the bill, etc.  maybe they were understaffed?  we were in the second room so we couldn't really tell how busy it was in the front room.

this is like a NORMAL RESTAURANT TAP LIST here!!!

overall i think this is a decent brunch option although it is a bit far from lansing.  the menu included both whitefish dip and chicken and waffles which made me happy even though i didn't order any of them.  and there was an amazing draft list but that seems to just be the norm around here.

golden harvest

i just moved to lansing, and here i am about to write my very first food blog post in lansing, and i am also about to make myself the most hated person in lansing.  golden harvest is where everyone tells you to eat in lansing if you ask (and even if you don't).  it has 4.5 stars on yelp.  and it is horrible in every way possible.

actually, that's not really fair.  the food is decent, if you are ok with a healthy amount of oil and grease on your plate.  but the flavor is there.

however, the food is the only think that even comes close to being acceptable about this place.  let me count the horrors...

1. the staff.  not nice, ranging on a spectrum from "apathetic" to "mean."  which is strange, because there are signs everywhere saying "be nice or leave."  but the staff doesn't have to be nice apparently?
2. the ambience.  first of all it is loud as fuck.  yes i know i am a grandma but seriously, i don't think even the youngest eaters are that happy about having some ska/punk noise (honestly it was so loud i couldn't even tell what it was even on top of my embarrassing lack of pop culture knowledge) breaking their eardrums before they have even had their coffee.  there were all kinds of "kitschy" (i guess) toys and crap everywhere collecting dust, just like rotted out copies of old ren and stimpy comic books and board games that had been sitting in the sun since 1982 and non-functioning magic 8 balls and shit.  i guess that is to keep you busy for the hours you spend waiting to eat.
3. the hours you have to spend waiting to eat.
4. the obvious health code violations everywhere.  worst was watching a waitress carry toast with her bare hands from the front counter, through the restaurant, into the kitchen.  but less bad than that were many other things including the long hair within inches of food without hair nets, the layers of congealed blackness on the floors behind the counter, and the overall dinginess of the entire restaurant... the whole place looks like it needs a long bath in a vat of oxy-clean.
5. the coffee.  weak.
6. the service.  this is different from the not-nice staff.  first of all we waited AN HOUR AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES from the TIME WE ORDERED before we got our food.  this was AFTER waiting FORTY MINUTES outside in the freezing cold to even sit down.  ok, you have no space inside to wait, i have to wait outside, i get it.  but to have to wait TWO HOURS AND TWENTY FIVE MINUTES from the time of arrival to get food, with most of that time spent AFTER you sat down?  give me a fucking break.  but that is not all that is wrong with the service.  not by a long shot.  examples:
• the waiter asking if we wanted more coffee, and when we said no, he took our coffee mugs away (BEFORE WE EVEN GOT OUR FOOD).  what the fuck?
• ordering an "appetizer" which came with all of the rest of the food... an hour and forty five minutes after we sat down*
• getting chased out of the restaurant after we did not tip (sorry, you forfeited your tip at an hour and a half of waiting for food) and being yelled at in the parking lot by a waitress for not tipping*

i get it.  lansing is not some big booming metropolis like cincinnati (ha), you have to take what you can get in terms of good food.  but i could get this food in my own kitchen without the attitude, the wait, and the likelihood of salmonella.  it is above average for diner food, but if you are someone who knows how to throw in some artichokes and red peppers into your omelet or some mascarpone into your french toast, you too can work this level of kitchen magic.

i look forward to my future meals at other lansing dining establishments and i am sure that whatever is missing in menu creativity will be more than made up for in oh say GETTING MY FOOD IN LESS THAN AN HOUR AND FORTY FIVE MINUTES AFTER SITTING DOWN AT A TABLE.

so hi lansing, i'm liz.  nice to meet you... those of you who will still speak to me after this post anyway.

*these events were recounted to me by my friends as i was actually not present due to the fact that i had to leave at 2:00 p.m., before the food even came, because when i went to breakfast at 12:30 p.m. at a diner in a cold, underpopulated, mid-sized midwestern city i thought that would give me enough time to actually eat.  silly me!